The TRUTH About Fantasy WRs in 2018, Part 1

So I have to wonder if this, if it can go up from this. And not that it has to. I mean, this is still, if he did this again, sure, he's worthy of a number one pick. I think Adams, like you're talking about, there's a little bit more variance built in with the way that this offseason could go for Green Bay. I mean, if they spent their number one or their second round pick on a stud wide receiver who happens to follow them, it won't shock me. So that's why.

I have Hopkins just slightly above Adams because I think that everything is perfectly safe for Hopkins target share. I tend to lean that direction as well. Hopkins has, I think he's a better pure player. Yes, I do agree with that. But look, it's a sliver. It's really close on which guy's going to give you a better year next year. Other stats for Devante Adams.

Pretty much nothing different between home and road. You have a season that consistent. And he was down a little bit against top 16 defenses, two points a game, lower. That's negligible. Negligible. Antonio Brown, 104 receptions, 1,297 yards. Here's where he made his money. 15 touchdowns this year, 168 targets. 7% of his games were bust games. Week 14, he had six points.

He made his money in Week 16. Yeah. Antonio Brown was solid. He was very good for your fantasy teams, but he certainly inflated his overall finish coming in there with that Wii 16, 37 and a half point. I mean, extravaganza. People loved it because it was their championship week, and he's incredibly consistent. But if he had, you know, just an average game, Antonio Brown's probably,

outside of the top five if he didn't absolutely explode. Yeah, I looked up the, because that's something, I mean, that's what we want to look at in the truth episode is how were they, you know, did all of it come in one game? If you take out that week 16 performance, you just look weeks one through 15, he was actually still the wide receiver four. So he was in the top five on a points per game basis still tied for four.

So you have six years in a row of Antonio Brown hitting at least 1,284 yards, double-digit touchdowns before the last five seasons. Antonio Brown is phenomenal. But where is Antonio Brown playing football in 2019? Antonio Brown was my number two when we put out our first top 10, you know, rankings, the way too early stuff a couple weeks ago.

He was my second wide receiver, and I can't have him there now. Oh, get him, Jay. Well, I mean, it's just, it does not look like he's going to be in Pittsburgh. And that's the hope. I think every fantasy player hopes that Antonio, like just reconcile, get back with Big Ben, do what you've been doing. If he stays in Pittsburgh, I will still take him over Juju. I will still take him probably number two overall.

Antonio Brown. At the wide receiver position. Yes, yes, yes, yes, at the wide receiver position. But, I mean, it's all about him leaving. His target volume, his dependency in the red zone, which is, you know, he's always had, you know, double-digit touchdowns is hard for a wide receiver. His body style is not the wide receiver you would expect to be the guy always getting double-digit touchdowns. But it's Big Ben's trust level there. So if he changes and goes somewhere else,

it's going to hurt. It's really difficult to talk about what his consistency means for 2019 when he might be somewhere else. Yeah, it's going to be a challenge because you don't want to understate or overstate the consistency that he's had, but then you have so many more variables present for him than other players right now. I mean, you saw Jerry Rice change teams would be awesome. And Antonio Brown is in that tier. He's in the Larry Fitzgerald, Jerry Rice.

tier of, you know, one of the top three to five best wide receivers in the history of football. Um, okay. All right. You guys want to move on? Yeah. Julio. Julio. Julio touchdown Jones. Yeah. There was a point in the season. I'm telling you this, just sharing a story from our league of record. There's a point in the season. Our trade deadline's coming up. Julio's got like two, one touchdown on the year.

and I had the chance. Someone offered O'Dell Beckham Jr. I'm sorry, I was offered Julio for O'Dell straight up. And I'm looking at playoff matchups and who to play and how to break down my playoff matchups. And I loved what I saw from O'Dell. And I told myself, I said, if I do this trade, Julio was so due to score. Like, it's coming. It's coming. And I couldn't believe it. And now obviously that bit me hugely because. Right in the keyster. Beckham was out.

at the end of the year. Yeah, Julio was not. The first seven games, Julio Jones, had exactly no touchdowns. Zero, nothing, nil, zip. And then in the next nine games, he had eight touchdowns, a 14 touchdown pace on a full season. Is this something clicked? The ice was broken and Matt Ryan and Julio just figured it out? Yes.

Yes and no, because 113 receptions, 16177 yards, 170 targets. This was more the law of averages than anything else. He's going to catch the ball all over the field. He just started getting into the end zone. When you have 113 receptions, some of those are going to happen. I mean, look, we've seen him snake bit for a while. I'm not concerned about it. Now they switch over to Dirk Cutter again at offensive coordinator. There's plenty of wide receiver touchdowns in Tampa.

Yeah, and I'm just like in love with 1677 yards. Yeah. More than anything else. Eight touchdowns in the end. 6% bus game, 75% good, 44% great. That's a huge great percentage. To me, that's the highest great percentage of anybody so far. He is the guy when I look at Tyreek Hill and I say, well, Tyree Kill make my top five where I, when I come staring down the barrel next year at Tyree Kill or Julio, right now I lean Julio.

He has got a larger body of work, a larger body as well. He's only going to be 30. 30 is not the death age for wide receivers. Usually that comes around 31, 32. That's the Logan's run. So, Julio, you know, it's not like with Cutter coming back, you've got to do the, I need two seasons for Matt Ryan to get used to the system. He's already been there. So I.

