WR Rankings: 11-20 + Draft Sweet Spots, #BeastHood - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/8

And you're in the third round and you said I want my first wide receiver. T. Higgins is, you're comfortable? I would be disappointed with him as my wide receiver one. I have him ranked as a wide receiver one, but there are more. Higher upside players or? Well, put it this way. I have him ranked one spot ahead of Michael Pittman. But I would rather have Michael Pittman be my one because I think he projects to have more surety as far as volume. Yeah. Okay. All right. Quick break back with Mike's best friend, Cortland Sutton. All right, Corlin Sutton comes in at 13 on our consensus wide receiver rankings. Mike is the highest. He has them as a top 10 wide receiver. Has him at 10. He's got a fifth round ADP. Delicious. Mm-hmm. That's a delicious place to pick up Cortland Sutton with the upside built in with Russell Wilson's arrival. Mike, I'm sure you have something to say about this. Oh, yes. No, can I just, I disagree with that. I think that was excellent.

enjoyed that immensely. Well, you got an applause button if you want to. I don't, unfortunately, because they replaced it with this. Great graphic of me and my best friend Michael. All right. Isn't that fair? That's what you get. All right, Mike. Break it down. Cortland Sutton, so in my opinion, Cortland Sutton has shown in the NFL that he can be a true number one. You had his sophomore year where he broke out. With bad quarterback play, I mean, it was basically Joe Flacco, but he finished the year with 1,100 yards and six touchdowns. And now you have Russell Wilson coming in. And Russell Wilson, since the year 2015, has had at least one top 15 wide receiver, at least one. Every single year. Yes. And in that time, Russell Wilson's averaging over 30 touchdowns a year. And last year, I mean, it was.

A very weird year for the Denver Broncos and the wide receivers on that team. Cortland Sutton had two touchdowns on 98 targets. And if Cortland Sutton had just hit four or five, you'd be a lot more comfortable with him. He probably wouldn't be in the fifth round. But he only had two touchdowns. Players in the 90 target range last year, you had like Tyler Boyd. Tyler Boyd had five touchdowns in the 90 target range. Russell Gage had four. Meanwhile, Cortland Sutton, because his quarterbacks were so bad, only had the two touchdowns. The Broncos wide receivers, it wasn't just Sutton. They had eight receiving touchdowns on the season. So I just, I see Cortland Sutton. I project him as the number one. I still think that Russell Wilson has it. I think the end of last year was just that he came back to soon from the hand injury. He could not throw a football. Watch the tape of the ball coming off Russell Wilson's handed.

That's not what it normally looks like. So I'm very, very confident that Cortland Sutton is going to have a massive year. Yeah, I mean... It's hard for me to imagine a world where Russell Wilson does not have a top 15 wide receiver on his team because it has just never happened. And if that's the case, there's the question of, well, as Judy is Sutton? I think Sutton has proven far more on the field than Judy has. And with the sad injury to Tim Patrick, now there's a little bit more clarity as far as, you know, Tim Patrick was another big-bodied receiver. Well, the big-bodied guy is Cortland Sutton, and I think he's going to develop a great rapport.

with Russell Wilson. I'm all about, I mean, you're talking about a guy who's being drafted as the wide receiver 20 in the fifth round. This is no, yeah, he's in the sweet spot. There's the perfect example of like, I don't want a running back who's mediocre or questionable or with so many red flags in the fifth round when I can have the upside of a Cortland Sutton who projects to be a very potential wide receiver one. And I think Sutton has higher upside than T. Higgins does. Okay. Because of just the explosiveness on that offense and him being the projected number one. I watched a lot of camp film of Sutton. He is the leader of the running back or the wide receiver room. He's enormous. It was ridiculous looking at how large he is. But look, I'm not standing in the way of the Cortland Sutton hype now that Tim Patrick and his 85 targets has gone away. You know, Hamler and Judy will be very involved. But this is going to be, you know, the most sure bet is Cortland Sutton and that.

humongous frame. He's a dominator. Yes. And the offense, like the last year, the numbers from this team last year, those are gone. You have to completely throw them out. You have a new coaching staff. You have a more pass friendly offense. You have a coach who, like a management team, they went out and got Russell Wilson. They paid the Piper to go get him. Like they did not bring Russell Wilson in to be a game manager like he has been for Seattle. And not just get him, persuade him. There was an element of that in the pursuit of Russell Wilson. Russ didn't just want out. He wanted out with control of the offense. And this is the closest situation to Stafford arriving with the Rams last year and people kind of suppressing the draft value of those players like Cooper Cup. And so I think this is the most similar situation where it's pretty in front of your face.

