Fantasy Football - The TRUTH: Top 10 Fantasy WRs + Phony Finishes - Podcast for 1/29

Stafford's career will be much shorter from this point forward than Pookas will be. We will have a transition at the quarterback position. If McVeigh still involved, we'll obviously be really in on Puka, but it's a one-year window, one year at a time, but 1,700 yards, 10 touchdowns. You know, stayed healthy? Man, they really need to draft a quarterback. Yes, they do. They need to have someone waiting in the wings. Do not Pittsburgh this thing. You know the end is coming for Matthew. Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, I feel like there is a chance. The end for Matthew is the end for McVey. Yeah, and it kind of feels that way. It should be. It's like McVeigh's like, why prep for your time? I'm not here. Right. I want them to be as bad as possible when I leave. That way I can be a first ballot, Hall of Fame coach. No one can be anymore. But yeah, we don't need to tell you how good Puka was really. You know it for fantasy, but the numbers, you know.

outstanding on a week-to-week basis. Stayed healthy. That was nice. Home road splits the same. Defensive, the same, you know, if it's top or bottom defense. He just did the same thing every week all the time. And it was awesome. JSN is number two and number two in consistency. These guys were so similar. I think it's, I mean, it's just a magical season from both of them. One bus game for each guy. Basically, Puka had, I think, big outlier like heavy hitting score otherwise jason was just as consistent just as regular um never let you down real fibrous i you know i was i was going total raisin ban joking in my head but i was like no way mike talks about this once a day he's a regular every day have your jason once a week and you'll always be regular and is now in the super bowl six percent bus game 76 percent great 20 or sorry 76 percent good

which is a higher number. No, it's not. Pooka's at 81. Yeah, very, very similar numbers. Not a coincidence that these two guys just played each other for the right to go to the Super Bowl. No. You know, it's like the two best wide receivers this year were getting their team there. 12 top 12 performances for JSN. Yeah. Yeah, that was awesome. Number three, Amun Ross St. Brown with a consistency rank of number five. In the first half. He was number four inconsistency. He dropped off in the second half. 17th played through some injuries late in the season. We need to remember that. But 24% great. That was up from last year. 59% good. That was right around where he was last year. The bus games went up, though. The previous two years, just 6% bus games. This year, 24% bus games.

Which is still a good number. It's still a good number, but it's certainly. Hello, Drew. Not what we are. The blobfish. It's certainly not what we're used to with Ammon Ra. But down the stretch, the lions had some problems. You know, their season kind of collapsed at the end. And you saw it in the game log for Ammon Ra. I'm not really that worried about it. You know, the Ben Johnson. factor, him being gone, it made an impact. It really did. He was much better against bottom 16 defenses. So when things were easier for golf, obviously, they were much better for Amun Ra. Home road splits were about the same. The last three seasons in a row, do you realize he was the wide receiver three, all three years? Yep. And this year he was drafted at the 110. So he got the respect in the draft. That's where JSN stood out because it was, you know, Ammon Ra went ahead of Puka, barely.

And then J.S.N's like a round and a half later. Yeah, the nice thing is for being, you know, not the giant 50-50 type of wide receiver, they use him around the goal line a ton. Let all wide receivers in red zone targets with 33. He had as many receiving touchdowns inside the 20 as the Giants or Jets. Oh, as a team? Yes. Oh. Do you, uh, Any surprise, you know, he was number 17 inconsistency in the second half. That's when, like, Leporta went down. James and Williams took full advantage, but somehow Amman Ra became less consistent over that time. I think that's interesting. I don't know if that's like the interior part of the field teams could focus a little bit more on Amman Ra without Leporta there. I mean, it could also be the fact that James and really had a great second half of the year. And on those great games, those are...

drive-ending long touchdowns sometimes. And that will come at the expense of the other wide receiver. Number four, Jamar Chase. His consistency rank was number three. Like these are very corollary. We didn't have any really surprise fantasy finishes that were, you know, crazy and consistent yet. But Jamar Chase, number five in the first half, four in the second half, the first four weeks of the year. Don't man. He was wide receiver 77, 44, and 60 in three of those four weeks. And Joe Burrow went out. It's hard to remember. And it was basically like panic in the streets. Yes. And it was a it was a panic that I still think was. It was appropriate with Jake Browning. It was appropriate of without a trade he was doing. How do you possibly see a road out of this? Because good Lord Jake Browning in week three and four. You know who didn't get the Joe Flacco escape hatch?

