Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Top 15 Wide Receivers, Fantasy Updates

or at least one touchdown. I can tell you from experience, he was a delight to have in your lineup because you just never worried about a dud game, ever. Even games where it seemed like his yardage totals weren't there, you'd look up and he'd catch a touchdown. Yeah, and for me, Brandon Marshall, I think there is possibly a slight down regression of the numbers coming. That's why he's number six for us, but when I say down, I'm not saying, I'm plummeting him.

by any means into the basement. You're saying he might get a dozen touchdowns. Yeah. Maybe he only gets 11. Yeah. All right. Alan Robinson's our number seven. He was not here this morning before I made some adjustments to my rankings. He was actually behind DeAndre Hopkins. He is now above him. Alan Robinson is an ascendant talent whose production is...

partially dependent on Blake Bortles staying consistent. The thing about Bortles, just like Cutler was for Brana Marshall, is willing to be a gunslinger, throw the ball downfield, put it in a position where Brandon Marshall, guys like, you know, Alan Robinson, they go up, they make the play, they make up for you not being maybe as accurate as you could be. That's what's nice about Robinson.

Look, he's just a really, really good wide receiver and he's very young. Yeah, when you can run routes the way he does and then you can catch errant balls, I mean, you make separation and then if the ball isn't even on you, you catch it. You're a great red zone target, first of all. I mean, go watch. Just Google. Do yourself a favor and Google Alan Robinson back-to-back catches week one preseason. And watch the video that comes up. And in one drive, he just had...

you know, back-to-back catches that were stupid, just ridiculous. Yeah, maybe we call Blake Bortle's errant Rogers. Oh, I am here. His accuracy leaves a little to be desired, but at least he's willing to take those shots down field. And you liked seeing the building rapport of that wide receiver core in Jacksonville and hopefully an improved defense, a team that is a lot better this year. Alan Robinson has a lot of upsides. And he caught, what, how many touchdowns last year? 13.

14. 14 touchdowns. He made it nice and even. Yeah. Which I can get behind that. Right. Yeah. He really worked his stats out. He's only 22 years old. Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, that's ridiculous. Yeah. And he comes to work. He comes to work. So number eight, D'Andre Hopkins, probably somebody's number four. Probably somebody's number three. Sure. 192 targets last year. 1,500 plus yards, 11 touchdowns.

Very interesting breakdown, though, first and second half of the season, Mike. Yeah, Weeks 1 through 11. He was the wide receiver 1 in fantasy scoring because he was getting 13 and a half targets a game. That coincided with the Houston Texans defense. It was so bizarre how bad they were to start the year. And then eventually they got it turned around. They turned into the defense we were expecting all year. So weeks 12 through 17.

DeAndre Hopkins was only getting nine and a half targets a game and he was the wide receiver 22. And what I thought was really interesting going through all the numbers for Hopkins of being the 292 targets. He only had over 10 catches twice. It's also, they didn't really have a running game. You bring in Lamar Miller. Why do we got to say these things about all for blue? I don't know, because it's true. Low-hanging fruit.

You know, you bring in Lamar Miller. You draft Will Fuller in Braxton Miller. You have Jalen Strong coming into another season. Nothing wrong with DeAndre Hopkins. Could absolutely finish in the top five. Just some reasons to think, you know, after the second half of the season, plus some of those moves, the way they want to play on offense, the way the defense plays. Pretty much what we just said about the other three guys are those are the reasons why the order is this way for our consensus. Number nine, Mike Evans.

The drop of Soros Rex, but despite his drops, he still got 74 balls for 1,200 yards. Only three touchdowns. That is the big story for him. Mike Evans, young, like Alan Robinson, needs to be more consistent, but should be able to positively regress in the touchdown.

category. Yeah, you saw his rookie year he comes out and scores 12 touchdowns. So for him to only get three touchdowns last year, 148 targets, I mean, that has to go towards that median number. And so I fully expect him to have the thousand plus yards and the 10 touchdowns. And I love what I've seen in the off season this year because he's never really been the super cut up, you know, he's large.

And that's kind of his big thing. He's six, five. But he and James this year have really worked out hard together. They've come in looking hungry. I think that offense can take a step forward. I expect huge things from Mike Evans this year. And if he gets double-digit touchdowns in a thousand yards, you are a wide receiver. Alshan Jeffries are number 10 consensus wide receiver. I moved him down today. Yeah.

That's the truth. I cannot count on Alshan Jeffrey to stay healthy for the entire year. Why? Because of last year? Yes. Hmm. Okay. I will say that I will give you this. The fact that he... And the beginning of camp, I was going to say, the fact that in camp he had that injury. However, last year when he, when he, you know, tweaks his hamstring, it kept lingering.

through camp, through everything. He was back in like two days. He was in the preseason game. He's already over that. So to me, I feel like Alshan might be of value this year in the sense that I think your opinion is the common opinion, is that Alshan, you're not going to get 16 games from him. And so it's hard to take him high. But in the games he played, he was, you know, basically a top five wide receiver. And he's played 16 games in his previous, you know,

The year before he was 16 games. The year before that, he was 16 games. So I feel like he can play. He's also on that franchise tag. Playing for a contract. And in those years when he played a full season, 2013, Alshund Jeffrey was the wide receiver 8. 2014, Alshund Jeffrey was the wide receiver 11. So he had back-to-back wide receiver 1 seasons. And I...

