Early WR Rankings: Top 10 Countdown, Risk vs Reward - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/11

On today's episode, we are breaking down the tippy, tippy top of the wide receiver position. Make sure you stay for all the debates. And at the top, a little bonus talk about the Packers' wide receivers. Subscribe to this channel. Don't miss a moment. Enjoy. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Hey, look it down low. Hey. is the fantasy footballers. By, ba, baboo. Thursday, April 11th. That's right. We're back. Mike Wright. Jason Moore. Andy Holloway. The Ducers are here as well. Did you just hiccup, Jason? I heard a sound. A little bit. Yeah. Thanks for calling that out. Sorry about that. Yes, I did. It didn't have to be called out. You did it right into the microphone. But people would have wondered, they were gone.

They wouldn't know what they heard. It might have gotten edited out if I didn't call it out. People might have been searching their speakers saying, I got a problem. Yeah. They would have thought that there's an issue with the wiring. Yeah. Ah, my car speaker does that sometimes. That was his intro to the show. Sorry. We'll move on. Well, we just did a early wide receiver rankings episode. We counted it down from 20 to 11. So today we will do the early top 10 wide receiver rankings. and we'll talk about a very interesting quick question. It should be a good show. It should be fun. There's a couple of players in particular on the top 10 countdown that I think will be hotly contested today and throughout the offseason. And you're going to have to plant your flag on what you believe about these players because the cost to acquire them.

will be pricing. It will be expensive. It will be something where if you're wrong, it is a significant impact to the foundation of your team, in my opinion. Yeah, for sure. You get the top picks wrong and you're going to have to scrap and claw your way back. I don't think a lot of the early Cooper Cup drafters last year had a great time. You know, like when you miss it, like you said. No, we did not. Oh, man. Yeah. Same with Garrett Wilson last year. When Aaron Rogers played, what, like? four seconds of a game. Yeah, it didn't work. You saw all of your plans crumbling. If we have extra time, we'll jump into the mailbag as well. A couple reminders at the top of the episode. There is a new Dynasty podcast episode out. It was yesterday's show. And it is a mock draft mayhem episode, Jason Moore, Matthew Betts, Cobborganoni. How much mayhem actually happened? Yeah.

Um, quite a bit of mayhem. And, and you know what was really fun? It was a great show. I highly recommend if you, if you haven't given it a listen yet, if you're wanting to learn about these, these upcoming rookies, it was a very, very good show. I honestly thought that Kyle's idea of how we were going to do the mayhem. Right. And this is just like being honest. I thought it was so stupid. Yeah. I thought I was like, this is not going to tell me that. I did. This is going to go well. And then it not only did it go well.

What a great idea. Like it was actually, it was actually super useful from like a fantasy perspective and how you would shift based on what happened to the draft. So it was a great episode. Check it out. Yeah, rookie mock draft mayhem for from a dynasty perspective. We also want to remind you about the ultimate draft kit, don't we, Mike? Certainly do. That's not a secret. What? The ultimate draft? No, the ultimate draft kit. No, it's not a secret. The cat's out of the bag. Yeah, ultimatedraft.com, lowest possible price right now. And the Dynasty Pass will be getting its third. The big Bada Boom update will be out shortly after the NFL draft. All right. Quick question of the day from YouTube. Thomas writes in and says, well, I guess it's a question.

It sounds like a demand. It's kind of a demand. Rank the Packers wide receivers for Dynasty. Yeah, rank them. What's the gap from one to another? That's not a request. No, that's not a demand. But he is saying it demonstratively and I feel like I should obey. So rank the Packers, Jason. Rank them. I think the real question primarily is at the top. Who's the one? Who's the two? Because I would imagine that all three of us have Christian Watson and, And Jaden Reed? Yeah, and Jaden Reed, what was that face you were doing? My face was saying that there is still, I still think the windows cracked open for there to be another number one. Like I do think that there's the possibility that. Like Dobbs? Like Dobbs can still, I mean, that's what makes them so hard. That's why he is demanding this is because you have talent throughout the roster with Jaden Reed Watson. We've seen the big plays and the touchdowns with Romeo Dobbs, reliable. And then even Dantavian Wicks, who.

