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

Vincent Jackson, 138 targets. Benjamin, 142. Almost an identical catch percentage. Identical yards after catch. Identical longest catch with 50 yards. Say almost identical snaps. So who do you take? Vincent Jackson or Calvin Benjamin? How low are you on? I take Vincent Jackson all day. So is the difference between the eighth round and the... Because Vincent Jackson finished is the wide receiver 38. With almost identical stats, you just take away those touchdowns. Well, let's... Hey, there's a perfect segue.

So value picks. We're talking now about wide receivers that we're going to draft later and we're going to get a great value of. And my pick for that on this list is Mr. Vincent Jackson, your comp. So it's ironic that we've got two guys picked. One is a dud and one is going to be a value. But Vincent Jackson is going in the eighth.

Round. You can get Vincent Jackson in the eighth round, and I believe Vincent Jackson is going to be a very, very, very good wide receiver two next year. I looked up, and the biggest reason is because of touchdowns. Here is minus the one year. In 2010, Vincent Jackson was injured. Only played five games. Other than that, for seven years running...

He's had over 1,000 yards every single year. And here's his touchdowns in that span as well, minus that 2010 game. Seven touchdowns, nine touchdowns, nine touchdowns, eight touchdowns, seven touchdowns. And then last year, last year he pretty much didn't get in the end zone. And so he dropped the deuce. Yeah, he had two touchdowns. That's, that is the outlier. That's the aberration. That is the thing that stands out that's going to correct itself. Now here is why I know it's going to correct itself.

I went back and looked at every quality quarterback that's been drafted in the last few years. So the guys that I went and looked at their rookie season, Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson, Aaron Rogers, Ryan Matthews, just the guys that have put up good years. Matt Ryan, not Ryan Matthews. Yes, thank you. Yes, typo. Yes, Matt Ryan.

Unless he was drafted out of position and I didn't know. Ryan Matthew is the best thrown running back of all time. So here's the one thing they all had in common. Andrew Luck, the bulk of his targets went to Reggie Wayne.

Over T.Y. Hilton, who was on the team, granted he was younger, right? He's got a young future stud or he's got an old proven bet. They all went to Reggie Wayne. Russell Wilson, the bulk of his targets, went to Sidney Rice over Golden Tate. Aaron Rogers, all of his targets went to Greg Jennings and Donald Driver instead of Jordy Nelson who was on the team. I miss Donald Driver.

And Ryan Matthews, running back for the San Diego Chargers, who also quarterbacked the Atlanta Falcons.

All of his passes, I mean, the dominated the targets was Roddy White, the proven vet. There was a video of, who was he talking to, Mariucci? Where James Winston, so we're assuming James Winston's going to be the quarterback coming in, and he was talking to Mariucci on a mock interview for being drafted, and he's drawing these plays up, and he mentions like, okay, well, so I'll have Jerry Rice over here, and Maryucci's like, you're not going to have no Jerry Rice. And he goes, well,

Then let's just say I throw it to Vincent Jackson. And I'm just saying that's going to be his outlet guy. When he is scared, he's a rookie, he's going to go to the old proven vet. And so long term, I like Mike Evans. But I think Vince and Jackson's going to be a beast this year. He's going to get the touchdown looks. And so getting him in the eighth round, beautiful. Here's a lot of guys. Here's some guys are going ahead of Vincent Jackson right now. Brandon LaFelle, Michael Floyd, Torrey Smith, Roddy White, Mike Wallace.

Victor Cruz, Keenan Allen. So some names that you could definitely see Jackson lighting in front of. Jeremy Macklin. Yeah, Golden Tate, Julian Edelman, Jordan Matthews. So good take on that. My value guy is Jarvis Landry. I think this is more significant in half-PPR or PPR leagues overall. Yes.

But he's being drafted right now between the fifth and the eighth rounds. Last year, he had 84 catches for 750 yards and five touchdowns. He definitely was Tanna Hill's go-to guy, but here's my big point in what I like to see in value. And this is something I think all fantasy players should take a look at. He averaged only five targets a game for the first half of the year. He was a rookie. He was getting his feet wet. In the second half, he averaged nine targets a game as the trust grew. And so he had five plus...

Five or more catches. So this is why I say PPR. Five or more catches in each of his last eight games. And I think he can get to that 10 and over, you know, point per game mark making him kind of a steal in that sixth round. He's not going to go out and get, he's not a 10 touchdown type of guy. I'm not saying that. But I like Jarvis Landry because he's coming into his second year. And because of what I saw in the field.

from a trust perspective. So he's my guy at value. I completely agree with the caveat of the PPR. In that span of the final half of the season, four games, he had double-digit targets, which is spectacular for a PPR guy. However, he can't be a superstar wide receiver with only nine yards per catch. That has to go up if you're expecting him to make the jump into the upper echelon.

And so I believe with Landry, perhaps his ceiling is capped, but his floor is low. And he will be a consistent player for you. High. Yeah, I apologize. His floor is high. His floor is high as his ceiling is low. He lives in a duplex of PPR points. There you go. Duplex of PPR. Jason, any thoughts on Landry?

I see him last year. His stats finished where I'm projecting Jeremy Macklin's to be this year. He had about 800 yards, five touchdowns around there. And like you said, he didn't really, wasn't involved, the first five games of the year. So he's got nowhere to go but up. I think 100 catches. I think he gets 100 catches over, and I think over 1,000 yards and six touchdowns. That's going to be great for way of getting them.

