Top 10 WR Rankings + Hungry For More - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/7

it's the reports were initially well the patriots have decided to step away then you were getting more more beat reporters saying uh well actually the patriots offered him the bag they were like more than 30 million the report was yes a 30 i mean and this is like that is elite top tier money and according to them brandon i yukes said no i don't want to go to the patriots and then the patriots said well we didn't want you in the first place so it's It's not just money that Brandon Ayuk wants because if it was just money, he would have gone to the Patriots. So he's trying to find a balance of give me that money, but I also want stats and a chance to win. Where's he going to go? I don't know. Perfect situation. We'll keep an eye on it. And I know the deucers over there are paying attention to the news all morning long. So we'll jump back into the wide receiver countdown. Wide receivers. All right.

We went 20 to 11 on our consensus wide receiver rankings countdown. And so today we've got the top 10. Number 10. Pooka Nakua sitting at 10 right now. He's seven on Jason's list. 12 for me, 14 for Mike. Yeah, I've moved him down. Broke the Jamar Chase. Is this because of the knee? It's just a little part of that. It's partly the knee. It's partly the getting more reports from. from boots on the ground saying that the offense goes through Cooper Cup again. And it's, no, Puka's great. I mean, 14 is still extremely high. I'm just, I'm lower on him than the ADP is. So, you know, if competition's on the field in the form of Cooper Cup and we saw, you know, we saw Robinson step up last year. DeMarcus, not Alan. Not Alan. No, Alan doesn't step up, steps down. So, you know, sitting at 10.

finished as the wide receiver four, that seems like a, it seems like an okay place to be. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think that Jason's sitting here with no doubt in his mind. Oh, no, I'm not. I think at one point in time maybe there was no doubt. I think maybe now there's, you know, there's just room to go down for Puka Nakua and still be amazing. Yeah, I mean, for the team. Obviously last year he benefited from a lot of missing Cooper Cup. When Cooper Cup was out there, he was still very, very good, but a lot of his dominant games, you remember the beginning of the season when he was the wide receiver 9, 5, 4, 11. Like unbelievable start out of nowhere just became a revelation. You know, that was when Cooper Cup was missing some time. So, you know, it is hard. Now, he is also a second year wide receiver, you know, where it's like you usually take a step up. You get more integrated into the offense. Obviously, you can't.

really get more integrated than he was, considering, you know, he had, he broke pretty much every rookie wide receiver record. 105 for 1486 and 6. 105. Yeah. 1400 yards. I mean, that is, it's just unbelievable. So I don't want to take away the fact that he was so great and maybe he doesn't repeat being that great, but I don't want to take away what he did. from who he is. Yes. Because that is the wide receiver that is so unbelievably talented with a great offense, a great offensive mind. And yeah, okay, he benefited from Cooper Cup going down. And I don't want to, you know, you know, assume this. But Cooper Cup has not been the healthiest player and is a little bit older now. So I still I still don't mind betting on the, I think the value is more on Cooper Cup's side, obviously. I think they both.

could finish as the number one wide receiver for this team if both play 17 games. I still give my edge to Puka, so the value is with cut. But I don't mind taking Puka first, betting on the younger, you know, the younger prospect here. Yeah, is like almost a, not exactly apples to apples, but the Ammon Rae St. Brown situation of the breakout as a rookie. And then it was, we spent the off season of, well, is he that good? Or was it because everyone on the Detroit Lions got hurt and turned out he was that good? He was just that good. Number nine. All right, from Puka to Debo. Debo, Samuel comes in at nine. We know a lot about Debo at this point in time and we know how great he can be when. We know that too. We know that too. He was the wide receiver 12 last year with two missing games.

had the disappointing 2022 where he missed four games and finished at 37, but then was the wide receiver two the year before. Brandon I. You hanging in the balance, right? This wide receiver on the other side of the field. I mean, it definitely seems like he's not going to be on the 49ers field. It doesn't seem that way. Obviously, the ADP is going to change drastically once that happens. But if you are drafting now, Well, where do you think Debo's going right now? Do you know off the top of your head? Because I have it right here. I think he's going in the third round. Yeah, middle of the third, wide receiver 16. We all have him ranked higher than that already. And if Iuke leaves, and I did bump up a little bit of Debo's numbers preemptively assuming an IUC departure. But if it becomes official.