I think from a skill set standpoint, really stood out last year. Yes, he did. And so, you know, it's hard because Jaden Reed is a little less prototypical. He is great with the ball in his hand. They give him into rounds. They give him short area targets. He seems to be a go-to receiver at times. And then other times he can fade away from a game plan because of just the nature of his physicality and the type of player that he is. it makes it more complicated. I mean, he's 511-187. He's an explosive player, but he can disappear, but yet ended the year with four straight top performances. Yeah, Jaden Reed's a good football player, a good wide receiver. The question for fantasy purposes is, can he be the one for this team? He clearly was at the end of the season when they needed him and he came through big time. Those four games, Andy, he was on pace over those four games. If you extrapolate that over 17, just to give you an idea of how good he was.

It would have been over 100 receptions, just under 1,200 yards, and 13 touchdowns. He was a monster at the end of the season. However, he scored her dealing with a chest and a toe injury. He scored a touchdown on 13% of his touches. And that's great, but the nice thing about those numbers is the yards and the receptions were there too. So it wasn't just like, well, all of this production came from touchdowns. No, I'm not saying it all comes from touchdowns, but I'm saying every seven and a half touches. For Jane Reed, he scored a touchdown. That's not... It's certainly not... I would bet against it. Yeah, especially for a 187 pound player, but that pace was... 13 touchdowns. Yeah, and not only that, oh, those games were the games at the end of the year that Christian Watson was not in. So when Christian Watson played over 70% of the snaps through the middle of the season, weeks 5 through 13, how did Jaden Reed do in those games when he wasn't necessarily the focal point of the offensive game plan?

Well, he would have had a 17-game pace of 59 receptions for 658 yards and six touchdowns. So I do believe that when the entire wide receiver court is healthy and together, Christian Watson is still the primary focus. He's still the better athlete. Now, this is, I mean, it's debatable. This is just my view. Oh, we will debate. This is my view. And it's really just an educated opinion because there's no way to know, you know, it's hard to extrapolate a rookie season when a player's emerging. It's hard to trust Christian Watson, who is perennially injured. So both of those things complicate matters. I think Dobbs probably doesn't have the ceiling, which would put him at three for me.

But I lean, to answer the question or the demand, I would go read Watson Dobbs Wicks. Read Watson Dobbs. That's how I have it as well. Attorneys at law. But the fact that you're debating this and we're all kind of saying, well, I have it this way. This is why, like I have Romeo Dobbs as an interesting trade for target in dynasty because he. Cheapest. Yeah, he's like. And Dantavian Wix is probably in that category too. It's just if you want a cheap entry point into the Green Bay Packers wide receiver crew, which you should, because it looks like Jordan Love is the real deal. It looks like the Green Bay Packers got it. They nailed it again, and you're going to have a stable quarterback and a good high-powered offense here. You want pieces of it. Jane Reed, trying to trade for Jane Reed right now in Dynasty is going to be extremely difficult.

And there is still a chance that he just, that was kind of the most efficient and the best that you'll ever see Jane Reed. He'll be a good player, but maybe he never really comes through for Dynasty. So if I'm going after a Green Bay Packer, it's probably Dobbs or Donatavian Wicks just because they're cheaper. And I really don't know who is going to emerge. I think that Christian Watson is the most talented. the highest ceiling should he be able to become a more refined wide receiver, and if he can ever have a healthy hamstring. Yeah, I mean, that's the issue. I think even as an unrefined receiver, he can get it done if he can just get on the field and stay there. He dealt with his hamstring issues. And to be fair, that is an issue. I know we don't try to qualify guys as injury prone, but this is a human being. No, this guy is a problem. That from basically peewee, you know, football all the way. He's dealt with injuries.

his entire career. That being said, is he at the top of your list? He's at the top of my list. It goes Christian Watson, Jaden Reed, Dobbs, Wicks. Because of sealing, and I'm not going to just predict injury. Any of these guys could get injured next year. If they're all on the field, I believe Christian Watson is the best one. To me, he's the trade for target. Watson? Christian Watson. I think people are done with him. There are plenty of people out there at least that are done with him, and it might. just be the people who have had him that are the most sick of him like, yeah, I'll take anything for this. He has been extremely touchdown dependent in the games that he was valuable for your fantasy team. That has been, and it can be good and it can be bad and obviously he's very capable of getting into the end zone and making big plays. So it'll be fascinating to watch. I think we all believe that Green Bay is going to have a lot of fantasy value. Stability at the coach, quarterback position. It'll be interesting.

