Fantasy Football - WR Rankings Countdown: 20-11 + Keenan's Back! - Podcast for 8/6

There is breakout potential with Jameson Williams, and if he just goes out and has a ho-hum season, he's probably still better than the wide receiver 27 where he's being drafted. I guess he's under contract next year, right? Well, yeah, there would be the fifth year option. Yeah, so that would be a club option for next season. Yeah. So that was some of the debate you were talking about with the trade. I'm just trying to think of how what the motivation level is for Jameson Williams. Yeah. Because that's oftentimes, like if you look at the historical. top tier guys. I mentioned it the other day. At this age, it's also like with that next contract on the horizon, you know, Justin Jefferson and Jamar Chase and those guys, when that money is sitting out there and whether it's on Detroit or someplace else, it's always a motivating factor. 24 years old is a great age to grab a breakout wide receiver. Number 19, Devante Adams of the Los Angeles Rams, 30. Not 24 years old. 32 years old will be 33 soon.

I have him the lowest of the three of us. We have him at 19 by consensus. We'll see. We'll see where he is by the end of the day with all the Jared Goss. I'm not sorry, not Jared Gough, Matthew Stafford. Going back in time a little bit. I actually did already move him down from this because of the Matthew Stafford news. So I've got him at 19. You are still a couple spots lower. Two years, $46 million contract. Last year, thanks to Aaron Rogers, ran way fewer in and dig routes, had a lot more corner routes with Rogers. You can expect more motion with Los Angeles. Yes, you can. That's one of the things that they do with the receivers. I think we all look to Adams as, you know, not quite leading the team in targets. We think Pooka's that guy. But the touchdown potential, boy, that's a variance with Stafford or without. For sure. And so.

With Stafford, I think he could have a lot of touchdowns. Although Stafford has really not been a touchdown machine over the last few years. Kyron is very greedy. Kyron has been very greedy and just got paid. But if you look at the second wide receiver next to Puka Nakua, you know, last year Cooper Cup, we look not fondly upon what happened because he disappeared at the end of the season. But if you look at the... lead up to that. And years prior, what the system can do even with a very incredibly heavily targeted Pooka Nakua, the first nine games played from Cooper Cup. He missed a couple of games for injury early. He was on pace for 171 targets himself. And that's a nine game sample. So this is the opportunity for a lot of volume for Devante Adams is here. And the team went out with their transactions and believed.

Look, we want to go from Cooper Cup to Devante Adams. We think Cooper Cup has lost X, Y, or Z, and we think Devante Adams has what we're looking for. Now, this is also the team that went out and paid a big bag of money for Alan Robinson. It doesn't mean that all their ideas and scouting is perfect. But if they are correct, that Devante Adams still has it, and he certainly still looked like he had it last year. The role on this offense is great. And I do love him with Stafford getting into the end zone. least amount of touchdowns he scored in the last five years as eight on the season. It was 18, 11, 14, 8, and 8 the last two years. And last year, you saw the first half of the season when he was not a member of the Jets. I mean, you had finishes outside the top 50 in three of the first four weeks. He played with them. So you can see it can go bad. He's risky. And I think he would be, I think the mental side of like if Stafford wasn't available.

and you just decided to get out of a bad situation and go into another Jimmy Garoppolo. I can't even imagine. I just think he would just lose it. I think he'd lose it. I think he'd lose it. Stafford's out for the year and he goes, yeah, me too. I mean, I am also out for the year. Right. The, uh, what, what, the, the, the, the, the, I don't want to be here anymore. Yeah, yeah. 18, his teammate last year. Garrett Wilson, Garrett Wilson of the New York Jets, just signed the big contract. You know, you had the offseason quotes from Aaron Glenn. What he's learning about, Garrett Wilson, just give him the ball as much as possible. That's right, Aaron. That really hasn't been an issue for Garrett Wilson ever. Like there's never been a coach that didn't say that because the target totals 147, 168, 154. I think they're trying to give it to him as much as possible. And it's not going to change this year. They have no one else to throw the ball to.

I mean, they lost Conklin. They lost Devante Adams. They even the rookie replacement. Josh Reynolds. Exactly. Josh Reynolds is the two. I mean, you know, they bring in Mason who's dealing with. Mason Taylor. Yeah, Mason Taylor, their rookie tight end to replace Tyler Conklin. And now he's dealing with a high ankle sprain. So Garrett Wilson is going to be massively targeted. I am. finding myself more and more and more in on Garrett Wilson this year. Oh, really? Yeah, when I see, when I'm... Welcome aboard. When I'm at ADP and I'm looking at his name, I'm excited to take him. Now, the view I have on Garrett Wilson is that I think he's a very good wide receiver. I do not believe Garrett Wilson is a great...

