One of the most crucial components of making sure your fantasy football draft is as successful as possible is your player rankings.
They'll help you make those tough decisions from the first few rounds up until the very end. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder so it's very unlikely you'll find too many rankings on line that are completely the same.
So with that in mind, to make things easier, we've broken them down for you into tiers. The players are separated into groups based upon their overall fantasy production, potential, past performances, injuries and how we think they'll fare in 2008.
Based upon that, you can get a sense of where they might be placed in the rankings, however you see fit.
Later on today we'll do the exact same thing for the quarterbacks.
Players are listed in alphabetical order
Tier one - The Elite
LaDanian Tomlinson - San Diego chargers
Adrian Peterson - Minnesota Vikings
Tier two - Could go 3-4-5
Joseph Addai - Indianapolis Colts
Stephen Jackson - St. Louis Cardinals Rams
Brian Westbrook - Philadelphia Eagles
Tier three - First, early second round locks
Marion Barber - Dallas Cowboys
Frank Gore - San Francisco 49ers
Larry Johnson - Kansas City Chiefs
Marshawn Lynch - Buffalo Bills
Clinton Portis - Washington Redskins
Tier four - Some bruisers in this bunch
Earnest Graham - Tampa Bay Bucs
Ryan Grant - Green Bay Packers
Brandon Jacobs - New York Giants
Maurice Jones-Drew - Jacksonville Jaguars
Laurence Maroney - New England Patriots
Jamal Lewis - Cleveland Browns
Michael Turner - Atlanta Falcons
Tier five - High risk, high rewards
Ronnie Brown - Miami Dolphins
Reggie Bush - New Orleans Saints
Darren McFadden - Oakland Raiders
Willis McGahee - Baltimore Ravens
Willie Parker - Pittsburgh Steelers
Selvin Young - Denver Broncos
Tier six - Solid number two backs
Matt Forte - Chicago Bears
Edgerrin James - Arizona Cardinals
Julius Jones - Seattle Seahawks
Thomas Jones - New York Jets
Kevin Smith - Detroit Lions
Jonathan Stewart - Carolina Panthers
LenDale white - Tennessee Titans
Tier seven - Interesting options
Chris Johnson - Tennessee Titans
Chris Perry - Cincinnati Bengals
Ray Rice - Baltimore Ravens
Fred Taylor - Jacksonville Jaguars
DeAngelo Williams - Carolina Panthers
Tier eight - Best of third string
Ahmad Bradshaw - New York Giants
Justin Fargas - Oakland Raiders
Rashard Mendenhall - Pittsburgh Steelers
Deuce McAllister - New Orleans Saints
Chester Taylor - Minnesota Vikings
Matt Wood is a web editor for
Olsen responds: I'm sorry, did you draft the wrong guy?
With all of those Stephen Jackson's out there in St. Louis, I'm sure a lot of people were confused and may have drafted the wrong guy. Thanks for clearing that up.
The St. Louise Cardinals are long gone... Great research and editing...