I understand the concern of the soft tissue for Alshan Jeffrey. But I agree with Jason that if you're willing to swallow that and make the leap, then Alshon Jeffrey could turn into a huge value for you in your drafts this year. All right. Number 11 is Demarius Thomas, who is tried and true at the wide receiver position. People probably have concerns about the quarterback. We've talked about it on the show. You've got Sanchez or Simian or Lynch.

He had 176 targets last year. Put up 1,300 yards, only six touchdowns. I think I haven't projected for high 90s still in the receptions and eight touchdowns. He's kind of been a double-digit touchdown guy. I think the targets are still going to be there. I'm rising gun to Marius Thomas. I just think he's not a sexy pick compared to people who want to go out and draft Mike Evans. But I don't think there's any reason why Demarius Thomas can't finish with high target, high reception totals.

Yeah, I completely agree with this. His down year last year, you know, over 1,300 yards. He was the wide receiver 13. So I guess because he finished out of wide receiver 1 and people are thinking, oh, Peyton Manning is gone. You know, they've upgraded the quarterback position this year. If Mark Sanchez is the starter, he is an upgrade over Peyton Manning last year. And I feel very confident saying that, watching Peyton Manning play, looking at the actual breakdown of how abysmal.

Peyton Manning played last year. So I just, I have, I don't have the quarterback concerns for Demarius Thomas. Gary Kubiak loves to feed his number one guy throughout his career. And that's going to be Demaris Thomas. Yeah. And Demarius Thomas is not lost anything. I mean, he's a superstar. He's young still. He, if you watch him in preseason game one, he's still very fast, looks strong, no problems with Demarius. Keenan Allen is our number 12 consensus wide receiver.

Obviously he had the major injury last year before the injury. He came out in eight games, had 89 targets, caught 67 passes for 725 yards and four touchdowns. This is an offense that if you looked at last year, I believe Philip Rivers was the second to last in average yards per attempt. It's an offense that Alan fits into very well. He needs to obviously be healthy for the entirety of the year, but the injury that he had last year wasn't something that we're worried about recurring.

Alan is a PPR monster to me. I don't think the touchdown total is going to be there to make him a wide receiver one this year. But I'm sure you guys disagree. Yeah, well, I think we disagree with each other in the sense that this is probably one of those players that we have.

in our top 15 that we have the largest split on. I have him as a wide receiver 15. So he is outside of wide receiver 1. Mike has him as the fifth. He's the wide receiver number 5. So there is a wide range of outcomes. If you give him what he did the first half of last year and say he does that for the whole year, then absolutely he's the fifth wide receiver. I just don't believe that that would have happened. I don't think.

that his type, you know, that short, you know, 10 yards, 11 yards per reception is going to be able to be that true upper echelon fantasy. I don't want him as my one. I would love to get Keenan Allen as my two, but I don't want him as my one. Yeah, I can understand that the, where I'm going of why I love Keenan Allen is what Jason was talking about. Yeah, you should talk. You got him at five. I think that he is the focal point of the offense. He's going to be among the target leaders in the NFL. And.

Look, his rookie season, right? He was almost 15 yards of catch. So it's not that that is impossible for Keenan Allen. We're not looking at like a Jarvis Landry situation where you think, okay, that's all he is. Keenan Allen can do everything. But just because he can do it and did it back then doesn't mean that Philip Rivers, he's in an offense now. It'd be like if Brady was there, you know what Rivers can do now.

Rivers doesn't take the ball downfield. I think Rivers still can. And you have Ken Wisenhunt. You have a slightly different offense coming in. So I think that there will be a little bit more deep shots happening. And I just, the way that I see the work Keenan Allen getting, I think that the touchdowns can be there. He had four touchdowns and eight games. Maybe he doesn't get to 10, but I certainly see a scenario where he's at eight or nine. Yeah, I could see him getting eight.

eight touchdowns. But again, when compared to these other wide receivers we've just talked about, all of the other wide receivers, I think, have a much better chance of getting double-digit touchdowns over Keenan. All right. Let's go back in time with number 13 here. Let's go back to 2014. He had 151 targets, 98 receptions, 1500 plus yards. If we're going back in time, 13 touchdowns are we talking about?

Horty Nelson? Oh my God. I believe the J is silence. That's right. Wow, you're going way back for that one. Yes, Horty Nelson. Horty Nelson and Julio and Julio Jones. Those are my guys. Julio Holmes. Yeah. Yeah. Jordy Nelson at number 13. Giulio. All right. So what do we think of Jordy? It's all health, man. It's how much do you believe?

that Jordy can return at his age from an ACL. Because in 2014, if you happen to be one of those lucky Jordy Nelson fantasy owners, you know that he carried you likely to a championship. Man, he was so good in 2014. But is the question is... And not just 2014. Sure. 13, 12. I mean... I was saying the most recent we've seen him play. But it's the health.

I don't know where else you can what else you can even really talk about with Jordy. Yeah, if he is healthy and he's able to do what Jordy has done, which at his age, we have plenty of history of people at his age coming back off of the ACL fine. So if he comes back, fine, he should be great. Let me see where Horty is going right now. You can get him in the second round, but you're going to be taking him right now. He's going above Mike Evans, Keenan Allen.

It's tough with that injury right now. I'm fine if you want to take him above both those guys. Yeah, because if he's healthy, I think he finishes above those guys. You're talking about a guy who very well could be, you know, the fourth best wide receiver this year with a hungry Aaron Rogers. You've got a lot of hungry players this year. You've been mentioning about a lot of hungry players. We've got to record like after lunch. Have you had enough? You know what I did yesterday? I had four regular double stuffed Oreos.