The 7 Riskiest Players in Fantasy Football

Michael Phelps was never going to race a shark side-by-side in the open water. I realized that was clearly a promotional stunt all along, so I didn't bother watching it until people posted clips on Twitter.

But what I did watch during Shark Week was a man dive into the dark ocean and willingly swim among sharks, wearing just a wetsuit and flippers. While filming, the diver allowed the shark to swim right up to him and even touch the camera with his mouth. That footage was incredible -- enough so that I started a fantasy football article by telling you about it -- but the diver had to risk his life to capture it.

Surely he could have played it safe by staying inside the shark cage, or even backing off when the shark began to swim toward him, but that would not have been nearly as interesting to watch (and the diver probably never would have had the glory of being mentioned in this article). The diver chose to go the high-risk, high-reward route, and it led to a very successful video.

And just like that diver, fantasy football owners must also choose how risky they want to be this season. Do you want to draft those boom-or-bust players in hopes that they give you a big return on investment, or do you want to play it safe?

Our Confidence Interval (CI) projects the ceiling and floor for each player, which helps us determine who carries the widest range of outcomes. By looking at which players have the biggest difference between their ceiling and floor projections -- and examining how far their floor projection would drop them -- we can see who are riskiest players in fantasy football this year.

Let's take a look at seven players who could be fantasy studs or wind up as disappointing performers in 2017.