Fantasy Football - Early Top 15 WR Rankings + Jason FORE!!! - Podcast for 4/16

What do I trust? I trust that Kevin O'Connell is going to continue to throw the football even if his quarterback is not necessarily always on. He's going to throw it. He's going to put the trust in that quarterback. They don't have the running game or the running game personnel to take over in that fashion. So, yeah, I do have confidence that Jefferson. I mean, it was a down-year fantasy-wise, but he still had 141 targets. We just read that number about where you need to be. I mean, it was a super down year for him. Still over a thousand yards. He just didn't score. This team couldn't score on offense. I feel like, what are these? These are splits with him without J.J. McCarthy? Yes. So with J.J. McCarthy, he was four receptions a game for 54 yards. Just with non-McCarthy, he was about six for 73. Which says like 10 fantasy points a game, which is still bad.

Right. I mean, but that would be a 97 for 1241 year. It's just the touchdowns are the big deal. And that's honestly why, like, Kyler's going to work out. Kyler will work out for the Vikings. Kyler is good enough to support Jefferson being a top fantasy option. I've got Jefferson at seven. And really the next three guys that I've got ahead of them are all up. Well, all but one to me are up for debate. The issue is touchdowns. And Kyler can be very good for the team. and throw a lot of yards, but he's never been a major touchdown thrower. Even when he's having his great fantasy seasons and he was the number two quarter, a lot of that was rushing, rushing touchdowns. 26 passing touchdowns is the most that Kyler's ever had in his career. And that was when he was better and braver or stood in the pocket. Maybe this will be his best year ever. Braver, Kyler. Yeah, but assuming it's not the best Kyler we've ever seen, I think that.

it will be difficult for Jefferson to be the number one overall. Like that great year Kyler had with Hopkins, Hopkins was the number five wide receiver. That's pretty good. So you would take Jefferson out of consideration in your mind right now to finish at one? Yeah, I don't think Jefferson with Kyler is going to finish at one. Like you don't think it's possible? Do you think it's possible, Mike? Yes. Okay. Possible. Yeah, I, um... I get it. I would say that a lot of people are going to turn to, I mean, number five on the list is Alman Rae St. Brown. And I think that's the one in particular that will be a difficult choice for people in terms of offensive consistency. You know what Al Monra brings to the table. I've got them at five, Jason at four, Mike has them at seven. Yeah, I don't like it.

and he has finished as the wide receiver three, the wide receiver three, and the wide receiver three the last three years. That's the one where I'd have a really hard time taking Jefferson, who we just saw finish at 22. At 22 in a full season with bad quarterback play over the guy that's like, nothing's changing for Amin Rae. You've got the quarterback, you got the offense, you got. He can't finish at one. I would agree with that too. And so if you believe like Mike does that Jefferson still could, that'd be the case for Jefferson is, hey, I could get a number one season.

Amon Ra, I don't think he could do that. But man, he does a lot. 172 targets. The argument for Amin Ra actually doing it. Number one is the, like over the last handful of years, the only quarterback who's throwing 4,500 yards every year is Jared Goff. Okay. And number two, which I saw a discussion online, kind of, you know, got the brain going of like while we're all, you know, like, hey, Montgomery's gone. And so you're just thinking about Jemir Gibbs. Like Jemir Gibbs, he could be the RB1. Yes, of course. They also, when Gibbs is on the field, they throw the ball more. They do? This isn't, and this is not saying that Gibbs won't play, you know, he won't get handoffs or anything, but it's a, he's such a weapon in the passing game. He's a goal line wide receiver. That you can, you can do those types of things. So I wonder if their pass percentage goes up just a.

click or two and then if it does that then i'm jameson will finally be the guy you want him to be every ounce of their passing game going up helps amman raw he is the the number one target by a wide margin and he's utilized around the red zone led all wide receivers in red zone targets last year so the touchdowns are there you know sometimes you old almond raw it was like Oh, he's a slot guy. I'm not sure if you can flip flopping those. Yeah, I'm not sure. So it's like the touchdowns can be there. The perceptions are going to be there. Jefferson is so much riskier. Yeah, yeah. That's the facts. And maybe not that much difference in upside. Maybe you're talking me into before we do stats just mentally. I'm going to do it right now. Hold on in my head. And I did. All right. Okay. Now that we get past almond raw. If we if we're going Jeff, um and then Jefferson.

