Fantasy Football - Top 10 WR Rankings + What Could Go Wrong? - Podcast for 8/7

There is a massive break to me. Like, I don't know if you guys have the exact same top 10 guys, but to me, there are 10 great wide receivers that I'm happy with as like even my wide receiver won. And then it's a huge break to the next. Like T. Higgins, I think it finished our previous episode. That's like a big tear break for me. Before Higgins. Drake London. Yeah, Drake London, AJ Brown. But I think I would rather have Drake London over AJ Brown for just volume, for consistency, hopeful step up. I'm on the AJ Brown side. Again, like he was, I feel like. AJ Brown's a better wide receiver. I feel like last year was as bad as it can get from a passing percentage standpoint and the defense was so good and Sequin. And he was still better points for game than his wide receiver seven years. So I, I lean the brown side. I think both are great picks. If they're close, does the hamstring issue even come into your mind? No, not right now. It might. It might later. Yeah, if he's still.

Ask me later. Mike, where do you stand on A.J. Brown and maybe the... I'm more on your side, Andy. I think A.J. Brown is... I'm really happy with him as my wide receiver won. The projecting the Eagles defense, I mean, if you look around, many places are going to list them as, yeah, they're going to be the best defense, more than likely in football. But part of being the best defense also includes being the luckiest in terms of injuries. They just, they happen. And one key injury changes everything for how a defense functions and all of a sudden that, you know, they can be more exploited of now the offense has to kick it into gear. So while there are, there is a chance that they just dominate yet again. I'm still good with A.J. Brown because he was so dominant. And he just was, he basically took second halves off. Last year, just for, I think this is kind of interesting to look at when we talk through the top 10.

Last year, AJ Brown was the wide receiver six off the board, and Drake London was the wide receiver 11 off the board going into the 2024 season. This year, London is being drafted as the wide receiver 9. AJ Brown is the wide receiver 10 on sleeper. But both of them true alphas. At 8, it's Brian Thomas Jr. He finished as wide receiver number 8. 4. There it is. There it is. Oh, man. Oh, man. Hosting is hard. You know what it was? It was yesterday. I actually went looking for numbers. And then I remember we don't got, like we don't got the budget for numbers 20, 19, 18. Right. Well, come on. Anything above 10. We can't afford that. So I got really used to just cruising. And thank you, Al, for, I got you for taking care of that. That's going to happen more and more the rest of this show. I was talking about Brian Thomas Jr.

You know, he's not even 23 years old. It was an incredible rookie season. I am the lowest of the three of us. I don't know why exactly. I mean, it's how the stats ended up, right? Like part of the process, if you're new to the show, if you're coming back for, you know, the first time in a while, we talk about this. We go out, we project players. and sometimes the stats surprise you and players end up differently than where you thought they'd be or where you would have wanted them to be in terms of the rankings. And that's why we have risk ratings and upside ratings because players have to go in a certain order. But, you know, when you're drafting, maybe you're looking for an upside player because you've got a safe player. Maybe you're looking for risk aversion because you've got a risky player already. So those things have to differentiate for you. For some reason, when I looked at Jacksonville, I just didn't get.

to where he finished last year. He was very, very productive in a time when Trevor Lawrence wasn't on the field, in a time when Kirk and Ingram were not available for them. I don't, oh, I'm not trying to over-emphasize that. I think Travis Hunter is going to play a ton of offensive snaps. I think the latest number from Liam Cohen that he kind of threw out there to Rich Eisen was 80% of the offensive snaps. I mean, Brian Thomas is an alpha. Brian Thomas is dominant. Liam Cohen, somebody that you should be able to trust. Yeah. I just thought he really, like, it has happened before where that rookie season is kind of like the peak. The, or the biggest, you know, your kind of most boomed season. And 10 touchdowns, it's a lot. When I'm looking at Brian Thomas, you know, I think there's a couple narratives of which direction are you going to go with him as a player, not on the field. Like, watch him play. He, he's that dude. But the, you know, like the couple guys being missing at the end of the year, I don't want to Amman Raw.

this situation of when you see talent truly on the field. But I think, Andy, where your feelings can really come into play is the first nine weeks, that's Trevor Lawrence. And in that time, Brian Thomas is good. Like he was, he were all like massively outplayed his ADP. You know, he gave you three top 10 games in that time. But it's a 20% target share in that time. with Trevor Lawrence, and then Mack Jones comes in, and it goes up to 32. This is not a, oh, hey, Mac Jones is just, was feeding the number one guy a little bit more than Trevor Lawrence. That is a substantial difference between the two of them, so will it... Mac Jones figured out how to look like a good quarterback. Yeah, it just throw to Brian Thomas. Exactly. So...

