Early WR Rankings: Top 10 Countdown + Game Breakers, Waterworld - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/20

The early rankings countdowns, well, they continue today with the top 10 wide receivers. We're counting it down, having some good debates about the big names at the wide receiver position. Will they be on any of our fantasy teams come draft season? Make sure you like, subscribe, and enjoy the video. Hey, this is DeAndre Hopkins, wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host. Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Thursday, April 20th, the fantasy footballers podcast. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. Yoohoo. Happy to be with you. Excited to get going today, top 10 wide receiver countdown on today's show. And, um,

A preview of next week's shows. We'll be getting into the early quarterback rankings. And a revelation we all had this morning was that I don't know what to do beyond about tenable. It just seems like there's... I know exactly what to do beyond ten of them. Just not... Don't draft them. Don't. I mean, I... really do believe we are getting better as an industry and, you know, as a fantasy football people of knowing who's going to be good for fantasy football purposes at the quarterback position. And we know that. So cut it off, cut it out. Make sure you get one of the good ones. Yeah, very top heavy. And then so we'll talk about those on next Tuesday's episode. And then on Thursday, we'll have our NFL draft predictions because it's draft day. Yes, it is. So I predict that Jason will watch a Kevin Costner movie.

on Thursday. One of his favorites. Oh, for sure. Winner of Best Picture Award. It did win the Academy. Are you talking about the Postman? Oh, man. No, Waterworld. The Academy Award for Best Picture. I will not stand for any besmirching of Waterworld. That movie's great. You like the gills? The gills in that movie? Come on. You're telling me you wouldn't take them? Just tuck. I take some gills, man. Tuck a pair of gills behind your ears. And you can also breathe under water? Don't threaten me with a good time. Go get dryland. That movie was better than people thought. Yeah. Yeah. But the expectations and the money, remember how much money lost? Well, it was, yeah, at the time was the most expensive movie because it's awesome. This is a very dated reference. I mean, the water world. Are you guys super into Jane Triple Horn? Is the, you know, want to, let's break down a little bit more water world. I was going to try to translate it into the lost investment on a player. Yeah, I hijacked it. That's like, who's the water world of.

The NFL. Tralions. Oh, boy. Maybe. Oh, boy. Maybe we're going to talk about Alan Roberts. We'll talk about that in a minute. Yeah. So, uh, in lieu of a quick question, I have an announcement for everybody out there today. What was the? I didn't know a little bit like a funeral. I don't know what the announcement is. And I didn't know the level of horn. That was. That was, there's a line of people with horns and one guy accidentally played his horn when the rest were not supposed to play. It's a warm up. Getting ready. You got to tune that thing up. This is actually, this is, this is big horn worthy. Thank you. We are in that part of the year, Jason, where we, we are hunting for some new riders for the riding staff. Yep. We do this every year and we don't mention it.

on very many shows. But why don't you take it from here? Footclanhelp.com if you want to apply. Yeah. Basically, every single year, we add a few people to our group of writers. We invite them to the team. You become part of this family. And we're looking forward to those people out there that know our show well, love fantasy football, have some experience, have some talent, have some skill that, you know, you want to prove to us that you should be part of this team, that you can help our audience. get better at fantasy, that you know what you're talking about and that you're a great person. So footclanhelp.com, you can apply there. I mean, Kyle is, Kyle's in the building, our editor-in-chief extraordinaire. Is there any hot tips you want to mention to the applicants? Two things. Make sure you have fun with the application and actually submit a writing sample. So that I know that you can write. Yeah, there you go. And so you will not accept the, I don't have a writing sample, but trust me.

Anything. Just show me you can write. Kyle was, for all intensive purposes, our first writer. We brought him on in this exact same process, this exact same way, bets, long-term writer. I mean, you know, come join us. Be part of what we're doing here. I have one tip. And I apologize if this sounds vain. I would advise you are following all of our accounts. Oh, that's true. That is true. Just a little tip. We're going to look at you on Twitter and it's like, okay, he's not following a good eye. You're saying there are some things that you can look at to see whether somebody is actually a supporter of the show and knows the brand. And maybe that's one of them. And even if you're not and you're trying to pretend that you are, it's a real easy thing to do. Mike also would like you to know if you have a tattoo of his face anywhere on your body, let us know. Yes. It will factor in. Yes, it will. Footclanhelp.com.

