Early Top 10 WR Rankings + Goodish Ambitions, Forgotten Players - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/19

Because I went, I was trying to figure out what happened to Allen, you know, was this deep ball drastically different from this past year to two years ago in Stefan Diggs. And it really wasn't. And then I jumped into their intermediate targets. So Stefan Diggs in 2020, so the big year, his first year with the bills, 53 targets in the intermediate range, which is 10 to 19 yards. He caught 70% of those.

of those passes. So that's 37 receptions. This past year, 47 targets, very similar. He caught 51% of those intermediate targets. So something was not clicking in that zone where, I mean, Stefan Diggs can absolutely stretch the field, but he was just an absolute murderer of moving the chains back two years ago when he was so dominant. So that is just to me, it's like, that's just a weird.

one year anomaly where I think that that number, maybe it's not 70%, but 51% of those targets in a range that should be easy receptions for Stefan Diggs, I think that that can come back up and his situation with Allen's so good. Debo Samuel comes in a number. Oh, you have a stat? You have a Diggs? Stefan Diggs only had one rushing yard last year.

Oh, man, that's weird. Yeah, super weird. That's weird. That's weird. Jason. Good job, buddy. Just had one of them. But he did have one. And that's Stefan Diggs 2021. Man, deep diving. What did he have in 2020 for Russia? More. No, you keep studying. Yeah. I'll let you know. All right. Debo comes in at number six. The man wants to get paid though. Well, he wants to be a rich man.

I still have them at five. Jason, Mike, you have them at seven. I mean, what can't you say? What hasn't been said, I guess? Last year for Debo was incredible. He led the NFL in yards per reception, yards per target, receiving yards versus zone coverage. He's got a rushing floor that is just not something you see. 365 rushing yards, eight touchdowns on the ground, which is two more than he had as a receiver.

was the wide receiver 2. And as a pure athlete, it could be argued he's the most entertaining player to watch at the wide receiver position. Versatile, right? He's so much fun to watch. Hard to tackle, incredible in the open field behind the line of scrimmage everywhere. But there are, you know, negative storylines for him right now.

you've got a worst quarterback coming in. As far as throwing the ball has to be, right? I mean, there's no way. Yeah, until proven otherwise, a player who has not played, yeah, I would say they're a worst pass than the Jimmy Garoppolo. Right. So assuming that Tray Lance is the quarterback, there's a downgrade there. And then you look at how much of his rushing work was done with, while running back injuries factored in. And then they said, we're going to need Debo a lot more.

So if those two things change for the slight negative, then it gets scarier. You know, I'd rather have a wide receiver that's going to be like, I think he's going to have 170 targets. This is the first guy where it's like, you just need him to score a ton of touchdowns because you can't tackle him. And that's not how I like to rely on fantasy, you know, prospects. It's tough.

It's really tough with Debo because you can swing the pendulum too far, right? You can take a little bit of the trust that should probably be given to Kyle Shanahan that he will find a way to involve him regardless of the variables in play and, you know, the opportunities, right? Like the objective is to give Debo the ball as much as humanly possible. Sometimes it meant it all on the ground.

Sometimes it was targets. You combine them and he was at 180 opportunities. So I guess I do trust that they will find the way to do it, but it may be a bumpier road than we expect and it may come a lot differently. Like I would bet everything that he doesn't have eight rushing touchdowns. And that's where my biggest problem comes in. Now, he had three rushing touchdowns as a rookie, which is.

on 14 attempts, which is pretty interesting of maybe that was, you know, foreshadowing. His sophomore year was completely derailed to injuries. But there's just, I would not bet on the eight rushing touchdowns. Does that balance out with a few more receiving touchdowns? That's certainly possible. But for so much of his production to come through the rushing is, it's, it's,

A scary proposition. This is the first wide receiver we've been at where it's like, can Debo finish number one? And where we've been saying, yeah, my answer for Debo would be, yeah, kind of, maybe. Yeah, I agree with that. I think number one is tough. And I don't think, did we ask that question with Diggs? I think Diggs can be the number one, yes. I do as well.

I don't know if I think digs can be the number one. I think both of these guys have just, they're both top five, equal odds at top five, but I don't know if they can be number one. Debo, you know, in those games where he scored on the ground, it was still, you know, six opportunities, five opportunities. They can still put the ball on his hands around the goal line. Yeah. But I do think that there will be a few of those rushing opportunities.

vultured by rushing touchdowns from Trey Lance. That's part of the problem is, no, that's a good point. You know, they're going to get creative rushing touchdowns because they have Shanahan. It's just, are they still Debo or are they Lance? So you're thinking they might like have Jimmy run over to the sideline and they'd put Lance in for those plays? Is that what you're saying? They did it a handful of times. He's riskier. He's definitely riskier than the top five on the list. A.J. Brown comes in at seven. Just.