but the draft costs at least right now aren't there yet. And Nathaniel Hackett, the new head coach for the Denver Broncos, he was just recently talking about how this is Russ's offense. Like he's going to be able to call the plays. He's giving Russell Wilson freedom to run Russell Wilson's offense. And that's what I want in fantasy football. Yeah, no question. DJ Moore comes in at 14. I've got him at 11. Jason at 13. Don't read. Don't read my ranking. Mike. Don't read it. Mike has an opposite best friend graphic for... Don't read it. 17. It makes me sad, everybody. It makes me really sad. I mean, DJ Moore is going to put up a ton of receptions and a ton of yards. He's so good. He's so good. The NFL is a travesty what has happened to DJ Moore. 1100 plus yards in three consecutive seasons, four touchdowns in three consecutive seasons. That is the problem. Now, I don't have the quote in front of me. Kyle, I don't know if you saw this, but...

It's big news. Talking about a battle. Caroline is going to be announcing its starter at quarterback. It's going to take place later. Oh, okay, good, good. Yeah. No, it's later. We got the camp battle between Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield is raging on. Thankfully. Now, is Matt Corral part of that too? Is he getting a fight? Jarl rule says whatever goes. Did you see Taylor Heineke talk about? Did you see him the backup for the Washington commanders? In a press conference, they just basically said, do you consider yourself having any shot at winning this job? And he's like, no. Good for you. He was so honest. He was just like, this is a business. He's like, if you're paying somebody $30 million a year, they're going to come in and be your quarterback, I just got to be ready. I'm the backup. Yeah. It was just like the most plain, smart, non-jaw rule thing to say. It'll be Baker.

Yeah, which the latest reports are Baker has the edge in the training camp battle. I mean, whatever you do, don't give them all the reps. It's shocking stuff, I know. I mean, I feel like everybody in the entire Panthers organization knows the answer, but they're all putting on a skit for Sam Darnel. Yeah, that's what I think it is. I think it's for Sam Darnel. When you walk around, I mean, because you need a backup in the league to have some confidence. When you walk around and see Sam, everybody's like two thumbs up like. Yeah, you got this, buddy. Keep fighting. You're going to be fine. The DBs like pulling their punches on coverage. They're like, oh, man, what a ball, Sam. Yeah, this is like doing. Oh, and you're out of boy. It's like when your kids draw a picture for you and you tell them how pretty it is. I mean, you're just protecting them a little bit. Yeah, but it will be. Yeah, it'll be Baker. And that offers a glimmer of potential for DJ Moore.

Don't undervalue the return of Christian McCaffrey in the offense and what that does to open up scoring opportunities, moving the ball down the field. He is the key that unlocks red zone opportunities. DJ Moore has had so few of them, in part because Christian McCaffrey has been gone. This has not been the offense that you would hope. We make fun of Sam Darnold, but Darno would have been much better with a healthy Christian McCaffrey as well. So DJ Moore, it's a bet on. You know, you're going to have a baseline of production, which I love, right? You've got a player that's proven, established, top 24 wide receiver. Can he take the next step? It's going to be, can he get to seven touchdowns? Because seven touchdown DJ Moore is going to outperform his ADB. Yeah, seven touchdown DJ Moore, and that's exactly where I have him, I think is going to be good at the end of the year. I still worry.

about the process of getting there. If you look, he's been, you know, you say, oh, what a consistent wide receiver. He's been 1150 yards, four touchdowns every year. He has consistently been super inconsistent. He has monster games. He has stretches where he just completely goes away because it's a bad offense with bad quarterback play. The question is, will Baker fix that? And, you know, I do not believe, like, Baker is a clear upgrade. But he has not the answer to the problem. He's the duct tape. Yeah, he's at best the flex seal trying to keep that water in. Right. Yeah, the water is trying to come in. But it's, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a leaky boat. It's a bad team, a bad roster. And, you know, stick with this. Let's stick with this. So it's, it's just one of those things where I don't want to overdo DJ Moore because when I first did the stats, I was like, man, he's super high. He's, he's in my top 10. But I would not draft him there because.

