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

Offense. I think Garrett Wilson has a higher potential to be a top five guy personally. Okay. So I think that... Is that a good discussion? I think that's a good tiebreaker of who has, in your opinion, the clearest path to overperforming because you're paying up that you are really, really hoping that this guy at least maintains value and is a wide receiver one. But who can make the jump to being truly a top five at the position and a difference maker more than not? I think it's going to be difficult for fantasy players too. What if you can spend a one round later selection? You can let Garrett Wilson and Drake London and all the mysteries of Achilles and quarterbacks and age and new companion wide receivers. And you can let it all go. And then in the next round, you can take your shot on Depot. I mean, that seems like a choice or Lave or DJ Moore or something like what's the percentage chance that Drake London?

outperforms a lave? Look, that's tough. Yeah. It comes down to Kirk. That's entering a range where I'm willing to take the draft discount, spend a higher pick on a running back. At least with those names, I don't feel like they're lock solid guarantees. I'm looking at ADP, and next to Garrett Wilson on one side is Breece Hall, and the other is Jemir Gibbs. You kidding? Next to, you know, Drake London, you're talking about Kyron Williams or Jonathan Taylor. So, yeah, I think. Grabbing one of those types. Those are no touch wide receivers right now for me. That range, I would rather have those running backs because I do like some of the wide receivers that are around later. Obviously, we're still really far away from August when things will solidify, but as of right now. Well, and there is a chance in the draft that the jets who have been working out different wide receivers, they could take a big name. I think you're going to start looking at New York a little bit differently if it was.

Does Brock Bowers, if Brock Bowers goes in, does that hurt Garrett Wilson? I wouldn't be as, I wouldn't be too freaked. No, not as a rookie. Okay. But if it was. A dunzae. A doones A at number 10 overall, I think that could have an impact. I think it could happen too. But it's, to me, if it's not one of those three guys who I see as a true number one, it'll just be a. You don't care if Troy Franklin arrives. Yeah, a helpful addition to the offense. At number seven, the unstoppable Puka Nakua, just 22 years old, because ADP is wide receiver 6 right now. I feel like it's probably time, if I'm being honest, right? Like we want to be true to our psychology. I think it's time that I, like, walk into the throne room, bend the knee.

And offer the crown. There you go. Okay. Because I think, I don't think it's in my nature to do it when a players had one season. And yet this season was 105 receptions for almost 1,500 yards and six touchdowns, which means that the only reason I don't want to do it is because Pooka and Nicole wasn't a first round draft pick. Right. That's really the truth. If he was drafted like Jamar Chase. If he was a top 10 and then he has this season. Zero dot zero doubts. And I would have no problem bending the knee. Yeah. And what was nice about his performance. Now some of it was without Cooper Cup. So you can debate that. You can say, well, now let's say Cup plays a whole season. Maybe it's not going to be this good. This could end up being the best season of his career, which I mean, when you've got a season this good, it could be any NFL player's best season of their career. But when you watch the film,

over and over from week one all the way through the middle of the season to the last game of the year. You're just like, that guy's so good. He's so tough. Nothing's going to change. Is Matthew Stafford's still the quarterback? Yep. Okay. Did Aaron Donald retire? Yep. Okay. So like they were put in positions where they were throwing the football a lot last year. Now you have a lot of work to do with a young defense that doesn't have a linchpin in the middle of it. nothing's going to change for Puka. He's safe and I need to just accept it. Well, you're not going to get an argument for me. He's my wide receiver four. I believe that. One in your heart. He is one in my heart. I love Puka. He is absolutely outstanding. He's talented on every level of the field. He could take a screen. He can get a bomb. But when he's working across the middle, he is tough as nails and Stafford finds him. He looks for him and you want pieces of...

a McVeigh-Stafford offense. It's been good for fantasy. Whenever Stafford is healthy, there's going to be a ton of fantasy points. And yet, and yet, 3.7 fantasy-wide receivers repeat year-to-year that finish inside the top 10. So, Mike, if Cooper Cup plays every game, what is the percentage chance that Pooka Nakua finishes outside the top 12? That he's one of the, what is it, 6.8 that drop out or 6.3 that drop out? If Cooper Cup plays every game, the chance that Pooka Nakua is not a Wide Receiver 1 in Dynasty, or I'm sorry, in redraft. I'd put it low. Because you're telling me that Pooka's playing every game, basically, too. Yeah. Really low, really low odds. He, he. Too reliable, too consistent. Too many targets. Yeah, like this, with the, if the red flag is six touchdowns on a hundred, on 160 targets, only getting six receiving touchdowns. That's, that's a number that you would hope could come up.

Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. What was like, where was Robert Woods? What was his highest touchdown year when he was playing that role for? Probably, I'm going to guess eight. I'm trying to pull it up real quick. We got, so five, six, two, six. I'm going to guess six. But my point being of like, maybe that role, like, is he just new? new young hotness Robert Woods in this offense, which is great. Robert Woods was always like really strong for fantasy, never this good. But maybe the touchdowns just don't roll to there. So my point in bringing that up is maybe Puka's not someone you're drafting going, I'm getting a top three guy. If everything breaks right, I feel real good about my chance of having a top three wide receiver. Probably not. But the chance that you're getting a top 12 wide receiver.

it seems very, very strong, especially when you're talking about guys like Garrett Wilson and Drake London of just seeing how things could go wrong so quickly. Robert Woods is a great name to bring up because you have to remember he had a season where he was a top 10 wide receiver for fantasy. And he's, Robert Woods is good, but he's not special. You say that actually, that just depresses me. Like relating them together. I'm talking about the role. I'm talking about the role. Okay. Because Puka's way better than Robert Woods. You watch the speed and the toughness. Like, Robert Woods didn't have some of these abilities that you see on film. Yeah, I mean, huge plays down the sideline. Yeah. Puka can do it all. I just, I want to aim higher. I would aim at Cup. Well, and you're going from Jared Gough to Stafford. So that does move the needle higher. I mean, we talk about, oh, Robert Woods had a top 10 season. Puka already had, he was the wider three before last year.

160 targets is a rookie as bananas. Let's talk about one of the players that repeated as a top 12 whiteout. A.J. Brown comes in at six on our rankings. I don't know why. Maybe you can explain it to me. He's like a begrudging pick. I know why. You know why? Yeah. Because after the by week last year, he was, he finished the season pretty poorly. The last eight games of last season, which is a. That's a big chunk. That's half the season. He would have been on pace for sub 1,000 yards. So you saw it. You saw the end of the year. You saw the Eagles really struggling as an offense. You saw this team that was whatever they were, like 10 and 0, just start collapsing, falling apart, early exit out of the playoffs. Nothing was clicking. That eight game stretch, here are his exact numbers if you extrapolated over a season. 82 receptions. Me.

958 yards, two touchdowns. Oh, I mean, it's like that's one touchdown scored after the week 10 by. Yeah, I mean, it's, it was an average of 8.3 fantasy points per game and that was over the entire second half stretch. So that's why you feel bad. Is there, will that create some blindness? Will that be, make him a value? Do you believe in what Jalen Hertz and the Eagles are going to do this year? He's. Currently being drafted as the wide receiver 7. That's where I have them. You guys both have them at 6. I was going to say ADP does not say that it's making people afraid. He's still a very highly drafted player. And there are obvious ways it goes wrong. Now, the first half of last season, he was unstoppable. He set the record for, what was it? How many consecutive games over 125 yards? And he was at what, seven? One, two, three, four, six. Am I missing? One?

One, two, three, four, five, six. No, you're not. Okay, all right. But where it's pointing out in that stretch, Tampa Bay, who we were targeting their secondary, the Manders, the Rams, the Jets, the Dolphins, and then the Manders again. I mean, it was a pretty, pretty juicy. run there of games. But he still... The Jets were literally the hardest. But he just... That was included. I mean, he still really came through. I believe in A.J. Brown. A.J. Brown is just so pumped. That's Stefan Diggs. What he did what he did at the second half of last year. Because otherwise, the heat would be all on AJ Brown. It's on Hertz. It's on Smith. It's on everybody. I mean, AJ Brown and Puka basically had identical numbers last year. Targets, catches, yards, touchdowns.

AJ Brown's had double-digit touchdowns a couple of times. I have him ranked higher because I do think he is more of a prototypical touchdown guy. And to me, you know, Cooper Cups still represents a threat to Puka in the touchdown numbers. So I have them a little bit higher. But look, we're at the category of players where we're not needing to tell you. Like this isn't a show to explain that these guys are good at football. It's just about range of outcomes and what could happen. You know, there was a little bit of the, is he happy in Philadelphia? We had, you know, we're going to have a new offensive coordinator. Which I love. Which could be okay. Could be good. Yeah, I mean, they. It was, uh, it was ironically very good for CD Lamb when this coordinator departed. Well, it was pretty good for CD Lamb when this coordinator was there as well, this coordinator being Kellan Moore, but. We'll not tell you his name. What, what you saw.

