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

I'm going to say yes. I will take Calvin over. I'll still draft him. Give me Calvin Johnson over Doug Baldwin. Ooh, that's a hot take. Give me Calvin Johnson. I don't like him over any of the other guys you talked about, probably. I think the reason you think Calvin of thickness. 149 targets, 88 receptions, 12114 yards, nine touchdowns. It's the commercial where he's shirtless in that commercial, and then they put the suit on him.

You're biased. Yeah. Because you've seen him shirtless. This one's gotten away from us. So just tell me, where is he next? No, I agree that. If he's back, is he in your top 12? That's it. That's the question. Maybe at the very, very back. Yeah. Who are you taking over him? You're taking Eric Decker or Larry Fitzgerald over him?

No, I would still take Calvin over those. I'm just guessing. I mean, I don't have the list of names of who would be there. Give me your locked-in list today. Here's a good name that I would take over Calvin Johnson, Mike Evans. I would take Mike Evans over Calvin Johnson next year, and they're probably going to go around the same spot. And that's probably a good time to remind people that this is not our top 12. This is the top 12 finishers at the wide receiving precision last year that we are breaking down.

I didn't say all that in normal. You said precision. Precision. Now the next guy on the list is Eric Decker, who I think, you know, if we're surprised that Calvin is at 9, Eric Decker, the number 10 wide receiver. Number two in your heart. Behind Marshall. Because of the consistency. The number two most consistent wide receiver. And he's a guy.

He might have the best draft value of anybody. I know Alan Robinson and Brandon Marshall were fantastic, but Eric Decker went way, way later than either of them. Eric Decker was fodder at the end of drafts. Yes. Eric Decker was somebody who, Mike, I got to give him credit, talked up extensively. Mike is somebody who has always been willing to overlook the not being the number one ride receiver thing, and that has been very beneficial for Decker owners. Look, if you started him 16 games.

13 times he was in the top 25. Now the thing about Decker is he better be your two. Yes. Because he gave you zero top five games. He was never somebody who gave you more than one touchdown in the course of the year. I don't think he had any multi-touchdown game. I don't think he did. That's correct. He had three games without a touchdown, one game that he missed. You never went to Twitter after playing him and said, Eric Decker just killed my team this week. No, he never did.

Not even one time. Well, he killed you with kindness. It was just, it was a lower score, but he was just so solid and reliable. Twelve touchdowns. When weekly fantasy scores fluctuate up and down, I mean, having a guy like Eric Decker on your team is a huge advantage. Looking forward to next year, I think Eric Decker will be drafted where Brandon Marshall was last year. He's going to be.

a fourth, fifth round pick. He won't be tossed aside to the back of the draft. He'll be up near the top, but he will still get the, he won't get the same respect as these other guys, despite finishing as a wide receiver won. So top 16 defenses, he played them six times, bottom 16 defenses, he played them nine times. He played a little bit better against bottom defenses. There's a point. There's really nothing about his statistics that made you feel like you were bouncing up and down on a...

a scale. It was just solid, like just consistent, solid performance. Eric Decker was the guy. Really, nothing else to say other than the fact that, look, when you're consistent and you're not flashy, you can end up in a top 10 in fantasy football. Well, 12 touchdowns will certainly do that. And even if his touchdowns go down for next year, he's a guy that I will still be targeting Eric Decker, assuming that Fitzpatrick and Marshall are both back.

Yeah, I mean, if he stays healthy, 75 to 80 catches 1,000 yards, and 8 to 10 touchdown should be automatic. Yep, that begins. That's great. That's great stuff. All right, Larry Fitzgerald and Brandon Cooks round out our top 12. Those are the guys we're going to finish up talking about today on the show. On Wednesday, we're going to go through some more wide receiver names. We're going to talk about guys like Mike Evans, throw some other names out there, give you where they finish, where we project them forward. But Larry and Cooks, guys that had...

I would say very different expectations when the season began. Cooks was somebody that was very indicative of that kind of... He had the shine. He had the shine, right? And honestly, kind of rounded into form as a guy you could lean on a little bit. Larry Fitzgerald started very strong, 146 targets, ended up with 109 catches, 1,215 yards, 9 touchdowns. Not the season people expect it from Larry Fitzgerald.

No, no, definitely not. Not the 1,200 yards especially. I mean, the touchdowns can't be that surprising because he's a end-zone monster. But 1,200 yards for the old man, who I guess is not really an old man. 32. You can't call him that if you're older. I have to refer to him as a young man. My life is ruined. So, a question for you guys. Put these guys in order. Larry Fitzgerald, Michael, Floyd, John Brown next year. Oh, man.

I'm going to go with Floyd. Floyd will be my number one guy. My number one guy. Floyd, he had a tendency he could disappear, but you got to go back and remember the preseason injury where his hand, it was a really big time injury, his fingers dislocated outside of his epidermis. Now, I don't know. That's no good.

Yeah. That's like a normal person. I'll just, I'll use myself. All my knuckles are inside my epidermis. Well, yeah, I keep them where I like him, which is inside my skin. But, I mean, I get that injury. I'm out for the year. I mean, just go ahead and call me next year and maybe I can do something. But he came back. It was a, he was slow getting back to the offense because John Brown started the year quite hot. John Brown is just.

I don't know if he's a true number two guy. He's, when you have the compliment of all three, that's when the offense is really going. But Michael Floyd has shown flashes of being just spectacular. And Bruce, you take Floyd, and then you'd say Larry? And then you'd say Brown? Probably. That's probably how I would do it. Jason, what is your take on that? Yeah, I'm pretty much the same. I think Michael Floyd is going to be a beast. Michael Floyd, he had the, you know, Aryans.