We have seen enough inconsistency. Like, for instance, he was, he has never been outside the top 20 in a fantasy finish outside of his rookie year. And yet his consistency score on the fantasy footballers is a C. Yeah, no one's ever happy. No, nobody's been happy with the process. And I think that he'll get a couple more touchdowns, be better, but he's not going to be what we dream of him being. You know, if Russ had come here, DJ Moore would definitely be in my top. Well, and maybe that. puts him on the probably not drafting list again because he's going ahead of all these those four names you know sutton mike williams alan robinson hollywood brown he's going ahead of all of those guys with more question marks at quarterback do you want russ keiler herbert stafford or do you want baker yeah and that's the problem the inconsistency of like how is he going to be used in the offense like can matt rule figure this out where you had

Matt Rule's first year, 66 receptions for DJ Moore was, you know, 1193 yards, 18 yards a catch. And then this year, 93 receptions. So almost 30 more catches and fewer yards because he was down to 12.4 yards per completion of like. How is he going to be you? Does Matt Rule have any idea what he's doing? Because two years ago, Robbie Anderson, very involved, got things done in this past year. You're like, well, Robbie Anderson's considering retiring. He's having to change the spelling of his name. Like, Matt Rule. Robbie. Matt Rule is causing all kinds of problems for the Carolina Panthers. I forgot about that. He changed his name. Yeah. From Robbie to Robbie. Robbie to. Robbie. Did I miss this? Was this a bit on the show already? It just became one. Oh, my gosh. You are a part of this. All right. Keenan Allen at 15. Just keeps getting it done. Keenan Allen. Yeah. Last five seasons average 102 receptions, 1100 yards, six touchdowns.

He's been drafted as the wide receiver 11. I really don't have a problem with it. I think people might be a little bored with Keenan Allen, but he will probably be Keenan Allen again. And in a full PPR, he's going to clean up each and every week. I think I'd be comfortable with him in a PPR as my wide receiver one. I love Justin Herbert. Yeah, full PPR is where he thrives because he's not a touchdown guy. You know, you've got enough data. Tell that to DJ Moore, man. DJ Moore is enviously this line. Yeah, I mean, DJ Moore's been living in the force. How'd you get six? How'd you get the six? Six is such a beautiful number. Now,

You know, he's got Justin Herbert. So if he gets eight touchdowns, great. I mean, there's always upside here. But he is 30 years old, and he plays a role that is closer to the line of scrimmage, more of a possession, move the chains type of guy. Yeah, points per first down, you'll be all right. Points per first down, fantastic. Full PPR, fantastic. If you're in a half PPR league, I find myself usually going somewhere else, but I don't mind, like, but I feel stupid when I do. Because he is, what do we know about him? We know he's a great wide receiver. We know he's the number one target for a great quarterback. We know he's been successful forever. So it's like, yeah, just draft him and don't overthink it. And I find myself often, and by often, I mean always overthinking it going for higher upside, someone that could have 12, 13 touchdowns and have a breakout season versus.

So like, you know, Pittman versus Keenan. If I'm on the clock and I'm looking at those two, I find myself take a Pittman. And I realize that like safety wise, it's the wrong picks. Keenan is the much safer pick. But he just doesn't, you know, I view him that he doesn't have that top five upside, which. Because he doesn't. He doesn't really have the top five upside. Even with Herbert. No. No. I mean, it's, look, I don't think Mike Evans is top five upside. That doesn't make him not a great draft pick necessarily. But I. I don't think Pittman does either. You. So I know he doesn't. But, yeah, Alan, you kind of know what you're getting at this point in his career, and that can be boring for fantasy, which can make him a value. Now, he's not on average. Maybe that should tell you something, wide receiver 11, but let's move forward. Brandon Cooks, let me paint you a picture. Here's your picture. You spend the first two to three rounds leaning in on running back. Maybe you snag yourself a little Mark Andrews in there.