And then just the real quick bow here for me on talking Don Tavian Wicks. If you've been following the show over the offseason, we're talking about rookies with their targets per route run and yards per route run. He's at a very healthy point of, you know, he had a from weeks 12 through 18, over 22% of his routes. He was targeted. He had 2.21 yards per route run. That's a good strong number for the sample size. So he is. he's a he's a fascinating second year player and and jordan love you know maybe yeah maybe that just trade for jordan love right yeah jordan love was great do you do you realize where he ranked in passing touchdowns last year and what are your guesses total touchdowns total passing touchdowns what was his rank quarterback what i'm gonna wow see i don't know what the setup is i think the setup might be he was good but didn't have that many i'm gonna guess eighth

Eighth, Mike. I was seven, eight was my gut reaction. Number two. Number two. Yeah. Dak Press got through more and that was it. He threw more than Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes. So impressive. I know. It's like stupid Packers. You're not allowed to keep getting away with it. And and Ducer's Allie's got a smirking Alborland over there. Remembering. Yeah. It's cheering. He's cheering. Who? Okay. Just quit. Just real quick. Temperature check because hearing that. and these wide receivers and everything. It's so wild. Jordan Love at his price or C.J. Stroud at his price, Dynasty. It's got to be love. Yeah, C.J. Stroud's price is. It's not what it would not. It's your left arm. I want both arms. I want both guys. I want both guys. I want to keep my arms. I apparently want no arms. You want both arms. I'm willing to give up both of mine to get both those players.

I think the future, that's the future of the NFL, those two players. It could be love. That could be wild because if you drafted Jordan Love and you sat and waited patiently like the Green Bay Packers, you may not be able to get him. Yeah, and call me a hopeless romantic, but I believe in love. Oh, okay. Boston. Yeah. Get out of you. Yes. You're proud of that one? Oh, yeah. I drink in your groans. I love them. We don't have any big NFL news to share. The NFL draft is a couple weeks away. We announced yesterday the NFL draft special. Fantasy Footballers draft special we're doing on NFL Plus, so we'd love to have you join us on April 25th at the end of round one on draft night. Fantasy football reactions in the moment breaking down the skill position players and their impact on so much.

It changes depth charts, not just for the outlook of the individual players drafted, but for, you know, everybody else on those rosters when you spend high draft capital. Put it in calendar. The draft should be in your calendar, first of all. Yeah. You have to let people know that you are not available the night of Thursday, April 25th, and you're not available after the draft. Yeah, you're just not available. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I think. We don't have anything else we're doing. Let's jump back into the wide outs. Wide receivers. All right. Top 10. The countdown continues. Little stat for you for top 10 wide receivers over the last decade. An average of 3.7 players repeated as top 10 wide receivers from the previous year. Now, when I read it, I was like, ah, they're going to say an average of 3.7 dropped out. No.

An average of 3.7 repeated as top 10 wide receivers. The most in the last 10 years to have repeated at all. When things go well, it's 5 of the 10. So injuries always play a part. You're not going to, you know, generally make it through a full season, like the way the top 10 finished, you know, those 10 guys don't generally make it through 17 games healthy. Last year's repeat names, it was Tyreek. It was C.D. Lamb, it was Alman Ra. It was A.J. Brown. And it was Stefan Diggs. Barely. Barely. He squeaked in there thanks to the first half. I do think it's kind of interesting when you see those five names that did repeat. I think three of them were really confident about. I think there's a fourth that maybe some people are really confident about. Diggs is the one that's going to drop out in people's minds. And in reality. Probably. Yeah. But I'm leaving the door open.

for C.J. Stroud to, you know. Top ten? I'm leaving the door open, yeah. It's not impossible. Like, it wouldn't shock me. I'm not going to project it. I'm not going to draft him like he is finishing top ten. But maybe it was a fluke. Maybe the second half was a fluke and was just the scheme. So, but Hill, Lamb, and Elman Ross, St. Brown will talk about today for sure. And then I don't know what the opinions are on AJ Brown. That'll be discussed. At 10, the countdown continues with Debo Samuel. Debo is a man. He is. He is untacklable. That's that's just the truth. I mean, he's a good football player, right? He's a good wide receiver. He's a fine route runner. He's whatever. Throw all of it away. He's a man. He's just out here. Just crushing these. Why don't you break down that yards after catch? Yes. Intel.

