Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - The TRUTH About Fantasy WR's in 2016, Part 2

Touchdowns for Jarvis Landry's career. Oh, crap. It's going to be four. His rookie season, he had five. Ha! Ha! Nailed it! That is a career high. Because the following years, he had four and four. Yeah, and then four this year, right? Yeah. Did I say five or six? I meant four or five. If you had said four or five, I can get on board. Look, Parker's going to be your big play guy. He's going to be somebody that I would take, like, for draft position, I'd rather have Parker next year in standard leagues than I would Landry next year in standard leagues based on draft position. Well, Parker also, his...

We're getting off topic here with market. No, it's okay. It's a piece of the puzzle. His draft stock, to me, will be very related to Kenny Stills. Kenny Stills is a free agent. He had a pretty solid season. Kenny Stills is a good wide receiver. He's more than just a deep threat to me. What do we laugh? I'm just laughing because I felt like that was just an extra line you had to throw in for the age-long debate we've had about Kenny Stills. He is a good...

Wide receiver. He tells himself that every morning. It is funny. Kenny Stills is good. I agree. Mike and I have always thought Kenny Stills is good. Andy has always argued that he's nothing. I've just argued that if the Saints were willing to get rid of him, then there's something wrong. Well, the Saints made a mistake. I'm going to tell you right now. Okay. Kenny Stills, is Mike Wallace a good wide receiver? Kenny Stills is a better all-around wide receiver than Mike Wallace. I don't agree with you. I think they're identical. I think what Kenny Stills does is he gives you.

exactly what Mike Wallace does, which is one or two plays a game where you're like that guy's really fast. Otherwise, tough to lean on. I can get behind that. But anyway, I'm sorry. You're right about your point. My point was simply that Kenny Stills, I think he'll be back with Miami. And if he is, that you might not get that Parker explosion like you hope. If he isn't, and this is the second team to not want him, are you going to start to. So no, someone's going to want him. He's going to get paid. Of course. So go to a third team.

Just like all the good wide receivers do. They always bounce around team to team. Mike Wallace has been on a few. And he's not good. Mike Wallace is good? No, he's not. What? You can't say Mike Wallace is not a good wide receiver. I can't. I just did. He's not a good wide receiver. He just makes you sound like a dummy. He's a fast person. That's what he is. He wins races down the field. Okay, well, you think Mike Wallace is a good wide receiver? If I said, if I said a receiver on your team had 72 receptions for over 1,000 yards, is that a bad wide receiver?

Sounds like a good wide receiver to me, Mike. Because that's what he had last year. Who? Mike Wallace. He's a bad wide receiver. You're blinded. I think I will have the Twitter support from those that have ever been on a team with Mike Wallace. I don't think there are many. I don't think there are many bad wide receivers that have a nine-year career in the NFL? Sure there. Sure.

James Jones. All right. Let's talk about Tyrell Williams. This is a surprising situation. I mean, it jumps off the page to me as a regression candidate. Yes. Well, you got Keirle Williams took advantage. Yeah. Yeah. He was in the right place, right time. A lot of people early, when Keenan Allen went down and you wonder, who's it going to be. We talked about the wide receiver roulette in San Diego. Some weeks, it was Don Charles Inman, everybody in the very beginning.

Although I would say not us. I thought it was going to be Tyrell Williams, but you had the Travis Benjamin was really the guy. Benjamin was certainly paved to be that guy. But Tyro Williams seemed to be the best of the three there. Tyro Williams finished as the 15th ranked wide receiver in half point leagues. The thing about Tyrol Williams, and honestly it reminds me a lot of Vincent Jackson in his San Diego days. His reception told us we're so drastically.

so much lower than all of the other people ranked ahead of him. I mean, he had 69 catches for 1,059 yards. He's a big play type of guy. He didn't, he's not going to give you PPR numbers the way that these other guys do. I'm looking at up and down. You're seeing 90, 80 catches, 90 catches. But you would have been fine starting Tyro Williams. Because in the end, he makes a big play almost every game, you know, a chunk play, a 40-50 yard catch, even if it's not a score. Very impressive season. I don't, you know.