Okay. You roll around, heck, maybe you even go for Kyla Murray. Maybe you've got a top tier, maybe you've got a Josh Allen on your team and you're hitting running backs. You got some of these onesies because you're just living life. Sure. You really want one of these onesies. Just throwing caution to the wind. And then you're starting two wide receivers are Cortland Sutton and Brandon Cooks. Yeah. That sounds pretty good. That's not a bad life to live. Like if you want to take that, if you want to live on the edge, maybe you've always wanted to have. Travis Kelsey on your roster, just like Jason did in the last mock draft. I wanted it so bad. Maybe you wanted George Kittle in the fourth round like Mr. Mike Wright. I'm telling you, the world where you end up with Brandon Cooks and Cortland Sutton is not a bad world to live in. Brandon Cooks is usually when you draft him. Yeah, I mean, the onesie argument you're making is a great one for Brandon Cooks, but usually he is at least your wide receiver three.

when you draft him. And as Brandon Cook's being your wide receiver three, that is fantastic. Here are his fantasy finishes, 20 last year with a rookie Davis Mills, 15, then he got injured the year before, 13, 12, 9, 14, all different teams, all different quarterbacks, all different systems. They love him. They've said he looks unbelievable in camp and that he's got an even better rapport right now with the general. General Mills going into year two, I think that there's a great connection here. And if what is his floor? I think his floor is wide receiver 24. Like a low end wide receiver two is his floor. He's just been around and done it so much that nobody ever respects him or wants him. That's why he's going in the sixth round.

And he does find a way to score. I mean, he has got game breaking speed. Davis Mills, that guy got more confidence in Brandon Cooks than Darnell Mooney in that situation. Got more confidence in some ways in Brandon Cooks and what I'll get week to week than I would in DJ Moore. Yeah, absolutely. So I think he's a steal right now. Wide receiver 26 off the board. Mike, you've got him at 13. Yeah. You want to add anything to this? I mean, is just confidence in Davis Mills or just confidence in Brandon Cook? It's confidence that Davis Mills is a lot better than...

The NFL thought he was. He's a lot better than we all thought he was going into the start of last season. And then, look, they gave him more money. I always, you know, I like when a player has a bag of money. And we got Nico Collins. We got Chris Moore. Who did they just sign? Kyle, who did they just pick up, Texans? Do you remember? Oh, they were looking at Sneed, I believe. No, they signed a free agent wide receiver that was going to amplify the point. Whose name I now forget. That does amplify the point. What you just did really drives home the point that it is Brandon Cook's team. It's Brandon Cooks is the number one. Oh, it was a Chester Rogers. That's what it was. Yeah. I mean, like point proven. This why this. Philip Dorset. Chris Conley and Chester Rogers are on this roster. This wide receiver core is Brandon Cooks. Like yeah. Brandon Cooks at the end of this year having a.

I don't know, 27, 28% target share. You go, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. He probably could have used a few more targets. He is going to dominate the garbage time universe that the Texans are going to live with it. Oh, that delicious garbage. I mean, they're going to live, they're going to start the game 14 points down. They've opted in. Let's do that. Yeah. Let's do that. Then just give all the yards to Brandon Cooks. AJ Brown at 17, 25 years old. Mike's got him at 14 Jason 15. I'm at 19. I'm dumb. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. I don't think I'm going to have any AJ Brown this year. He's wide receiver 10. What he does for Jalen Hertz is more than what Jalen Hertz does for him. I think AJ Brown is a great physical specimen wide receiver. He has struggled with consistency even when putting good positions. He is awesome.

But I don't think he's going to be awesome every week. And I think he's been frustrating for fantasy players to have on their roster. And I don't think that's going to change with Jalen Hertz. And, you know, it's been kind of talked about a ton this offseason. The passing volume. The story here is, can A.J. Brown be awesome for your fantasy team if the offense is run heavy. if Jalen Hertz is contributing around the goal line. And I don't know if you're going to get wide receiver 10 delivery here. So that's my case. I'll get out of the way. You guys are much higher on AJ Brown. Yeah, I mean, I think AJ Brown is going to be great this year. I really do. I've got him. It was wide receiver 15. I think he's talented. I think he'll be the clear number one target so far through seven practices. He has been the clear number one wide receiver target. He's 20 or 27 with three touchdowns through training camp right now, including a

beautiful 30-yard fade touchdown that was just shared around this morning. That being said, I've got him right now as my wide receiver 15. He is being drafted as the wide receiver 10. That means that I probably won't have as much AJ Brown share as I want. What we know about him is that he is a dominant alpha wide receiver that can just make DBs look foolish. We talk about Tyree Kill. He's just, you've got 65 plays a game. How often can you stop him? How often can you scheme out Tyree Kill's speed? Not often enough. Not 100%. How often can you scheme out AJ Brown's physical beasthood? That is a technical term. Right. You know, it's hard to do. You know, you got to juice up them cornerbacks. Print the hashtag beasthood shirts today. Oh my gosh. So, um, you know, but he's finished outside the top 36 and 42% of his career games.