Like I don't think he is a Justin Jefferson. I don't think he's a Jamar Chase. Well, okay. Those are great all capitals. We're just looking for just the first letter. No, I get that. But my point is if you were to switch Garrett Wilson and Jamar Chase on their, you know, respective teams, I don't think Garrett Wilson could do what Jamar Chase does. I don't think any of us would argue that, though, by any stretch. I don't think many people out there would. He would be better than T. Higgins. Here's the devil's advocate case for Garrett Wilson. We already have the evidence. We already have the evidence that he can be the highest volume, most important, most targeted wide receiver and finish outside the top 30. That's happened. He had 168 target year. He finished at wide receiver 32 with three touchdowns. He scored seven times last year. Thank you, Aaron Rogers.

You're going to need to score like five plus times in this offense, otherwise you will be disappointed in the fantasy finish. I would agree with that. And if you want to project touchdowns for him this year, Justin Fields does not project to be as good as Aaron Rogers at that specifically. And the offense projects to be worse than it was last year without Devante Adams. And so maybe the touchdowns aren't going to be there for him. I've got him projected for six touchdowns this season, which I think is. a good number but that is sadly that's that feels like an optimistic there's been there's been some negative press around justin field's performance in recent days in can there has so uh also i i just think he's just been so up and down as a pastor in his career so that'll be an interesting situation to watch but we have them slotted in at 18 yeah we're all hoping for that dj more year i think the

What we don't know for sure is, you know, just what does the Jets offense look like? You know, Coach Glenn brought his body Tanner over from Detroit. So I would imagine they're going to do their best to replicate and duplicate that, which would put him. That would be Danny Tanner from Full House. From Full House, yes. Perfect. So, I mean, I imagine it will be, you know, pieces of that. that type of an offense. So do they try and om and raw the role for Garrett Wilson? We don't know yet. Yeah, I do think that, I mean, there's a reason he's not in our top 10, right? I mean, we're talking about wide receiver 18. There are lots of questions, and there will be lots of targets, and we hope that translates really well. It could be a value. Right now, his ADP is the wide receiver 15 in the third round. I've got him right at wide receiver 15 personally.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think I have some guys that I might choose over him just on offensive optimism. But I get it. I think the interesting name to me is Tyreek Hill. Like Tyreek Hill or Garrett Wilson, they're very, you know, you've got one guy where you've got to have a question about whether he's really lost it. The other guy's obviously up and coming, still young, youthful, the clear one on his team. But Tyreek has that wide receiver one range of outcomes still. I think that's. You know, if he hasn't lost it, if it was the wrist last year, if Tua's got there. But how do you play? And for me, if I'm staring down that decision, I'm going to Garrett Wilson's. Yeah, one of the things, Garrett Wilson's ADOT has dropped three straight years. So you're not getting that is very opposite of Tyreek Hill on the big plays. D.K. Metcalf comes in at 17. Metcalf, I have ranked the highest of the three of us starting the Aaron Rogers era. I don't know if you guys saw the Aaron Rogers.

some of the camp stuff from yesterday about which the glaring at roman wilson no i i mean he glares at everybody i mean he's glared he's had a glare at everybody policy for six years now but um that can't feel good no it was more like how slow he was going through some of these drills like he just looked he just looked really really slow going through some of these drills um but met calf uh you know we've talked about him in recent in recent days When he's over 130 targets, he ends up definitely outpacing his ADP here, which is wide receiver 22. You know, they paid him all that money. He is the alpha. He might be their wide receiver 1 through 3, and then they begin at wide receiver 4. I mean, that's kind of how I look at things. It's been a roller coaster in Seattle. This is a guy that's never quite lived up to the potential, in my opinion. Like, I think physically, speed-wise.