this last year for the Eagles. After their Super Bowl trip, they lost their offensive coordinator, they lost their defensive coordinator. They tried to hire from within and just say, hey, we got to the Super Bowl. Let's keep this mojo going. And they brought the next men up into roles that they had never done yet as their opportunity. And both those coordinators failed. I mean, they just did. They were over their heads. And so those guys got fired and they brought in, they brought in Vic Fangio, right? And Kellan Moore. So they're taking experience, known commodities, saying let's go. And I really like that. It gives me confidence in the Eagles offense. Always interesting, though, when those known commodities have switched teams as much as they have. I always find that interesting because it's like a little Doc River situation. Yeah, I think you've got to take everybody on an individual situation. Like Vic Fangio has, he gets to do whatever he wants. I think he left to take this job. Kellen Moore was searching for a head coaching gig that he felt like he wasn't going to be able to get.

when he was in Dallas and obviously the clearing of the house. Yeah. Oh, yeah. For the charger. So you can make stories in both directions. I mean, they're all facts. Uh, you know, yeah, sure. They're facts. I mean, you could have stayed. They're narratives. They could have, like, Jim Harbaugh could have been like, man, this guy's so good. I want to keep him. Like, that could have happened, right? No. Jim Harbaugh? Why not? Because he wants to Greg Roman run the ball. Okay. All right. I'm just saying, like, uh, The offense in Dallas got better. That's what I'm saying. It got better without him. That's a fact. That is also a fact. So let's move on. Top five. Justin Jefferson's sitting at five. Because are you guys? Well, you have him at seven. I know. I'm just saying he's not in my top five. Sometimes that's a, you know, this could go both directions. This could be dumb. He could be the bona fide number one easily. Yeah. And so, you know. Not easily. Not easily.

Yeah, really easily. I mean, to be the number one wide receiver, you've got to have like double-digit touchdowns, right? So last year, you've got an Achilles injury to your quarterback, and you get 100 targets in 10 games? It's 170 target pace. You get 68 receptions for 1074 and 5. I mean, this would have been right at one-ish spot last year with not a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven missed weeks. Oh, it's like everything is. Kurt Cousins is gone. In the games that we had, Nick Mullins, essentially, we had a four-week stretch of him. So, you know, it's a more a backup quarterback as Sam Darnold is at least at this point. But Nick Mullins was the QB in those four weeks. Two weeks were sensational, two weeks against Detroit, which was a team that we'd love to target for the secondary and the options, in the opportunity for huge games.

But against Cincinnati and Green Bay, he was the wide receiver 26, and then he was the wide receiver 38. So it's- Variability will be there without consistency according to that. But total output could easily be number one overall. Jefferson, I just, I don't see a, with Sam Donald, I don't see a world where Jefferson is the number one guy, but he's just, he's so good and so special that he's still at least in the top five. I think he's the number one wide receiver in the NFL. Most receiving yards in NFL history. Yeah. In a season with 10 games played. I'm talking. Fantasy. Fantasy for 2024 that it, and it, there's, there's, there is no one coming out of the smoke, like just appearing. It's either Sam Darnold or it's a rookie quarterback that they trade up to get. There's one quarterback that could come. Trey Lanes. Out of the smoke. Say, it's not Trey Lans. Trey Lans. Okay. No, the only, the only way that Justin Jefferson, I think, finishes.

24 as the wide receiver won because you have to have touchdowns there. He'll be great. He'll have 100 receptions. He'll have 1,300 plus to 1,700 yards. I just worry about the touchdowns would be. Oh, what a Kyler trade? No, a Justin Jefferson train. Oh, oh, stop it. Yeah. What are you doing? I'm just saying the Cardinals got the money. You go, you draft, you draft Marvin Harrison. Give me Justin Jefferson, baby. I'm just speaking into existence, Mike. There's been rumors. There's been. There's been. There have been rumors. From you. No, no, no. I mean, I am certainly propagating more rumor. Please trade out of year. It's not happening. No, it's not happening. Got any more dreams? Joe Montana to Arizona. Jerry Rice. Okay. I mean, look, I still believe Jefferson is in the category of easily could be number one. Like, there's only a handful of.

Whiteouts that could be number one overall. Jefferson's still in that category for me. Jason hates him. I love him. We do bring up. We do bring up Larry Fitzgerald, obviously first ballot Hall of Famer for a long stretch, maybe the best wide receiver in the NFL. When he lost his quarterback in the prime of his career, he went from being a fantasy dominator to being a good NFL wide receiver who for fantasy purposes was mediocre. Now, Justice Jefferson's style of play in this modern NFL, I think he'll be better. I, you know, I've still got him at wide receiver seven. He's great. I just worry about what the actual tip-top ceiling is because I don't see him having more than seven touchdowns. So many words for, you could have just said, I hate him. That would have summed it up. That would have been the cliff notes of the sentence that you were going to say. And then we would have been able to move on. I do hate Sam Darnold.