Justin Jefferson. Right. Right. That's the other side of the coin. Yes. You needed a Joe Flacco in, well, he got it for like two seconds with Carson Wins, sort of. Right. Or he was kind of okay. And then it's like he's gone and you didn't get that relief. I think we're realizing that there are three tiers of quarterbacks that matter for fantasy. There are the great quarterbacks. That's awesome. You want your wide receivers to have them. When we look at these great wide receivers over the years, we talk about, oh, Larry Fitzgerald had his down years, still in his prime. Hopkins. Hopkins. But it's a middle tier quarterback with a superstar wide receiver can absolutely produce enough. Yes. When they're hashtag bad, there's no overcoming it. And that's what Browning was. That's what the offense was. Go look at.

Chase Brown's numbers, and then it all turned around, and you rode Flacco right into Burrow, and that ride was great, and he ends up with 185 targets, 1,400 yards, very similar numbers to last year, same percentage of great games, basically the same good. The bus games were up because of the Browning weeks, but Jamar Chase is just, when all the receivers in football are at their very best, Jamar Chase is the very best, is how I feel. I think that I would, if I was a general manager, He would probably be the wide receiver I would take. Like if I got my pick of every wide receiver currently in the NFL, I think it would be Chase over Justin Jefferson, over Puka. I feel like he's the hardest to truly stop defensively of all the other receivers. He tweeted out. So if you haven't seen the great Clint Kubiak design on that JSN touchdown in the national championship. Yeah, he said he would have been truck sticked at the line. Exactly.

He gets a little bit more focus on the defense. Not that the defense isn't trying to focus on JSN, but when you're playing against Jamar Chase, that's everything. He did have the biggest home road split of any top five wide receiver we've ever seen. So he was 21.8 points per game at home, 9.6 on the road. Tell me those Browning games. Were those at home or on the road? Yeah. The two were on the road. Yeah, okay. These are. It is skewing the sample. Fudging the stats a little. Historical ranks through the first five years of Jamar Chase. Targets number one all time. Receptions number two behind Alman Ra. Yards, number two behind Jefferson. We always hear about Jefferson leading the, you know, having the record through his first five years. And here's Chase also breaking all those other records. Tied for fourth behind Rice, Moss, and Des Bryant for receiving touchdowns through his first five years. And the highest-scoring fantasy player of all time through first five years. He's great.

Now, interestingly enough, his average depth of target, it's dropped for five straight years. 12.9, 9.8, 9.1, 9.9 and 8.9. But again, get the ball on his hands. That was part of the recipe when Flacco got there. Just find a way to get him the football at all times. All right. We have number five. My guy. I mean, not mine. My guy. A my guy. The number one receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. That would be George Pickin. Don't say it like that. I mean, this year, George Pickens, number five overall, number six in consistency. That consistency went from number six in the first half to 11 in the second half. Yeah, kind of weird. I'll throw C.D. Lamb into this analysis, too, at the same time, handle the Cowboys because he missed so many games that his fantasy finish was much lower, 20th, but his consistency rank was 10. So he was actually less consistent than Pickens, even in the games he played. Lamb still had a very solid year. It really fell apart at the end.

But it was solid. Yeah. Aside from the missing time. What was your takeaway from these two guys? I mean, one, do you expect Pickens back? 29% great, 53% good, 24% bucks. I can't fathom a world where they let Pickens walk without franchising him. I haven't heard anything of that nature. Because there's no possible. You can't, no matter what, you have to get him under contract. Yeah. And he is going to demand a huge contract. The next best wide receiver on the. open market this year. Talked about this on the Dynasty show. It's not a good free agent class for wide receivers. What is it? Alec Pierce is the next best. Oh, is it? Yeah. Yeah. There's a gap. Oh, there's a huge gap. One can be your like, you know, Alec Pierce is not coming to be the one on a franchise. And the truth is that one of the reasons I wanted George Pickens as a my guy is because he has a perfect schematic fit.

for how Dak plays. Dak has not had that outside deep threat that, you know, over the last few years outside of Seedy, that he could let his very good deep ball find a home. And it was perfect for George Pickens. So I want to see them, I want to see them, you know, run it back again next year. In those games when they were playing together, Citi was the more targeted player, but George Pickens had the more valuable targets deeper down the field both are great it's yeah i mean i know you got to franchise and you're and you're going to figure it out from there but like the cap situation cowboys are in the thick of it yeah it's they should just do whatever the dodgers do me pay pickings like the dodgers thing is there's no salary cap well pay pay pickings all his money in like 2050 i literally thought you were wearing a dodgers shirt when we're you're talking about the doctor no i know of course why would you