A reminder, the Ultimate Draft Kit, if you tuned into the third ever dynasty podcast episode that just released yesterday, you heard about the Dynasty Pass, all the content in there. You can learn more at Ultimate DraftKit.com. Into the news we go. News and notes from around the league. Well, guys, speaking of Waterworld. Oh, man. We're taking on water. Alan Robinson was traded. Now, I want you to listen to me here. I want you to listen to this trait because the Rams have unloaded Alan Robinson. The Pittsburgh Steelers said, oh, we'll take him. The Steelers receive Alan Robinson and a seventh round pick. And the Rams receive a seventh round pick.

A slightly earlier seventh round pick. They're moving up several spots. 17 to be exact. In that very last round. 17 in the seventh. In the seventh round, 17 spots to, and the Steelers are going to only have to pay five of the 15 million owed to Alan Robinson. So the Rams, I will contend, may have whiffed even bigger than yours truly because they are now paying $10 million to not have Alan Robinson, which. Based on last year, I would pay up to $10 million to not have them on my fantasy team. They paid, they're paying $10 million to not have Alan Robinson and move up 17 spots in the seventh round. I don't believe. To get that guy they won. I don't believe Alan Robinson can qualify here as Waterworld because Waterworld did have some redeeming parts. Yeah, it still does. It's great.

Yeah. So there was, there's nothing good from Alan Robinson. If you're wondering, well, how's it going to go this year? Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't fall for it. Alan Robinson guys. It's really sad. Had three touchdowns last year. It's, it's really sad that Alan Robbins. This is what we talk about of when the talent goes, it can be just catastrophic and faster than you can imagine. Because you have two years ago. So I guess three, three years, three seasons ago. Alan Robinson, wasn't he a top 12 fantasy-wide receiver? He was a top 12 in back-to-back seasons at that point. And he looked like he's just an absolute target monster, really safe floor, a decent ceiling. And then everything just falls apart in Chicago. And all of us are going, what in the world happened? Maybe it's just a one-off. And the Rams said, no, it's just a one-off. We're going to take Alan Robinson. We're going to give him a ton of cash to come in here and help us get back to the Super Bowl.

And it was just, and it's gone. Well, NFL teams make mistakes evaluating talent from time to time, believing. I mean, the Steelers did go get Alan Robinson. Like they do have to pay him some money to play for them. Not much. No, I know. But they, they said we want him to be on the field sometimes. The 49ers also may have made a mistake of their own. Several teams inquiring about Trey Lance. The belief is obviously that Brock Purdy is going to be the future starter in San Francisco. See, this one qualifies as Waterworld to me because there's a lot of sunk cost into. Let's keep Costner only. Let's, you know, there's a lot of sunk cost into Trey Lance, but this isn't a complete loss here. It's not just Trey Lance didn't work out and so we're going to trade him. It's we have Brock Purdy, who we believe should be the starter based on what he did.

And we have Trey Lance. Let's go get something for him. Several teams have apparently inquired. So he could be a draft day trade and be playing for the Tennessee Titans. And I will throw this out because one of the stronger rumors coming out of the whispers from the bushes is the Minnesota Vikings. And I will throw this out. It might not be Brock Purdy starting for the San Francisco 49ers. It may be Kirk Cousins. Because Kirk Cousins is on the last year of his deal. Kirk Cousins is boys with Kyle Shanahan. They played together over in Washington. If there's a trade of Trey Lance up to Minnesota, just saying it would not shock me to see Kirk come down to San Francisco. Wow. I did not even think about the potential. I figured. Kirk Cousins would be great for the 49ers. See, that's the kind of plot twist that Waterworld didn't have. Right. That would have really redeemed that movie. That's an M-night.

They needed something special at the end. Yeah, honestly, it was one of those things where as silly as it is, obviously if they're not trading with the Minnesota Vikings and he does move on to another team, you could start the season with Sam Darnold as the starting quarterback. And he, weird as it is, could be the reason they're able to trade trade Lance if Brock Purdy isn't ready to go week one. And like we said, the NFL gets things wrong. It is something to note. I mean, in Dynasty leagues where you're fighting to have any depth that quarterback or emergency starters, like everybody that has a chance to start gets picked up in Dynasty. And so if Sam Darnold's out there, he legitimately, like this could be the part in Trey Lance's career where they can get the most value for him if he's not part of their future. They may have to pull the trigger versus, you know, goofing around with that situation. Yeah, but Sam Donald is.