Now is where it gets the next two a little dicey for maybe me not having Jefferson there. CD Lamb at six. Yeah. CD Lamb is 27 years old now, Jason at five. Me and Mike have him at six. CD Lamb. CD Lamb is still very, very good, everybody. CD Lamb is great. CD Lamb had a special 2023. A lot of players do this where they have one year that is just their best. I mean, you don't get a repeat, right? This is not a computer. You don't hit the button and get the same stats. That's why people hate fantasy sometimes. They want to see it go exactly according to plan. Let's just say a couple of truths about C.D. Lamb. Number one, 2023 is going to be the best year he ever had. Yes. Number two, George Pickens is playing for the Dallas Cowboys. Those two things to me, like they take CD Lamb out of my number one overall potential. Yeah, I mean, I think George Pickens is legitimate.

because George was so involved and great, but they had a wide receiver two in the year that CD Lamb was the wide receiver one that was competent. And the not to George Pickett's level. I don't even remember who it was it. Wasn't that one? Amarie? No, I don't think they had. I'll look that up and see who. I'd be curious what the highest ranked wide receiver was in fantasy other than Lamb in 2023. I'm on it. I am now curious. Kyle, get on this. What is the highest ranked wide receiver two for a wide receiver who finished as the one? That's for Kyle. That's a Kyle one. And if Jason was wrong, you put him in the sand trap. Okay, well, you were definitely wrong because number two in targets that year, that would have been. Tight end? Jake Ferguson. Fergalicious. Great receiver. Number three, that was that was the Brandon Cook's I catch a touchdown every week at the end of the year season.

Okay. But he only had 657 yards. Yeah. So not a big, not a George Pickens. No. Well, that's, I said he was, he was definitely better. If you take Ferguson and Cook's numbers and you smash them together, you get George Pickens. Let me ask you a question, Jason. Okay. What C.D. Lamb had disappointment last year. Yeah, I mean, for sure. I think mostly because of the injury, I think if the injury did not happen, he would not have been a. monstrous disappointment lowest points for game since his rookie season yeah i mean the the process as someone who had him and and you know you had a full goose in one of his games that kind of brings down that average the game he got injured he played nine percent of snaps had zero for zero for zero and that's averaged into all those points in the final week of why do you do that did you ever think about like asking yeah he shouldn't i mean honestly he said it hurt

You're supposed to get hurt at the end of the game. Everybody knows that. Yeah. And Jay, just a reminder of the final week of the season, that gaming is the giant. That was like, fake. It was a fake game. Dak played half of it. It was garbage. So are you taking Almanra ahead of him every time? Ahead of CD-Lam, yes. Every time. But it's just like when you, if you take those games out of the average, it's still not going to, it's still going to be a lower than you were expecting for CD-Land, but it's still good. When he came back from the injury, so he's,

obviously coming back from injury, maybe not be at full strength. The 10 games minus that final game, all of those George Pickens was in, right? So this is like the purest stretch of maybe what we can look forward to next year. That 10 game stretch, he would have had 98 receptions for 1446 yards. That's pretty darn good. Yeah, that's pretty good. I think there's a special six names. I think that you just got to the end of it. I think this is where a line is drawn. And you start to be more speculative about your success. Yes, because my number six, or I'm sorry, yeah, my number six, I put it in there, but you're going to have a lot of people disagreeing with that, which we'll get there soon. Oh, oh, I just saw it. By the way, Kyle did, did you announce the official, Kyle figured that out. Oh, really? I have not seen. In 2016, Jordy Nelson was the wide receiver one when Devante was the wide receiver eight. That is the highest. Okay. That's why he gets paid the big buck.

You got your job to do. Number seven on our consensus rankings, seven for me, eight for Jason, nine for Mike, Drake London. You know, the questions around Jake, Drake London have nothing to do with him. Is Kyle a computer? He is a computer. Because I know he went back to Atlanta and then I'm like, I don't, we haven't seen him in person because he comes up with this stuff. But he did live here for a long time as a human. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm saying post. You're saying he became? Maybe. Maybe someone's replaced the lawnmore man. Drake London is, I mean, to me it's a similar argument. Like if you have an argument against Jefferson, then you have an argument against London, except for Jefferson, I think is a better player than London. So in that regard, no disrespect to either player, right? You think Jefferson's great. I think London is great. I'm the highest of the three of us on London. But this is where you go from the special six names to I'm pretty sure it's going to work, but I'm not 100% sure it's going to work. He was great. They have quarterback.

