The TRUTH: Top Tier Fantasy WRs in 2019

lead good wide receiver or were they not? Where would they rank based on that score? All right. So number one overall, we mentioned it. It's Michael Thomas. He was the number one overall fantasy wide receiver. He was also number one by way of consistency rank. Not a surprise. He had eight games that qualified as great week-winning weeks. He had six good weeks. He had one actual bust week.

And so one thing I don't know if you mentioned it, missed games do not count against your consistency score. So if a player was injured and they missed a few games, we're looking at the games that they played in totality so that you understand that when you started them, this is the outcome you received as a fantasy football player. Yeah, because if they were fully injured and did not suit up, you didn't start them. Yeah, they couldn't be inconsistent for you because they weren't out there. But...

You have Michael Thomas here. So what are some takeaways from this majestic season? 149 receptions, 1725 yards and nine touchdowns. He was really good and consistent and great. I mean, look, you know, we talked about the wide receiver two this year would have been the top 10 last year. That gap. You're talking about he scored 300 fantasy points and half point scoring. The number two was 233 points. That's...

outlandish that gap. So he was the most consistent based on our metric and based on just everyone's experience. Pretty much every game was good. He had two bad games and one of them was week 17. Doesn't really count for him. It didn't even matter. So there's not much to say. When you break the NFL record for receptions, you have to be consistent. Yeah, Michael Thomas would have outscored Odell Beckham Jr. If we only counted Michael Thomas's home games this year. That's wild, man.

So did she? A little bit of a compliment to Michael Thomas and an insult to Odell Beckham. That's why it's great. Incredible. What I did not project this. And I honestly, I did not see this coming for Michael Thomas has jumped from 4,000 from 125 and 1400 to nearly 150 and over 1,700 receiving yards. Yeah, because probabilities on the other side of that equation. That's why I didn't like juju. You didn't think his numbers could go up.

It was hard to go up for my time. So the big question for Thomas then. He's the number one wide receiver. He was the number one advantage at the wide receiver position this year. Also the most consistent. Are you just slotting him in to your number one in your rankings heading into 2020? I am absolutely doing it. Assuming that Drew Breeze is the quarterback, he should be the number one because his ability. With Teddy Bridgewater, he was just fine. He was just fine, but not like number one wide receiver.

You know, what's unique about Thomas is he's completely unstoppable, and it was proven through the duration of the season when he went from the Bridgewater days and being in the, you know, 13, 17, 22, bring Breeze back, don't have other weapons outside of Jared Cook, really. I mean, is there anybody that you could rely on outside of Cook? Not really. No. Camara out of the backfield. And then he goes into an onslaught of top 10 performances over the back half of the year. You can't.

scheme against him. So Jason's right. If consistency of the offense stays the same, Breeze, Payton, those pieces, why wouldn't you just put him at number one? Yeah, it would be really hard. I mean, that's not to guarantee he finishes there. But when you are both the most consistent and the overall number one, there's no reason you should say, well, I don't think, you know, his true catch rate this last year at 90.

What? Is no. So he had 180 targets, 155 of those were deemed catchable. So 100, thank you, 155 catchable targets. He caught 149 of them. I mean, that's impossible. That's amazing. He's making Larry Fitzgerald look like a bad, wide, like that guy catches nothing. Drew Brees catches a sticky football or throws a sticky football. Chris Godwin at number two. Let's move on.

Chris Godwin came in as, I was, you know, when you look at the end of the season, I was kind of surprised he ended up at number two. The gap between saying Michael Thomas' name and what Godwin ended up being seems massive. Jason, he was still the number two most consistent wide receiver as well? Yeah, so spoiler here, the top three guys were also the three most consistent. And that makes, you know, it makes a lot of sense. You would hope.

as a fantasy player that all the top players, if you just go top to bottom, that top to bottom, they're the same consistency score. And that's, you know, that's kind of true for a lot of players. But that's why this truth series is focusing on which ones are the real outliers who were less consistent than their score or later on who was more consistent than what their fantasy finish was. Chris Godwin here.

You know, he did it on a regular basis. He only busted 7% of his games, which is a great number for a wide receiver. He was just very good. And I think if anybody out there that had Chris Godwin, he was a special get because he wasn't, you know, Michael Thomas was drafted as a top five, top six wide receiver. Chris Godwin wasn't, and he finished up there. So he was just phenomenal.

36% of the time. He was a week-winning type of player, 64% in the good category. Obviously, he missed week 16 and 17 with injury. He was pretty impressive. I think he was one of those players. People wanted to be behind in the off-season, but weren't sure with the existence of Mike Evans. He was the hot value, breakout type of wide receiver.

Yeah, it was very consistent. He did pad, like the top end numbers to get up to number two, basically with those two games where he was outrageous in week four against the Rams and then later on against Atlanta. Much better on the road? Much better against good defenses as well. Yeah, it must be just be, you know, James.

turn to the easier targets. Well, we saw this with the Aryan system coming in. This was kind of projected in the sense that the slot wide receiver and area system for a decade has been extremely used. So Chris Godwin going into next year will be a top 10 draft pick at wide receiver. And I think he probably should be. There's a lot of question marks around the quarterback, right? Who's the quarterback? Is it James?

