Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - The TRUTH About Fantasy WR's in 2015, Part 1

Is that it? Unless you got something else. Well, we had one more thing. The Vikings hired Pat Schumer as an assistant coach. I think that's great. I think that's very good news for the Vikings' offense and Teddy Brozaville. Okay. Anything else? Any other like assistants?

The front office people hired? We will have. Anybody hiring the janitorial services? You know, it's still a little too early, but in the next couple weeks, we're going to have a show that will probably go through the coaching changes, the offensive coordinator changes. Those are some of the more important things to get early even before the draft. So those will be coming up. All right, let's get into the wide receivers. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. Can't handle the truth.

You know, after we did the running back show and the tight-in show and the quarterback show, there were some people who said, hey, you should do wide receivers. And let me tell you, we made a plan to do all positions. No, no, no. We listened. We listened to the foot clan, and we said, great idea. Let's do that as well. And if you haven't heard one of these shows, listen, here's what we do. We break down the where guys finished last year.

in this year that just completed. And we break down the numbers behind the numbers. Are these guys, were they plug and play options? Were they somebody who had kind of anomalous statistics that didn't help you as much as you thought they could help you? Were they fraudulent? Yeah, were they fraudulent? What's the truth, Mike? Exactly. And I will say that we have heard the requests. They're out there on the social media. People want this information posted.

uh we're still trying to figure all that out in the best way to present it to people so it's not just the the the goobly garbage that we read yeah if you looked at how we look at it uh you would not enjoy it but but yeah it's a good point and we will make an effort to do that so a couple of the things that we look at is is we look at how did these guys perform against top 16 or bottom 16 defenses

uh against that position and we also look at how they how consistent they were were they somebody who finished in the top 25 on a regular basis did they finish outside of a wide receiver four range on a regular basis and and how many times did they actually win you the week like put up a performance that was a difference making performance and we give you those numbers too so you can kind of get a feel for the impact they actually made on the teams fantasy teams all year long um look number one

Antonio Brown. Oh, man, I am so excited and madly in love with Antonio Brown for next year. And that was before really digging into the truth of these wide receivers. But when we dug in and looked at how and where and when he scored, remember, he had a terrible stretch with Michael Vick. He still finished as the number one. But here's what's crazy to me that stuck out. Against the top 16 defenses.

Past defenses, yes, correct. Against the better past defenses, they played against them 11 times. There were only five games the whole year that he played against a bottom half defense. And he torched the, I mean, he did great against the top half, but he torched the bottom half.

And just from a scheduling year-in, year-out perspective, it's very, very low odds that they're going to break down that way again next year, where he only has five games against those defenses that he can just destroy. You compare that to Julio Jones. It's almost an exact opposite of what happened. For the schedule, yeah. And Antonio Brown, he still averaged over 100 yards a game versus the top half-pass defenses. That's great. That's exactly what you want.

which why Antonio Brown is so good, 193 targets. Those reception numbers, I think, are wrong that you have down there. Are they? Yeah, I'm pretty sure those numbers are wrong. All right, well, we will vet them then, very quickly. Oh, he was at 136. Yeah. So maybe, did he finish with the exact same as Julio? Oh, okay. So the last week of this season. 136 receptions, exactly. Okay. Antonio Brown, over 1,800 yards, 10 touchdowns. And the.

He was very consistent. He's almost always a top 25 guy. Ten times out of his 16 games. Right. And then seven of those, he was a top five guy. And then there was only twice he was a pants pooping machine because Michael Vic cannot play quarterback in the NFL anymore. So you kind of have to throw those two games out. It's...

There's not much you need to say about Antonio Brown. That's the real truth of the matter. You reinforce things that are eyeballs and the stats and the fantasy stats have said for years. Antonio Brown's number one. He goes into next year's number one. You get some consistency from the quarterback position for Big Ben. He could break every record in the book. The potential for that is there. The one downside of Antonio Brown is the not seeming to be a quarterback-proof type of wide receiver.

Like DeAndre Hopkins, who was great all year, which we'll talk about him. I mean, he had a revolving door of quarterbacks coming in, and he still would have production. So hopefully the Steelers with Landry Jones, who took over as the real backup, Antonio Brown had more success with him. Hopefully, in the event that Big Ben goes down, Landry Jones now is ready to step in.

All right, so Julio Jones finished second on this list. He had 203 targets. He had the same amount of receptions as Antonio Brown with 136. He had 1871 yards and ended up with eight touchdowns. From a consistency standpoint, he was sixth in the wide receiver rankings. He had 10 top 25 performances, five in the top five and one pants pooping game.

Like Jason alluded to, Jones had actually a lot more matchups with the bottom 16 defenses, 12 of his 16 games. That being said, he performed even better against the top performing defenses. Yeah, he actually scored more on a per game basis against those top half defenses. So it's not one of those...