We were talking about this with another player, and it was just mind-blowing to see the yards after-catch per reception leaders over the last five years, so a minimum of 40 targets a year. Yards after catch. Yards after catch. Now, this is off of the whole NFL, the entire thing, all the wide receivers in the NFL, each of the last five years. So hundreds of wide receivers over five years, five of the top yearly finishes, five of the top eight, are all Debo Samuel. The last five years, it goes, Debo Samuel was number one in 2020. He was number three in 2021. He was number four in 2022. He was number six in 2023 and number eight in 2019. Not like he ranked eighth. The eighth best of the last five years was him and he beat himself four times. He's just, you cannot bring that man to the ground easily. You try.

And once he's got the ball in his hands, he's gone. Now can he stay healthy? The wild thing is this year, at least in our initial unstated reactions. You're the highest on Debo Samuel. I don't know if that is you thinking about IUC's departure? It does include that, yeah. Because we have talked about that in studio. I obviously, I've always been a big Debo fan. His problem's been staying on the field. It was like an eye test thing immediately. Like the second he. played an NFL game, there was something that said, I'm better than you about Debo. It was just a matter of putting it together over the course of a season health-wise. And so we've seen him finish at number two at the position before. Really special player. He had a run last year, a four-week stretch where he finished ninth, second, first, and ninth. So four straight, top ten finishes, five touchdowns in that run. But that was only after, you know, he broke his shoulder.

Right. Yeah. And he finished it number two overall in 2021, then dipped down to 37 missed four games. And so, and he was, if you remember last off season, he was talking about it. He said that was the, and the team had success. And he said it was the worst season of my career. I was like, I just played terribly. He said he just played bad football. And then he came back last year and finished at 12 at the position and he missed two games. So. And the potential is there. You also, you can't take away the rushing opportunities for most wide receivers, for, not for most, for all wide receivers outside of Debo Samuel, rushing opportunities are just like a little salt on a steak. You know, it's nice. You're going to be like, oh, I prefer it with that little extra dash salt. For him, this is mashed potatoes on the side of steak. Oh, I was going to go Bernade. So, oh, that's, that's better because it's still a topic. Yeah. But, I mean.

The way he's utilized in the Russian game is so valuable for fantasy. I just started thinking Jason might ask for mashed potatoes as his sauce for a steak at a restaurant. Well, I use it like a sauce. Do you want the Bernays? Do you want the, I'll take the mashed potato sauce, please. Yes. Sir, mass potato sauce? It's just mashed potatoes. Just give me mashed potatoes. What would you like for your side? Also, a mashed potatoes. Just put some on top and then give me a bowl on the side. I don't even want to see the steak. It's just a plate of mashed potatoes. Let me search for it. And there's a buried treasure of meat. Yes. Dude, that sounds awesome. That is not even a joke. If I got a plate of mashed potatoes and you're telling me there's a filet somewhere in there, there's a game show. This is a dream come true.

All right. Look, I can do this at home. I know what I'm cooking next. I want a picture, yeah. A mashed potato mountain, that's what I'm going to call it. But the point I was making, so he has averaged in his career 1.32 fantasy points per rushing attempt. And for context, Christian McCaffrey averages 0.68. So this is over double. Every time he touches the ball more valuable for fantasy because Shanahan utilizes him in the right way. So these are manufactured touches that guarantee him a certain baseline. I am in on Debo Sam. His touchdown totals in the wide receiver two year, eight of them on the ground. And I remember coming into the next season, we said, that's just really hard to repeat. Yeah. But he had five last year. And so, you know, five is in the cards for Debo every single year on the ground. And so, yeah, very.

explosive player. He's not, he may be drafted as a wide receiver too, but he's the kind of player that can put up wide receiver one weeks over a long stretch and really impact your team. All right. Let's get to the next player, wide receiver nine that Andy hates. Go ahead. Set me up again. You got cut off. Set me up again. This is great. We had to take a quick break. Andy was high on this player before he had a quarterback. And now Andy has just been talking mad junk about Drake London. He's out. He's out on Drake London. He's going to have no shares of Drake London. Do you ever say sentences and realize how little truth there is in them and then just like wish you didn't say that? No, that was just like... Only the beginning part. I still am happy I said them. Look, I didn't even know how you can extrapolate hatred. He's ranked nine for me. You have him at nine. Yes. No, I'm just speaking of the fact that... Range of outcomes is a question. You did bring up and I do think fairly the other day that his...