I will bump him up even further. I would be so confident to take Debo at, you know, wide receiver seven ahead of Puka, you know, who we just talked about. Like, Debo is, you know, he's been the wide receiver two before. He's on a great offense. If he has the consolidation of more targets and more involvement, on a per touch basis, he's just, he's a man. Yeah, you get the rushing yardage in there. You have to get that. You have to get those rushing touchdowns, which, I mean, he has, you know, in basically every single year of his career. What's wild for Debo? Because, look, I'm stuck in San Francisco mode of Brandon Ayuk, Debo. And it's a, it was more just a shock, I guess. It's one of the things you know. But when you really think about it, Debo has been good for fantasy a season long.

Just two times. Like two out of five years. Like when he's on the field, you know, and you have him two years, you get good games here and there. But it was just like a, wow, he's, he's only been healthy. He's only been fantastic and healthy two years. Brandon Ayyuk has had more total yardage in three of four years than Debo Samuel. Receiving yardage. No, total yardage. Total yardage. He's had more touchdowns. And because health is a factor too. I'm not saying it's on a per game basis. Oh, okay, okay. And then two of the four years, Iuke has had more total touchdowns than him. So it's just, I have him very high as well, but that was a interesting thing for me to really look at. He's only played two games without IUC in the last several years. Yeah, I'm both of those. He was top 10 in those weeks. Yes. If Iyuk is gone, Debo is going to be incredible. Five rushing touchdowns last year. He's had.

16 rushing touchdowns in the last three seasons. Well, and now you got everybody, all the running backs are hurt again. Yeah. So Debo's been the yak leader of 2019, 23, 22, 21, 20. I don't know why I said it in that order. Oh, man. That was the order of the yards after catch per reception. So congratulations. All right, moving on. Number eight. All right, Devante Adams comes in at eight. Yeah, this is just, I mean, last year was an uncomfortable wide receiver 11. Amazing in championship week. The targets were outrageous. I'm kind of, I'll be honest, I'm just kind of tired of talking about Devante Adams. Yeah, there is definitely fatigue. We're all just like, we're as annoyed as he was being on that team last year. But.

You know, we don't have a winner at quarterback, so we don't even know if it's Minshu or Aden O'Connell. Because there can't be. There's no winners. No one can establish that job. Someone will de facto receive it at the end and then we'll be replaced halfway through the year. He ended up the wide receiver 11 with 63% of his targets as catchable. And you can go back and watch the tape. You can go watch Jimmy Garoppolo miss him wide open on bomb touchdowns. Like the big playability of Devante Adams is going to be there. But. But yeah, I mean, this is this is not the sexiest pick you've ever made. I have him the highest. Like I think he ends up accumulating his way to wide receiver, top 10 wide receiver numbers. I do not. I've got him as the wide receiver 12. I think his talent is incredible. Last year, you know, he finished as the wide receiver 11. He was a consistency score of C. Half of his games were, were.

brutal and not games like what you're used to seeing where a bad game is like, well, he got 10 points. You know, he had games of 1.6 points, 0.9 points, just like crushing awful games. And part of the reason for that is the quarterback play, which hasn't changed. It has changed, though. You think it's not poor quarterback play this year? Because that's what I'm referring to. Poor quarterback play last year. Poor quarterback play this year. I mean, I'm holding out. I mean, we loved, I brought this up before. We loved Michael Pittman last year with Gardner Minshu for the entire season. And Aiden O'Connell managed to hyper-target Devante Adams to the tune of good numbers at the end of the year. I think Jimmy Garoppolo heard him really bad last year. I think the head coaching changed heard him back last year or heard him bad last year. I'm just leaving the door a little bit more ajar because they did, I mean, he got onto a 190 target pace over the back half of the year, and that's good enough.

I mean, that's good enough to be, like, can Devante Adams finish, Mike in the top five? I think he still can't. If it has to be Gardner, like I do not think that if it's Aden O'Connell for the entire season, that he can finish in the top five. I just, I don't see O'Connell, even in another year, elevating to that level where we need him to get. He was 13 fantasy points per game with Aiden O'Connell last year. Targeted. 30% of the time target per route run. Yeah, 30% target per route run. But that, I mean, that includes games of what, hold on, I'm just double checking the, so Aiden O'Connell was really week nine on. And it's like week nine was 5.4 points and you have some good games, then 9, 8, huge games, but also like the chance that in the semifinals, he puts up one reception for four yards. Like,

