Fantasy Football 2018 - Early WR Rankings Part 1

Actually, what I always used to get was I got the Nugis and I got the box of red ants. You ever have the box of red ants? A box of red ants. Oh, gosh. That's when your uncle comes up and pinches the hell out of you. Just over and over all. Like little teeny pinches all over. Oh. Did it go with the purple nirple? It's up in the same tier. It's the same tier of punishment. The Nugies sucked. And then the box of red ains sucked. Uncle comes around. You know that the nips are gone. Get out of town.

Go back to where you came from. All right. Hey, before we get into the wide receivers, which we're going to do right now, I do want to thank Pristine Auction for sponsoring today's podcast. Look, you can get a signed. Here's what people got yesterday. Signed, authentic, Tyree Kilt Jersey, $61. Signed, authentic. Devante Adams' mini helmet, $71. Odell Beckham Jr. signed eight and a half by 11 photo. $40. Jordan Reed signed 8 by 10. Get this.

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pristine auction.com, P-R-I-S-T-I-N-E-Oction.com. We want to thank Seekek for sponsoring the show. Seekek is the smartest, easiest way to get tickets to every type of live events, whether you're searching for a last minute deal, planning a night out, or you need to find the perfect gift. Seekek helps you find the best seats at the best prices. They are fully guaranteed. I have the Seekie Gap. Andy has the Seekie Gap. We have used it. It's the easiest way to buy tickets because just a few taps. Just a few taps.

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Enter the promo code footballers, that is footballers, for $20 off your first seat geek purchase. All right, let's get into the wide outs. Wide receivers. All right, let's circle back. Speaking of live events, I mean, yeah, I know, I know. Jay Grizz wanted me to bring something up. I don't know if we've brought it up yet, Mike. But there's going to be a few fantasy footballers live events this year. Quatro! That would be four, at least four.

Do we want to tell? Do we want to tell people? Are we announcing the cities? Do we want to tell people where we're coming? I do. I want to get the hype train going. Oh, look out. Watch out! All right, let's hype this. You know, people always said that when we use the hype train drop, that it sounds scary and I never understood. Then I bought a new car that actually had like a sound system in it. I got freaked out, man. I'll tell you what, we do not insure people's underpants. No, no. You soil them. That's your problem. Yeah. Not my problem.

No, not my problem. All right, we are coming to, we're going to have a live show in Phoenix, Arizona. Of course. Home base. Yeah, home base. We're going to do a live show in Minnesota. Yeah. This year in Minnesota. I'm going to see my team. It's going to be in June. Me and cousins are hanging out. We're going to play some golf. Some of those things will happen. The live show most likely. Some of those. We're going to be in Dallas this year. Yeah. We're going to go visit our Dallas foot clan members. And then we're going to be in Philadelphia. We're going to head out east.

Celebrate some Super Bowl victories. Yeah. Victories, I've just projected them to win again, apparently. Yes, victories. Hey, they could do it. They could do it. Certainly. Carson wants one. Carson wins once one. All right, so that's big news, though. We're going to get out on the road a little bit, and we had so much fun doing the live show last year out here in Phoenix. The Foot Clan's amazing, and we're going to go to you in a few cities this year. Stay tuned for more information. Fair.

All right, number one on our consensus top-ton wide receiver rankings. Maybe you've never heard of him. Maybe you have Antonio Brown. The consensus number one, number one on all of our individual early rankings right now. I don't need to give you the resume. No, but I'm going to anyway. Go ahead, Mike. Because it's just so fun to talk about the greatness of Antonio Brown. Since 2013, here are his fantasy finishes. 6-1-1.

Three, he missed a game, and two last year. He missed two games. Since 2013, when Antonio Brown took over the role that he has, he has the most receptions in the league, 582. Second place over that time span, Demaris Thomas, 481. Over 100 more receptions. He has the most touchdowns in that time span, more than Des Brian 2nd, and the most yards, 7,848.

almost a thousand yards more than second place was Julio Jones in that time span. Antonio Brown, he's the number one. Antonio Brown is... He's been doing it since Sean McVeigh was in diapers. Let's put it that way. Antonio Brown is going to go down... Do you think he'll go down as the number two? Can he get there? Of all time? Yeah. I'm just assuming he can't pass Jerry Rice because nobody can possibly...

Could he get there? Yeah, he could get there. If he has some of those statistical accolades on the back end of his career, he could get there. He's great. But he's number one. Has his quarterback changed? No. No. In his quarterback, things have changed for Ben Rathesberger from midst season saying, I don't know if I have it. I'm going to retire to. Now, Todd Haley's gone. Three more years. I hate that Todd Haley guy, so I'm going to play three more years. He's going to have more freedom at the line, which means more targets towards Antonio Brown, if that's even possible.

And no, there's no stopping Antonio Brown right now. Look, Antonio Brown is to the wide receiver position. What left bell is to the running back position. And by, not fair that they're on. By comparison, DeAndre Hopkins is what Gurley is. He came out last year, bounced back year just like Todd Gurley. We have Hopkins at number two. Mike and I both have him at number two. Jason has him at three. And last year, all he did was go out, catch 96 passes for 13178 yards, 13 touchdowns on 175 targets.

with a variety of quarterback options, basically saying, I don't care to whomever was brought in and to all the doubters. As long as it's not Osweiler. As long as, and that is really my rule in life. Would you like, if someone, random person walks up to me and says, hey, do you want, do you want me to do your taxes? I say, as long as it's not Osweiler. It doesn't matter what the question is. Can I watch your kids for you? How long as it's not Osweiler? Not nice.