You know, it's coach speak. But he came out and said he could have had a 1,500-yard year. And he kind of backs that up with the fact he ended the year with five out of six weeks of 100 of more yards. I'm with you on that. I think Floyd's the guy to own. Now, Larry, he'll probably be overdrafted based on these numbers. Yeah, probably. And the name. The name and numbers mixed together. The split of top 16 versus bottom 16 defenses. Larry beat up pretty good on the bottom half. 17 a game versus 11 against top out.

Yeah, I mean, more yards, much higher percentage of touchdowns. So I think Larry will still be a usable fantasy guy next year, but you can't expect this year. You can't expect a wide receiver one. All right, so let's talk about Brandon Cooks, and then we're going to get into the mailbag, answer some listener questions before we close out today's show. Brandon Cooks, he's somebody who's not built like a number one, you know.

He's like John Brown to me. He's like John Brown. Deshawn Jackson's another guy that you could compare. So just because you're not built that way doesn't mean you can't put up those kind of numbers, obviously. But he's also somebody that you can't really, when it comes to touchdowns, you don't know exactly what to expect. And so the consistency's not there. He finished 17th in consistency despite being 12th on this list. You know, he had five games outside of wide receiver four range where he just killed you, especially if you drafted him high.

And you said, Brandon Cooks, go be my number one. And he said, how about I don't even perform inside the top, you know, what, 48? Brandon Cooks, I'm going to make a comparison just to see what you guys think. His season this year reminded me of Jonathan Stewart where you're four weeks into the season and people are done. Like I saw Brandon Cooks on waiver wires. I saw Jonathan Stewart on waiver wires.

which is just a reminder. You cannot give up completely on a player after four weeks. I know that's 25% of our fantasy season, even a little bit more, but you can't give up on a player after that short amount of time because those four, he started pretty bad, but then he hit a really hot streak when Drew Breeze really got it going. And Brandon Cooks, if Drew Breeze is going to be good, Brandon Cooks is going to be good. Eight of his nine touchdowns after week seven.

Boom, there you go. That's a huge number. Big difference. So going forward, do you expect better things for cooks than he did this year or similar? Because one of the concerns I have is, you know, he has about a five-point discrepancy, and this time it's legit. Drew Breeze destroyed bad defenses, which speaks to this. And that's the correlation. And against those top defenses, you know, he didn't do too well. So I'm not.

I don't know how much I want to invest in Brandon Cooks. Look, if you ask me Brandon Cooks or Doug Baldwin, I'm going to take Brandon Cooks. They're very similar guys. One's 511, 189. One's 510, 189. Cooks has way more speed. Cooks is 22. Cooks is 22 years old. So that's a very young age to be, you know, you look at Julio, best season, 27.

There's a lot to like about that team saying, you know, Peyton's back, Breeze is back, Ingram will be back. There's a lot of reasons why you like Cooks on an offense like that. I think I would take the shine of Cooks over the surprise of Baldwin. Maybe I'm not going to be alone on that. I probably will be on draft day. No, no, no, no, no. I think on draft day, cooks will absolutely go ahead of Baldwin. You do?

I do. Wow. I do not think that. By the time the season rolls around, I think people are going to sour on Baldwin, and the shine of the young age on Cooks is going to be hot. I wish I could, like, water bet you. It's just so far away. I know. Just on the ADP. This time, even though it's so far away, it's going to close so quick. And that's what I love. So in other words, ADP bet. Oh, yes. Our first water bet. So let's just decide right now, then, Mike, you can write it up. Wow.

A month before draft? Does that one? August 1st? August 1st is fine. August 1st. August 1st, you think that Cooks will be ahead of Baldwin, and I think Baldwin will be ahead of those. Offseason. I got to write a whole new tab in here. You know, it sucks about these bets. Seattle goes off and they sign, you know, some big wig receiver or something or vice versa. Yeah. That's all right. So Doug Baldwin, you have Doug Baldwin. And Jason has. No, I have. No, that's correct. I believe that Doug Baldwin will be.

drafted ahead of Brendan Cook's and J.D.P. It's just so ironic because I think you probably should draft. I know. We're saying it like the opposite. All right. It's on the book. All right. Let's get into the mailbag. Mailbag. All righty. Let's go ahead and talk to Josh in Brisbane, Australia. Bonjour.

I'm in a 10-team standard league, and I can keep only one player from my team. If we choose to keep a player, we forfeit our first-round draft pick, and the only players I have worthy of a possible first-round draft pick are AP and Des Bryant. I've been offered AP for a second and third-round draft in next season's draft. Wait, he's been offered... He can trade Adrian Peterson for a two-and-three, and then he can keep Des for a first. Should I make the trade allowing me to keep Des?

not keep either of them or just keep AP. I would make the trade. I would trade Peterson. I'd get the extra two and three because I still believe that Des Bryant is worth a first round pick. Hopefully you're giving up a later, so to speak. But overall, it doesn't matter to get that extra two and three very high value picks and get Des Bryant.

I love it. I agree with that. I think it's silly when you're able to keep a guy and trade guys you don't keep. It's like you just get extra guys. But that being said, if you can do that, which he can, then do it. I 100% agree. Plus, there's going to be people that basically give up the first round pick, right? So there's two and three become higher picks. Yes. Is that correct? All right. Let's talk, what, Lex, in Hitchin, England? Why, we got two international? Yeah, sure you get this question a lot. We are. Bonjour.

But any thoughts on a listener league for us fantasy-addicted UK-based players? All right, Lex. Does he mean like a UK-only listener league? Here's what I will tell you, Lex. And this is a pitch for our fantasy football community. Jointhefoot.com. We are going to be setting up a forum, so to speak, a way for players to connect with other high-quality players of skill, people who are going to participate.