ADP, Drake London's fiery group of supporters, has maybe swung the pendulum too far into superstardom that we haven't yet seen from Drake London. So we've got him. I've got him at nine, Andy's got him at nine, Mike's got him at 10. We're expecting big things for a wide receiver who has not yet done that but has not had the opportunity to do it. Should he be drafted as a top 10 wide receiver for 2020? I think some of the points that I made, Garrett Wilson had bad quarterback play still put up bigger seasons than Drake London did. Kurt Cousins hasn't supported a wide receiver one above wide receiver seven all but one time. I mean like Jefferson, yes. Jefferson is very, very, very, very special. But outside of that, it's been, you know, Thielen finished at seven one year, but all the years of Diggs and Thielen and Garcone and those number ones for Kirk Cousins in the past.

You know, there was a time we used to view Kirk Cousins more than the Derek Carr sphere of like maybe he's not going to be able to throw enough touchdowns. Maybe he won't have enough consistency over the course of multiple games. I just think that the range of outcomes for Drake London is much wider than almost every other name in the top 10. I think London can finish at 9, where we have him ranked. I don't think, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if he was 22. because there are tons of weapons. Kyle Pitts is a bona fide wide receiver in the offense. They added Darnal Mooney. Bejohn is a wide receiver in the offense. So is there a world where Drake London makes less of an impact than people would like him to? Yes, but it all comes down to draft cost. I loved him before he got a quarterback because I expected them to get somebody and him to take a step up from wide receiver 39. That's not an unreasonable take to say, wow, he's going to go.

you know, finish much higher than that regardless of the change. But now the cost is very expensive. He's drafted as the wide receiver 10. So you're having to make, you know, you're having to take him well above Debo. You're having to take him above IUC. You're having to take him above DJ Moore. Well, I think where you take him is an interesting conversation because usually it's right around Garrett Wilson. And there is a fair debate to be. Which he's at eight in our rankings if you want to wrap them together. Yeah. So I have Drake London one spot ahead of Garrett Wilson.

We collectively have Garrett Wilson one spot ahead of Drake London. That's the decision. You're not going to get both those guys in a draft. You're going to be staring down a draft spot and you're going to say whose range of outcomes is better, whose ceiling is better. What do you believe about the two Achilles quarterbacks coming back off of? It's absurd that we have such a parallel. a situation for both of these quarterbacks. Both their quarterbacks are old. Both of them are coming off of an Achilles injury. Now different leg. Kirk Cousins is the plant leg for the Achilles tear. Is that worse? Well, that end up being worse in the recovery process. But we know that Drake London, for all of the things that have gone wrong so far, we at least have.

Like, we've seen true ceiling games from him where, you know, you have the week against Washington, 9 for 125 against Tampa Bay, 10 for 172. And right now I'm trying to do like a quick scour here of Garrett Wilson. And for how great he is, he essentially has like one of those types of games in his rookie season, 8 for 162 against Minnesota. Well, he's been a target machine. He's got the most targets through. two years basically ever. He has been the centerpiece of the offense, and I do think right now bringing in Mike Williams, if you want to say what the difference is, because I love both these players. I really debated which one am I going to slot in first, and to me it came down to which quarterback do I think is better right now, which to me I think I would take Kirk Cousins over this age of Aaron Rogers.

I think that the competition is worse with Mike Williams coming in for Garrett Wilson and finally having someone else on the field because he's had like nobody else throw the ball. Check down. I look at it as a plus for Mike Williams because he's not a high volume wide receiver. He didn't hurt Keenan Allen. It's also coming off of an ACL tear. So yeah, look, it's going to be, like you said, it's going to be a decision between these two players. Mike and I both have Wilson presently ahead of London but not by much. I've seen more from Wilson. That makes me believe in his consistent ability to get open and be a go-to guy. But look, it's going to be fun. Those are both weirdly parallel situations, like he said. And Garrett Wilson has been, look, he's coming off of his season where he's like, that was not fun. That was the worst season of my life. That was the worst thing to deal with. They didn't have a backup quarterback. So he went out there kind of doing his best, knowing that his best wasn't going to be good enough for that.