Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Wide Receiver Studs, Duds, Values, News and Mailbag

Because you've got a two-round gap there. So to you, you're saying you still have Hilton way above him, which I don't blame you. I'm just, you're on board with the consensus, which is fine. For me, I'm more in the boat that I assume you're in, Andy. I think that you just have a much better value. And I don't see the gap being gigantic between these guys. To get Andre and the 5th, I would much, much rather have Andre in the 5th than T.Y. in the 3rd. Yeah. I was just curious what you guys thought on that.

which is factual. I think Andre Johnson's game will improve because of T.Y. Hilton. I think because of Andre Johnson, T.Y. Hilton will also improve. Fair enough. They have to worry about somebody else. Fair enough. So there's our studs. We had Mr. Julio, Mr. Jordy Nelson. No respect. No respect. No respect. I do admit. He has not received that because you saw that in the draft last year where, you know, Brandon Marshall and guys were going ahead of him. And you kind of look at the situation, you go, okay, Aaron Rogers is pretty good.

And he's got, this is his number one receiver, right? He's finished number two twice. Like, he's his guy on the outside and Rogers is going to throw for this many yards, but nobody wanted to like make the math equation that, okay, his number one receiver is going to probably provide those statistics. So let's move it on. Poopped in his big boy pants. All right, let's talk some fantasy duds this year. I'm going to go first on this one because. Please do. I only, I have a soft dud.

Okay. Poopped in his big boy, pants. I have a soft dud because depending, I don't know if we all did the same thing with the guy that we think is our dud. Now, for us, we're thinking a guy that is being drafted in a certain position and is more likely to finish. Much lower. Much lower than that, okay? However, I'm not supremely confident in this. I just want to share some concern that I haven't. So my guy is Mike Evans.

Second year wide receiver Mike Evans. Last year he was 68 catches for about 1,000 yards, but he had 12 touchdowns. 12 touchdowns. He is a monster. Don't get me wrong. My disclaimer here is that I think Mike Evans is a absolute great wide receiver. He's 6'5. He's a monstrous beast and will be great for years to come. If you're in a dynasty league, you should do a dance if you have them on your roster. That being said, my concerns have to do with where he's being drafted and the risk that is involved with Evans compared to some other guys.

He's going as high as the top of the second round all the way through to the top of the third. And so he's being drafted as a top 12 guy. And he certainly could finish there. But I personally am not spending a second round pick on a guy who has this many question marks in that offense. Now, we can all assume the quarterback there will be.

James Winston. James Winston, right? And so I don't know what he's going to bring to that offense, and I don't know what Levy's going to want to do to protect him, to develop him. And I think Evans is simply very TD dependent. And so I expect that if he regresses in that department, he's not going to carry enough volume to justify his current ADP. And so, you know, part of this has to do with...

Do you want to take Evans in the second or third round? Or do you want to get Vincent Jackson in the seventh or eighth round where... Hey, hey. I know. Don't steal my thunder. Huh. Mike Evans caught a touchdown every five and a half passes. Every five and a half passes thrown to him was for a touchdown. Which could easily be a...

Point in his favor. No way. Is that a point in it? I mean, yeah. Would you rather somebody catch less touchdowns? No. Regression alert.

Yeah, that's a regression. If you think that he's going to continue doing that for his career or even just for another year, it's ridiculous. So you have to take his touchdown totals and move him down. Maybe he makes that up with extra yards and all that. But like you said, there's question marks. And to take him as, you know, I think right now he looks like he's going as the 12th wide receiver off the board. He's a wide receiver one. He's going as a wide receiver one. And when you draft a wide receiver one, you need him to finish there. And if he finishes as a wide receiver two or three, your fantasy team's hurt.

I'm going to kick it over to Mike because I know he's some thoughts on Evans because he was looking into this as well. I actually don't think where he's being drafted is a problem. I think for what he did and what he could do, it's not that bad. I just, for me and my teams, there's a risk mitigation for my wide receiver number one. And so I see worry there because you don't have the consistency in the offense. You don't have the consistency of quarterback. And you have other guys that can contribute there. And just knowing Lovey Smith and how much he's going to air it out.

Obviously, Glennon slung it a little bit last year, and that was beneficial to Evans. But 12 touchdowns versus 68 catches, it's just a little bit frightening to me. So, Mike, what were your findings in Evans? Because I know you looked into him. When you explained, hey, I think my dud, my soft dud will be Mike Evans. Initially, I thought, yeah, here's a candidate for touchdown regressions. I knew his catches weren't very high compared to his touchdown ratio. So I looked into him.

Here's the deal with Evans. He only had 116 targets. That's not the normal wide receiver 1 targets. Guy like Demarius gets 185. Yes. And so what he did with those targets was spectacular. You know, how many drops Mike Evans had? These are passes from Josh McCowan and Mike Lennon. He had four drops. The normal is about seven. So he has been, well, I'm saying that he has great hands. But fewer targets. I mean, you just said that.

Yes, but he has fewer targets, but not as quality targets. He was a 15.5 yard per reception guy. Now, the kicker for me is you want some consistency with your wide receiver one. He had a three-week stretch from week seven to week nine where he was a beast. Seven for 124, two touchdowns next week. Seven.

125 yards, one touchdown. The next week, the masterpiece of his work, seven catches, 209 yards, two touchdowns. These were not three games sporadically placed within his season. These were lined up. These were with Mike Glennon. The next week is when Levy Smith, the genius, thought I should go back to Josh McCowan.