and their lefties and they've got a bunch of them and they're going to figure out what they're doing. Is it going to be Michael Pinnock's experiment going to be temporary? Are we going to see Tua start this season? I don't know. Does the team know what it's doing? They lost their general manager that drafted Michael Pinnock's. They don't. They don't know what they're doing. I will say this. When Drake London was awesome before his injury in week 12, every single game he played because he missed week 8 just like Michael Pinnock's did. He played with Michael Pennix. So I don't think it's the same argument necessarily for, we don't know what Kyler's going to bring to Jefferson. Pennix might not be that great. But this isn't like hypothetical. We saw the games with. What weeks? Because you had Drake London started the year horribly for the first three weeks. The first nine games.

played for Drake London through that. So he was on pace for 113 receptions, 1530 yards and 11 touchdowns. He was a monster. But he wasn't consistent. If you look at you, I'm looking at these games. He's got four games that were pretty disappointing. And then he was the wide receiver five, the wire receiver two, the wire receiver one, the wire receiver one, the wire receiver seven, all those with Michael Pinnock. I understand, but Michael Pinnock is not a guarantee to be the quarterback for the year. They could be changing him. So that's the point that I'm saying is that they're trying to figure it might be two to start the year. It could be. Is that a significant downgrade to you? It's a significant question mark for me versus the top six names. That's all. I don't, I don't, what do we want? We want winning teams. Okay. Are they going to be a winning team? No, I would say that the Vikings. You want a good offense. Top half offense. I say the Vikings are a better team than the Falcons. Yeah. And look, I have them ranked at seven. So again, we're only ringing up the negatives of the top 10.

That's pretty much all we're doing is bringing up how it goes wrong. And I think there's a path for it to go wrong with him because it went wrong for Waddle and Tyreek with Tua. And they're good players. What is this new offense? Drake London, like the top wide receivers, you move them around. When you have top wide receivers with a good coach, so that's where the argument is. Because Drake London was moved around a lot, and I guess that sounds like I'm saying the Atlanta coaches were good. They were, they at least moved him around and they put him in the slot. And he was very successful in there. In the slot, only Pook and Rishi Rice had a higher target per route run when he would run his routes from the slot. Will the new crew allow him to do that? This is a player, I think, too, that is the most. I'm saying they have to because they don't have any. It's.

It's the logical coaching fallacy that we fall for frequently. He missed a lot of time last year and they had nobody else as well. So I wonder if they add somebody. I mean, they have to add someone. They have to. Jehan Dodson is probably their second best. I mean, Pitts is the number two target, but Jehan Dodson, Olimity Zakias, Devin Tompkins, Dylan Drummond, like they don't have that one's made up. That one's made up. Yeah, I did make that. Look. If they don't draft the wide receiver with their first or second pick. Right. Yeah, what happens then? Then probably their third. But what if they don't get them with the third pick? Okay, what other options would they have at that point? They will consider using their fourth pick on one of the wide receivers who's left. One week and we'll find out. Number eight is Malik Neighbors. And again, here we go. This one's me. My ranking is very aggressive right now. Yeah, Mike has him at five. I've got him at 11. Jason at 9.

Mike and I discuss this briefly in the studio. This was two different opinions on basically right now I'm going with, I'm waiting to see that he's healthy to rank him higher. Mike is like, okay, as if he's healthy, I'm going to rank him here. I am getting more nervous by the day because the only news that seems to be coming out is not the glowing reports. Not ahead of schedule stuff? Yes, not the reports that you really want to see. You know, it's like in my initial going through these guys, I put Malik at five because I do fully believe that if Malik can be healthy enough in the, you know, in the off season or like the training camp and get up to full speed faster, you know, like by game three or so, I think he will be a true difference maker for your wide receiver crew. And he's being drafted at wide receiver seven right now in best ball. So the people who are putting money.

into their drafts are drafting him aggressively because they're sharing the belief that I have of if he's healthy it's a big if he's going to dominate like he he will be what's wild is we've never got to see Malik neighbors with Jackson dark exactly we've not got to see it at all because they had one throw down the sideline that he caught and tore his ACL like I've I've personally already seen enough from Dart to go yep we can sustain you give him a leak neighbors this is the This is the Jefferson type of player who's going to get a 30% target share, and he's just such a strong wide receiver. Yeah, a freak athlete, a brilliant wide receiver that he's going to end up in the top three. But the injury, it was, in a reminder for everyone, it was not just ACL, it was ACL Plus meniscus, which is far more complicated. Nice.

