Fantasy Football 2018 - Player Price Check + WR Revelations

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To the fantasy footballers podcast. Coming to you from Draft.com Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah! Oh, you ruined it. Yeah! You just... I was emphasizing with you, man. Yeah. I know your... I know your capabilities, vocally, Mike, and that was not your best. Let's try it over. I was doubling.

No. It is a technique you use in the recording studio. You've got to double the vocals, make them thicker, makes them beefier, makes them better. That was not doubling. That was ruining. All right, go ahead. Welcome into the show, the Fantasy Footballers podcast back once more. Tuesday, June 5th. It is officially 6,000 degrees here in Arizona, and we are excited to be indoors talking to you. We have developed a really neat...

underground tunnel system from the house to the studio. It's the only way we can stay alive and not be burnt to a crisp. Now, see, they do that type of thing in where Brooks is from up in the Michigan land. When it's snowing, all these campuses, they have tunnels and stuff so that you don't have to go on the snow. That's not true. Yes, it is. There's time. I know there's sky. In Minnesota, there are skywalks. So in downtown.

A lot of the buildings up high have walkways. And the collegiate campuses, you can get around mostly without going outside. Is this true, Brooks? Brooks, can you confirm this? No. Yes, it is true. He didn't go to college. He doesn't know what I'm talking about. That's true. Yeah. You had me going, man. It's where the mole people live. Well, welcome in. This episode is going to be fun. We have a ADP price check.

episode. So we're going to be walking through some names. I'm going to, these guys don't have the most recent average draft position data memorized, do you? No. Maybe I do. So I'm going to quiz them. I'm going to have you guess where you believe that these players are going. We'll talk about where they are going in current mock drafts, and we'll talk about some of the players going around them, and whether you think they're of value, whether you think that they're going too early, that type of thing.

But first, I want to get into a quick question on today's episode. And this is come straight out of the ultimate draft kit, which released last week, the reception perception content. Okay, so Matt Harmon from NFL.com, he creates the reception perception results for the ultimate draft kit. And he looks at wide receivers independent of their quarterback. How do they perform in all of the major routes on the route tree?

compared to the average and are they are they outperforming it or they underperforming it and so i just wanted to ask you guys what was the biggest surprise that you saw or one of the biggest surprises from the data that you saw about reception perception so the results they're in what surprised you yeah for me uh one of the guys that stood out as surprising and i know it's equal for matt harmon he even said this was this was surprising because of what we've seen the last two years prior

But Randall Cobb's reception last year, and that's, it's really the perfect example of using reception perception because it's quarterback agnostic. So you can't just go, oh, he had a, yeah, he had a bad year last year. Well, Aaron Rogers was gone. That.

kind of matters a little bit. But regardless of what the quarterback did, whether the quarterback found him when he was open, whether the quarterback hit him when he was open, it doesn't matter. It's just when he's running routes, when he's against man, when he's against press, when he's against zone, when he's running slants or digs or curls, how'd he do? And it was cool to see the Cobb, which I think this last year we were a little hopeful for entering in the year that he was finally healthy again. He looked good with Aaron Rogers to start the year. But then when Rogers...

was gone, Cobb became an afterthought and fantasy. Looking through reception, he was kind of back in that form he had when he was an elite fantasy player. No more Jordy Nelson now. And that's the thing I wanted to bring up is the combination of what reception showed Randall Cobb to be last year with the fact that Jordy's gone. I went back and I looked since 2011. Okay, so when Aaron Rogers does play, where's his wide receiver two finish?

He finishes. These are going back when he plays. The wide receiver two finished 8th, 27th, 7th, 17th, and 17th. You're talking about Aaron Rogers' wide receiver 2. Aaron Rogers, Green Bay's wide receiver 2 when Rogers is playing. So that's an average of being the 15th wide receiver. And that's including the year where it was, you know, his wide receiver was 27th. Well, that year was the year he lost Jordy. So that, you know.

His wide receiver 1 was 25th. It kind of was a strange year. So I think Randall Cobb right now, he's like the 45th wide receiver off the board. It represents a lot of upside. There's no way that the wide receiver 2 from Green Bay. If Aaron Rogers plays, there's no way he finishes that low. And I know what Devante Adams did last year. But Adams hasn't been a one with Rogers before either. Like you gave those numbers, but what you're really saying is.

the person opposite Jordy Nelson always did this. And now Jordy's gone, I don't even think we know how much he will look at Adams the same exact way. Obviously, he's not going to be the same as Jordy Nelson, and he should be the one far and away, but we haven't seen him have to be that. I think it's a very interesting situation because we know Rogers will put up numbers.

