Fantasy Football 2018 - The TRUTH About Fantasy WRs in 2017, Part 1

But you'd be thinking 110, hopefully. Yeah, the reality is DeAndre Hopkins was the only player this year. If you're talking, why is he number one in consistency? The only player that did not have a single bust week. He did not score seven or fewer points in one single game that he played this year. And that is. Even with bad quarterbacks against Jacksonville or Arizona or Baltimore. It didn't matter. Hard matchups, bad quarterbacks. He had enough targets, enough volume.

He was there. Coming into next year, you get, I mean, when he had Watson, he was unbelievable. To the point where you might go, should Hopkins go above Antonio Brown next year? It'll be an interesting question. And I think it's a fair question to bring up. DeAndre Hopkins also negative 1.3 points against top 16 past defenses, meaning he scores, you know, 1.3 fewer.

But which is, that's close to nothing. That's negligible in this area and two and a half points more at home. Also, negligible. That's a very, very small amount. So Hopkins was just consistent. I mean, he was smooth. He was smooth as butter. I like it. Still young. 80% of his games were classified as good games, which means he will be at that 12, above 12 point fantasy mark. Like Jason said, zero bus games. And then he was considered, quote, great.

27% of his starts. That's that top five type of week-winning week, so he contributed in that way. That is almost, he's almost exactly double what the average for, if you look at the top 24 wide receivers, he's almost double what the average for having those great week-winning performances were at 28%. And he is less than half of those type of weeks than the clear winner of great games.

the number two wide receiver finish run on the year. Antonio Brown is a freak. Real quick, before we jump to Antonio Brown, I do want to say this. I think DeAndre Hopkins will represent the best top wide receiver value next year. I don't see him going ahead of Antonio Brown. I don't see him going ahead of O'Dow Beckham Jr. I don't see him going ahead of Julio Jones. I bet he goes in front of both of those guys. I don't think so.

I don't think so. And you could be right. And maybe because of how he finished that year, he will. But you still have pedigree, multi-year runs by those other wide receivers. I see reasons why people might question. And there are, look, you cannot just give him these numbers for the rest of his career. You had Will Fuller, who was basically turned irrelevant because of the lack of quarterback.

play. You know, other weapons around, and Lamar Miller struggled. The defense wasn't very good. There were some things that forced 175 targets DeAndre Hopkins way. Deficits in lots of games. That being said, I still think he'll be the best value amongst those guys, but maybe that's only the difference between the number two pick and the number six pick. I don't know what they did. So Antonio Brown, Jason, the number two fantasy finishing and the number two most consistent. He did have a bus percentage of 21%.

surprising. But he had a great percentage that is mind-blown. One of those busts was the game where he played and got injured. So, you know, those are going to happen and those hurt your fantasy team, but certainly not at, you know, fault of Antonio Brown for hurting his, what was it, his calf. But yeah, 57% of his games were the weak winning more than 20 points. That number is...

When you draft Antonio Brown, like I would, it's no question to me. Assuming Big Ben is back next year, which is definitely a question. If he is back, it's Antonio Brown. Because Hopkins was great, very consistent. But to have those week-winning weeks like Antonio Brown gives you more than half of the games that are played is asinine. Again, the other top 24 wide receivers, they only give you those games 14% of the time.

And that's just the top 24 finishers. And this is more than half of the games, not to mention more receptions than Hopkins, more yards than Hopkins. The difference in finish was down to the 13 touchdowns by Hopkins, nine for Antonio Brown. We know how touchdowns. Those are hard to just replicate year over year. Or in Julio Jones case, hard to get it all. But, Mike, what else can you say about Antonio Brown? Would you take them over Hopkins?

In a redraft? No, I'm with Jason that if Big Ben is back, Antonio Brown will be my number one. It was in 14 games. Yes. So, and that includes the injury game, of course. I mean, even if he plays 15, I bet he is back at 10 plus touchdowns. So negative 3.3 versus top defenses. So no big deal. He was five points better at home. Yeah, that's the only.

But that's a pretty big margin compared to the rest of these guys. It's a big margin for your home road splits because we talk about Big Ben, not as good on the road. But when your average is as high as his is, it's like, oh, five points less. Still a great game. Yeah, exactly. All right. I think we're, we don't need to linger on Antonio Brown. Go ahead, draft them. Let's give some credit to Keenan Allen, the number three fantasy wide receiver on the season. Incredible end to the year.

Mike has taken a sip. I think he's trying to get me to give him praise over his love for. I'm here for this conversation, fellas. Keenan Allen. Now, look, what can you say? Keenan Allen, 102 receptions, 1393 yards, and six touchdowns on 159 targets. His bus percentage, only 6% of the time. Now, he did spend a good portion of the beginning of the year between the bust and good rating.

where he was just lingering there. 8.7 points, 8.1, another 8.7. Those didn't, those did not help you really win that week. However. From weeks, sorry, just to piggyback, from weeks five, so 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10. So the buy was in there. That stretch, he never finished above 30.

at the wide receiver position. So you had a dead zone, a five-game dead zone that made even the most stalwart of Keenan Allen supporters, Mike, waiver and his knees begin to wobble. It did. But luckily when I fell down, Keenan Allen was there to catch me with his very secure, very... His rejuvenated kidneys. Here was the nice thing is that those weeks were very down. Like you said, he didn't finish in the top 30 at wide receiver. However...