Can Trevor Lawrence actually look like a good quarterback? Trevor Lawrence is the only issue that I have here with Brian Thomas Jr. But I don't think Trevor Lawrence is so bad as a quarterback that he can't support Brian Thomas being a true alpha. He was a late transition to wide receiver in his NFL career. That was like why, you know, he only had one big breakout year in college and people were worried, you know, does he have the skills? When you watched this guy last year, sometimes we just forget how good he was. He was great at the line of scrimmage. The screen game, unbelievable. Middle of the field, just outstanding. So much separation. Deep bombs, like all three levels of the field. He was awesome. And Red Zone. Yeah. So I feel like this is a young guy, obviously. Maybe the wide receiver four finished with double-digit touchdowns as a rookie. Maybe that's the highest he ever finishes. Regardless, he finished as the wide receiver four as a rookie.

They did get rid of Christian Kirk. I don't want to take anything away from him. I would say that I just didn't end up as high as I thought he would. Of the top 10 wide receivers who are the 10 we're talking about today in my personal rankings, he is the scariest. Like the I could see how it goes wrong if Trevor Lawrence isn't that great or if Travis Hunter really eats into it. But I'm not going to overthink a young. unbelievably talented wide receiver who just looked special on every row on every play. Watching him and Neighbors play last year was amazing. Speaking of which. Number seven. Ha, got it. Malik Neighbors comes in at number seven, which is where he finished last year in just 15 games played. He was the entire Giants passing offense. 170 targets despite missing the two games. The previous rookie record was 147. So it was.

It was like from the jump, we're just going to throw it to that guy on every single play. And I'm very confident Malik Neighbors was disappointed that he only had 170 targets. I guess I'd be curious where you guys have him projected target-wise, not percentage, but totals for 20-25. Let's pull that up. So he was at 170 last year. I've got him at 168 this year. Really? I have him at 168 targets this year. Okay. I still got, I got him more, I got him 176. Because he did that in, what, 15 games? Correct. So, again, this is a very similar situation to Brian Thomas, a little bit of trepidation around quarterback, offense, performance, but trying not to overthink the skill and the talent and the fact that this was one of the most dominant rookie performances in history. He was out wide, 73% of the time, 27% of the time in the slot. We like that.

We like my like a split. You got to move it around. Yeah. It'll move, move your star around. Give them opportunities. Cardinals. Please, please. Give the ball to Marvin. The Giants were trailing or tied on 90% of every route that Malik neighbors ran. That's nice. That seems. I do, I brought it up. I do think that the, like if the season goes well for the Giants, it's on the back of a defense that is playing really well in a running game that can slow down. the pace of play. So that would be my only, you know, and do we get Russ for a while, Winston for a while, Dart for a while? Those things are really subject to team record a lot of the times, right? Like how are you playing? They have a brutal start to the season. Yeah, to remind everyone, we open on the road against Washington, then on the road against Dallas. Oh, both on the road. Very nice. Then Kansas City and then the Chargers. I mean, may...

Perhaps Dallas is as stinky, Andy, as you feel like they could be. But this is looking very much like an 0-and-4 start for the Giants. Yeah, they're... Bring me James. Yeah, maybe they win... Bring him to me! Maybe they win the Dallas game. Their defense is very good. Their front four is very good. Oh, if they're 0-4, James, week five, at New Orleans... Revenge game. Jason. Jason, you might as well get a James tattoo the way you love that guy. You haven't seen my back. Thank goodness for that. So, yeah, it's a tough schedule. It'd be hard not to think a quarterback change could happen at some point in the first six, eight weeks of the season. I mean, heck, you could have a head coaching change if it went wrong. But again, I think they're building this team to be a dominant defense. I don't see how he fails.

barring injury. The toe is a concern. I think if the Giants surprise and are better, you know, then he got more touchdowns than we expect. Maybe not quite the volume if they have to keep up with, you know, losing games. He's going to be a target share that, you know, he's going to be approaching 200 targets. There's no one else to throw the ball. Can he finish top three? Absolutely. Okay. Can he finish number one? I doubt it. No. Number six. Nico Collins comes in at number six. Last year it was tough in Houston with C.J. Stroud kind of regressing a little bit, the team having injuries. Nico missed five games. But if you look at that breakout campaign in 2023 and you look at last year, it's the same Nico Collins. Same points per game and torching guys on a regular basis. Had some big plays called back, I remember. Yep.

