Fantasy Football Podcast 2015 - Top 20 WR's, Kevin from The League, Fantasy News

Easily top five, that would not shock me. I agree with you guys that one would be a little surprising, but not like, what? Not like Odell Beckham coming on the scene last year. If Jeffrey's won at the end of the year, you go, oh, I didn't completely see that coming. I mean, I think PPR-wise, you've got to remember he is, all the things that Jason just said about Demarius Thomas could apply to Alshan Jeffrey from a target perspective because Adam Gase, who...

who moved Thomas from 145 to 185 targets is now in Chicago. That's a good point. And so bubble screens, those type of things that, you know, endarounds, those things that they worked on with Demarius, if Jeffrey, now, right now he's got a little calf injury and he's hurt. But if he's healthy this season, that's why I project him forward. He averaged, you know, nine targets a week last year. And without Marshall, he was at 11. Yeah, so. Yeah. Don't want to linger on a pub. But Jay Cutler is no Peyton Manning. So, no, it's a fair point. Jay Cutler.

I love Jay Cutler. Are you going to disagree with that? Yes, Jay Cutler is an accurate quarterback. We've had this discussion before that. Jay Cutler is a kind of like a poor man's Brett Farr, to me, where he gets a lot of crap because he's willing to sling it and throw some interceptions. And his grimace, his facial grimaces. Oh, his body language is so bad. He averages 3.3 facial grimaces a game. Mm-hmm.

That's tops in the league. I'll take the over on that. That's tops in the league. That guy is the epitome of a sour puss face. But I love Jay Cutler. Oh, hey, better for Alshot Jeffrey. O'Dow Beckham Jr. is number nine on our consensus rankings. Standard.

This is for standard because obviously, I just want to say that because when it... We know. I know. We know it's standard. But I think most people... Because most people listening, I think, are going to be like, why is Odell back on that low? Some people have him number one. What difference does it make? It doesn't matter to me. Yeah. I'm saying it might matter to some. It matters to Jason's rankings. Well, I'm saying like it's not a Wes Welker. I mean, he's going to put up numbers in standard in PPR leagues. How much did it change in your PPR rankings? He has him top five.

in PPR. So you have, so you think the volume, well, seven to five, you go from seven to five. Yeah. For me in PPR, he goes from seven to seven. So Mike, Mike goes from nine to nine. So he doesn't move, he doesn't move in Jason and Mike and I. I will say, Beckham, of all the guys we've mentioned so far, he just, he has the most question marks, which is why he is where he is for me. Would surprise me if all of a sudden he's number one? No. Are those question marks just like, um,

exciting unknowns for a guy like O'Dowell? Maybe. Not when they're in the first round. Maybe. They're exciting unknowns when you're talking about a fourth or fifth round. But don't you play to win the game? Yes, but I just, his target count over the last four games of 16 targets a game is just, that's not sustainable. Now, are those in standard games? Or are those PPR games? That's actually real life games. Oh, okay. So I think it equates to both.

I got to get me an ODB little figure for the desk here. I want the catch. Ooh, that'd be a good one. So do we do something weird to do as hamstrings? No. We have to, like, paint them red. We put some ice on them. Put some arrows, warning. Just wrap them up. All right, so we like Odell Beckham Jr. We just don't necessarily. Mike's been on several radio shows talking about this specific fact that the target numbers were so insanely high. 14 a game.

Is that right? 14.3 a game? May. Where are we looking at? I lost the notes. 12 games, 1332 targets. No, no, no, 14.3 yards of catch. Oh, well, then I'm looking at the wrong stat. But his target numbers, I can do the math real quick on that. His first eight games. His first eight games, he was at eight targets. Okay. So in the final four, he was at 16. Yeah. Those are the games that pushed him towards the top. But that sounds like double. Yep.

I think you're right. Also, one important thing we can't forget is that he is on the cover of Madden. Oh, we haven't even talked to Madden. He'll be fine. He's on the cover of Madden. He's going to die in a car wreck. Wasn't Sherman on the cover of Madden last year? And look what happened to him in the Super Bowl. In the Super Bowl. Man, ODB's going to drop a catch in the Super Bowl. Don't make we get into all the breaking down the bad cursing. We're not, we're not. Wait, you think it's real.

I just said, do not make me get into it. All right. Number 10 is Hard Knocks, Darling, DeAndre Hopkins so far. Mike is happy because we finally watched it. Oh, you did? Of course we did. We wanted to watch it before. It came on HBO go one day late. Did it really come on finally? Yep. It just wasn't there the night of. Yeah, so he looked great. Obviously, there is some concern with that offense. The quarterback position is who? It's going to be a horror. But we've seen.

We've seen wide receivers with elite talent be just fine, specifically with Brian Hoyer. Josh Gordon was dominant with Brian Hoyer, a number one finish. So it doesn't mean that Hopkins can't do it. I think what we don't know about Hopkins is if he can do it because he's never been a number one. It's been Andre Johnson's show. This is the Hopkins show now. He's got shorts. Jalen Strong caught a touchdown and shorts got a touchdown in the preseason game. He's also got pants. Oh, that's true, shorts and pants.

Sorry. No, it was bad, Mike. That was bad.

You can't talk about Hopkins. You know, I think Hopkins is going to be great other than one thing that kind of pulses him just down a little bit to me, and I don't know if I had reflected this in my rankings, was Arian Foster being out. The games that Arian Foster has played in or played out of over the last two years with Hopkins, his targets have gone up, his receptions have gone up, his yards have gone up, but his overall fantasy points go down because he has never in all the games, which is quite a handful. He's never had a touchdown in those games. And I think that that's, you know, obvious.

totally dependent on game flow and situation. He's going to have some touchdowns this year. But with Aaron Foster being out, well, and that's a big difference to me. Because if Aryan Foster, let's say he does miss those first eight games, then I think that the touchdowns are going to be less available for Hopkins because the offense is going to be slowed. So I really like him, but touchdowns scare me a little bit with him. Yeah, I understand that. And obviously, 147 targets gone from Andre Johnson. That'll be distributed among those wide receivers.

