Fantasy Football - Top 10 WR Rankings + What Could Go Wrong? - Podcast for 8/10

Five weeks of 20 plus points. Only Puka had more weak winning performances than George Pickens. You just have to have two guys on the same team finishes wide receiver ones here. We've seen it before. We've averaged one pair per year since 2015. If I had to pick which team does it this year, which obviously I think everyone would be like Bengals or Cowboys, it would be the Cowboys. The rankings and the ADP.

are pretty confident for the cowboys. What other teams are in contention there? Rams. Rams did it last year. Yeah, Rams. Maybe Detroit. I mean, because Jameson. Maybe. Jamison's finished as a top 10 before. Yeah. They'd be in there. Maybe. I mean, that was 20-25s was Ammon Ra and Jameson. Yeah. Dark Horse Saints. Yeah. Now we're talking. Now we're talking. Yeah. Target competition with CD when CD was in the game.

Pickens was at 21% target share. So we don't like that number for a top 10 finish. Yeah, 21 on his routes, 26% when CD was out. I think it's just the looking at last year is it's very noisy in terms of, I don't think you can cleanly gather out of just doing like the box scores. A, you know, CD's for sure just by far the number one. Because you had early on the season. It was George.

It's just first games with the Dallas Cowboys, and C.D. Lamb is dominating. Then he gets hurt, and George completely takes over not only the Cowboys, but he takes over fantasy football. And then the end of the season, they're both doing well. And there's a couple low games here and there. I think George Pickens is truly an elite budding superstar for the NFL. You know, I have them at 12 because I'm just...

It's a little bit hedged. His 80Ps at 11, but I have no problem with him going at 11. I have no problem with you. Andy, you got him at 8? I think that's perfectly acceptable for what George could do with CD on the field. If you take out the first two games, the argument you're making is like, okay, that was the first time George played with CD in real games, you know, CD dominated those targets.

Take some time. Then he got injured. George went off. Once CD came back, so week seven on, the 17 game target pace when both those guys were on the field taking out those first two games would have been 143 to 137 targets. So it was not that wide of a gap. However, tough end of the season. Yes. Really tough into the season for the last five weeks for Pickens. And you might, you know, the last week I think they sat down starting. Yeah. I was what I say. The final three weeks was tough.

for the Cowboys. CD Lamb was 8.1, 7.1, and then doesn't really play the game. Number eight. All right, AJ Brown comes in as our number eight wide receiver. That's where his ADP is right now. There have been moments this offseason where I've wanted to be like super all in on AJ Brown. Like, like, it should work. It should work. It almost makes too much sense. It almost makes, I mean, it's too quiet.

I mean, he's been a dominator. Last year, the much bemoaned offense, he still got it done, still finished at number 10 with two games he missed. It should be a very good, at least one more year, I think, for A.J. Brown in New England. Now, there's going to be acclamation to this offense, to some degree, building that rapport with Drake May. Does that happen instantly? We know A.J. Brown is a particular kind of guy when it comes to...

The squeaky wheel, baby. He's a squeaky wheel. And it should be, you know, you're moving from one of the worst passing offenses in football statistically in terms of pass rate and total passing offensive statistics to one of the best in football. New England was unbelievable last year. You can say what you want about the schedule, but production is production. And Drake May went out there and, like, I mean, they were just really, really good. And they passed the ball a ton. The case with A.J. Brown.

is does he still have it? Like that's the entirety for me because there's some people last year that looked at the film and said he looks like he lost a step and he's going to turn 30 this year. So either he's not the same dude and he's lost a step and so you will be maybe disappointed with where you're drafting him and he's not that guy. If that's your argument, fine. But if he's still good and keep in mind last year he was the wide receiver 10 missing two games

on a low volume offense, how can he not almost project to be a top five wide receiver? This is a dominator for fantasy for many, many years, who is going from a low volume to a high volume, to a team that just lost Stefan Diggs, who had a thousand yards and was basically their primary receiving option. The volume of opportunity for him should be 25% more than it was last year.

I've got two things I want to discuss and get your thought on, Jay. One is you may see between building the report of Drake May and the schedule, I don't know if you can have a tougher first four weeks in the NFL. You go to Seattle. That's really tough. Then you play Pittsburgh at home. Okay. Then you go to Jacksonville. You go to Buffalo. You are underdogs in three of the first.

three weeks, you're on the road in three of the first three weeks, and you're trying to build a rapport with a quarterback against defenses that are going to be pretty good. It could be a slower start, is all I'm saying. It concerns me like if I... Week one concerns me that that first game out there and then playing against a world-class defense in the Seahawks. But like the Jags are a good team and you might be...

The underdog. The bills are a great team, and you're probably the underdog. But those are also good offenses where you're going to have to pass. So I don't mind that personally. I think that those two games, the Jags and the Bills, those games will be like, I want those environments. Those will be huge tests, though, for a team that had the schedule they had last year. I mean, Drake May, we saw him in the playoffs. He wasn't the same guy against these top tier teams. One other thing.

What were you going to say? I was just going to say, I'm in on AJ Brown. I don't think that he's lost a step. No, I don't either. And if he hasn't, this should be a pretty easy and obvious successful pick. There have been a handful of guys seven, in fact, that since 2017 that are wide receivers that just changed teams. And how did they perform? So like Brandon Cook's was the wide receiver nine, became the wide receiver 12 when he switched teams, also went to New England.