You got the meniscus add on? Our number one wide receiver is Jamar Chase, and this is the closest of an athlete to Jamar Chase in the rest of the NFL. The ability for him with the depth chart and his freakishness to finish as the number one wide receiver overall, I could see happen. But he does have some major flags against him, obviously the injury. The other is the team. You know, we talked about is this going to be a top half team? Is this going to be a great offense? Probably not. It was weird to see the one Jackson Dart week where he like did nothing at all in the passing game. What does the identity of the offense look like with the new head coach, an offensive coordinator situation? But the talent is there. I'm holding back my enthusiasm until we get better progress reports on the injury. Let's take a break and then Jason's got a surprise. All right. At number nine in our top 15 early wide receiver rankings, it is Rishi Rice.

I've got him at 12, Mike at 10, Jason's got him at 6. There you go. He's got him ahead of Drake London, ahead of Malik neighbors. It's just a matter of if he's on the field, he's really good for fantasy. It doesn't upset me. We miss, you know, last year he obviously was suspended for the first six weeks. And then later in the season, they lost Patrick Mahomes. I don't know if that. I think that Rushie wasn't even a part of those. He was out with concussions. Yeah, they're like, yeah, wrap it up. Let's go get that draft pick. Good job, Kansas City. That's how you do it. But when he's on the field, he is the first three target. He is the chain mover. He is the in zone target now more than Kelsey. This is a player who scores a ton of fantasy points in all formats.

He led the Chiefs in Red Zone targets and receptions last year. He missed nine games. His pace was about 112 for 1213, which makes sense with the low yards per catch and 10.6 touchdowns. They manufactured touchdowns for him. Let me tell you my good and bad of Rushie Rice. I don't know if he's as good of a player as he is on the Chiefs in actuality. 100%. If he just went and played for somebody else. I feel like... There have been players on this team that you're like, I mean, again, none of us think McCall Hardman's a very good player. He's had his moments on the Chiefs, right? When he's been a part of this offense. He's not Tyree Kill where when Tyree Kill changes teams, he's the best wide receiver in the league still. Yeah, and I'm not comparing Rice with Hardman. I'm just saying they draw up special plays. You talk about him being a red zone target. I think it's yes and no. Unless when the Chiefs, you're talking about him being a.

Like this is the guy they do the tap pass to. This is the guy they, you know, they do the pitch. They do all this drawn up special stuff for Rashi Rice with into rounds and things around the goal line. He's a weapon. He's their best weapon on offense right now. So that's the argument. Now, do we got 100% of Mahomes in week one? Do we get 100% of Rashi Rice all year? Those are different questions. I'm saying pick nine. Yeah. Like where the other guys are like, hey, if they add a wide receiver to Jamar, I don't. really care puka you're like maybe a little bit Jordan Tyson to the chiefs yeah the yeah those things what would you do then these other guys it doesn't matter but Jordan Tyson at nine a anyone at nine or lemon or tape any of the big three that it changes things I agree I mean that that pick is monstrous this is why Andy said at the top of the show your answer to the quick question was the Kansas City Chiefs and their draft capital it's going to

shuffle around what we believe of their entire offense. Now, hopefully it's an offensive lineman. He's wide receiver 11 in basketball drafts. They're taking a wide out. He's a wide receiver 11 in best ball drafts. That puts the, you know, your gap. puts them in that my guy territory today. Like, you know what I mean? Not that you would pick him. It's just that in the disparity between where players are being taken and where you would take them, that's a guy you have a lot of confidence in compared to consensus. For sure. If they take a wide receiver at 9, which they very well might, I would lower him significantly from the standpoint of he's not the only real asset to lead the way for them. And also I would move him even lower in Dynasty because that to me,

would mark a, he's an unrestricted free agent at the end of the year. Sure they could franchise him. He wants JSN money. The chiefs don't want to and are paying my homes. He's not going to get JSN money, I don't believe. And so I think that, and he carries some, some off the field issues from time to time. Now, it's worth saying from time to time every now and again, especially the and again part. Yeah. It's worth noting that all of the worries of the latest allegation have been checked out by the NFL. They said there's no issue, and he is not getting a suspension. The commissioner's exempt list is interested in. Right. They are. They're looking. They're monitoring. George is number 10. George Pickens comes in at number 10. It was a special, special year for George Pickens. I guess one of the questions I have for you, where do we have it? I got them at 8, Mike at 8, Jason at 13. Maybe Jason answered it with that ranking.