You're right. Okay. A quick break back with a player that I think will be very hard for people to take over Justin Jefferson, but maybe not. All right. At number four, Mike has him at number two, so we'll start there. It won't be hard for Mike to take over. No, it will not. Ammonraught St. Brown last year, 119 receptions for 1,500 yards and 10 touchdowns. I finished as the wide receiver 3, 10 touchdowns. I don't. I don't know if we'll see that again, but Mike thinks so. Alman Ra, clearly a dominator when he had the opportunity to be out there. And the offense runs through him. He's a go-to, third down-wide receiver. What did you see last year that puts him at number two for you? Because that puts him ahead of who? Who's your number one? Who's your number one? My number one is CD or is it Tyree? Is Tyree Kill? So you've got Ammon Ra ahead of CD land. I have him at number two. I'm excited to talk about Amman Rae because I have him ranked at two. Not rankings are

can be difficult because I don't necessarily think that Amun Ra will finish as the wide receiver too. But I think there is a strong chance that he is the second most important fantasy wide receiver, even if he finishes at number five, because he has true boom games, like 12 for 1, 24 with a touchdown. It's in the range of outcomes for him. finished the year, four straight weeks with a touchdown, 112 with a score, 106 with a score, 906 with a score, $144 in a touchdown. I mean, he has that built into him, but what is very rare for Amman Ra is to have a week where you go, where was he? What the heck happened to Armand Ra this week? AJ Brown second half. Jamar Chase, these games happen. I mean,

A ceiling game from Jamar Chase is much higher than a ceiling game from Amin Ra. But it's the consistency with ceiling games built in. I think that he just might be the second most important fantasy wide receiver. Consistency is a huge factor when you're drafting a wide receiver to be your number one and knowing what you're going to get. And he was an A by our consistency metric, 88% of his games, he exceeded 10.5 points. Yeah, we got to add pluses. I mean, just for Amin Ra. Like, it feels insulting to be like, oh, that he's just an A. You're an A. It's just like, oh, all your games are pretty valuable. Why don't you get on that? All right. Like, looking at his game log, week two, technically he was the wide receiver 36. That's how he finished. But he was six receptions for 102 yards. That's, that's not a game where I look at Amman Ra. I'm mad about it. No, that's double-digit fantasy points. He has one game. He had one game last year.

where it was three for 21 against Chicago, and that was an absolute disaster. Part of the secret, I think, and why C.D. Lamb was so great and why Alman Ra is so great from a fantasy consistency standpoint is these guys get moved around and they play in the slot a ton. 55% for Alman Rae St. Brown. And I believe when we looked the other day, wasn't C.D. Lamb in that same vicinity, like 60%. So he was like 51. Okay, 51%. So, you know, you talk about scheming out a wide receiver. If Jamar Chase is on the outside and you bracket him and the team's decision making can be, hey, I can do more letting Jamar Chase draw the defense for a half or something to that extent. So I get it. You can't argue against Al Monroe. He has improved each and every year. You had 17 points per game. So it's like as a rookie.

90 for 5, then 106 for 6, then 119 and 10. Maybe he doesn't get to 10 touchdowns, but he will be so solid and good for your team that you can find a little bit of Nitro the next round in the draft. Yeah, and he missed a game. He was on pace for 125 receptions. That's just a baseline that gives you guaranteed production every game. The only guys that are anywhere near there are. The other two. It's Tyree Kill and C.D. Lamb last year. Well, I was going to give you the top three here all at once, and then we can debate the differentiators. Jamar Chase comes in at three. Number two, C.D. Lamb, who was last year's number one overall. And number one, Tyreek Hill. And I think it depends on scoring system, obviously. I think Tyreek was number one in some scoring systems. But Chase, Lamb, Tyreek.

The difficult year was Chase. He finished at 13 and had some games where he disappeared. And just so the T. Higgins. Be looking at the first 10 weeks for Jamar because Burrow went out week 11. But it also took several weeks for Burrow to get going. The first month of the season, Burrow wasn't himself. He stunk. Because he had the calf injury and training camp. Yes, he was coming in. So, I mean, those first two weeks you had. Jamar Chase with 39 and 31 yards. You know Jamar Chase is great. You've seen him finish as a top five wide receiver in his rookie season. Now he's going to have fewer target competition, you know, it passes to go around. Not even saying they get rid of T. Higgins. Tyler Boyd is gone. And, you know, this is a team that is going to be, you know, licking their wounds and looking to bounce back from a really down season due to the injury to Burrough. So I love Jamar Chase. I don't have.