Umari cooper went from wide receiver 13 to 18 Beckham went from 7 to 26 Antonio Brown never played again I don't know why they're in the sample what is oh he just he got that was the year he pieced out man yeah like if I remember right Tyree got better like it was going well oh he was Tony O'Brien he was very good and then just took a shirt off and left football it was a game is that what yeah one game oh my gosh we'll move on number seven

Justin Jefferson comes into number seven. I've got him at six, Mike at six. Jason is at seven. Justin Jefferson is 27 now, guys. Yeah. Not forever young. It happens. But still very young. This is the number one all time through the first six years of the NFL in receptions and receiving yards. We know the player. We just want to know that he has a stable situation offensively. And we now know, like we didn't know,

how bad it can get. It can get pretty bad. I mean, sub 10 points a game. We've had all time, this is a really, really good thing to look at. We've had all-time players have down years. This has happened for Larry Fitzgerald before, but, you know, A.J. Green, Hopkins, Devante Adams, they've all had years where they slipped outside that top 20, but you know their Hall of Fame type talents. When AJ Green finished at 24, the next year he was the wide receiver 7.

When Hopkins finished at 30, the next year he was the wide receiver won. Same team. When Devante Adams finished at 24, he was the wide receiver won the next year. The best players end up coming back to form. Everything about Jefferson and camp has been amazing. It's just the JJ Kyler mess. And maybe. And it's still a mess. Maybe that's affordability, though, for a player that could be number one again. It's not really in the sense that most people are in on Justin Jefferson. I guess if you're taking them as, you know, the wide receiver.

you know, six off the board and he finishes at one, then you did get a, you know, a discount. But I could slip into the second round for a lot of leagues. For a guy that finished as wide receiver 22 last year, playing all every single game. I mean, it was atrociously bad. And now the, all is forgiven. No one is, no one is off of Justin Jefferson.

But the quarterback competition right now this year has not looked great. You know, the most recent reports, it goes back and forth. The most recent reports I've seen are that JJ has had more just not Justin Jefferson, but nine. McCarthy has had more better practices than Kyler Murray. So it's, you know, it's, it's not, it's not impossible that Justin Jefferson comes out this next year and is the watershed year of 15. Because if he gets.

If he scores five touchdowns because these quarterbacks can't throw touchdowns, that's the issue. He had 10 games with McCarthy last year, five with Carson Wentz, two with Max Brosmer. I do think that that's borderline impossible for him to do in this offense. I think it's going to be better. I mean, a second year, J.J. McCarthy is better than a first year McCarthy, and Kyla Murray could be the starter, and that would be much, much better, I think. I think that's too low for me, but you think he could be, that would be full on.

That would be one of the biggest Boston fantasy again. That would be. I mean, I get it. The quarterback situation should, should be better this year. I mean, I've got him as my wide receiver seven. I'm not projecting him to be there. But to say it's impossible. I mean, he literally just played every single game and it was the wide receiver 22 because a quarterback play. The quarterbacks are not guaranteed to have been solved. And I really do think it comes down. I wish they had Gino Smith. I wish it came down to touchdowns. And, you know, that's.

Whether or not around the red zone. So are you bypassing? So like ADP-wise, what I'm seeing right now is after Jefferson is Drake London and A.J. Brown. Yeah. I mean, every time that I've had that decision, I've gone A.J. Brown over Justin Jefferson because. How far does it go? Nico? I would not take Nico over him. George? George. So I'm looking at my rankings and I literally was like, I think I would rather have George.

That's crazy. It feels crazy. In which case, you know. It just, to me, it just like, again, a down year versus a downward trend, I think are different things. So you're not confident in Kevin O'Connell to get it fixed. Because if you, I mean, to me, it's a discount on Justin Jefferson. If you have any confidence in Kevin O'Connell as a head coach. Yeah, I mean, you can't let that happen two years in a row. And there were, again, you had three quarterbacks of starting. And that's why they went and got Kyler because the hope was, okay, we can.

If it doesn't work out for McCarthy, then we just, that we have this veteran who was at least not the worst. Kyler's not great. He's not, he won't be the worst. Strategically. Isn't the smarter thing for them to do to start JJ? If the camp battles are actually as close as we are hearing. I'm just thinking of the transition. It's a lot easier to pull JJ for Kyler to me. I just like team wise, if it's close.

you should be putting McCarthy out there. Because he's still young. He can still get better. Where it's like, Kyler Murray's not getting better. No. At football. He is. He's regressed a lot, actually. Yeah. If anything, he's only getting worse from this point moving forward. But it's a mess, man. Like they, McCarthy has his supporters online. It seems like the media prefers Kyler. Look, dunking on JJ McCarthy's.

pretty easy and based off of what he did last year with the memes and everything it's pretty fun uh so i don't i'm i think i'm more on jason's side of just like jefferson's ranked high because i'm respecting the player what he can do but the risks are it's very high right now you need to know what you're getting yourself into don't just it's not blind everything is totally fixed

things could be status quo from last year. Yeah, right now he's going right next to C.D. Lamb. Oh, give me Cid Lamb. Yeah, I would take C.D. Lamb there. And Ash and Gentie. Like, those are the two players on each side. Or if you prefer Hampton or A. It's more about cost is what you're saying, because the risk is still there. You don't see it removed. I am comforted by the fact that the comparisons that we have with other legendary wide receivers, you are going to have odd years. But to go from 30 to 1.

To go from 24 to 7, you know, Adam's same situation. It's comforting to me. I think the talent is too good. And the target share is too large. But, yeah, there's risk because we don't have, I think people wanted to see this guy won the job today. Like if I, if you knew today that one of these guys had dominated him was named the starter, would you feel different about Jefferson? Yes. Yes, entirely. This is not a Justin Jefferson problem.