But was that just like a combination of that lamb injury with a free agent season, 1,400 yards, 9 touchdowns, 93 catches? How close to that can he really get this season? I think he can still get extremely close. He is one of the, like C.D. Lamb has the built-in, if one of the, you know, like C.D. Lamb misses time, George Pickens is awesome. If Pickens misses time, C.D. Lamb is awesome. And then when they're both healthy, they're both excellent. They're both awesome. Yeah. So, I mean, you can't have C.D. Lamb and George Pickens both putting up 1,700 yards. That just, that won't happen. But the consistency of having him with DAC and DAC is just such a fantasy-friendly quarterback, I keep my confidence up of what I watched George Pickens do on the field.

Yeah, I mean, I shared it in my C.D. Lamb. I think C.D. Lamb is the dominant one here. George Pickens is awesome. He was a my guy for me last year because I thought he was being underdrafted, and he matches DAC perfect. The things that Pickens does matches what they need for that wide receiver two. But the inflated numbers from last year are in part because of that injury. That injury to C.D. Lamb, those weeks, two of those three weeks, he was the wide receiver one and the wide receiver two. His 17 game pace from those three weeks would have been,

Over 2,000 yards and 22 touchdowns. Like they were monstrous weeks. He got both C.D. and George's combined stats. But I do agree with Mike. It's not a bad idea when you draft these guys because should either one go down to an injury, the other will get inflated. Nico Collins at number 11. Oh, man. Where's Mike have him? 12. Oh, man. You hate Nico. So Nico is, Nico is weird because you don't necessarily feel good about the offense. You definitely don't. I mean, they have gotten worse in, like, their yards per game totals. Like in 2023, the breakout year, they were 12th. Then they went to 22nd, then 18th last year. Stroud really gave people just a lot of hesitancy around the offense. But Nico's awesome. I mean, like, in spite, it's a very much in spite of situation. Nico gets it done. He's always a threat for 10 touchdowns. Last year, he underwhelmed there. He only had six.

So I feel like with the physicality that he brings to the table, that's always in up there. He missed some time, a couple games, still hit 1,000 yards, 71 for 11, 17, and 6. It's pretty simple to me. Nico is awesome. I don't want to play against Nico Collins in my fantasy matchup because he can go ham. But this is not a, I feel like this might even be the first guy, well, George as well. they aren't the type of guys that are getting 100 receptions. You know, Nico's going to go out there and get probably 80 receptions. Now, they're deep bomb shots. Yeah, it's Mike Evans numbers. Yeah, exactly. And I just prefer the volume and the consistency of others, but I love Nico. The fact, so right now, again, everything we referenced for ADP right now is going to be underdog on baseball. But so his ADP, talking about Nico's wide receiver 10, going at the 302.

and George is going at the 212. The fact that a person with an early first round pick can take Gibbs and then, oh, look who's there for my next two selections. George Pickens and Nico Collins, that feels a bit unfair. I do feel confident. Like, we always ask the question every year. Do you like that guy being your number one? Yeah, I do. I'm fine with Nico being my number one. Yeah, he does feel... Which in the third round is crazy. That's special. He would, I mean, he's had, what was it? Was it not last year, but the year before he was the number one through like the first 12 weeks or something like that? I mean, before he had the hamstring. Okay, so the first five weeks, sorry. Before he went down in 2024, I believe he was sitting at like number one. He was averaging...

A lot of points. He was averaging 18 points. I mean, he scored, he scored seven times that year and he missed five games. Last year was an outlier in the in the touchdown number. I mean, he had, I think he can get to double digit. Let's put it that way. I think it's possible. I think so, especially with the way, you know, he's got deep shots all the time that can be housed for touchdowns. He had a six game stretch last year. Weeks 10 through 15 where he was just. dominating deep shots. He was on pace for 1600 yards. I mean, he's great and I would agree. I would be comfortable with him with my one. He was outscored by this next player in our rankings. Who I don't feel good as my number one. We'll have almost for sure more targets and receptions should they both play full seasons.