And it's also the ADP. That was the Sneed Kansas City game, by the way. Yeah. The one, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Guys disappear. I mean, the wide receivers disappear. I guess I am a just flaming apologist for DeMonte Adams. Look, that's fine. I watched him last year and I just felt bad for him. It's about this is a market value. This is an ADP thing because I talked about Jalen Waddled yesterday of he'll be inconsistent, but I want a player who can win me weeks. I don't know that I want to spend my second round pick on a player that will win me weeks, but then we'll have times where he just absolutely vanishes. And it's, he is, you know, it's like, do you want the upside of Devante Adams or do you want the upside of Chris Olive or Devon A-Chance? Because that's the price you're, that's what you're choosing. Yes. Maybe that choice could be taken away from you in the second, but that's.

right now, ADP-wise, what you're looking at. Yeah, Devante Adams is still a great wide receiver. Yes, he didn't look like he lost anything last year. He's 31 years old, which for your normal receiver is where that age cliff comes, for some of these greats, you know, Larry Fitzgerald, no problem. Adams is an outlier to me. I'm not worried about his age. But at the same time, you have a long history of great wide receivers. It's over eventually. You know, Julio Jones was great until one year it wasn't. You know, I think it was age 32 season. Are you going on record saying this is it for Adams? I am absolutely not. But what I'm saying is that there is that risk of a downside that when you draft a 32 year, he'll turn 32 this season. When you draft a player at that age on a bad offense, there is the chance that you are the one holding the bag when the, you know, the bill is due and everyone else has left. And so it's it's yours to pay.

That's just a risk I don't want for an upside that I don't think is there and a consistency that is hard to swallow. And you had him Brock Bowers. He was. Someone you really, really love to take a few more targets. I mean, he needs these like 180 targets to be like. That's part of why I like him is because I don't think he can be worse than last year on offense and he still pieced it together. Under Aden O'Connell, I was just curious. I pulled up our weekly consistency and subdivided the year. He was the 12th most consistent wide receiver under Aidan O'Connell. Okay. So you said he scored 13 points per game with O'Connell last year. For reference, that would have been last year's wide receiver 15. Which you're paying too high. Which is fine, but yes, it's too much for what the price is. All right, yep. This is why I don't like talking about Devante Adam. There's just too many, there's too many angles to take. So, but I think you end with a draft price that is extremely high.

Yes. And there's some more exciting names that maybe, you know, it feels like you settle for Adams a little bit. Yeah. If you talk about who could finish as the wide receiver one between that guy or the guy we're going to talk about next, we know the answer. Yeah. Number seven. Garrett Wilson. Garrett Wilson is 24 years old. Comes in at seven. I've got him the lowest. Right now, Mike's the highest. We're all waiting. We're all waiting to see what can happen here. What does Aaron Rogers have left? The Jets are just a trepidacious situation to have optimism in to put too many words together there. But most ever targets through two years at the wide receiver position, he always seemed like he was open. You don't.

You talk about guys you felt for on the field. I mean, Adams and Gare Wilson belong in a tandem. Wow. I mean, you want to talk about how bad the Jets offense was that he was trying to go through. I'm reading the stat for the first time. He has had 310 career targets. He's had six targets that have occurred inside the five-yard line. I mean, during the time he's been playing, players with more targets inside the five-yard line, Tommy Trimble, Logan Thomas. The ghost of Alan Robinson has had more. That is how bad. I was looking at, I forget who tweeted out, there was a chart of the average depth from the opponent's end zone where the running back got the ball. And it was like, you know, some were around five, six, seven. Most of the league was all the same. And then there was the jets at 25 yards away from the opponent's end zone. Their offense was.

unbelievably bad. You hope that you've got the new Devante Adams situation for Aaron Rogers, which was he was great, efficient, throwing touchdowns in the red zone, go to your number one receiver. That's the hope and expectation for Garrett Wilson. But just like you said, age 32, Devante Adams carries inherent risk, so does this stage of Aaron Rogers. Yes, absolutely. But there you go. Adams are the Adams. Garrett Wilson sitting at seven in our rankings. His price, it's expensive. He's the wide receiver eight off the board. We're back to the expectations of, you know, can Garrett Wilson finish top five? Yes. I think so. That's the real argument here because the price is, it's difficult to get behind because of the amount of risk, but top five is in the range of outcomes. If Aaron Rogers is.