But you see what I'm saying, right? The shirt that is modeled after a Dodgers shirt? Yeah, it's fair. I didn't realize that that was modeled after. So it's like long term teams make things happen. You know, they find ways. Yeah, the cap is fake. They find ways to figure it out. But they're going to cost him a lot of money. It's going to be difficult. Because I don't think they can afford a full contract here. If Pickens were to go on the open market, he's getting. a monstrous deal. I don't think the Cowboys can afford that. Spoutrax projected his market value to be four years at 122.4. Yeah, I mean, he'll be probably a top, at least a top five wide receiver of all time just because of how the money moves up. So you mentioned Giovante's a free agent. Yes. Brandon Aubrey's a free agent. Oh. That's a projected 26, $27 million deal. Yeah, you've got to pay Aubrey. And Giadian Clownie is a free agent too for them. But that one's less important. Yeah, get rid of the defense.

Give me your, yeah, that worked out really well. If their defense improves, it will be a question about, you know. It'll be lame, man. C.D. Lamb, 7% great games. He did not bottom. That number is insane. He had drop problems. His good game percentage was the same as Pickens, but how do you think the psychology of fantasy players will react to this season and then going into the draft season? where C.D. Lamb will be rounds ahead of George Pickens, and yet Pickens has this, you know, this is not a small sample. This wasn't all when C.D. Lamb was gone. This was 17 weeks. Well, I mean, what do you think by rounds? Where do you project them going? I mean, I imagine that C.D. Lamb is still pushing the second round, right? I think, yeah, I think, yeah, maybe the first round. I think George will be, George will be a third round pick in my estimation. Let's call it middle of the second, middle of the third. Sure.

which I think that's a fair place to start him. And I think that both of them, that's fine. If the fantasy community wants to drop C.D. Lamb into the second round, I will draft him everywhere. I'm still fully confident. The year started, wide receiver 9 on the road against Philadelphia, wide receiver 11 against the Giants, and then he got hurt. And like, misses three. I don't think they want to push him there, but you are not going to draft C.D. Lamb. I don't think you will see him drafted ahead of the, ahead of Ammon Ra, Puka, JSA, and Chase. Those are correct. Those are not happening. That's fair. Beyond that, I mean, sure. I mean, the truth is, if you look at his game log last year, he was basically on pace for 100 receptions of 1,500 yards. Awesome, awesome. Pre, George? And three touchdowns. Oh, right. So, I mean, the issue this last year for him and the no Bada booms is,

He wasn't getting the touchdowns this year. That's not the sticky stat. I'm going to look at the targets, the yards, and then project that he gets a percentage of the touchdowns, which is more in line with his career average, which will put him pretty high up. Are you saying that his, his like yardage numbers? That was his projection without the injured games. Correct. Still at the 1,300. Kyle's given us some early for the absolute degenerates out there playing best ball already. I believe you are. Including week 18. And week three, where he, the game he got out. Oh, you took that one out? Yeah. Gotcha. So basketball ADP, it's already going, everybody. Oh, yeah. Lamb is right now going at the seventh pick. So at least the early adopters are not penalizing C.D. Lamb. And George Pickens is going like about the, just a little bit later in the second round. Well, I'm still 26. Totally in his prime.

All right, we'll take a break. We'll talk about some other names that surprised to find themselves in the top 12. Oh, bookland, big game is almost here. And there is no better way to cash in during America's biggest sporting event than prize picks where it always feels real good to be right. Find your community on prize picks with the new social feeds feature. You can share. price picks with your friends and copy lineups from winners with a single click. You can copy lineups you like, use them as inspiration for your own picks. You can even follow prize picks partners like us and tail or fade our picks with just one click. We have loved using prize picks all year long. Some of these projections are so much fun to have some skin in the game and then maybe win some cashish, but I could tell you right now when I'm playing and I'm putting in that like,

Completion percentage for a quarterback, every single throw is like, yes, no, yes, no. It's a blast. Download the Price Picks app today and use code Footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup prize picks. It's good to be right. Oh, baby. Yeah. Yeah, baby. We're so back. Okay, Chris Olava comes in at number six. Consistency rank of eight. If you look at the first half of the year, this was not, that was not the time period in which Chris Olaville, you saw this coming. We call those the Rattler years. 21st in consistency in the first half, number two in the second half. He got shucked tonight. Oh, yeah, he did. I mean, he was really, really great. I mean, you did not have, like the names beyond these top five.