This guy should have been a perennial top. Like where he started, Seattle, Wide Receiver 7, Wide Receiver 12, second and third season. It feels like he should have been a Hall of Fame wide receiver. 100%. Go get that yellow jacket. So I don't know if it's eating candy all day long. I don't know what it is. I'm pretty sure that's part of it. But, you know, he missed some time last year with an MCL sprain. And here we go. It was very good for Devante Adams to have Aaron Rogers last year. It was good for Garrett Wilson. finishing the top 10 with Aaron Rogers. You know, I see Metcalf as a value. The thing about Metcalfe is it should work. On paper, it should work. Rogers, for how we look at how he played last year, it felt like Aaron Rogers was not good and the Jets were not good. But when Garrett Wilson was the wide receiver won, Garrett Wilson was awesome for fantasy. And then Devante Adams came and took that role.

And then Devante Adams was very good for fantasy football. Pittsburgh made the investment. They said, we're going to take D.K. over George Pickens. They trade draft capital for him. They give him the big bag of money. He's the number one guy for Aaron Rogers. It should work. It's just, it's hard to get over for me. You know, D.K. Metcalf just the last three years being a disappointment from where you drafted him. Not that wide receiver 18 or 16 is terrible by any stretch, but it's disappointing from where you drafted him. And then you have the giant bugaboo in the room of Arthur Smith. What does this offense look like? Arthur Smith has toyed with our emotions for several years of having what we consider to be elite fantasy football players. Then those guys just don't come through.

Bijan didn't come through until Arthur was gone. Drake London didn't come through until Arthur was gone. So I just, I have these concerns about where he is going in, or I guess the price isn't too bad. He's in the fifth. I have concerns overall with the situation in the profile. It's really hard for me to see how it goes poorly for D.K. McCaff. You know, Matthew Stafford hasn't been a great fantasy asset in years, but he makes wide receivers unbelievable. Aaron Rogers does not have to be a great fantasy asset on his own for him to hyper target D.K. Metcalfe and have him be fantastic. I mean, the touchdown totals that, you know, we were just talking about that came through for Devante Adams or for Garrett Wilson last year. You know, those came from Aaron Rogers. This is a team where, I mean, D.K. Metcalf, who is he competing against?

Like Calvin Austin, Robert Woods. No, he's competing against four tight-in starting on a single play. Roman Wilson, Ben Scaroni. Who? I mean, there's, it's going to be the D.K. Metcalfe show. He'll have 140 targets and they will be decent targets. Yeah. And the thing for what I'm talking about with Arthur is like if if you guys haven't seen, you know, the heat maps of the types of routes that. These guys are running like number ones and look George Pickens was the number one guy for the Steelers and you look at how bland And unoriginal, the routes were for George Pickens versus other number one wide receivers. It's concerning. Aaron Rogers is never going to accept. I was literally about to say the same thing. That's your coach. That's your offensive coordinator. 100%. This is one of those, you know, he's not dealing with Desmond Ritter, where he can make him do whatever or try to protect, you know. Russell Wilson last year. Yeah. And hide Justin Fields. This is, Aaron Rogers is going to go out there. And I think maybe in the beginning he's going to give it a shot.

See what Arthur's plan is. And then he's going to throw that in the garbage if he doesn't like. It'd be like, all right, D.K., here's what you're actually running. And I understand last year there were expectations for George Pickens that weren't met, but I, I'm adjacent on that one. I do not like Arthur Smith, though, if that's important to the equation. Dude, I love Caleb Johnson so much. And every time I think about like how much I love Caleb Johnson, Arthur's just sitting on my shoulder going. Number two. And for everything negative that I just said about D.K. Metcalfe, I have him ranked above his ADP. So. Nope, you don't get out. You don't get out of it. Sorry. I'm just saying that I guess the price is acceptable. All right. We'll take a break. And then we get to come back and talk about another player impacted by a recent signing. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. Preseason football is underway.

College football is just starting, but you can already make season long more or less picks for the 2025 season on prize picks. Get your picks in before week one kicks off. Prize picks is so simple to play. You pick more or less on two to six player stat projections. If you get the picks right, you can cash in and win up to 2,000 times your money. Prize picks is also available in California, Texas. Georgia, more than 30 states, and they put their members first. All withdrawals are fast, safe, and secure. I was looking this morning. Right now I see Josh Allen, he's set at 27 and a half, more or less passing touchdowns. It's been six years since he hasn't done that. So yeah, more. Download the app today. Use the 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