85, 90% of his MVP years, overall number one is in range of outcomes to me. I think Garrett Wilson's that good. Since 20097 wideouts have had 160 targets in a season, which is what he had last year. Out of that group, he was 96th in fantasy points, 97th and first downs and 94th in yards per game. Leave Garrett alone. Out of 97. That was almost the historically worst season in history with 160 targets. Yeah. giving more blame upon him. I know the quarterback play was horrible and the offense as a whole was horrible. The offensive line was terrible. I think he pressed a little bit. I do. I think over the back half of the year he pressed a little bit, but not much blame. No, like a small tiny cup of blame. Yeah, you watch him and he moves in a special way. He moves like Justin Jefferson moves as far as just like his body control and ability.

to set people up. He's got legs and he knows how to move. I mean, I have a really hard time at this ADP simply because I don't personally believe Aaron Rogers as the MVP Aaron Rogers we saw a couple years ago at this age coming off of Achilles. So I don't get a lot of Garrett Wilson, but it is clear and obvious with his talent that if Aaron Rogers can move this offense and is just, I mean, even like the quarterback 15 in the NFL, like the 15th best quarterback. If he's a top half quarterback, Garrett Wilson should dominate. Only wide receiver in the last decade to remain a first round player, ADP-wise, a year after finishing outside the top 30. So this is 100% being banked. That's right. Well, good work community. It's all being banked on the Aaron Rogers. We blame you, Zach. To fix it all. Eat it, Zach. All right, quick break back with the top six. All right, we are back into the wide receiver countdown. Number six. A.J. Brown. Oh, yeah.

AJ Brown is drafted as the wide receiver six right now in ADP. It's too low. Jason has him at four. Mike at six. I'm at five, so we got him at six as a group. He's pretty impenetrable. I think that's a good word for AJ Brown right here. Great offense, quarterback, pedigree history. Impenetrable. I don't think he can let you down. And there's very few players like that. In fact, I think it's a little unfair that he's not. generally in the grouping of wide receivers at the very top of the draft. Okay. So Tyreek, Seedy, Jamar. Like the fact Jefferson's in that conversation and AJ Brown is not there is not fair. I didn't say Jefferson. No, but he's talking just ADP. Like, okay. Jefferson went before Bejohn in your mock draft. So I'm counting Jefferson in that group. Where is so Jefferson is the ADP on Jefferson higher?

I believe it is. The ADP on Jefferson is the wide receiver three off the board. Okay. Yeah, I believe that AJ Brown should be right there. I agree. We talked about it on the ready to roll segment earlier this week, but the utilization as a first read target inside the red zone where fantasy value is so high, it was a dominant lead for AJ Brown within this team. Now, obviously. Kellan Moore's coming over, new coordinator. So you could see that shift. But what won't change is his physical ability to dominate NFL defenders. He was paid more. He's the one for this team. He's 27 years old going in to a season where you should be near peaking in your total fantasy production. 1456 yards last year. Down year for the offense. He crazy run at the beginning of the year. What broke the record for most?

Like 125-yard games, I believe it was. Absolutely dominant. And the Kellynne Moore discussion of, is he good for the NFL? That is something I just, I don't care. I care about fantasy football. And Kellyn Moore for fantasy football for his alphas has been sensational. Second half was rough. It's fair to say that. Yeah. The offense was rough and they made their changes, but he's a physical force. Number five. Jefferson comes in at five. So we got them back to back in our consensus rankings. I actually have him a spot behind AJ Brown. As do I. But we know that he's. This one's tough, man. We know how good of a player he is. I mean, like this isn't Devonty. 98 yards a game for his whole career. This is not Devante Adams with Gardner or AOC. This is the best wide receiver in football with Sam Darnold.

For a bit. I'm saying, yeah, and then probably J.J. McCarthy. But I'm saying it's a 32-year-old elite player or a 25-year-old, the best wider super in football. So that's where it's so difficult to gauge where Jefferson can succeed. Where can he succeed, too, with the quarterbacks that he has? He makes it very easy on the quarterback. He had top six games with Nick Mullins two times. but he also had some duds with the bad performances. And the schedule sucks. So like when I'm staring down the AJ Brown and the Jefferson decision and I want to get off to a hot start, I'm just worried about, I know I've seen so much eternal optimism around Sam Darnold and I don't understand where it comes from. Well, this, maybe maybe this time it could work for us. That's how it feels because we've got what, Jets, Panthers, 49ers so far.

