Era-adjusted fantasy football player rankings: The Buffalo Bills (2024)

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the creation of fantasy football, The Athletic is reviewing the best fantasy players and fantasy seasons in NFL history.

A detailed overview of the system used to grade historical fantasy performance can be found in our greatest fantasy players of all-time introduction page, but here’s a quick summary.

Fantasy player performance is era-adjusted so that players who dominated during lower scoring eras can compete versus players who racked up huge point totals in higher scoring eras.

After these adjustments are made, players are then given credit for having a starter-caliber season (one point), a quality season (one point), an impact campaign (1.5 points) or being an elite starter (two points). These points stack and are measured in both non-PPR and PPR and serve as the basis for determining who are the best fantasy players in NFL history.

Now that we have the preliminaries out of the way, let’s look at the best fantasy players in Buffalo Bills team history!

(Note: the numbers listed below are for the player’s performance while on the Bills.)

All-time fantasy starting lineup

QB: Jim Kelly

RB: Thurman Thomas

RB: O.J. Simpson

WR: Andre Reed

WR: Elbert “Golden Wheels” Dubenion

TE: Pete Metzelaars

SuperFLEX: Cookie Gilchrist

Quarterback — Jim Kelly

Kelly’s nine starter-caliber seasons rank second behind Andre Reed for the all-time best among Buffalo players and his five quality seasons place only behind Thurman Thomas. Kelly had a five-season stretch where he was a mid-tier QB1 or higher and placed first in fantasy QB scoring in 1991 when he racked up 256.3 points in a season when the average fantasy quarterback tallied 151.1 points. That differential led to Kelly having a perfect 11-career point season that year and helped vault him to the top of the Buffalo quarterback ranks

Running back — Thurman Thomas

It may seem odd that Thomas ranks ahead of Simpson for the top Buffalo fantasy running back spot but consider that Thomas had a five-year stretch where he finished first or second in RB fantasy points in both non-PPR and PPR leagues (1989-93). Thomas racked up 300+ PPR fantasy points in four of those seasons and those were key to him ranking first among Buffalo fantasy running backs.

Running back — O.J. Simpson

Simpson had some of the best fantasy seasons in NFL history, as he ranked first in non-PPR and PPR running back points in both 1973 and 1975, but he landed second among Bills running backs in large part because Buffalo’s coaches didn’t know how to properly utilize Simpson from 1969-71. Simpson never posted more than 136.4 PPR points in those campaigns because his coaches couldn’t see that making him the focal point of the offense would be a huge boon for the team. This kept Simpson in second place on this list, but he still ranks fourth all-time among all Buffalo fantasy players.

Wide receiver — Andre Reed

Reed had four seasons where he was a solid- to mid-tier WR1 in fantasy, but the reality is that most of his 11 starter-caliber seasons were in the WR2 or WR3/flex tiers. Those 11 seasons are the most among Buffalo players and were more than enough to skyrocket Reed to the top fantasy WR spot among the Bills.

Wide receiver — Elbert “Golden Wheels” Dubenion

Dubenion has arguably the greatest nickname in NFL history, but he had only a single campaign that one could call great, that being a No. 6 finish in WR fantasy points in 1964. Even with his upside limitation, Dubenion still rates ahead of Bob Chandler (16 career points) and Eric Moulds (15 career points) for the second spot on this all-time fantasy roster.

Tight end — Pete Metzelaars

The Bills don’t exactly have a strong history of quality fantasy tight ends, so Metzelaars ranks at the top of this list with 10 career fantasy points and leads this pack with four starter-caliber seasons.

SuperFlex — Cookie Gilchrist

Gilchrist only tallied three seasons in Buffalo, but he sure packed a ton of production into those campaigns. He place third and fourth, respectively, in non-PPR and PPR points among running backs in both the 1962 and 1963 seasons by posting a combined 29 scrimmage touchdowns and just over 2,600 scrimmage yards Gilchrist then went on the lead the AFL in rushing yards and tied for the league lead in rushing touchdowns in 1964, which was more than enough to land him the SuperFlex spot on this squad.

All-time best era-adjusted fantasy seasons

QB: Jim Kelly, 1991 (256.3 points)

RB: O.J. Simpson, 1975 (355 non-PPR, 383.3 PPR)

WR: Marlin Briscoe, 1970 (151 non-PPR, 207.5 PPR)

TE: Pete Metzelaars, 1993, (84 non-PPR, 151.9 PPR)

SuperFLEX: Thurman Thomas, 1992 (277 non-PPR, 335.3 PPR)

(Top photo: Jeff Goode/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

KC Joyner is a contributor to The Athletic covering fantasy football and betting. Before joining The Athletic, KC was a senior writer for ESPN, and he has run TheFootballScientist.com since 2004. He is the author of the "Scientific Football" book series and "Blindsided: Why the Left Tackle Is Overrated and Other Contrarian Football Thoughts." KC is a native Michigander. He attended the University of Michigan but moved to the warmer climate of Florida over 30 years ago. Follow KC on Twitter @KCJoynerTFS