He's probably still on a lot of rosters, I would imagine. But if he's sitting there on a waiver wire, he's the guy that I would stash, you know, in that spot 30 or what 35 on your bench and let the draft play out. Because you should know by the end of the draft if Sam Darnold looks like he's in for some starts. All right. And then looking at some injury notes, quick ones here. Brown's wide receiver, Amari Cooper, had surgery to repair the core muscle injury he played through last season. I want to know real quick how you feel about Elijah Moore fitting in in Cleveland with Amari Cooper and Donovan People's Chills. Is there hope there, like in a dynasty format? Specific for Elijah Moore. Specific for Elijah Moore. I mean, Omar Cooper is, he was great last year. I think we would all expect him to be the best receiver they have. It's just, you know, he's also not extremely young at the position. Do you think that Elijah Moore could establish himself if Deshaun Watson?

has a little bit more in store. I would be surprised if he establishes himself as something special for fantasy. He clearly should be their primary slot receiver and have a role that you can get a few points here and there. But I, you know, I am more on the side that I don't believe Deshaun Watson is going to come back to pre-fiasco status. And if that doesn't happen, then it doesn't matter kind of how good Elijah Moore is. in that role as a slot guy, unless the quarterback is great. And obviously, he could get back to being great. He's still very young and has been great in the past. Yeah, that's kind of where I end up looking at Deshaun Watson. I know we're getting into quarterbacks on Monday, but I think he'll be just fine long term. Jalen Hertz had surgery in February to remove hardware from his ankle. From a 2018 surgery. This is a minor thing he's already working out. And they just gave him infinity money. Did you forget it was there?

That's something that they did not concern the Eagles. No. And it should not concern you. All right. Any other news, notes, information? Brooksie, how are you doing over there in Ducers Alley? Doing great. Yeah? Nothing new going on? Got nothing for you. You got any dynasty trades brewing trying to get over the hump and get that title? Not right now. Do you want to make a little trade? You know, how can I help? I don't know. I'm getting a little. He's got the championship burnout of just being so close so many times. Yeah, that's what you're hearing. I think he just mixed it all up. I'm here to help. Yeah, burn it down. Fire sale. Burn it down. I'd like to not compete with him for one year in our division. That'd be all right with me. All right. Let's get into the rankings. Wide receivers. Looking at the top 10, the wide receiver countdown begins. The Tuesday show, we did 20 through 11.

And here's a little stat for you out there. Over the last decade, there has been an average of 3.6 wide receivers repeating as top 10 players from the previous year. So injuries, they factor in, but the most in that span. So the most wide receivers to repeat from the previous year's top 10, it's five. So that's something that you need to factor into your mind a little bit where there are going to be players that emerge, players that decline, players that get injured. And then I think part of this is going to be the rookie performances. I mean, you obviously any rookie that climbs into the top 10 is not repeating what they did the year before. So that has to be a factor as well. At number 10, one of my favorite football players in the game, Jalen Watt, a wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins, 24 years old.

We all have them ranked similarly, all a little bit lower than where he finished last year. He was actually the wide receiver 7, 1356 yards, 8 touchdowns, 117 targets, went from the wide receiver 16 as a rookie to the wide receiver 7 last year with Tyreek on the other side. Six most receptions ever through two years in the NFL, everything you see on the field. And he just has elite separation, quick twitch, speed. I think everybody wants to know is the upside cap because of Tyreek. And I mean, I don't know how you can say it is if wide receiver seven was a potential outcome. No, yeah, I mean, we saw him with Tyreek and he was great. I think the cap, the fear of the ceiling to me, it has more to do with Tua.

and the fears over his health. Obviously, he believes he is healthy. He shared recently that he considered retiring and talked to his family and decided based on the medical advice that they received that he should be good to go. But that would be more my fear because I think the system that the dolphins have in place is awesome for Waddle. And Waddle can absolutely be a one. He doesn't need Tyreek to take defenders away. But he has Tyreek taking defenders away, and he can thrive. If you remember his rookie season, he had 142 targets, so much volume, and never, ever, ever, with his amazing speed, like, broke a long play. He averaged 9.8 yards per catch, which is so low for a player with his speed. And now you have, you know, Mike Daniel come over.