Yeah. That's the hard part about him for me. But the good part is nine games in nine top five games in his first three years. So he wins you weeks. Yes. And I mean, you do want some of those players on your team. You embrace the volatility that not every week is going to be fantastic. I spent. So much of the offseason of A.J. Brown was like he was ranked in my 20s. And I wanted him to be my ice player for the ice and fire show that we just had recently. And I'm like, I have to be sure. And I took a whole other deep dive into things. And I ended up moving him way up of what I believe that he can get done with.

the, you know, just whatever volume he gets, looking at how he did with Tannenhill, which Ryan Tannenhill is a more effective passer at this point in Jalen Hurts. I don't think I'm being hot takey saying that right now. Not at all. But for them to make that investment of the trade and then giving him the contract extensions, like, AJ Brown's going to be the guy. And I think he's going to be fantastic. Now, having said all that, I'm still. projected under his ADP. I have him at 14 right now. He's going in the middle of the third as the wide receiver 10, and oftentimes higher than that. So it's very difficult to get on board with the ADP. But if you're willing to withstand some of those finishes outside of the top 50 wide receivers because he's going to give you weeks as the number one overall wide receiver and win the entire week by himself, if you're willing to embrace that and build around that for your team structure,

I think he's a fine pick. Does he have top five upside? I don't think so. I don't think there's enough passing volume to be top five. Hopefully he can stay healthy. Yeah. He's been banged up the last two years. That's a fair assessment of him. If the Eagles go back to the passing volume that they opened up the season with, then yes, he could hit top five, but I don't think they'll reach those levels. Yeah. I agree. They'll pass more than the end of the year, but not as much as the beginning of last year because they won a lot of games doing what they were doing late. All right, let's move on. All right, dig through the muck, the murky, terrible PR offseason for the Cardinals, Hollywood Brown coming in at 18. Now, he, I mean, realistically, we're much higher on Hollywood. Sure.

Stifle the biases. Yeah, I mean, so here's here's my view on Hollywood. I think that he would be set up for massive, massive success coming, reuniting with his college quarterback and Kyler while DeAndre Hopkins is not there for at least the first six games. We already know that. He is going to be the wide receiver one on a high-powered. fast pace of playoffice that projects to score a lot of points, throw a lot of yards, and he has been great. You know, he was the wide receiver five through week nine last year, and that includes a buy week. So the talent is there. Everything is set up for success, but right this second, I still worry. He's got the hamstring injury. He's back. He's not. He's not participating in, like, he's back.

He's on the field. He, you know, he's not arrested from his, you know, from his... You're saying he's not in jail? Yes, he's not in jail from his criminal speeding. But he is not playing right now. He's not... He's not going full in team practices. They're still kind of nursing the hamstring back, which is, hey, great. You haven't got to see the rapport you'd like to see between him and Kyler. Exactly. I mean, I know they had it in college, and it's a similar system, but that's years. And you're the highest, I believe, of the three of us. I have him at 16 right now. We're pretty grouped, though, of 16, 18, 19. For an ADP, someone going barely in the top 24.

Andy 18, Jason, 16, I'm at 19. I think we're weighing the top half of the season heavier in the value it provides the fantasy players. Yeah, and it's not just that. It's like looking at the DeAndre Hopkins last year, all of his success at the beginning of the year was, I mean, he was pulling in touchdowns, which, okay, Hopkins, maybe you can continue that, but the yardage was awful for DeAndre Hopkins. Then he. Couldn't get back on the field with the injury. Then he gets popped for trace amounts of a PED, and Hopkins is getting older. I have some real questions about Hopkins when he's back. Is he truly just right back to the number one? Odds are, yeah, he probably is. But there is at least room for doubt. And inside of that doubt, Markey's Brown, if it comes out and has a great six-week run, they're not just going to.

turn the offense upside down and say, well, we got to abandon this thing that's been working fantastic for us. I mean, he is the future wide receiver for this team. Hopkins isn't the future, you know, Hopkins is 30 years old and he's going to be great. But when they're building, you know, this young core of the offense, it's Hollywood Brown and Kyler together. And if you look at where the money is, you look at best ball drafts that are going live right now, Markey's Brown's being drafted right around where we have them as the wide receiver 18 off the board.