five dollar lineup prize picks run your game this is an ad by better help these days it feels like there's advice for everything we talk about this all the time you look at the reels and all the social media you got the cold plunges gratitude journals screen detoxes but the problem is is you don't know it actually works and the internet is full of information overload about mental health about wellness and it's hard to know what will actually make a difference what's true and so You've got to take action, but you don't know how. You want to use trusted resources and BetterHelp has live therapists that can get you personalized recommendations and help you break through all of that noise. With over 30,000 therapists worldwide, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. And it's very convenient. You can join a session with a therapist at the click of a button and you can switch therapists at any time.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash footballers. That's BetterHELP.com slash footballers. Ladd McConkey comes in at number 16 on our wide receiver rankings. Wow, did you guys? Nerf him that much, or did you just have him that low the... No, no, this was moved down from the... Wow. Mike, or not Mike, Jason had him moved a lot more. I had him at 16 before the move. He's at 18 for me after the move with Keenan Allen, and that is... Look, McConkey's awesome. He's a great player. The offense, though, and the priority of this team is going to be to run the football, to run it well, to be...

willing to throw it to whoever's open and there's more players involved now than there were at the end of last year. And I just don't see McConkey scoring double-digit touchdown. So it's not like my projection for him is like he's the target leader on the entire team. I have him as the target leader as well. I mean, I have him with very similar numbers that he had last year, more completions in total because he didn't play a full 17 game season last year. But Keenan Allen is a target monster. I mean, he had a ton. last year. 121 targets in Chicago missing two games with an injury. Adding that to the offense is significant enough to move him down a couple spots. Yeah, Ladd McConkey is awesome. All three of us here adore and love Ladd McConkey. He was one of my favorite players going in last year. But, you know, last year he had a 22.9% target share. I've got him down at a 21% market share with Keenan Allen there with, you know, more.

quality wide receivers to throw the ball to and Tyler Conklin and a good receiver out of the backfield. Two good receivers. I think Najee is a decent receiver out of the backfield. So I believe this is a team that has an extremely smart quarterback. Justin Herbert will find the right guy. You know, I don't think he's going to hyper target anyone. I think he's going to spread the ball around and he's got a lot of targets to go to now. So I really like... Lad, I like his talent, I love this offense, but he did move down quite a bit for me just from a reality of he can't, he can't, unless Keenan goes down or something happens, he can't be up there at 28% of the team's target. I just can't imagine that being his type of season with what this team wants to do and what I believe their personnel allows them to be capable of doing. Sure, I don't have Lad anywhere near that type of a target share.

but I still have him. I moved him down, I think, a spot. Like, I still have him inside my top 12. He's at number 10 currently for me. As great as, you know, I think Keenan still has things to offer, but a rising superstar in year two who broke out massively in year one, including a dominant playoff game. Like, that matters to me. If you can go out on the biggest stage. in your first ever playoff game and be a huge part of the offense. I'm not going to let a 33-year-old Keenan Allen stop me from drafting Ladd McConkey. Jay, when you're saying Herbert's going to find the right guy. I think the right guy is still Ladd McConkey. I don't, I think that lad can operate anywhere on the football field just with his instincts and his football IQ and toughness. So I'm still drafting him.

His ADP is very high. It's wide receiver 11. So Jason and I are the outlier there. It will adjust. Yeah, his ADP is established before the news this morning of the Keenan Allen signing. I don't think it goes down too much. But so like I told I told you this morning, Jay, I barely move Ladd in response to the Keenan team. He went from wide receiver 15 to 20 for me. Yeah. I mean, it, it, I agree that it's not that significant for Lad. It's just a matter of how much. You add two talented rookie wide receivers. You add Keenan Allen. You've got a running game. I just think the dependency is not going to go up on Ladd-McConkie. So I think he's about where he was last year. He was 15th in points per game last season, obviously ramped up in the second half where he was the wide receiver 8 in fantasy overall. We saw an adjustment on Herbert's passing percentages. Does that...

Is that the plan or is that a result of the JK Dobbins efficiency dipping into the 2.9 yards per carry range in the second half of the season? I certainly think that is part of it. They weren't able to run the ball. And so they said, well, we can throw the ball with Herbert. With Najee and Omari and Hampton, I think they're going to be able to run the ball. Their defense has been improved. So this really comes down to, ironically, Justin Herbert's passing attempts. Like, you know, we're talking about what's the target share. It really does. You know, I've got him at 21% target share. Maybe he goes to 23% target share. But what? Share of what? Are they going to be able to run the ball as much as they want to and not throw it? You know, TBD. But, you know, like you said, Ladd was wide receiver 15 and points per game last year, adding Keenan, adding a couple solid wide receivers and adding Tyler Conklin, I think the ball gets spread around just a bit more.