They're kind of wild. OLAVE at 6. You have the disappearing act. We can talk about them because they're not going to be on the show. But like Jefferson isn't part of this conversation today. Malik neighbors expected him in this conversation. He's not there. Ryan Thomas Jr. thought he might be in this conversation. He's not there. Nico Collins. We'll talk about him. Chris O'Lave. But it's Chris O'Lave. Yeah, Tyreek Hill's done, right? Chris Olave in the Tyler Shuck games. Okay, so Tyler Shuck started starting in week nine. And then from that point on, from week nine through the rest of the season, Puka Nakua had 19.9 points per game. JSN had 17 points per game. And then Chris Olave was right behind him at 15.8. I guess technically in one game played Tori Horton is in there at 18 points. But obviously does not count.

are you feeling jason after so you had you made a a legendary footballer's move in our dynasty league mm-hmm jordan addison off of his hot rookie year and two firsts yeah chris elave and last year felt pretty bad about it right now i'm feeling pretty good about it um You know, the truth is the big issue with Chris Oliva and it will be there forever is the concussion risk. He came out and talked about the fact that this offseason he did consider walking away. He had the conversations of should he stop playing football? I love that. I love that he's concerned about it, that he made it through the entire season without having a problem and that he has a quarterback now that, I mean, part of the problem in concussions and wide receivers.

I mean, if you go back and you look at the Chris Olaave concussions, I feel like several of them were basically murder balls. You know what I mean? Derek Carr throwing up these balls that Chris Olave is going to try to go get. And he, if I, if I'm confident that a quarterback here can protect Chris Olave and that Chris Olave is concerned with protecting himself, there's never been a doubt in my mind of talent. No, no, we've always believed in the talent. It was, um, It was a quarterback situation and injuries, and now you're dealing with the blood clot, right? At the end of the year, right after he's like, I'm finally going to play the entire season, he goes out with, I think it was a blood clot. Yes, yeah, in his lung. And so, you know, next year it'll be interesting. I don't think he's drafted anywhere near wide receiver six. No. But there'll be other players back. Like, I've not taken Olave over neighbors coming back from injury. I'm not taking him ahead of Jefferson. I'm not.

Those guys. I wonder how much people react to this. I think they'll be very aware, acutely aware, and try to steal him. Kyle, and everyone will try to steal him and he'll go higher than with him. Give me his underdog ADP. Oh, yeah. He's going 26th overall. 26 overall. Okay. Top of the third. That's expensive. That's probably where he's. It's probably fair. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe fourth, early fourth in redraft. All things considered. He had never had a game over 20 fantasy points in his career before this year. That is impressive. So it was special. Played much better against worst defenses and was oh so good with Tyler Shucks. So there's a hope and a future there in New Orleans. Zay. When's rookie of the year? Is that stuff? So the finalists were announced for AP. Yeah. For AP. And I know. When's the big reveal? Holobaloo. I don't know the date.

Is it the honors? Is it this weekend maybe? Maybe. If only we could find out. If only we knew from every other year and could remember. February 5th, 2026 ahead of Super Bowl. So it will be NFL honors that night. So I believe Tederoa McMillan is a finalist. Yeah, it seems like Tyler Shuck and Jackson Dart. Seems like rookie of the year is Tyler Shuck or Tederoa Macmillan. I believe the pro football writers of America already did theirs. They named Tetero McMillan their rookie of the year. And that was on January 20th. Zay Flowers comes in at number seven. Yeah, he does. I mean, this is where truth is, I mean, the truth is, is revealed. The truth is Zayflowers is not remotely the number seven. No, he didn't help you like that. He played.

All of the weeks. He did at the end. His consistency rank was 16. It was 30th in the first half of the season. I'm looking at the game log. I would have smiled five times. You would have smiled a lot at the end. Yeah, I wouldn't have been there. I mean, you're there because you didn't have them in the beginning. You traded for him halfway through the year. That's a good time to do it. Right. But you might not have been where you were if you had it in the first half of the year. And I do love Zayflowers. I think he is an excellent player.

