Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - Early WR Rankings, Fantasy News & Mailbag

It is a stud. Well, a lot of these guys are very close in our projections. I do want to bring this up, though, because for me, I feel like there's a tier here. I feel like you've got, to me, I put Odell Beckham in that top tier with... The three? You're saying before Des. Yes, I'm saying Antonio Brown, Julio and OBJ are the first tier. Yeah, I think we all agree. And then there's a break to this next group of guys we're talking about who are in this next group so close together. It's flip up.

four-sided coin. Yeah, which I've never seen. So let me... Yep. I'm gonna bring up an interesting... Now, our rankings don't reflect this question, but this question is a valid one. There will be a lot of people who would rather have Alan Robinson coming off the last year at that age than the risk or perceived risk of Des Bryant. Now we have Des Bryant at four. We do not have Alan Robinson up in this...

category, maybe in the category, maybe in the tier. I don't know where we draw the line there. But Des Bryant ahead of Alan Robinson, what do you think about that situation? I think you should have Des Bryant ahead of Alan Robinson. Alan Robinson is younger, and sometimes we get a little bit too carried away with that. But you've got a guy last year in Alan Robinson who did not. He got 14 touchdowns, and he got 14 touchdowns on...

For that number, very few receptions. He was under 90 receptions, right? 80 receptions for Alan Robinson last year. Look, he was a huge guy from this show. We loved Alan Robinson last year. And still do. Absolutely. He's going to be fantastic this year. But you just look back and you say, well, Des Bryant, I know what I have in him. I know you can argue the foot. You can argue Tony Romo if you want to go on that. But I'm going to argue.

that we have years and years and years of him being a touchdown target, whereas we have one year of Alan Robinson really all of a sudden being this crazy touchdown target. And it wasn't necessarily red zone. I believe Alan Robinson led the league in receptions over 20 yards last year. So they were bombs. And those are a little bit less consistent, especially after somebody's broken out as that player. Right. So I would go, Des here. To me, like you're saying people would argue Romo.

against Des Bryant. I argue Romo for Des Bryant. Tony Romo is... I was going to have you compare Bortles Romo. I'd say maybe Romo's not clutch or whatever. Romo is a great quarterback. He...

His numbers over the years are actually astounding when you go and look at him and his passer rating. He's a highly efficient quarterback who can, he's the kind of guy who can actually get it done with the lower volume of attempts compared to guy like Bortles where you need him to be around the top three in attempts to sustain that level of production. Romo, he's so great that he doesn't need it to have that high of volume.

All right, let's move on to the fifth guy in our consensus rankings. He's four across the board for me. He's one of my big targets this year for the value. And his name might surprise you, maybe not. A.J. Green. Don't forget. Don't forget about A.J. Green. Now, look, A.J. Green is the same draft class as Julio Jones. Yeah, it was taken before Julio. Yes, he was. And he's great. He's taller than Julio. He's better looking than Julio. Whoa.

Whoa, I didn't know we were going into that kind of analysis. I've got him ranked number four as well. Jason's very in depth. I would take AJ Green over Des Bryant in all formats. Every single year he's played 16 games. He's been a double digit touchdown guy and also a guy right around the 13-14-yard mark. He's obviously, I believe that the thing that could change him in my rankings. Now, these are early rankings. I hope I don't have to say that. I hope you can look at your watch and see what the day is. But.

The thing that's going to change could change a little bit. I know they're going to draft somebody. They have to draft somebody in Cincinnati. Brandon LaFelle! Okay, they have to draft two people. But that's a piece of the puzzle. We saw Eiffert last year, and we think the touchdown regression is coming for Eifert. It doesn't mean he's not going to be a red zone force. That was efficient red zone force that he was. Now, it might not, but...

Even if they draft someone. I mean, they lost two guys. So if they replace them with... Look, there's a reliability there that is so high. Speaking of reliability, A.J. Green has the most years in a row of all wide receivers in the NFL of over 1,000 active playing, because it would have been Calvin, but he has retired, of over 1,000 yards. I mean, that's consistency. And the thing is when you have that kind of consistency in a guy like AJ Green, you also have potential.

with him for those monster games where he'll put up, you know, 200 yards and three touchdowns and win you a week by himself. Yeah, and he is capable of that big play, obviously, the long pass. I've had many Fantasy Week destroyed by one of those passes, the 90-yard touchdown. I just really like AJ Green this year. I think you still have an offense that is, I mean, let's not forget where Cincinnati was last year when Dalton was healthy. They were a prolific offense.

I think I use that word a lot. Prolific? I think I use prolific a lot. It's a good word. Yeah. But I need to kind of. You got to open a Thesaurus. Chorus.com. So anything else about AJ Green? Or we want to get to number six here? I just, I completely agree. I think he's going to be one of the overlooked guys for whatever reason. He just has that feel, you know, that he's not considered one of the elite guys. And he very, very well can finish on the top three easily.

Yeah, absolutely. So number six on our list is a darling to many appropriately. DeAndre Hopkins. Now, DeAndre Hopkins was a shining burst onto the scene. Yeah. An explosion to start the year last year. In fact, he had 13.5 targets per game through week 11. That's not targets. Which was the most in the league. That was ahead of guys that finished as the highest reception totals like Julio and Antonio Brown.

