The TRUTH About Fantasy WRs in 2020, Part 2 - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/4

But this episode is called The Truth of Wide Receivers, and Tyler Lockett hurt you as often as he helped you. More often. Well, I wouldn't say that. Statistically wise. He definitely hurt you 50% of the time were his bust games. He absolutely busted, just flat out, crushed your team, 50% of the time. And he was good 38% of the time.

And it wasn't just that, though, because it was, if you look at the string of games, it wasn't every other. It was, he would lull you into a false sense of confidence of he started out nuclear hot, had the couple bad games before the buy week. You're like, oh, you know, everyone has bad games. We talk about that. Wide receivers are inconsistent. Right after the buy week, the number one wide receiver on the week against Arizona, I believe that was the 200-yard game.

And then he's terrible for another stretch, but then he plays Arizona again, and he's good. And then you just kept punching yourself in the face repeatedly as you played Tyler Lockett over and over and over through the rest of your fantasy season. And he did not help you one time between Weeks 12 and Championship Week. We're varying the lead, which is the consistency rank that we evaluate with. Yes. He was the number nine overall fantasy-wide receiver.

No one doubting the skill ability talent. No, he's great. And upside of Tyler Lockett on a weekly basis. His consistency rank on the season at the wide receiver position was 44. That has to be a record. That gap has to be a record. Yeah. Eight bus games, three good games, three great games on the season. Two of them against Arizona, as you mentioned.

And look, the end of the year, it was so difficult. It was tougher on D.K. Metcalf on Russell Wilson, on the passing offense. And so this was just bewildering because through the first three weeks, you looked like you had a rock solid, like you played Tyler Lockett the rest of the year. That's the truth. You played him the rest of the year, which is what makes the truth about Tyler Lockett so difficult. He was drafted as the wide receiver 22. He finished at nine. Now, that's a value.

Mm-hmm. But it was tough. Here's where Tyler Lockett helped you. If you traded him halfway through the season, you were awesome because you drafted him and he was great the first half of the year. The first half of the year, first eight weeks, he was the wide receiver four. This really was a tale of two seasons for Russell Wilson. We've talked about that. We talked about it with D.K. Metcalf.

But on a per game basis, he was the wide receiver 44 in the second half of the season. So he was someone that did not help you at all the second half of the season outside of, you know, a good game here or there, he crushed you more often than not. So if you, if you ended up happening to get a trade offer for Tyler Lockett halfway through the year and decide to move on, capitalize on that value, then phenomenal. Outside of that.

It was the most disappointing top 10 wide receiver performance of all time. Yeah, and he had the highest bus rate ever for a top 10 wide receiver since the truth series on this show was birthed, which is the past five years. And the wide receiver 42, like Jason said, in points per game from the second half of the season. Yeah, list of players who would have helped your fantasy team more than lock it in that span. Darnell Mooney, Tim Patrick, Jacoby Myers, Zach Pascal.

Chad Hanson. And now, good news, the Seahawks want to get back to running the ball more. That's their big offseason plan. And so, yikes. All right. We'll end with yikes. The truth about that's our assessment for 2021. Yes. Yikes. Yikes for the wide receivers of the Seattle Seahawks. They're probably going to be overdrafted. Yeah, when you finish it nine, that's what happens. Number 10, Mike.

Evans finished at 10th, consistency rank of 15th, 31% bus, 63% good games, 13% great. He was solid. He's the guy. He was solid. He is the guy. And I think we had Justin Jefferson. We talked about him on the last episode. And we kind of said, okay, you look over the course of the year and you get to throw out a little bit of the beginning of the year because he's a rookie establishing himself. Now, Mike Evans is not a rookie. But Tom Brady was a rookie in this offense with Bruce Ariens.

And you saw a lot more consistency from Mike Evans over the second half. The first half, he was 25th in consistency. The second half, he was 13th. He really was a very rock-solid receiver for your team over that span. And I think Jason's point should not be lost. He is the guy. He's who Brady preferred to throw the ball to Godwin, Antonio Brown, Gronk came up second. Yeah, it took time to figure out who it was going to be, not just for fantasy analysts, but for the team themselves.