And that's when things started to go more downhill for Evans after he was ascending into superstardom. Well, seven catches a week puts him at 112. He got about half that on the year. I'm just saying – So you see his potential. I don't think we disagree with that. The potential is there, and the potential for consistency is there. And it's not just touchdown dependent. He's going to get James Winston, who I think we're all pretty high on him. We like him as a future quarterback. Right. And here's just a couple things to –

realized about Winston. Winston has a big arm. His freshman year he averaged 10.6 per attempt, 8.4 the following year, and he is accurate. His freshman year, he was 67%. The following year, 65%. So you're getting a guy who can sling the ball down the field accurately. He just had his pro day, and they said the shining point of his pro day was the deep ball when he was in the pocket. And that's where Mike Evans, he excels.

That he's not a yards after-catch guy. He is in the air. I'm going to make a superstar circus catch and come down and score too many touchdowns. The shining point of James Winston's pro day was when he threw the sideline seam route and raised his wide receiver into the ESPN tables. And his reaction afterwards was like, go look that bind up. We'll post that to our wall. But so just in my last point about dropping the pen on me, the last point about Mike Evans, where he's where he's being drafted.

uh if you go running back running back he's going to be kind of your last chance to grab a a wide receiver with the potential to finish in the top eight or so that just coming off the board with the knowledge that we have okay jason who's your dud who is who's the guy that you're down on

I have already lamented and mourned him this year, but I have to still go with Jeremy Macklin. It might seem obvious, but for where he's being drafted... It's obvious to us. Not only is it...

Yeah, it's obvious to us. It's not obvious to everyone. And it's clearly not obvious to everyone based on where he's being drafted. He's still being drafted. 22nd. Yeah, so as a top two guy, right? So you've got a wide receiver to draft. You're drafting him as your second receiver. And here is what you're going to get from Jeremy Macklin. Jeremy Macklin has a career of...

one season over 1,000 yards, which was this last season. He has averaged the rest of his entire career, 863 yards a year. And that is on a high-powered Eagles offense. Last year, he had seven plays over 40 yards. Seven single plays over 40 yards. How many do you think he's going to get with Alex Smith? I'm going to put the over under a zero.

And I'll take the under on that. I don't know. I don't know. Okay, maybe he gets one. Maybe he gets one this year. I mean, if I put the over under at one, would you take zero or two for over 40 yards from Alex Smith? I would take two. Now, that's a bold prediction. How bold? Not water bet bowl. Okay. But my point is he's never, you know, Andy Reed, in his entire career, 16 seasons, has had four receivers.

in the life of him as a coach that have had a thousand-yard seasons. Jeremy Macklin has averaged other, you take out last season, he's averaged 863 yards. So I have to say with Alex Smith, he's going to be at 800 yards. And last year he had double-digit touchdowns, which he's clearly not going to get from the Kansas City Chiefs that just finished an entire season throwing zero. So I'm giving him five touchdowns, okay? That's, you know, five more than the entire team had last year.

And 800 yards, which is about what his entire career averages. Mediocre. You take Andre Johnson over Jeremy Macklin. You take Martavis Bryant over Jeremy Macklin. Yeah. Here's Robert Woods from Buffalo is 700 yards and five touchdowns last year. Greg Jennings finished with 742 and six touchdowns last year. That's Jeremy Macklin. So if you want that for your wide receiver, too, go ahead and draft them. Yeah, so I was going to say the Macklin's best season under Andy Reed. He would have finished 24th last year.

His average season, which Jason was alluding to, he would have finished 34th last year. That's because in his average he has seven touchdowns. Will the touchdowns be there for Alex Smith? Last year, Dwayne Bow was the highest net, the highest yardage wide receiver on the team. 60 catches, 754 yards, zero touchdowns. Why were there zero touchdowns? Because a wide receiver didn't catch a single touchdown the entire year on the Kansas City Chiefs. Yeah.

He's a dud. He's going to poop in his big boy pants. But congratulations on your money. There you go. Mike, who's a guy you've been talking about for a while. Let's hear your undressing of Kelvin Benjamin. So I went with Kelvin Benjamin. A lot of people seem to be on top of him because his stat line was 73 catches off. A thousand yards, nine touchdowns. Not bad. Not bad. It was enough to finish. I can't remember off the top of my head, but he was the top 20 guy.

He had three games, three entire games of over 100 yards. He had seven games without a touchdown despite his, it's a huge output. In those games, once was he a wide receiver two. Once was he a wide receiver three, the other five times he wasn't even a wide receiver four. Wow. The only Newton game where Benjamin had, there was only one, let me correct myself, only one game when Cam Newton was under center did Benjamin have?

over 100 yards when Cam Newton was the quarterback the entire game. I remember a lot of garbage time points for Kelvin Benjamin. Newton got Benjamin over 80 yards twice. Touchdown Mirage? That's what you're saying? Exactly. You know how many yards he averaged with Newton as the quarterback? 54. Do you want to know what his catch percentage was on the year Calvin Benjamin? Great Kevin Benjamin? 53%.

That's not a wide receiver last year. That's not a wide receiver. He had 11 drops. He averaged 2.4 yards after the catch. That puts him as a bottom 10 player. I did some looking for a comp. So let's, because I wanted to find a guy with those stats, but lower touchdowns. You know who I found? Well, from last year, Vincent Jackson. Check out these numbers. Here's Jackson. 70, 102. Benjamin, 73, 1009.