Do I get to make fun of him a little bit more because he's from out here? Watching him play football was not nice. Right. He could be an absolute, I mean, we already know that he's good at all things height related. I've heard he's not a gentleman. Really? No, I'm just trying to make you feel better. All right. Let's not talk about Brock. Let's talk about DeAndre Hopkins. So DeAndre Hopkins last year with Deshaun Watson, four of the seven games, he had 11 plus targets. The thing that I am hopeful for,

That's a weird thing to say with DeAndy Hopkins, but his catch percentage with Deshawn Watson was over 63% on the season when you factor in all the other guys who are throwing him in the ball. He finished at 55 for 55. Oh, do we got that? Oh! Yes! I need that on a quicker trigger button because we only think about it if someone randomly brings up the number. It's instinctual for me.

I got it there quick. But so higher catch percentage with Deshawn Watson, it's the target share. Massive, 174 targets. That was the 33% target share. More than, AJ Green came in second at 28%. So as long as they keep feeding Hopkins, which we have seen, you go back to three years when he had the breakout campaign with Brian Hoyer, it was all target share. So as long as that continues, Hopkins will be a top three guy.

Yeah, and that's one of those things where Hopkins is the type of receiver you just need to force feed the targets to. He's got some of the best hands in football, body positioning, offensive passing interference capabilities. I was going to say that's the best push-off in the business. But 11.6 targets a game is what it comes down to. Now, does this defense take a step forward? Does Deshaun Watson show that he's able to do what he did? Consistently. Consistency? Well, I can't say words. Consistently. Consistently?

Consistent Lisi. That's what I was getting at. Jason's not here. I've got to fill in. That's the question mark with him. But when you talk about the other players in our consensus list, the question that comes to mind is they have, you know, they have different warts, they have different problems. Odell Beckham Jr. comes in at number three. He's Jason's number two. He's my four and Mike's three. And he has question marks above his head. Will Eli Manning be able to say, as of time of recording, he's a New York giant?

I just want to make sure we throw that out there. Yeah, and I guess it's worth saying. We're recording this a little bit early. Brooks is heading out of town? What is it? Cabo San Lucas? Is that the Caribbean? For what, a month? Back to Michigan. Oh, back to Michigan. Brooks's skin in the Caribbean would stand no chance. Oh, my goodness. Agreed. It's like offensive linemen against Aaron Donald. No chance. But O'Dell Beckham, Jr., coming off of the injury,

a team that wasn't very good, obviously, with the number two pick in the draft, and yet a player that has met or exceeded every expectation you could have for him. In his three healthy seasons, he finished six, five, four. He really screwed the pooch. He needed to be three last year. Yeah. I'm pretty disappointed. You should be. But Beckham Jr., you know what you get in him. If you wanted to make the argument, hey, let's draft him over Hopkins, draft him over Julio. That's fine. Yeah.

Those are players that I have. I have both those guys ahead of him. But Beckham is still one of the best dynasty wide receiver draft picks that you can make. Dominant. I mean, you're splitting hairs with these players. Yeah. If you do recall, he injured himself in preseason. So he was a bit of a question mark entering last year's draft. But then weeks through five, wide receiver six, 19, wide receiver seven. He's fantastic.

1,300 yards, 10 plus touchdowns, each of his first three seasons. We can move on. Yes. So let's move on to Julio Jones. Tried and true. We're keeping him there. Tried and true. 149 targets, 1,44 yards, 88 receptions, just three touchdowns. And this is the enigma that is Julio Jones, right? He seems to make big plays, right? He puts up the second most receiving yards in the league.

And yet he doesn't score. And he's finished eighth in 2014, second in 2015, six in 2016, fourth last year. So a top five is where you're going to end up with Julio Jones. But I've grown weary of predicting some sort of explosion of touchdowns from Julio Jones. I mean, you compare that season, it was the wide receiver four, to the season that Hopkins had. And Hopkins had 10 additional receiving touchdown.

Why can Julio not score? Here's the crazy thing. This is a stat I've brought up, but it's worth repeating. Players with 19 or more red zone targets. There's 20 players. Only three of those guys had a catch percentage under 40% on those targets. Adam Thielen, Mike Evans, and Julio Jones. Julio Jones had 14 targets inside the tent. So they tried. The leader.

had 16. That was Jimmy Graham. On those targets, Jimmy Graham turned 16 targets into eight touchdowns. Julio Jones turned 14 targets, and these targets are coming from pro football reference, into one touchdown. So all of the indictments of Sarkesian, they tried. They shouldn't. You should not be mad at them then.

If the leader in the category was 16 red zone targets, these are inside the 10. Yeah, I'm sorry, 10 zone targets. And Julio gets 14. He did. They did what we wanted them to do. And Julio said, no. No, no, man, I'm good. It's strange. I only like yards. I don't understand it. And you brought up Evans too, right? Somebody who's big bodied and, you know, is this a product of bad targets, of force feeding targets? I'm sure it is.

Because these players are great. Yeah, and you have the other players on the team. Matt Ryan's not a bad red zone quarterback. I mean, you have Mohamed Sunu and Austin Hooper who have fine catch rates in the red zone. But not Julio. I feel like Julio's targets come after about a 13 second scramble by Ryan who just eventually lobs it up. I have no clue. But we did see what? The playoff game last year. He couldn't come down with it. AJ Green.