You know, Team 4 is normally where it hits, right? When you've got to go into New York. He's on the Gino Smith path. Right. No, that, you know, it's definitely going to work against. Very normal. In New York against the Giants, then against the 49ers, Texans, Packers and Jets. And then there's a bye week, which is you might as well say bye, by Sam Darnold, because the sacrificial baby will be. throwing out with the bathwater. Yeah, yeah. We just need Sam to understand throw the ball at Jefferson. Yeah. I don't, two defenders, doesn't matter. Kyle, chuck it up there, man. There was a Hopkins year where he was ruthlessly targeted by bad quarterbacks. Is this the bad Hopkins year? No, this is a good Hopkins year. I think Hopkins had a pretty good year.

And just saying there was like where Hopkins was his as a sophomore DeAndre Hopkins wide receiver 14, 4 down to wide receiver 30 in a full season under 10 points a game. Okay, so I might have been looking for the opposite of what we found. Yeah, I mean, you saw it with Larry Fitzgerald as well, who was a great when you have a bad quarterback. It can affect you more than you think. Now, Andy, you brought this up, but it bears repeating again. He. He scored 30 fantasy points in a game with Nick Mullins. He scored 23 fantasy points. He can do it. But I don't think he can do it consistently. Like when he had Kirk Cousins before the injury, he played a month with him. He was never not a wide receiver 1. It was the wide receiver 8, 1255. You're not getting that consistency out of him. And I think that there's a little bit of name, you know, golden name. He's Justin.

freaking Jefferson. He's the guy who, you know, was in debate for the number one pick in drafts last year that is just making you go like you said, Mike. I mean, you can make the argument. He is the best wide receiver in the NFL. I mean, that's, that's, it's an easy argument to make. Yeah, Hopkins was the wider wide receiver four. Then he got Brock Osweiler and Tom Savage and he became the wide receiver 30. And then the following four years. Which I believe was... Those were the Watson years. One, two, five, five. So it can happen. And we need to be realistic and remove the golden name. The two years before the Brock Osweiler was, the leading passer would have been Fitzpatrick and in 2015 Hoyer. Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's still at five, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So... Yeah, he's... This is why...

I think A.J. Brown, I mean, really, it's A.J. Brown and Justin Jefferson. I couldn't imagine personally taking Justin Jefferson ahead of A.J. Brown this year with the quarterback situations of both those guys. The wide receiver can't be. But what feels sexier on your team to look at before the games are played? Maybe Justin Jefferson. I mean, that's what makes it hard for people. Number four. Jamar Chase comes in at four. We know Jamar Chase is a fantasy difference maker. This is not about the resume when you get to this point. This is just the order we concluded. 20% I'm sorry, he's had 20 plus fantasy points and 33% of his career games. That's 45 career games. 20 plus fantasy points at wide receiver is going to win you your week more often than not. And that is a third of the time for Jamar Chase. That is what you're buying. The only people over the last three years with a higher percentage of those type of games.

are Tyree Kill, Justin Jefferson, and Cooper Cup. I mean, he is a weak winner, and he is a league winner. He is an absolute league winner so long as him and Burrow stay healthy together for the season. Yeah, can we get that, please? Yeah, I mean, we just hungry for more health? Yeah. Can we, I mean, just, his rookie year I get, he was, just do it. Rookie year he was the wider C.5, but then it's just we haven't got. a complete in totality fulfillment of the promise of Jamar Chase. I mean, his sophomore year, he was a wide receiver one, the last one. He was the wider shooter 12. In 12 games. He was unbelievable. 16.6 points a game. His targets have still gone up three consecutive years. Yeah, he used to be one of those guys where it was like, you think you're going to get 70 receptions for just a ton of efficiency. And he's become more of like the.

the every down, the high target, high volume alpha wide receiver. It's just to me, if Joe Burrow is healthy and Jamar Chase is healthy, there is no question you want Jamar Chase on your team and you don't want him on your opponent's team every single week. No question. And so it's just a matter of health to me. Say healthy, buddy. Number three. Amon Ross St. Brown comes in at three. What is there left to prove? I think I might be along with people that are still a bit skeptical that he will continue scoring touchdowns at the rate he does, considering the type of player he is, you know, his size, his utilization in the slot, those things that don't usually... He went up from 6 to 10 last year. Right. 10's probably too much. And that's where it's like if he's a 10 touchdown guy, you know, on the reg, then he deserves 100% to be the wide receiver 3 here without question.