I don't know what he is long term. That's a tough part when you have a guy that finishes right here. I like him. The nice thing about him, what you're pointing out is that he's that low target big play type of receiver for that team. Well, when Keenan Allen comes back, I don't think that he's going to be hurting Tyrell Williams so much because he plays that different role. Keenan Allen's going to be the 100 reception, 10 yards a catch type of.

uh possession receiver who can who can break things long the west coast jarvis landry anytime you take an offense and you add a hundred receptions to it sure there's a huge question mark because i don't think that they hate don't trall enman innman's young i don't hate travis benjamin they have so there's something's got to give there so i think tyrell i don't think you can expect this from next year no matter how good he is you also have you know a really strange thing happened you look at that 25 statistics article philip rivers

I don't think he gave a top 12 standard league performance from week five on. Very, you know, and you can say whatever you want. Oh, you have to have, you know, Keenan Allen in the mix. He had enough weapons. You didn't have to have Keenan Allen in the mix last year for him to do that from time to time. Matt Barclay. You have to wonder a little bit. Yeah, Matt Barclay did it.

That's the story of the day. I agree. I mean, Tyrol Williams won't be drafted around here next year. But what we need to keep in mind is he's got the big play potential. And where his draft value is next year will determine whether he's worth that shot in the dark at a repeat. Out of all the top 20 wide receivers this year, Tyro Williams is by far the most likely to give you a year number 60 or something like that. He'll be drafted accordingly. I think. You're probably right.

Demarius Thomas comes in at number 16. The perennial top five guy, not this year. Number 16, consistency. He was number 10 in PPR. Still at 144 targets. Still had 90 catches. I mean, he just does that. But zero top five games for the entire year. None of them. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Mike McCoy coming back. Where do you put Demarius Thomas next year? What do you think about this season?

Did the best he could do? Yeah, absolutely disappointing with Simeon. Disappointing for where you drafted, I should say. The fact that they had a seventh round quarterback come in and he goes 90 for over 1,000, that's fine production. Hopefully Mike McCoy can continue to coach up Trevor Simeon or the swashbuckler, Paxton Lynch, if Lynch can take over for Simeon.

I think it's probably going to be Simeon next year. So Demarius Thomas, you just have to adjust your value of who he is. He's now he's not a back of the second. He's a wide receiver two. Yeah, he's not a back of the second round guy. He's a fourth round type of guy. Late third, maybe fourth round guy. Fifth straight year of playing 16 games. 30 less targets than last year, 15 less receptions, 300 less yards.

About the same touchdowns. I know I was preaching some caution about projecting a bounce back for Demarius Thomas at the beginning of the year. A lot of people saw the six touchdowns last year and said, oh, he'll be back in the double digits. It doesn't always work out that way. You know, he's in a situation that Larry Fitzgerald was in for a couple years where, okay, it's not John Skelton. But you also, Jason talked about it on Tuesday. Look at the top performers.

Look at their quarterbacks. It's a pretty much, it's a math equation. Yeah, it seems like the wide receiver twos for great quarterbacks did better than the wider receiver ones with faltering quarterbacks. Now you have going to be a change in the offense, which means a new system to learn for Trevor Simeon or Paxson Lynch, whoever it's going to be. Demarius Thomas, he is next year a wide receiver two. Now, the one thing I'll say about him is... He has one upside.

He has one upside, but I think it's more. He's one of those rare guys that actually outperformed. His consistency rating was ahead of where he finished because he, like you said, he didn't have a single top five performance, but he had 90 receptions. So you've got to spread that out over the season. So as a wide receiver two on your fantasy team, I think Demarius Thomas is okay. You're not going to survive with.