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All right, let's hit the second part of the rundown, wide receiver-wise. We got time to get through these. We do. If we bust them out. Randall Cobb at 11, T.Y. Hilton at 12, and Mike Evans at 13. We just talked about the offense in Green Bay and the fact they're going to be moving faster. Cobb was great last year. Just, I mean, that's the best word to describe him. Yeah, and he was for all the people who are...

Oh, Jordan Matthews is going to be terrible because he's in the slot. Randall Cobb did all of his damage from the slot. That's where all of his touchdowns came from. He was 1226 targets, 1,300 yards, 12 touchdowns, 6.6 yards after the catch. So we know Randall Cobb is great with that. But are you guys comfortable taking Randall Cobb as your first receiver? That's the hardest thing in the world. Every time I face that decision, I'm like...

Do I want Cobb is my number one? It doesn't feel as good. No. The only reason I'm fine taking him as my number one is because normally when that situation has happened, he's fallen to me and I've drafted, say, one or two good running backs where it's okay. The last half of last year, if you look at the targets, they were going to Jordan Nelson and Randall Cobb. Overall, on the year, Nelson was the number one targeted.

wide receiver, and then you look at the middle of the year, and it was about even, and you look at the last third of the year, and more targets were going to Randall Cobb than to Jordy Nelson. So I think the arrow is pointing up on him right now, and you know, you want in that offense. So if they're picking up the pace, he is the pace type of guy. So I don't love him as my number one, because I want in every league to have one of those top eight guys. But if I can get two stud running backs and then have Randall Cobb fall to me, I'm happy there as a number one.

That would be delightful. Yeah. All right, let's talk about T.Y. Hilton and Mike Evans real quick. Give me the good and the bad of these two guys. What are some green lights that make you think they could be a top 12 wide receiver? So for T.Y. Hilton, the biggest standard is you've Andrew Luck throwing the ball, who is a fantastic quarterback. What surprisingly, surprises me about T.Y. Hilton is his yards after catch is a bottom half wide receiver. That's...

Very interesting to me because you think of T.Y. Hilton as a catch-and-go guy, but he's still going to be big plays. That's the other concern with Hilton. Is it just big plays? Is he just Deshaun Jackson Ultra? Exactly. That's where I was going to. He'll be more consistent with the big games, but he's still going to give you those low-floor games occasionally. What will Andre Johnson do to T.Y. Hilton? I don't think he... Anything? No, I don't think. What about Philip Dorset and Johnson? Philip Dorset's the bigger question. Yep.

Philip Dorset could cut in. But I think Philip Dorset's going to play mostly in that third wide receiver. I feel like T.Y. Hilton and Andre Johnson are going to be on the field every play. They're not going to cut into each other. They're going to make the defense have to be honest one way or another, and you're going to have some games where one guy's better and some games where the other guy's better. But T.Y. Hilton, especially now with that long-term deal knowing he is a cult.

That's a big deal. Yeah, it really is. Because you didn't know if they were going to start rotating Dorset in more to replace him next year or just mix and match those guys. This says T.Y. Hilton's your number one wide receiver. Yep. And Indianapolis. So let's go, let's move on here. We can talk about Evans when we get to number 15 here. So Evans was 13. Jordan Matthews at 14, Vincent Jackson at 15. And Emmanuel Sanders at 16. So.

A couple brief comments on Vincent Jackson and Mike Evans. Because we have them both. I mean, that's, to have a tandem on a bad team with a rookie quarterback at 13 and 15 says you think there's going to be a lot of production through the air. Yeah, you guys are both extremely high in Vincent Jackson. I like him, but I like him as a low end too. I'm...

I'm a Mike Evans guy. So I want to hear you guys talk about Vincent Jackson. Sure. So Vincent Jackson, I think I'm the reason that he's pulled up the most. You are incorrect. It's me. It's Andy. Apparently it's me. Really? I have him at 12. Wow. I have him ahead of Evans. I have him ahead of Evans as well. I have him at 12. I have him one spot ahead of Evans. And I think that that's, you know, a lot of people look at this. And I think that's one of those where they look at and go, what are you talking about? But.

You actually look at the numbers and you go, and you look at the tape as well, and there's all the reason in the world for it, because what happened last year, you had Vincent Jackson actually as the number one wide receiver there, right? More targets, more yards, I believe more catches, but he didn't get the touchdowns. Mike Evan got the touchdowns, and if you want to try to predict touchdowns with anybody but Des Bryant, it's difficult to do. Look at Julio Jones, who's so great. Julio Jones came in, and I think his first or second year had 10 touchdowns. And then last year,

Yeah, he didn't. And so you just don't know where they're going. And I think with a rookie quarterback coming in, you know, I did the stats on this once in the far off season, rookie quarterbacks tend to target the vets more than their young studs. And so I really believe that Vince and Jackson could finish above Mike Evans. Mike Evans could finish. I've got them literally next to each other in my rankings. And the thing is, is if they're next to each other in your rankings, you're going to end up with...

Vincent Jackson on every team. Yeah, exactly. Because he is available at a place in the draft that isn't the sexy place that Mike Evans is going at. And I don't have anything wrong with Evans at all. I think Evans will get his. He might be that Des Bryant type of guy that can get 10 touchdowns every year because of his size. But I'm with you. I think Vincent Jackson, those target numbers, give me targets, give me, he's still a downfield guy, middle of the field, downfield. He's going to be reliable. And I like him.