And he was on fire. 19 fancy points a game through the first month last year. You know, Nico's that dude. I mean, he's a bona fide number one. I think he could finish as the wide receiver one. I think he could finish number one. Absolutely. It's just a quarterback issue for Malik neighbors. In order to be the one, you have to usually lap the field. You're a couple points higher. The touchdowns came. And they could come here with C.J. Stroud. Yeah, and you don't have digs. You don't have Tank Dell. Right now, the depth chart shows Jaden Higgins is the wide receiver 2 as a starter. Who we like is a sleeper? We do, but I think, you know, it's very obvious that, like, Nico is that dude for this team, and he's being drafted right in between Malik neighbors and Brian Thomas right now, like on Sleeper. So, you know, you got to look at him as a, you know, wide receiver 7 feels fine as a draft price to me.

We all got him a spot or two higher. Mike, you've got him the highest. Yeah, I just love me some Nico Collins. You know, he, the dig route seems just unstoppable. You know, I mean, he is, he's on this archetype of, a later breakout than, then Mike Evans. Evans was immediate, but it's like they remind me of playstyle of each other. Obviously, Nico, I'm talking about the younger version of Mike Evans. And so he, he. If things are rolling, he can be in a truly unstoppable force and he will be force-fed targets. I think the Christian Kirk being on this team is that it's good. It's good for the Houston Texans. Christian Kirk is a valuable wide receiver. He may, we may be past the times of Kirk bringing us fantasy relevance, but he certainly helps Houston, which is going to help our guy Nico get those touchdowns.

All right, we will take a quick break here, and then we will count down our top five. This is an ad by BetterHelp. These days, it feels like there's advice for everything. We talk about this all the time. You look at the reels and all the social media. You've got the cold plunges, gratitude journals, screen detoxes. But the problem is, is you don't know what actually works. And the internet is full of information overload about mental health, about wellness. And it's hard to know what will actually make a difference, what's true. You've got to take action, but you don't know how. You want to use trusted resources and BetterHelp has live therapists that can get you personalized recommendations and help you break through all of that noise. With over 30,000 therapists worldwide, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. And it's very convenient. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button and you can switch therapists at any time.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash footballers. That's betterhELP.com slash footballers. All right. One of the best ways to count down the top five is by saying the number. Number five. And there it is. Number five, Amunrah St. Brown. You get to these top tier guys, there's not a lot to say about them, unless you want to listen to a show where guys just say, these guys, he plays good football. But Amun Ra, Mike, I mean, I guess one of the surprises is you have him at eight? Buried. Yeah, he is truly fluctuating around my rankings right now. He...

It's just like you for Andy, for Brian Thomas. Like, man, I gave Amin Ra the numbers and he just ended up a little bit lower than I wanted to. But Amin Ra is a dog. Things have improved for him pretty much every year. You know, when he started out, he was a slot merchant and that the percentage of slot routes and fully out wide, like that number just keeps getting more and more balanced. We talked about Jameson Williams of what could go wrong for him, and it's, well, the defense is really healthy this year, where they weren't over the second half. So that's where. Let me ask you this. That's where I am. Laporta, obviously, double-digit touchdowns is a rookie. Jameson Williams, you talked about him yesterday. I like him as a breakout. You got two talented, you know, running backs, one that's basically a wide receiver. Do you look at, do you see this offense like if Jameson Williams had a breakout season? Does it come at?

Yes. The cost of Alman Ra in any regard? I believe so, yes. It definitely would. Because James' type of a breakout season are drive-enders. You know what I mean? Yes. Those are he has a 60-yard touchdown. He has a 50-yard touchdown. He's a handful of games. He has a 70-yard touchdown. Yeah, I could do this forever. But those are drive-enders. They put the team up and with their running game and their two running backs. You know, that would definitely come at the expense. You're not going to have. Amonra be the wide receiver three for the third year in a row while Jameson Williams has a break out? I don't think that would be true. One thing that has been wonderful about Mr. Amonrae St. Brown, 6% bust rate, which was tied for the best among all wide receivers. You put them out there, you get production.