Not one of those worries going into next year. Because when you have a guy like a Julio or an Antonio Brown, they're going to perform against good defenses. You don't need to worry about strength of schedule. Let me ask you guys this Dynasty League, Julio or Antonio Brown. Antonio Brown. Yeah, I'm going to go Antonio Brown. I see Antonio Brown as the type, the work ethic of the type of receiver that was the Jerry Rice type.

runs great routes, can play a little bit later in age. Both are close a great options. They're only a year apart in age anyways. And Julio Jones, I mean, we've already had several health problems with Julio and his foot speaking just specifically to Dynasty. I'm not worried about that going into next year, but just saying the longevity.

I'd go with Brown. Now, these two guys, much like Brown, there's not much you need to see about Julio. You obviously hope for better quarterback and consistent offensive play from that team in general. Yeah, Matt, Ryan. I think... We believed in you. The ship has sailed on Roddy White as a good complimentary wide receiver, and you felt that in the offense. You can't put up touchdown. There was a big period of the year where Julio Jones had no touchdowns. He had like one in an eight-week span, and that will...

You know, it kills you from an expectation standpoint. I made the joke. I get mocked for it all the time when I say, Julio didn't help me in fantasy football. And it's a lie, right? It's statistically a lie. But from the huge games, you got the first two weeks of the year. You had one in the end. You never had these games, you know, two, three touchdowns. No. They weren't in the red zone. They couldn't perform offensively in a way that gave Julio enough chances. And the play calling was ridiculous.

They didn't give him red zone opportunities, and they didn't score. Wow, what a coincidence. A plus B equals you lose a lot of games in a row. I love Julio. We all love Julio. He showed that he could do it over the course of a full season this year. He belongs in the discussion as the best fantasy wide receiver. No doubt. I'm excited to talk about number three more than anybody else. Because number three on this list is the number one in consistency. Number one in your heart. He's number one in my heart. Brandon Marshall.

himself. What a year from Brandon Marshall. So many question marks for him because I know the mental tendency of fantasy players about Brandon Marshall is going to bend him into a value next year. That's what I believe is going to happen. What are your thoughts on him? Break down some of the numbers for me. Well, his consistency was unbelievable. The amount of touchdowns. He had 14 touchdowns on the year and he didn't do that in one of, in that.

That way of, oh, he's got the two or three, three touchdown games. He caught a touchdown just about every single game is the way that it worked out. There were zero times. Not once on the entire year did he crap your team and finish outside of the top four, you know, the wide receiver four. So you've got a guy here. And going to next year, you can see that the team.

is probably going to continue with Ryan Fitzpatrick. They don't have a tight end who's going to be taking away those goal line receptions. It'll be interesting to see what happens with the running back position. If Chris Ibrie comes back, I expect a lot more of the same from Brandon Marshall and Eric Decker. They're just such great. They're the...

entire passing. The entire passing game was essentially those two guys. And Brandon Marshall, he can be force fed. You've seen it his entire career from pretty much every team, but especially when he was in Denver. Sorry, his situation is so perfect because he's that guy who can be the number one, the absolute alpha of the team. But they have Eric Decker who can, he's very close to that level of a wide receiver. So defense is,

You can't. You cannot sell out on Brandon Marshall because Eric Decker is going to destroy you. So I went back to the game log. Four games. Four games he didn't score a touchdown. That is ridiculous that you can count on him weekly. Weekly, his floor is a touchdown. That's absurd. 26 touchdowns between him and Decker this season. Let me read you this, though. Here's why I like bringing up Brandon Marshall.

The top eight wide receivers is here in fantasy. Here's their ages. 26, 27, 22, 23, 23, 27, 27. Brandon Marshall's 31 years old. And so that will be the narrative of Brandon Marshall. Because the shoe has to drop, right? That's what everyone says. And I'm telling you, more often than not, my history of fantasy football tells me this. More often than not,

That narrative leads to value more than it leads to the drop-off. Yeah. Because the narrative starts early. Yes, there is, for every, you know, Frank Gore, who overcomes those odds, there have been players that depreciate. Andre Johnson. But there's, you know, Larry Fitzgerald did it this year and surprised people. He's older, much older, what is he, 33, 34? I don't have his exact age. I'll check it out. You keep going.

I just, you know, it makes me look at this thing. Number one in consistency from the wide receiver position. He's only 32. Larry is? He's only 32. So then his production. All right, there you go. So 32, that's what he'll be next year, Brandon Marshall. I mean, do you take him at this spot at number three right now? I understand one. That's the third wide receiver or are you saying number three overall?

No, not number three overall. Where do you put him in the actual wide receiver? Oh, there's Alan Robinson up and coming. He's 22. There's Odell Beckham Jr. He's 23. How do you not take ODB above him? Yeah. You know. If you're in a redraft league and you're not worried about, you know, future long-term prospects, I'm probably going to take Brandon Marshall over Alan Robinson, but definitely under Odell Beckham. Odell Beckham, to me...

You know, of all these guys that we're going through, obviously, and this is something, this is not a projective list. Sometimes people were a little bit confused on that on these truth lists. This is where they finished last year. Yeah, we're not leaving guys on or off. They are what they are. Yeah, this is just where they finish. But of all of these top, you know, we're going to talk to the top 12 guys, and we'll get to them in a second. Odell Beckham only played 15 games and still finished this high, whereas, you know, everyone else on this list pretty much was a full.