Yeah, and just a shout out to Geronimo Allison. I wanted to say maybe it's not Randall Cobb. It could end up being Geronimo Allison or one of these slew of draft picks. It's going to be a mixed mismatch of all of them. It could be. I think either Randall Cobb or Geronimo Allison, one of those two players is going to break out or break back in this year. So I see both of them. Break up, break down. Oh, I hope they don't break up. That's so hard when you go through a breakup. Yeah, I don't want to have to break up. Mike, who you got?

I'm going with someone who was very disappointing in reception. And he raises his glass. Yes, I do. It's the ugliest chart. Yeah. I've ever seen. Is the number one? Maybe. Maybe for the Jacksonville Jaguars. I'm sorry to tell you this, Jacksonville Jaguars fans, but Marquise Lee is the only receiver.

uh that that harmon has done this season that is all red which means that he scored subpar red means stop in every single category that he looks at he is below the 11th percentile in success versus man zone and press coverage he is not creating separation he is below average in the contested catch rate

He had a drop rate of when Harmon was starting him of 10.8%. That's bad. At least he was up near the top and something. Everything about this is questionable. Yeah, and if you don't have the UDK, if you haven't seen reception, you might even have seen the graphics, he's tracking the screen, the slant, the curl, the dig, the post, the nine, the corner, the out, the comeback, the flat, and others.

And he was below average and all of them. Across the board. Not one. Not one was he yellow. Was he average? So it's, it will be interesting to see can Marquisley truly hold up as a number one? Does this give, uh, D. D. D. D. D. D. D. D. Maybe D D. D. D. D. D. D. D. Or Mongcreth the 11 million dollar man. There, there could be some goodness here on in the Jacksonville passing game.

And it might not be Marquis Lee, despite him being that kind of de facto number one. All right, one of the things I like is looking to see whether a player is done, right? We joke about it on the show all the time. A player, they hit the wall. It's over for them. Last year, you might use Jeremy Macklin as an example, right? He comes in and he's supposed to be on a one-year, prove-it deal with Baltimore. He proved it. He proved, and he's currently without a job. Yeah, he proved it.

So I wanted to look at Michael Crabtree and see if what we saw statistically was reflected in his play and his performance. And is he done? Is he about to repeat the Macklin in Baltimore situation? And despite the disappointing fantasy numbers last year, the reception numbers were very, very good for Michael Crabtree, as opposed to Marquis Lee. He had no route in which he was below.

average. In fact, he was above average, and most of them he scored in the 84th percentile and the 97th percentile in success versus man in zone coverage. The big difference in the statistical drop off last year for Crabtree came down to those 50-50 balls, right? He was this reliable red zone. Carr puts the ball up, never to Cooper, always to Crabtree, and he comes down with it, and last year he was not.

at the same success level. I think he was at 80-something percent on those the year before. He was at 65 percent last year, and that made a big impact in the numbers. Obviously, they moved on from him, but it's interesting to see that he was outperforming the majority of the competition as that inside receiver, as that dominant slant, curl, dig route guy. And...

What does that mean in Baltimore? I'm not sure it means fantasy glory. I mean, I have them at 31 right now. But there's definitely upside there for Crabtree because his game is not out-athlet you. Michael Crabtree is... His technique, it's precision. Exactly. It's creating separation in these routes. And Flacko was already been talking about getting used to Michael Crabtree, which Carr went through this as well. In Oakland, he says, this guy runs...

Weird routes, man. So it works for Michael Crabtree, gets them open. I'm very interested in what Crabtree can do is the number one for a kind of anemic passing attack. But I have them ranked lower like you do, Andy. But I think that of players, when you talk about variance, Michael Crabtree still has a very nice ceiling to me even though I'm not projecting it. And I think he's really attractive to me in full PPR formats because I don't see any reason why he can't.

lead the team in targets in that offense. The last two players that really had fantasy relevance of the wide receiver position for them, however, were both field stretcher type of guys when Steve Smith kind of reemerged and Tori Smith. But Bolden had some success there. And I would use him as the template for what you'd get with Crabtree. Bolden later in his career, possession guy. Every week you couldn't count on him in fantasy, but he did have those weeks when he scored and he was.