You can feel really safe. He moves the chains. The offense is good. So safe. You feel so safe every week. He's 70% of his games at half PPR over the 10.5 point threshold. He's just as reliable as it comes. When you're talking about a guy who is going to catch over 100 passes almost guaranteed, there's really no risk here. And now around the red zone, his red zone usage has been great. Back-to-back double-digit touchdown years. He's just... You know, can he be the wide receiver one? I don't think so. Probably not. And it feels like people have been slow to accept them as their one on a fantasy team. I think that's happened year over year. Like he has been that guy. He's been completely worthy of it. But every step of the way, even his draft capital for the NFL, it's like, we're going to doubt that this guy can go out there and dominate to the level that he does. But he's just, it's kind of a force of, you know, his will on the field. It's outstanding. All right. This one's more scary right now.

Number four. Puka Nakua comes in at number four. He's in that wide receiver prime, 24 years old. 23, 24, 25. Those are the prime years for wide receiver production in fantasy. We've got him at four. He finished at four in 2023 as a rookie, which was unbelievable. Last year, the injuries held him back, but his points per game, they were better. So. He was so good. I think injuries are a little bit of the story with Puganakua. I don't think that's an unreasonable thing. Like if it was just a blip on the radar. Well, he's had him going back like his entire career. Ironically, his rookie season, he played all 17 games, but he tends to come out. His play style is he's too, too much dog in him. You know what I mean? Like.

Got to turn it down a little bit here. Turn it down a little. He will lay out for any ball. He will crush into people. He is. He plays fearless. And I just wish maybe have a little bit of fear. Yeah. You talked about it in, you know, last year it was that busted Bursa. Yeah. The Bursa sack. The Bursa sack. Yeah. Cost him six games. But you talked about 2023, the rookie year. He had knee swelling shoulder bruise, sprained shoulder, hip soreness. on injury reports for all four of those things. Never missed the game. Yeah, 17 played. But he puts his body on the line for sure, which... And then you have the risk of Matthew Stafford. Yes. Which is probably the bigger injury risk to me. So, you know, if Matthew Stafford's there and he plays 17, you're talking about a guy that could absolutely finish number one overall. He's right in that prime range to do so. It's rare to have, you know, the same guy repeat at wide receiver year after year. So Pooka's in that category. I can tell you having had him on a roster

for most of the last two years, it is a great time. This is a player who is not only consistent like Amin Rau St. Brown, but can actually go out there and have, you know, weak winning performances where, you know, he's just got so many targets, so consistent. I love every single thing about him. And when you've got a quarterback like Matthew Stafford, when he's out there and he's healthy, he is not afraid to go. And I mean, he made. Cooper Cup, the triple crown. He is fine to go out and take his guy. And even though you've got Devante Adams here, Puka is the number one target. Puka is Stafford's guy. How do we get Pooka more touchdowns? Yeah, I would say that's the one thing that stands out to me is the touchdowns. It's like if the volume wasn't to the nine touchdowns in 28 games. No problem. That doesn't bother me at all. Touchdowns. I mean, bothers me a little. I mean, with Devante Adams, who is a touchdown savant. My point is.

We've seen two years of this NFL wide receiver. At the end of his eight year, nine, ten year career, whatever it is, you're going to have double digit touchdowns from this good of a player. You always have that. Even these guys who don't score a bunch of touchdowns throughout. You're saying Julio didn't have double digit touchdown seasons? I'm saying Julio, that was the story every single year of his career. We were sitting there going like, why, why does Matt Ryan not find? Julio Jones. Right. No, it was, it was very, very frustrating, but he had a double digit touchdown season. He had seasons with eight, eight, eight, three times. So four, four different seasons he had, this is the guy that you're bringing up. Yeah, yeah, double digit touchdowns one time in 12 years though. I was just saying that was the refrain with Julio is that sometimes players, he's a hall of fame. Sometimes players don't do that. Hall of Fame wide receiver is one, one time. And that was the frustration year in and year out. It's not that Puka can't. I'm not saying he can't.

I'm saying sometimes it just doesn't come to certain wide receivers. And if I wanted to predict a situation where it would be harder for it to come, it would be a situation where Kyron is that good on the goal line and Devante Adams is double digit every year for the last five years. My point being, if Stanford misses time and you don't get the volume to Puka, you're not going to get the touchdowns from Gropolo. to Pooka. Correct. And so then that's the negative case. Now, staring down the Stafford decision, what I wanted to ask you is if you were actually in a draft and you're looking at Puka and Nico Collins, even though you have them Puka ranked higher right now this moment, if you had to draft today, you don't get more information on Stafford. Are you pulling the trigger on Puka for the upside or are you just going to go away from the risk? I think right this second with what we know and with Stafford being currently not.

available to play i would take nico collins and almond ross st brown over puka something we didn't bring up for nico four years in the league four years not playing a complete season for nico collins 14 games rookie year 10 the next 15 12 it's worth worth mentioning so i mean like where the injury differential puka the guy who we're like this guy gets hurt he has a his rookie year played every game yeah i wonder um Yeah, that's a good point. I would take, I would take Nico, but I already have Nico ranked higher. All right, let's get to the big guys. Number three. You can just list them all real quick. Yeah, well, no, I actually have, I think it's a conversation about C.D. Liam. Okay. Because we know how good it can be because he was the number one. He was the number one overall wide receiver. He was averaging almost 20 points a game.