Now, he had a second half of the year that wasn't as good. And this is like Devanta Freeman, right, where both of those situations, they burn so bright in the beginning. We said it on the air over and over again. We said, be careful. Not be careful even. We just said, the numbers are going to go down. Don't freak out. They're going to go down. It just can't happen. It's like Doug Baldwin, right? You can't have 29 touchdowns in the season. Careful. Careful. Old. Yeah. Are you projecting 29 again? 30. 30 touchdowns.

for Doug Baldwin this coming season. That's not, I mean, I do love Doug Baldwin, but we're not there yet. Not a big deal. So, DeAndre Hopkins also has what I, the reason he's not up at the very top. In fact, I think he's a lot lower. He's eight for me. As a show, as a consensus. He's 10 for me in standard. I think eight for me. He is one of the guys. And of course, please don't hear this wrong. We love DeAndre Hopkins. His target volume is great. But.

Compared to the ADP, our consensus, this is one of the guys that we have lower than where he is going in your average redraft league. So keep that in mind, we're a little lower on Hopkins than the majority. You bring in Lamar Miller, you have a great defense, and you bring him Brock Osweiler. Or slow the game down, run the ball. Sure. And even if I will openly say, I think everything could be fine, normal for Hopkins. That's a very high possibility. You had Brian Hoyer, you had Ryan Mallet, you had.

guy off the street last year and they all... Brandon Whedon. Yeah, Brandon Whedon. And they all just threw the ball up to Hobkins and he made plays. And that's what he's going to do. I just don't know what the offense is. So that variable of seeing Osweiler in the system with Lamar Miller and the defense and then the second half of the year being when their defense was good, those things are what works him into the... Still a one. Probably room for regression. I don't generally draft guys that have what I consider to be their career year.

You know, Emmanuel Sanders being the example last year coming off a career year. I don't generally draft those guys because there's not a lot of room for upside. So that's where I stand on Hopkins. Yeah, the thing that really hits that home for me, and you mentioned it, was the difference between the first half of the year and the second half of the year because it wasn't.

You know, look, DeVante Freeman, right? He had a big difference first half and second half. He got a concussion. He came back off some injuries. And there's, so we go, okay, what's the reason? Well, when you look at the reason for DeAndre Hopkins' lack of success, I mean, he was still great the second half, but definitely not what he was that whole season, was because of the turnaround of the defense for the Houston Texans. And who is coming into this year saying,

Ah, the Texans D, they're no good. They're going to fall apart. Did you see that JJ Watt played with five torn muscles? I've played with more. Yeah. Hey, JJ, Watt, you ever come back in a game after you busted an eye? Busted thumb over here. Yeah, I came in with a broken eye, JJ. Where are you at? Then again, you are fine a few days later. Yeah, so. But sorry, distracted your point. But the point is that there is a reason.

a correlation for why his numbers dipped a little bit. And I expect, I think most people, even those who loved Andre Hopkins, would agree that the defense is going to be better year long this coming season than it was year long this past season, which stands to reason. They'd be throwing the ball a little bit less. You saw not just gunsling in it as many times as they did last year in the first half. I got a great question for you guys.

Great question. And I think we will go through eight, by the way. I think we'll go through eight and then we'll do like eight more on the next show. So wide receivers are a little deeper. We'll do that. Here's the question. We just talked about Lamar Miller on the running back shows. I think he was our consensus five. Now we're talking about DeAndreux Hopkins, consensus six. How would you categorize those guys in that offense? You know, we talked a lot about...

The Lacey and Jordie Nelson or the Antonio Brown and Lev Bell. Now you've got Hopkins and Lamar who statistically, I mean, projection-wise, they're in this like...

It scares worthy of a first-round pick category. It scares me a lot more than those other teams because I don't see the Houston Texans as this prolific offense that's going to. Here's that word. I'm sorry, they're just going to put up copious amounts of points as an offense. I feel like the Texans are a defense first team. The Steelers. Now, what could they be the Jets, though? Jets gave you lots of ivory Marshall. And Decker. Mark Marshall Decker.

I'm just wondering, is that the ascension point? That would be the ascension. That would be the height. But I'm going to trust the higher profile offenses over the higher profile defenses. And there's a lot of questions here. People don't, when there's changes, when there are big, sexy changes, people get too excited and they don't realize that sometimes changes hurt, especially in the NFL where, I mean, you've got a new quarterback, a new running back.

Those things are going to have to be worked out, and they're not as great as the Texans marketing department is going to make everybody think from day one. All right. I want to move on to number seven. I think this is the most maybe shocking pick so far today in our rankings. Really? I do. I think we have to be different than the consensus out there among other experts with him.

Do you want to see where his, what's his ADP, what's his number? Jason is looking right now. So where's he being drafted as? No, this is, you are correct. Because I love it. He's being drafted in the third round. What wide receiver? In a third round, that would put him as wide receiver 13 outside of the wider receiver line. So we haven't, we haven't met seven. And we're saying, you know, head down to the basement, put your combination in, open the vault, take out your money, take it upstairs, call your broker.

Say you want to put it all down on Mike Evans. On Mike Evans. Yep. Let's invest on Mike Evans. Now, some of you driving, maybe you pump the brakes a little bit. Spin out your coffee. Let's make the case for Mike Evans because if it's not happening on this show, it's not happening anywhere else. So make the case for Mike Evans. It's all about the ascension of his career. He came out a rookie sensation over a thousand yards.

I believe he was a wide receiver won. He was. He was like, he was just at the back, just at the back, because he was over 1,000 yards, a monster of the end zone. Now, this year, it was a little bit shaky, it seemed. You had the injury. You didn't know when he was going to play. There was even a game where I think he had a bunch of targets and no catches. He had the game where he had the most drops.