Tyreek takes some defenders away and he is wide open to exploit his skill set. I don't see how he's, to me, he's very, very, very safe. There's just outside of injuries to him or injuries to Tua, I don't see how you stop him. There was a little, if you remember, a little bit of a road bump for the offense over the back half of the year where some of what they were doing with the interior passing game. team started taking it away. And so schematically, it was kind of, they had unlocked something for the first half of the year, but over the back half of the year, he was only on pace for under 60 receptions. So I think that there's a, I think it does come down to Tua, not just injury, but performance. Like we haven't seen what we saw last year from Tua for very long. And if you deal with concussion, if you deal with.

teams defensively strategizing against you. Like two had some bad games. You remember these? Yes. The interception games and they're trying to make them throw outside the numbers. He couldn't do it. But it is a two-est story to me. And it's having, you know, he's at 10 and not five because I don't have as much confidence that his quarterback can do it every week. Yeah, I'm pretty confident moving forward with Waddle. You know, the consistency on the website, we have him at a B, which you'd like that to be a, you know. a little bit higher for what you're going to have to invest in the draft cost. But I think we have him ranked pretty appropriately right now of you will have more ebbs and flows with him than, you know, of course than someone like Tyreek. But it's like, so I guess based on our rank is it's pretty clear. But how confident are you in a situation like Jalen Waddle?

instead of T. Higgins, where you both number two wide receivers, both very potent offenses. One, I think we'd all agree. Joe Burroughs is a better quarterback than two at this point, but is that, is that even a close decision for you guys or just, it's easily Jalen Waddle? It's not a close decision for me. It's easily Jalen Waddle. And the reason why is because of physical ability. When you have, you know, More than likely, he's going to finish a round wide receiver 10, right? But when you just look at what is the best case outcome, maybe Tyreek gets injured, maybe Jalen Waddle gets more targets than we expect. The physical ability of Jalen Waddle is the reason why he was drafted number six overall in the NFL draft. He's a freak of nature and he's 24 years old. Those are the type of people you want to invest in in fantasy where the...

outlier explosion crazy wide receiver one finish like that's not in the range of outcomes for t higgins there's no world where he could do that even as great as he is whereas jalen wattle really could just explode and go to another level and just to be clear physical ability i think we all agree like higgins is a bruiser but waddle has this speed and this game breaking capability You know, he was over 18 a catch. Right. And a lot of those catches would be, you know, Tyreek style around the line of scrimmage and then he breaks something. I think, you know, Higgins is down at like 13 point something. So if you want a big play, like legitimately, it's Tyreek light in Jane Lin Waddle. The targets per route run is interesting to me because he's down at 21%. Tyreeks had an outrageous 31%. And it's just like if you want some context for...

For 21% that's like T.J. Hawkinson, Michael Pittman, just under Hollywood Browns, right around that as well. So the fact that it's that that Waddle doesn't have an elite number there is interesting. How many games at Tua miss though? I'd be really curious what the splits look like just in Tua games because it was a little messier. Yeah, I believe he missed four games, but I'm not sure how many of those games he was kind of knocked out from and essentially missed. T.ua did. Yes, T. And then Waddle played a couple of games hurt like T. Higgins did. And I believe missed one game as well. So, yeah, it's interesting. I think Waddle's ceiling is so high. No, Waddle did not miss a game last year. He never missed one. But he came off limping a few times. I remember a game or two. Garrett Wilson comes in at number nine, just 22 years old.

I love Garrett Wilson. I don't know if he feels the same way about me. Not likely. No, I think he would. I really do. You think he would or he does? If they got to know me. I think he doesn't know Andy. Yeah. But if he, but I think he should. That's weird. I think he would like to. Gary Wilson, honestly, is such a cool guy. Like, if you've watched his interviews, he's, he is, he's great. 83 for 11004 dealing with quarterback challenges, shall I say, in New York last year. That's very nice of you. The ultimate draft kit will have an upside meter, a new feature this year that will help you visually analyze which players can vastly outperform kind of where they're ranked and which ones kind of don't have that upside. Garrett Wilson legitimately to me has wide receiver one upside.