You saw that through the beginning of the year. But from week eight on, he was the wide receiver eight. He's the clear one for the team going forward. You've got Chris Godwin as a free agent. Antonio Brown is a free agent. Mike Evans is in tow. So Mike Evans, you know, look, all he's done is be a phenomenal fantasy wide receiver every single year of his career. And he hit the thousand. We just made it. He got hurt. 106 yards, 13 touchdowns. Career high.

I mean, I'm, I'm all about Mike Evans going into next season. I think it's clear that he established this is my team, Chris Godwin, and you can, you can be a part of it. I think it'll probably be a little overdrafted. Like this is not the kind, this is not the style of wide receiver that I necessarily lean into for fantasy where last year, 67 receptions, this year 70 receptions, 13 touchdowns career high.

You know, if you end up 70 and 1,08, which he had the previous two years, you're not finishing inside the top 10, that's for sure. Yeah, but you had 16 end zone targets for Mike Evans, which that number is probably going to continue moving forward. So you're saying, if Godwin does leave the Tampa Bay Buccaneers next year, you feel like you would be out on Evans? Not out on Evans.

in totality, but compared to his draft price most likely. All right. But it just depends on what other options they have. I doubt Bruce Ariens is going to let, you know, multiple guys walk and Evans will be all alone. When we saw volume from Evans, he was all alone in the offense when James Winston was throwing the ball a ton. But I don't know. It reminds me of Vincent Jackson, you know, with 67, 70 reception totals. Sure. He's one of the players where double-digit touchdowns is very...

You know, you can expect him to be in that range for sure. Him and Adams. But 13 is a little bit high. That's all I'm saying. Sure. But the yardage will be there. And that's the nice thing with Evans. He's got the longest active streak of thousand yards seasons, has never not had a thousand yards season. So I don't think Mike Evans will be overdrafted. Once you've been in the league a long, long time, you get a little bit of fatigue over some of these players. And I feel like there has been some Mike Evans fatigue. Well, he was technically overdrafted this year.

He was technically overdrafted this year. What was his ADP? Eight. Finished at 15th in consistency, 10th at the position. We said it before the year. We thought Evans and Godwin would both be overdrafted because they had to perfectly hit with Brady to...

to return on their draft price. Yeah, I would not say you're overdrafted, though. If you're drafted at 8, you finish at 10. I mean, obviously you can you could say that, well, he finished lower than where he was drafted, but that's not. Okay, are you happy? Were you happy with the season from Evans in totality with the consistency factored in? What's the truth about your satisfaction ranking on Evans at 8 overall? The truth about Mike Evans is that if you held Pat and you used him the whole season, I think you were thrilled with him by the end. Okay.

Yeah, I mean, that's fair. He delivered when it mattered. Weeks 10, 11, 12, 15, and 16, huge weeks. All right, we'll move on to A.J. Brown, before we do that, want to thank today's sponsors, and we've got a new one for you. Manly bands, gentlemen, for the better part of their lives or better halves have been fantasizing about the perfect wedding ring. Cut, clarity, carrot, color, you name it, for us.

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This next player, A.J. Brown, this is one of the gold minds of the truth episodes. Right here. Yes. Finishes at 11. That's where he's going to show up and probably about where he's going to be going into next year. A.J. Brown is not the 11th best wide receiver in fantasy football. Correct. A.J. Brown belongs where his consistency rank is, which was sixth overall. He was...

dominant and yet the part of the year where you make your first impression coming off of a great rookie season, it was huge letdown. Bad game, injured, injured by week. And you forgot about him. I had him as one of our keepers coming into the season. It was awful. I felt like that whole first month, I did not get the player and it really does sour your opinion on him and it will reflect the next year's draft price. But from week five on, once he was back,

He was the wide receiver three in fantasy football. He is elite. You saw that in his rookie season. He backed it up this coming year. Corey Davis is a free agent. They could resign him. I'm sure they'll bring in other wide receivers. But the alpha is there. I think that's what the A.J. Green stands for. A.J. Brown. It's Alpha J. Brown.