But I'm not doing a full cover and apology for how Zayflowers got to where he was. I mean, he did have, he was 86 for 1,200. So that's, I mean, that's pretty solid. And then the questions are, I mean, like, Lamar. Lamar missed a good chunk of time. Lamar Jackson came back and was quite bad at the game of football. And. and then Zay kind of overcame that at the end. So I just, I wonder how you, like how you factor in those variables, because I think they're very real and very fair, but it's just how much do you weigh? Like if you were to ignore weeks 5 through 8 when Lamar missed, you mean? You can't really ignore Lamar playing poorly because that was just his quarterback.

I can get you the number if we take those games out, but in those games... No, I'm not necessarily looking for the numbers, just of like the overall, like the vibe. I mean, I think we're, we are years into Zay Flowers knowing that Zayflowers, despite finishing as a wide receiver one, he's a wide receiver two for fantasy. He's not bad. He's a very good player on the field, but they don't consolidate enough targets to him. Put it this way. It's not a takeover guy. Last year... He had 116 targets. That's not enough to be great on a regular basis. This year he had 118. Almost the same. When you look at wide receiver ones, they're usually up at 130, 140 targets or, you know, all the way up. I mean, look at the consistency numbers. This is what the truth is about. 29% good games from the number 7 wide receiver. 29% is the lowest of any wide receiver.

finishing in our top 14 in the history of the true series since 2017. If I'm getting 29% of the games where I'm happy, Kyle was sharing a huge problem. 12.1 points per game is the lowest ever for a wide receiver finish. Wide receiver 7 finish. I mean, we opened the section with wide receiver scoring was down. Yeah. Touchdowns were way down for the position. So looking at the last five years, the wide receiver 7 on average was about 14 points per game, which is. More is like a couple points of game at this level. That'll move stuff. So it's just down here. Zayflowers, right place, right time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it's no disrespect to flowers. He has what he is. And he's always been a very valuable receiver from time to time that makes huge plays. I don't think you ever really go into the game thinking, like, defensively, oh my gosh, like this, we got to stop Zayflowers today.

That's all my point was. Like, I don't think he, he's not one of the guys that we would ever say as a top five finisher. Who will be drafted higher next year? Zayflowers or Mecca, Fours. Depends on the offseason. Yeah, I mean, if Evans Godwin and McMillan are all back, then I'm baking Evans. I'm baking Evans. It'll be, it'll be, flowers. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you could turn Abuka's first half and Zay Flowers' second half into one player, it would have been. Really strong. Would have been like Chris Olavay. Devante Adams comes in at eight with a consistency rank of seven. He dropped off in the second half. He got hurt. His touchdowns were out of control. He was basically a goal line running back. He led the NFL in touchdowns despite missing three games. Like he was that far ahead of everybody. He caught 60 passes? Is that correct? Yes, that is correct. So 14 of his 60 receptions.

or for a touchdown his 17 game pace would be 17 touchdowns on only 72 receptions that must be weird for cooper cup to be like having that game against his former team and then like now you're going to the super bowl and they're not cooper cup feels 12 feet tall yeah right now guys that it's that had to feel So good. You know him and Stafford were best buds, man. Yeah, and Puka. I watched all the, you know, my best buds can burn. All the post game, the immediate, you know, pads are still on going over and finding Cooper Cup, sharing love, saying go get that title. They, you know, they love each other. Do you feel like the difference of Adams and Cup was that significant? Yes. I don't, I think it was significant for Matthew Stafford and for the ability to throw passing touchdowns. I think if.

I think if it was Cooper Cup instead of Devante Adams, the Rams probably would just score more touchdowns on the ground. So I don't think it was. Like the net result for the Rams wouldn't have been much different? I don't personally believe it would have been that my idea. The MVP story wouldn't have been there. That's correct. Correct. That's what I'm saying. Like this was really good for Stafford in his accumulation of touchdown. I've got to give you the last two names here. I know we're getting towards the end of the show. Say Stafford like the last. two years was 24 passing touchdowns in 20 and you jumped to 46. Yeah, no. That's Devante Adams. I wonder what the total team touchdowns were from the last few years. Kyle, look that up. The offensive touchdowns from the Rams the last three years. They were number one in scoring. So it was definitely a special year. Nico Collins comes in at nine with a consistency of 11. I feel like Nico is the, it's like Batman hiding in the shadows here. We all know Nico.