Is it someone they're going to try to draft or bring in or, you know, is it Tom Brady? Oh, I have a new destination for Brady. Of course you do. Okay, let's hear it. The Colts. What do you mean? That's a new one. I've been saying that in the studio forever. Okay, well, it's new for me. When you came in and you said your little weird Titans thing, I was like, dude, the Colts are the team that make the most sense. So the Titans made sense until they got as far as they've got. Now, now it's going to be tough sledding. Yeah. You think?

We tried to warn you. Chris Godwin, though, slowed down a little bit in the second half in terms of those impressive performances. And he's like, he's just so fringy with his not bust games. I know, because he's got two that really were. I mean, we have to make decisions here. You have to make an actual cable. This is the point threshold. Because his two of his three bad games.

Where he was wide receiver 42, eight points. Which is above seven. He made it. And then the other one, wide receiver 54, seven points. I mean, all right. He's, he's throwing the line. Points per game from week 10 on for context is about where I have Godwin in reality, which is the wide receiver eight. I mean, I think five to eight is a much safer place to put them. I don't think any of us are going to go out there and put, are you going to draft Godwin over Julio Jones? Are you going to draft Godwin?

Over DeAndre Hopkins. No. I mean, the big one. Are you drafting Godwin over Mike Evans? That's a great question. And I won't. I will. And it's based on what this episode is. It's based on, I realize that Evans, next year, Evans very, very well might score more fantasy points than Chris Godwin. But the consistency of how those points come, I think will be.

more in Chris Godwin's favor because of his role as that slot possession guy. And I would rather have the consistency than the big blowups and the busts. And some of that might be team composition decision for the big games versus what else you have at the position for your roster. Julio Jones comes in at number three. He was also the third most consistent fantasy-wide receiver, as Jason said. The top three guys, they were consistent as well.

33% great games, 53% good games. One bus game, four in that meh in between category. 99 receptions, 1,394 yards, and 6 touchdowns on 157 targets. Pretty much the same statistical output at home as on the road. And, you know, Julio B and Julio. If we had a consistency metric for seasons, which we don't currently,

Julio would be, I mean, he has to be like number one because he just, this is what you get from Julio. We know what we, you just, you wish, you brain, you hope for more touchdowns. They don't come. They don't come. But goodness gracious. I mean, year after year after year, Julio Jones gets it done. His.

Listen to these yards over the last few years. This was a real down year. It was. 1,394 yards. He didn't pass 1,400. Incredible. Loser. The last several years. He only played 15 games, though. Yes, that's true. 1,400 yards, 1,400 yards, 1,800 yards, 1,800 yards, 1,800 yards, 1,800 yards. These are...

That's outlandish. And I don't see it changing. He's under big money contract going forward. He looked great through the completion of the season. So Julio is... Well, the Falcons threw the ball more than any team in football. Number one. So, I mean, it's like when Calvin was out there year after year with Stafford. As long as Matt Ryan and Julio Jones stay connected, is there any reason it's going to change? No. And I would draft Julio over Godwin for sure. Well, and Julio always has the opportunity to be the number one guy.

as long as he's in that situation. If you drafted him, were you happy with Julio? I think the answer has to be yes. Has to be. Yeah. You drafted him as a top three guy. He finished his top three guy. Most, I say mostly because of when you had a run here of weeks 10 or 9 through 14, and it includes his buy, where he was basically the wide receiver 47. I mean, when it was crunch time. Well, that's because he only played in three games. He played.

I mean, three of five weeks, you're going to have a bad ranking. I remember when that time period was there. You can't say, well, it's because he didn't play. He hurt your team. Independent, you might have been upset. But when you consider it relative to all the other wide receivers in their output and what we've seen this year with the down year and the fact that, look, Julio ended up as consistency rank number three, it's hard to complain when you look at all the other positions or the other players at the position to me. But there was a period of time when we're kind of like, well,

You know, after the bye week, where's real Julio? Catch a touchdown pass, please. All right, number four, here's where it gets messy, messy. We got a week 17 patter. That's true. That's true because it was not good. He doesn't feel like the wide receiver four on the year. This is why the truth episodes matter. Cooper Cup is the number four overall fantasy wide receiver. I'd be like we need to just.

Quadruple check. This seems so unlikely. The consistency rank for Cooper Cup, 14. Outside the top 12.

Yeah, I mean, and you felt it, right? Because you look at those first five weeks. He was extremely consistent during that time. And you thought you had the number one wide receiver. I remember a lot of conversation going between Cooper Cup and D'Andre Hopkins. Because Hopkins started the year so slow. And Cooper Cup was so good, so far and away the number one wide receiver in fantasy. And he had been basically that when you looked at his...

passed with the Rams when he was healthy on a per game basis. But from week six on, the dude wrecked your team. If you traded for him after that week five, you lost, you didn't make the playoffs because you gave up a lot to get him. And then he was basically, you know, he had two good games. The rest of the way, if you're not playing in week 17. He was.