And number 15, Tyreek Hill of the Miami Dolphins, the great Will He returned to form question. He was not good last year. I mean, you had, we've talked about it a lot this offseason, but only two games of 20 plus fantasy points. You couldn't start him with confidence, even when Tua was back. The big plays were not there. He had more snaps last year, half the yards. So, you know, there was a wrist injury. Bad math. There was a surgery and a wrist injury. There were a lot of changes to the offense that didn't look right. I talked about this yesterday. I'm worried about the dolphins being that team that if something just, if it tips the wrong way early on, you know, is Mike McDaniels going to be there long term? And now you've got another injury you heard this morning about Tyreek Hill. I also really like Jaylen Waddle this year. The camp reports around Jalen Waddle are very positive.

I hear what you're saying. I was a year too early. You might have been. You might have been. I did joke with Jason yesterday. I was like, my guy, Jaylon Waddle, for Mike a second time in a row. So, you know, where are you with Tyreek and his ADP? Tyreek is someone you just have to make your call on whether, because I don't think there's a world where at his ADP is where he finishes. Right now he's being drafted as the water receiver 13. He's either great. and you're getting a steal at wide receiver 13, or he is more done than, you know, what you saw last year. In 211 more snaps, he had 840 fewer yards. He wasn't good for your team. You know, what was he, wide receiver 20 something last year? So he's, you know, another year older. There's plenty, yeah, wide receiver 23 last year. Second half was.

significantly better than the opener when where Tua was gone, but it still was not Tyreek Hill. It wasn't the numbers of the number one overall draft wide receiver. The chunk without Tua obviously hurt, if Tua plays a whole season, there are routes where this can be great. For me personally, I feel like I'm out on Tyree Kill for where he is. I like other wide receivers better, and I just don't want to be caught holding the bag if, you know, if he's lost a step. The Tyree Kill plays. They just didn't happen last year. Yeah. All right. Number 14, Mike Evans. And this was a home run. My guy picked two years ago that I'm now going to be the lowest on Mike Evans of this group going into this season. I'm going to make, I think the streak ends this year. I don't think Mike Evans gets to a thousand receiving yards. I think this is the beginning of the end for Mike Evans. Wow. The touchdowns, those will be there. I'm fine with that. But I.

But I don't, I do think you're going to start to see the decline, and I think that's part of their plan in drafting Egbuka, in giving the money to Godwin. Jalen McMillan is still going to be involved. So Mike Evans comes in at 14, but I got him at 19, which, you know, Jason, you're ahead of ADP. I got him a wide receiver 12. He is a wide receiver 1 to me, which he finished last year despite missing three games. So where do you weigh in Mike in comparison? I was going to pass it off to Jason because I'm. I am closer to your side, Andy, of, you know, when the season opened, I guess we have to find out what this new offense looks like because to start last year, if you had taken Mike Evans and then watched Chris Godwin B draft many rounds later, you were very upset with yourself because Godwin was the one who was absolutely on fire. Mike Evans was really not great.

for your team and then it was after the godwin injury then they start force feeding mike evans all those targets so with with an emergence of mcmillan and then egbuka who i'm what andy of i i really really like egbuka especially at his adp how do you see mike evans like how do you see the offense shaking out i i think mike evans is the clear and inarguable number one for this team with Godwin starting late with Egbuka being a rookie I mean two years ago when Mike Evans was the wide receiver five in fantasy football he scored 14.3 fantasy points per game he scored more last year he scored 14.5 he was on pace for over 1,200 yards I know he barely got to the thousand that's because he missed three games isn't there a correlation to your criticism of Baker's outlier season though and

expectations for Evans' points per game? That's probably on the touchdown side. So if you're saying that you think the touchdowns will definitely be there for him, then that doesn't correlate there. To me, Mike Evans is locked in as a top 15 wide receiver. Barring injury, I don't see how it doesn't happen. Baker is a good quarterback. This system is locked in. He knows his role. He's going to get his targets. Now, he's not a volume guy. He's not a PPR guy. If you're in a full PPR league, he takes a slight hit there versus a half PPR league. The consistency might not always be there. Even years ago, when you were calling, you know, two years ago, that wide receiver five finished where he was a my guy for you. You know, the year prior, he had a little bit more of a down year, and it came very inconsistently.