The year before, 14.6, finished at wide receiver 6. Last year, 14.2, DAC missed time. But, you know, the truth is when DAC played, and we brought this up on the quarterback show, like the most recent sample we have of DAC and CD wasn't as good as it was in 2023. The line wasn't... Not as good as that ending, correct. Well, yeah, I mean, almost the whole year. I think it was week four in that year that they turned it on. But what I'm saying is, like, DAC wasn't that good in that 6-7 games he was active, fantasy-wise. CD was a disappointment. I remember this. I had him. He was a keeper for me last year. I had him to start the year. I was disappointed big time. I mean, you started off, he came off a number one overall year and you ended up, you know, wide receiver 24, 15, 51, 51, he had a good week, 41, 24. That was not, when you draft the guy number one overall, which is what C.D. Lamb was worthy of being picked. I was a little bum. So, you know, I don't think that the 2023 should be the, like, the standard.

19.7 points for game. No, that seems like a very special year. That's pretty outrageous. But we've all got him in three. We know what this guy's... No, no, we don't. Oh, Jason has a bit two. Thank you. Okay. Yep, just wanted to... Yeah, no, you put it out there. I mean, I think C.D. Lamb has as high a chance as anyone to be the wide receiver one overall. He is a dominant alpha wide receiver for a team in the Cowboys that... especially if they don't have Micah Parsons, please go away, Micah Parsons. They're going to have to throw the ball more. They can't run the ball. And Pickens doesn't scare me taking coverage away. CD's, you know, target market share is going to be tremendously high. And so, yeah, I mean, I recognize that at the beginning of last year, it was a slower start for CD Lamb and for Dak Prescott when DAC was healthy. But the previous year...

over that time and he had to play with Cooper Rush from week 10 out which he still had multiple double digit points scored and remember his like the shoulder or I remember if it's called him his shoulder but every single time CD Lamb hit the ground he would lay there momentarily and get up and you can see that this guy is not okay and if DAC gets injured he gets a quarterback upgrade oh my gosh joe milton's that no joe milton the third no he's that dude no no i will not no not on this show i don't i don't know what drop to hit no look him i got you there's a loser drop no joe there's only one read no he's got him in dynasty mike he hasn't a dynasty okay that all makes sense now

Why do I have Joe Milton is an exciting quarterback. He tried to get me to trade him a remandre for Joe Milton. He would be. So he's not okay. If you're trying to get crap remandre for this great quarterback, you don't actually believe that. No, no. Get out of here. He's fluffing. I do not. Number two. Justin Jefferson comes in a number two. Number one. Jamar Chase comes in at number one. Is there a storyline here to talk about? I mean, Justin Jefferson, certainly. I mean, currently dealing with a hamstring. You've got a change at quarterback coming in with, you know, McCarthy. Is he going to be good enough to support? And I mean, that's the story. The story was answered with those type of questions minus the hamstring issue last year. It was like, oh, Sam Darnold coming in. I didn't believe Sam Darnold was going to be good enough. Does that mean we're, are we putting a reverse jinx here? Because we're so out on Darnold.

And now we're in on JJ McCarthy. It's possible. It's possible. Well, I mean, based on the last refresh of my Twitter feed, McCarthy has been released by the Vikings for poor performance. Just refresh one more time. Big, great pass. Oh, dominating. Yeah. Jamar Chase finished at number one last year. I am having Kyle dig into the last time we got a repeat number one overall. It was probably Antonio Brown. It doesn't happen very often. So, you know, it's the reality. Jamar Chase is the best bet to do it. That's why you draft him where you draft him. But I think Jefferson is in that category too. You know, it's just a borough confidence versus a McCarthy confidence. And last year, you know, it would, Tyreek was the number one pick. Yep. And I bring that up for, you're like, hey, could, like, what could go wrong here for Jamar Chase? Well, Tyreek Hill was already older.