All right, Mike, your value pick. Let's close out this wide receiver section. Who do you think has the best ability to return an investment much higher than where he's drafted? The guy I'm looking at is Eric Decker, who is currently being taken as the 43rd wide receiver off the board, a guy who finished 28th last year. Yeah. Yeah.

Who returned high-level wide receiver 3. Wait, he finished 28th last year despite having hamstrings injuring him the entire season. And Gino Smith. I mean, yeah, I knew that, but I'm just saying I'm pointing that out for your sake. Thank you. Thank you. So here's why I like Eric Decker. Because last year, as the number one, he put up 74, almost 1,000 yards, and five touchdowns. Eric Decker thrives as a number 2 wide receiver. He's shown that in his career. Guess who's in town? Brandon Marshall.

Brandon Marshall is going to sway the coverage. Eric Decker will be able to do what he wants. Because this is what happened last year, what Decker is the number one. Here's the second best wide receiver on the team. Jeremy Curley, 38 catches, 400 yards, a touchdown. That's the number two guy that Eric Decker had to deal with. And let me remind everybody what Eric Decker did in 2011 with Timothy Tebow as his quarterback. He still managed to put up 44.

612, and 8, with Tim Tebow, the illustrious de Marius Thomas, 32, 551, and 4 with the same Tim Tebow. Eric Decker is a good wide receiver. Yeah, he is. And you get, you up the power of that Jets offense, do not sleep on Eric Decker going that low in the draft. That's ridiculous. I love it. All right. I like Eric Decker as well. I think that that was pretty telling where he actually finished to where he's being drafted.

Any other thoughts on these wide receiver values? Eric Decker. So next week we'll bring our full consensus rankings at the wide receiver position. Yep. And so we'll just kind of go over our top 10 next week and some guys that stand out as well. And we're going to get all these on the website at the fancy footballers.com as we get, now we're in April. It's a draft month. I know. It is draft month. We're inching our way closer. I had just one last thought for Jarvis Landry because his first name is Jarvis. Should we call him Iron Man?

Cricket. Cricket. My Marvel skills must be down. Oh, Jarvis, you know, the robot. Jarvis is the robot voice from Iron Man. Yeah. Oh, dude, you got to step up your comic book game. Sorry. My apologies. We play nerd games. I need more. I need more than just a name, though. I need him to be like, you know, if he goes out and just plays through every injury and he's, you know, like an Iron Man and then his name is Jarvis, you got me there. But you got to prove, you got to prove Iron Man. That's too good a name. They can't.

Mailbag. There it is. There it is. This question comes in via email from Derek B. He says he says he's been listening to our podcast and it is great. Okay, this is my third year. By the way, thank you for saying that. This is my third year playing in a 10-man league. This year I have the number one overall pick in a standard league. My first two years I have been burnt on RBs and this year I'm thinking of going wide receiver, wide receiver, wide receiver, wide receiver.

for my first three picks, which is a pretty appropriate question here. He wants to know if we can touch on this strategy, the wide receiver, wide receiver, wide receiver strategy. That's a mouthful. Yeah. Can we touch on that strategy? What do we think about that? Has he been burnt because he's just drafted poorly, or is that something he should try out this year? So I went back and I did some extensive research on bust potential of top 12,

ADP running backs and top 12 wide receivers. And here's what I'll say about 2014. If you drafted, and this is something you could have potentially done realistically. If you went Calvin, Brandon Marshall, Keenan Allen, you are a sad panda. Yeah, you are. If you went to Marys Thomas, Antonio Brown, Randall Cobb, you're ecstatic. So it's not just running backs who bust. Wide receivers also busts.

Sorry, I'm trying to pull up my thing as we're talking. So last year, and if I bust, I consider it someone who's taken in the top 12 or ADP top 12 and they didn't finish as a two. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. So running backs, you only had three busts last year. And one of those busts was Adrian Peterson who got suspended. So that was not a play-related bust at all.

in the wide receivers, you had three total bus and A.J. Green, who was just on the cusp because he actually finished 23. Go back a year. Oh, I apologize. I'm getting ahead of myself. In the, and then for the top 15 finish of running backs, eight total from the top 12 ADP finished in the top 15. Only five were drafted after the fifth round. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Say it again.

of the top 15 finish at the end of the season, eight of those running backs were drafted as top 12 running backs. And how about the wide receiver position? Do you have that number? That's eight as well. Okay. So it's just about the same. 2013, that's probably the year he's really referring to because there was a massive, there was six busts, so 50% bust rate of the running backs. And you look at the wide receivers, four.

Now, here's the caveat though, right? Because even if the bus percentages are different between positions, you know, if wide receivers are moderately less prone to the bust, it still doesn't matter if the position scarcity issue is there, where running backs are more scarce and more necessary for you to have. I think what he has to do is move forward and look at the risks in the players he's drafting. Exactly, which brings me to my next point of the point differential.

of what happens. To win a fantasy championship, now I don't have data on this, this is just my assumption. If you won a fantasy championship, it's because you have at least one top 12 running back. The point difference between the top running back and the top wide receiver. Here, I'm just going to run through them real quick. Murray, 294, Browns 251, 2013. Jamal Charles, 308, Gordon, 227. So can you see what I'm saying? The top running back scores a lot more.