Just top five, like actually one overall. If Aaron Rogers ends up in New York and Garrett Wilson gets not just targets, but the quality of targets that a competent Hall of Fame quarterback could provide, I do think that's in his range of outcomes. That's not where I'm going to have him ranked, obviously. But Garrett Wilson is, he's physically gifted. He's a gamer. He's a go-to receiver. He can beat you on big plays. He had the most targets of a rookie wide receiver since Sanquan Bolden, and again, they were not all good targets. So the addition of Aaron Rogers would be a pretty big deal considering last year you had the games where Zach Wilson was the quarterback. That's nine games. That is a very large sample for the season. Garrett Wilson is down at six targets a game. He's averaging about under 50 yards. And then the games with the combo, the hybrid of Joe Flacco and Mike White.

up over 11 targets a game, 80 yards of a game of the fantasy points jumps from just under 7 to over 14. So there was a, it wasn't just a like a funny kind of anecdotal story of when Zach Wilson was in. It sucked because Garrett Wilson. I mean, you got me wrong. That's a fun story too. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of jokes you can go with there as well. But you knew that when Zach Wilson was the quarterback, you felt like, Garrett Wilson is so good. I need to play him in my fantasy football lineup. But you know deep down in your heart, it's going to end tragically because Zach Wilson's not a good quarterback. And then when the switch over and you had the Mike White games, you were super pumped because you know that he has a chance to be the great wide receiver that he is. Yeah, you see the route running. You see him in open space once he's.

caught the ball down the field, it is hard for defenders to get a hold of him. He's just so fluid as an athlete. And I mean, when you're talking about the difference of literally double, again, in PPR leagues, it's 17.2 fantasy points versus 8.8 fantasy points. It's, you're basically... That's absurd. Yeah, it's not a close gap. And we know Zach Wilson's not going to be the starter here. Like that's not in the range of outcomes, I don't believe, unless injuries happen ahead of him. Well, I mean, what? Just run quickly through it because everything says Aaron Rogers is going to be a New York jet. At least everything we're being told by the media. What if he's not? Like, what do the jets do? It would be Zach Wilson then. Because Mike White is gone. Yeah, I mean, Mike White is gone. They went and signed. Who did they signed? Oh, I remember Straveller.

Yeah, it'll probably be Zach Wilson. Get it done. So I don't want to just be too flowery about the situation. I mean, if the quarterback's not there, it could go downhill. The other question I would have would be like, you know, if the defense is too good, right? And this team does enough and is efficient on offense. You know, maybe the ceiling's not as high. We know how nice it is when a... When a team has to play aggressively on the offensive side, Brees Hall, you love Brees Hall, Jason. We all love Brees Hall. We know that this offense could be at least well balanced, right, with the running game and the passing game. Those would be some areas that I think keep Wilson outside of a breakout season. But, you know, that and Nathaniel Hackett, I mean, otherwise, I wish I had him in Dynasty. I know Mike does. Yeah, it feels good.

Yeah, he is a playmaker. He didn't catch a high percentage of his passes last year, and we want to put that on the quarterback, but we've got to be, you know, at least admitting that. We'll see if Aaron Rogers comes in and he struggles there, then maybe that is an issue. But it wasn't an issue in college. It doesn't seem like it would be going forward. All right. Let's move on. Coming in a number eight is C.D. Lamb, 24 years old, finished at wide receiver 6 last year. Great season for C.D. Lamb, 107 receptions, almost 1,400 yards, nine touchdowns. I mean, he did it all. Everything that you wanted from a wide receiver one, you got from C.D. Lamb last year. And remember the story of the season for C.D. Lamb was, it was week one, right? Yeah. Week one, Dak Prescott got hurt. Well, it was towards the end of the game. So that played most of week one. Right. And then missed all the way through. He started in week seven. But I was saying it.

Dack went out and the injury report comes out, DAC is going to miss a whole bunch of time. And it was panic in the streets of what do you do now with C.D. Lamb, you spent a really high draft pick on him. You know it's going to be a backup quarterback for quite some time. Cooper Rush came in, played actually pretty well. And so I'm just reminding people of the season wasn't just hunky dory here for C.D. Lamb, he had a lot of things he had to overcome. And that jump, you weren't. Short was going to happen, wide receiver 20, wide receiver 18, and then skyrockets all the way to almost the top five wide receivers. It was a fantastic year. There are some changes to this offense, and I'm curious how it will shake out for CD Lamb. Yeah, there are. Zeke is gone, for now at least. You also did not have production from the wide receiver position outside of CD Lamb. They add Brandon Cooks, a great pickup in the offseason. Michael Gallup will be healthier. Another year removed from his ACL.