24 years old with a ton of baggage, emotional baggage for fantasy players because of missed games, injuries, disappointments. You know, when he hits, you know, every one of his plays is one of those, oh my gosh, that is a physical force in this league. That is a player that, you know, could, I think he could finish as the number one overall wide receiver. I don't think that's outside the realm of possibility for A.J. Brown, but, you know, he's a big play guy.

But you need him to be healthy. You need him to be on the field and you need to be able to execute the play action pass game for a whole season to get the kind of return on investment. Go ahead. Yeah, I mean, certainly his injury history has been problematic in the NFL. When he's on the field, he's usually great. I think that it'll be helped by having Robert Woods on the field as well. They got nothing from Julio Jones.

presuming health of this team, which obviously Woods is coming back from his own injury. Derek Henry is coming back from an injury. But if they're healthy, A.J. Brown is a young dominant wide receiver who I like in all respects with the exception of one, which is that he's not that super high volume. You know, he was, you know, on pace for 137 targets, which is great. That's in, on 17 games, that's a lot. But that's not.

the elite superstar, you know, where you're near 170 targets. So you've got to get bigger plays, more touchdowns, and that's going to come with less consistency. And that's kind of where I think you start to see some of the tier breaks from the elite guys who you just know are getting 150 plus targets to the big play guys who are talented and you're just going to have to, you know, pair them with other consistent wide receivers.

They, yeah, 24th and past attempts for Tennessee, Mike. Did you have something to add? Let's say, but just where the hope that you can look at it for AJ Brown is two years ago when he was the wide receiver 11 on the season. Remember back to the story. Like he got hurt in week one, missed quite a few games and was, he was back after their by week. So from week five through the rest of the season, he was the wide receiver three. He was the wide receiver five in points per game.

even with the red flags of the volume, he was still absolutely dominant for a really long stretch of the season. But I'm with you guys of like it's emotionally so hard to invest yet again in A.J. Brown being my number one wide receiver because like where he's being drafted, you know, you're going to have to.

Either you'll have an RB one and AJ Brown or he's your wide receiver too. He's in best ball right now. He's going as the wide receiver eight in the middle of the second. It's tough because he's the kind of receiver you could force the ball to and be fine with. Like the quarterback could be fine with that, right? He's got that ability where if you force Fettem targets, he would deliver. He is dominant at every level, but they don't do that. So it makes it hard to trust. Hopkins comes in at eight.

on our consensus rankings. I'm at 10, Jason at 8, Mike, at 6. Mike, you're the most bullish here. Obviously, the clear alpha in the offense. And we talked about him in the quick question. But last year, lowest receiving yards per game since his rookie year, there was some frustration about the old route tree or route bush or whatever they were using him. That's not changing because Cliff has been extended for infinity. So the...

All the tumult in Arizona, you still have him rank pretty high. Yeah, he was fantastic to start the season. We essentially had like seven weeks before he heard himself in that Green Bay game off of some very questionable play calling from his head coach. But in that time period, time period, I should say.

In that time period, he was the wide receiver 10. Arizona was 7 and 0. Things, things were very good when Hopkins was actually healthy and playing for this team. Is AJ Green really a threat to, let me check the tape? No, no he is not. Maybe Ronnell Moore, but Hopkins is so safe. Lock him in for.

30 plus percent of the targets and a bunch of touchdowns. And I think he can pick up where he left off before the injury. Jason, what are the range of outcomes for Hopkins this year? Yeah, I mean, the range of outcomes, I think it's going to be good because I, he is so necessary to this offense. So barring injury, he should end up.

worst case, the wide receiver 15, best case, you know, a top five wide receiver because he's one of the few guys that you could say as a realistic chance of 15 receiving touchdowns. He's the only real good wide receiver proven in their prime on the Cardinals roster. So that's the upside.

You're on a high-paced, you know, high-flying offense, and you're the clear number one, and you're super talented. Lots of reasons to love Hopkins. You could get him at a value because people were disappointed from his injury riddled finish to last year. But the targets are really upsetting, confusing, and they are the red flag. You know, he has always been a...

Target hog, and now this last year he really wasn't at all. I mean, you had games where he played 100% of snaps and had two targets. Multiple, multiple, multiple games. His, you know, if you take out. Was that the Ramsey game? Was that one of them? One of them was. I'm looking at Ramsey. I'm looking at Jair. I was just curious how those, if the Cardinals or Kyler got afraid in those games.

Yeah, I don't remember the specifics of those individual games, but look at the entire game long. Until his last game that he got injured in the entire season, he didn't have a double-digit target game, which is crazy. That's what he should be averaging. Sure. So, you know, if you take out that injury game at the end and you look at the other games he played, nine of them, he was on pace for 96 targets. And that's like, what? Yeah.

Cardinal's got to figure some things out. Tyreek Hill comes in at, well, the final two on our list, Tyreek Hill, Mike Evans are actually tied in our consensus rankings. I have Tyreek at 7, Mike at 9, Jason at 10, and then Mike Evans, 9, and 8. You know, different stories here. Tyree Kiel, you've got that whole switching teams narrative. And this one is, this one's hard to see getting better, that's for sure.