Trevor Simeon throwing to your number one fantasy wide receiver. It doesn't seem. You're not going to win a championship. But maybe Mike McCoy, like when you look at next year and you say, okay, Crabtree Fitzgerald and Demarius Thomas as your two, who would you rather have? Because Thomas finished behind both those guys, and I'd rather have Thomas. That's my opinion. I'd rather have Crabtree. I would rather go with the better quarterback and the more red zone targets. Sure. All right. Number 17 is Julian Edelman. Now, I don't, we don't have to linger too long on Edelman because we actually talked about him in the,

Quick question of the day yesterday. The big highlight to me is he finished 17th and half point scoring ended up number 60 in standard leagues in terms of a consistency ranking. Only three top 25 performances, only one top five performance, which I'm guessing was the final week of the year and didn't have any relevance for fantasy owner. That certainly patted the stats. So the story for him, he still had 98 receptions, but only three touchdowns.

You know, you're looking at him like you're looking at Jarvis Landry, and you're saying, you know, a lot of weapons. Legerrett Blunt obviously took a ton of touchdowns in the red zone, had a ton of one-yard chances. I think Edelman is good for this number, if not better next year. That would be my thing. Oh, yeah, I would just, I mean, 1100 yards. Is that he had 1100 yards? Oh, yeah. I mean, that last game was so massive. Yeah, I mean.

He, I still like, 30 years old. Yep. I think there's, but I don't have slowing down. Got that nice four or five, 40 times. The only reason that I think he might slow down is not because of himself or his age or anything like that, but you, you saw his resurgence come when gronk went out. Now, you, you don't know if Michael Floyd's going to resign, but if Malcolm Mitchell's a year more into the system and, and Michael Floyd resigns a gronk is back.

then I think what we saw this year with Edelman where he's got some duds out there is going to happen again. So really he's one, I think we need to watch how the offseason progresses for the Patriots in order to determine. It's just too early for me to tell I can agree with that where I could draft Edelman. Well, because I'm never wrong about anybody, we'll talk about the guy I just love. Number 18, Richard Matthews. I've been telling Jason for years how good Richard Matthews. No, I mean.

I'm lying, and I wasn't a believer in Richard Matthews. But he ends up at number 18 on this list. The team did not believe in him early. No, they didn't. His story, 65 catches, 945 yards and 9 touchdowns. Why is he number 18? He's number 18 because he had nine touchdowns. He just kept doing it. 65 catches. That's not a ton. PPR consistency ranking was seven spots lower than his standard league. So he's a better standard league receiver this past year.

Seven top 25 performances. That's impressive to me. Five dud weeks. Obviously, lost his quarterback for a part of the season. Overall, you know, a heck of a year for Richard Matthews. Yeah. And turned into a go-to guy towards the end of the year makes you think he can sustain or improve on this next year. Yeah, at least until Mario did Mario, when Mario went out, so did Richard Matthews fantasy value. But if, you know, if he was earning trust in the beginning of the season, I don't know.

Jason, I don't know if you have the splits on his first half, back half. I can look those up real quick. Certainly it was about week five before he came on strong. The first. Yeah, maybe where he ranked from week five on. Yeah. You figured that out for me. I'm just curious. Which game was the week five? Week five he played against Miami in Miami, went four 32 in a touchdown. I'll look up his splits in the first month and then after that first month.

Yeah, Richard Matthews ended up... My aunt week. I mean, from week five on, how many... Let me ask you this. From week five on, how many single-digit games did Richard Matthews put up? Guess. So that'd be 12 games. I'm going to go three. It was two. It's pretty good. Double digits.

throughout 300-yard games, a couple nine reception games. So very impressive. Obviously, they paid him to come and do this. I don't know why they didn't give him the shot for a while, but he's only 27 years old. So I think Bright Future with Mariotta, probably a guy that gets underdrafted. We always thought, I mean, Mike and I very similar to Kenny Stills. We always thought Richard Matthews was a good wide receiver. Now if you were right about one of them. If he has. So Richard Matthews, the first month of the season was wide receiver 71.

Did not help anyone. From week five on, he was your wider receiver 10. Yeah. So that's, that's impressive. And I think he's more, like if I had to just project him next year, I probably put him at 13, 14. Wow. That's extremely high. And I know. And the nice thing is he's not going to be drafted like that. I know. So then you've got, I mean, it doesn't necessarily A equals A plus B, but where do you have Mario deodor right now? And you're just your gut.