He's my three. I couldn't imagine taking him over the other two guys. To me, that's a tear break. Like, Tyreek and C.D. Lamb are, they're just unstoppable fantasy forces right now. What's crazy is the boom games. He had five top ten games. He never finished once between wide receiver 11 and 26. So you disappear. I ain't no wide receiver two. No, he's like, I am either not here or I am. winning you your week. That's kind of been the Jamar Chase experience at times where he could put up 254 and 3 easily. But yeah, last year it was tough. Had some, you know, things go wrong for this team throughout the year. C.D. Lamb, on the other hand, in the shadow of the dismissal of Kellynmore, in the furious worries of Mike McCarthy being an old head that just wanted to run the ball, look, that didn't happen at all.

Honestly, we said it multiple times. Last year, I kind of like, I like what Mike McCarthy was doing in Dallas. And 135 for 1749 and 12. And he's not, you can't scheme him out. I watched enough football last year where it was like, sometimes you just laugh. You're just like, it's like Tyreek. You're just like, I don't know. Why is he always open? Why can he throw it to him on any play he wants to? So, you know. This was a massive season. This was Cooper Cup from 2021 type of year. Yeah, he was unbelievable. And he should be on my dynasty roster, if not for you two losers. I don't remember saying anything. He's a champ right now, man. He is so bad at you guys. If he were on your team right now, he would not be a champion. Oh, yes, he would. Yes, he would. Mike, that's the point. That's the point. You played the long con getting me to trade Jalen Wattle for him. I turned the trade down. It's.

a fair point and maybe you're right. I'll never live that down. You guys got to remind me anytime we get asked the question all the time like, oh, you have any moves you regret or whatever and I never think of that until we're in the moment, but I regret that forever. You know the truth though, right? Do you know the truth? Jaylon Wada would have been the wide receiver one last year if you had made the trade. That's how fantasy works. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So when you look at top 10 wide receiver fantasy seasons of all time in points per game, number one,

Cooper Cup from 2021. Number two is sitting there. And so this is, I guess this is organized by total fantasy points. Sorry. Cooper Cup was number one. Jerry Rice in 95 was number two. Randy Moss in 2007. We all remember that. Oh, yeah. If you're old. And then C.D. Lamb comes in at number four. And total fantasy points put up. So probably not going to repeat that. To be fair, Tyreek comes into number six all time. He's right there. From last year? Yeah. Wow. That was, those were like league winning seasons. Yep. Whiteouts, pretty impressive. So he was, he's a champion in league of record. He's a champion in our dynasty league. And probably a champ in your league too. Good. It's not in the NFL. Good chance. I know. I know. Don't care. So number one is Tyreek. He's 30 years old. So maybe you. Don't care. Okay. He is playing with.

the least talented quarterback of the three big the big three yeah yeah that's fine by me he will probably be great and win you a lot of weeks again yeah i mean he he's he's unstoppable and he used to be a giant big play low volume guy and we just talked about you know he he had the same exact reception number that uman ra had and you just don't think about him like that you think about like Amun Ra's this slot guy, this possession receiver that's like PPR machine. That's not Tyreek. Tyreek's like way down on the other end of the field. Yeah, but he's getting the same amount of targets or at least receptions. It's just he's the number one pick or the number two and after Christian McCafford. It's not apples to apples, but it is a counterpoint to the leaving your great quarterbacks going to cost you. Tyreek Hill, great player, goes to a situation nobody expected him to be better.

And he's better. So Sam Darnold would not be better. Sam Darnold is not better. No, but two is not better than Mahomes. No, of course not. So, so there is a world where like target and talent, targets and talent, you know, makes a pretty significant difference. So I just throwing it out there, you know, you want to bring up Larry Fitz, I'm going to bring up Tyreek moving. That's all. Sure. I would, you know, I would say Mike McDaniel. Because the scheme is so important. Yeah. Like he, McDaniel, they knew what they were doing when they could get him in a trade. And they traded everything to get him and then gave him the cash. Yeah, it's fun to watch Mike McDaniel talk about that. Like the, when he found out there was a chance he could get this guy and just knowing. I haven't seen that clip. What that represents for the team and like how they'll do anything to like, I can put that guy on my team. So yeah, there you go.