You know, as a Keenan Allen owner, and I had a lot of stock in him this year, you were fine on those weeks. When he would put up five for 60, you weren't thrilled. You didn't get, you know, a monster game, but he had enough volume in the targets where he didn't completely crap your team and, you know, throw up those Des Bryant disappearing games. And then I'll say this as well. Considering that Keenan Allen had played nine football games.

in the past two years, it took some time for Philip Rivers to remember. Oh, yes. Keenan Allen is, in fact, a great wide receiver, and I need to throw him the ball 10 plus times a game. 25% of his games, and he played all 16, which is more than the top two guys in this list can say.

But 25% of his teams. Also the most Keenan Allen can ever say. We're weak winning performances, number two against Buffalo, followed by four and four against Dallas and Cleveland, ending the year number one against Oakland. Impressive. Yes. Where does he go next year? It's more of the same. Keenan Allen, the only knock for Keenan Allen is injury history, which. Nice to put it 16 games season under your bell. Yeah. I don't think that's going to change people's minds of.

Of the injury history, he was still a pretty highly drafted wide receiver. Maybe he moves up into the back of the second round. Because if he gives you 16 games, he will give you numbers similar to this. Maybe the yardage comes down a little bit, but you're still talking 100 plus receptions easily.

in my opinion. Yeah, this last year, the reason I had him a lot was because I could grab him in the fourth round. Yeah. And that's great. I think Keenan belongs in that second round conversation, maybe even near the top of the second round. And I'd be happy to grab him. And just to add in, he also has negligible defense and home road splits. Julio Jones was the fourth ranked fantasy wide receiver.

But he felt much more like his consistency rank, which was number eight. Finished 88 for 1,400 plus yards and three touchdowns on 149 targets. And when you look at Julio's season, what blows me away the most is you'd never had back-to-back weeks where he was inside the top 12th. You never had two weeks in a row. And so you'd get that little – That's bananas. You'd get the burst week two.

Okay, or maybe week seven or against Carolina or when he was number one against Tampa. You'd have these games and you'd go, here he comes. Here comes Julio. And then the next week, you know, he had four games this year where he was outside the top 38 for Julio Jones. I mean, his bus percentage was 19%. He was good 44% of the time and he was great only 13% of the time. I have an idea for Atlanta. Play Julio Jones.

only 50% of the time. Let him sit every other week. Let him re, he needs to rejuvenate. You're saying so you can start somebody else? Yes. Mohammed Sanoo. So I can start someone else and then they get that big game because he's only got the energy for every other week. Minus 5.5 points per game against top 16 defense. That's not what you want to see from that. That's a pretty big, yeah, that's a pretty big disparity. Julio. And now that doesn't mean Julio was struggling.

against that coverage. Fantasy-wise it does. But it means that part of it is games, you know, they seem to go away from him when they have a matchup that they're worried about. Yeah, and another part of that number so that you don't worry too much because Julio was still very good. You know, number eight, number eight inconsistency is nothing to be too sad about. But that split between top defenses as bottom defenses,

Part of that is really skewed because of the 46.9 points he put up against the bottom defense in Tampa Bay. So that's going to, I mean, you can't really fault him for being too good against bad defenses. That's a great point. Larry Fitzgerald was the number five wide receiver in fantasy. This one was really interesting to me. Finished the season with 109 receptions, 1156 yards and six touchdowns on 162 targets. And we talked about it.

All through the year. Larry at home. Yes. Seven and a half points better at home. Big number. Incredible difference. His consistency rank, 13. First wide receiver here and our list to not be in the top 12 most consistent. And that was really surprising to me because you're talking about a guy who had over 100 receptions. Usually those PPR type guys, like we'll eventually here get over to Jarvis Landry.

You know, those. Oh, Jason. I'm just saying, well, he's a wide receiver. We'll talk about him at some point. You don't know how to run a countdown. I'm just saying he's in the top 24. So. Top 100. He's in the top 100. But Larry, he really did have those. I mean, he was boom or or bust to a degree. He was, you know, he didn't kill you that often. So his, his bust rate was 25% a quarter of the games. He really killed you. Thankfully with him.

You kind of could see some of those games to sit him. He was on the road. You know where backup quarterbacks really struggle? On the road. On the road. So when you have, I almost said Skelton. My goodness. Oh, no. Don't do that. Don't go back to the past. When you have, you know, Drew Stanton and Blaine Gabbard on the road with cars and Palmer going down, that had to have added to that disparity. Yeah. Yeah. So he had 25% the other quarter of his game were those league winning over 20 point.

games. So basically 50% of his games were just negligible. And I will take 50% negligible, 25% high games and 25% bust. I was going to say that you look at the percentage of his great to good and they're actually very close. So I mean, it's everything he got from Larry. When he gave you a good game, it was not just good. It was generally a great game. A lot of question marks under whether he'll return for another season in 2018.

Cardinals Carson Palmer is retired. Bruce Ariens is retired. I'm shaking up my Kirk Cousins, Fairmoans. Look, whether it's Kirk Cousins, Alex Smith, Case Keenum. This is for you, Larry. If they get another quarterback, Larry will be back. Wait, as opposed to not bring one in at all? I'm saying as opposed to if they draft a rookie in the middle of the first that they hope they can develop. That's when he could hit the brakes. That's when he might go, you know, I don't want to do this. But if they bring in a that. That's when you see the ghost of John Skelton.