I think Julio is going to be a great play. This is what I'm saying. The top of the top of next year's wide receiver class is strong. And we haven't even talked about someone that I expect will be ahead of some of these names next year, but probably shouldn't be. The next guy on the list. What a teaser. Hold on. I want to say this, Julio and Mount Ryan, that.

connection reminds me so much of what you had established between Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson for many years. You can kind of print the 1,500 plus yards because you even brought in Calvin Ridley. You've had changes at the running back position. You've got Mohammed Sunu, different players, but Julio's just going to get his. Because at the end of the day, when Matt Ryan's running for his life, he throws it.

To number 11. This throws it to Julio touchdown. Now, are you about to insult Michael Thomas? You're darn right I am. That is insane because Michael Thomas are number six on the list. 125 receptions, which by the way, last year 107, we thought that was nice. 125 for 1405 and 9 on 1447 targets. Have your way, Jason. I have never. Go ahead. Ever seen before, nor could even envision or imagine in a dream.

that a player with 125 receptions, not targets, receptions could have a bust rate of a quarter of his games. Like he seems like he should be the number one most consistent player. Right. He's Drew Breeze's main target who caught 125 balls. How in the world did you have a quarter of your games where you busted? That's not just under, I mean, you know, if according to us, we're saying,

fewer than seven points in a half point. Shouldn't be hard for Michael Thomas. Right. Like he should be able to get that every single game. But they were able, other defenses were able to scheme him out in certain games. And he crushed you. I was a Michael Thomas owner. And a lot of times it was the games that you would expect him to go off. You couldn't predict when they were coming. But my point is just 125 receptions is what dreams are made of.

But he was very not consistent, and that's surprising. This is... Not consistent. He was not consistent. He was not consistent. He was not consistent. Very not consistent. Not consistent. At all. And that's what this episode is about is taking a look at the truth of players and not just their stat lines. Because the stat line says he should be... Well, let's look at the number...

two, the number three wide receiver drafted off the board next. You're assuming Drew Breezes. Let's get that Matt and Aggie Wins face going on. Here's the Matt and Aggie Wins face. Week 12, 5.8.8.4. Week 13, 6.5. Week 15, 8.4. Week 17, 5.4. That means four of his final six games. He gave you, yeah, turds. And then 15 and 22 in weeks 14 and 16. Obviously, you started the year is the number one guy over the first three weeks.

But then a couple of duds. So he does, he has disappeared a little bit. So let's look at what he does against top defenses. It was also, that's why it was. It was also the end of the season there. You had just maybe the shift to the running game, but Drew Brees towards the end of the year was not putting up numbers where through the first 10, 11 weeks, Drew Brees was crushing. But does that concern you, Mike? I don't, yeah, it's a chicken or egg. I'm not sure which to blame yet as of this recording. Here's a couple interesting facts. One.

Top defenses didn't slow him down. He was better against top 16. But at home, he was plus 5.92 points per game. Yeah, that makes sense. That's a lot. That's Drew Brees. We've talked about his home road splits. He likes playing at home in a dome. Yeah, you're looking for another rhyme. His truck's got a lot of chrome. Thank you. Save me there. Oh, my gosh. I saw him start smirking. He's trying to think of what? Yeah. At home in a dome.

Read a tome. Thanks, Mike. 85% catch me. Let all receivers with that. I don't think anybody likes throwing to one specific guy more than Breeze likes throwing to Thomas, other than maybe Russell's throwing to Tyler Lockett. Right. Number seven on the list, Adam Thielen. Oh, yeah, I'm supposed to push a button. Oh, are you? Well, I was hooked for, you know.

For nine weeks? Yeah. I was really hooked. That was great. 13% of his games were busts by our definition. 63% good games. 38% great games. And this really was a tale of two halves. Mike, you and I talked about it last week a little bit. Break down the first and second halves fantasy points wise. So Adam Thielen.

Those through the first eight games, like we had talked about, over 100 yards every single game. His 16-game pace was absolutely insane because it would have been 1850 yards, which is just ludicrous. With 12 touchdowns. I mean, you're looking at double digits, double-digit targets in almost every single one of those games. But then the second half of the season, 39 receptions for 448 yards.

almost 80 reception 900 yards season. That is just not anything close to special when it comes to fantasy football. Yeah. It's interesting because you saw the breakdown of Kirk Cousins as well. And where is the confidence level in this offense that lost its offensive coordinator halfway through the year as well? How much does that matter with what this team was doing? Sure. Here's what we do know about Mike Zimmer, right? What does he want to do?

Defense and run. Yeah. And what he... And Dalvin Cook was injured for a lot of the first half of the year. Here's the thing. Not only does he want to do that, but when they didn't do that, they didn't do well. Right. You know, they... It wasn't just like he was having his hand forced and then, well, I guess we are a high-flying team and we win that way, so we're just going to live with it. They were not succeeding. Right. And so it will be, this will be one of the...

The Vikings in general, I think, will be an interesting offseason discussion point because all the numbers, Thielen, Diggs, Cook, cousins, they're all going to look real nice. I cannot wait to draft Adam Thielen again behind stuff on Diggs. I'm telling you, it will happen. People will draft Diggs ahead of Thielen again next year, and they will be wrong again. I would take them above. No, I'm just kidding. Okay, good. Yeah, look, I mean, to speak to what you're talking about, the tale of two halves, he was the number one wide receiver by a mile.