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

You know, I don't look at where he's going in drafts and think that the price is too high. He's wide receiver 18 right now in average draft position. I personally think he beats that. And I will make a bet on that streak of a thousand yards seasons. If you want to put that on a board. Water bet. Okay. Sounds good. So do you think he's lost a step? Like, did you see something in? in film that made you believe the beginning of the end is here? When you catch 70-something passes a year and you add these other weapons that are just, you know, better PPR options. I mean, part of last year's resurgence was the absence of Chris Godwin for half of the year. So, you know, he's at that age too. Like you can't just keep doing what you're doing. I think he's entering the Larry Fitzgerald late career arc. And if he happens to be at eight touchdowns,

with his volume, I think you're going to be disappointed. But we have a difference of opinion there. Sure. JSN comes in at 13. Talked about him extensively yesterday. So if you want to hear the bull case of JSN, or as some of you did, just vehemently disagree with me on every front and share that with us. You can. That was on yesterday's ice and fire episode. 23 years old, the wide receiver 10 last year being drafted at the wide receiver 12. He's... you know, you talk about those second year guys, Mike, where their ADP is steamed up too high. I don't, I don't know if that's happening with JSN. He's going as the 12th wide receiver off the board. Right, but I mean, at least in proportion to where he finished, it's not outlandish. Like we're not, we're not, we're not Bucky Irving this thing. Sure, yeah, he's not the fifth guy. To go up to five or four or something like that. I just think that this is one of those situations you look at, you can mirror it to,

to New York, if you want, to the Jets. And, you know, there's JSN and everybody else, and there's Garrett Wilson and everybody else. I think Tori Horton's going to end up being the wide receiver three there, got a rookie at tight end, got Cooper Cup on his last legs. I just have the confidence that the volume's going to be there, and that's why I have them ranked at 10 overall. You guys have them slightly lower, but I think, I don't think there's huge differences of opinion here. No, no, I'm not. completely out on JSN. I just, at that 304, you know, wide receiver 12, I'd prefer a couple other guys. At 12 overall, Marvin Harrison Jr. comes in at 12. His ADP is wide receiver 16, so we're homers is the, I think is the expected refrain to hear. So we're slightly above ADP on Marvin Harrison. Is this a palatable draft price for Marvin Harrison going into...

his sophomore year after an up and down rookie season. Yeah, I think this is, you know, he's being drafted as a mid-level wide receiver two, and it's much better. He's being drafted higher than he finished last year when he finishes the wide receiver 28. So you've got to pay a little bit, but if he has that breakout season, you're still getting a steal. He put on a lot of weight in the off season, and it looks good, how he's using it in camp. Lots of highlights of him dominating, going up, grabbing, you know, contested catches. So does it happen? We know that Kyler can support a true wide receiver one. Yes, we do. When he's had it with DeAndre Hopkins. The question is, will the Cardinals defense get better? Their run game, will they slow it down? Will they try to take the ball out of Kyler's hands a little bit more? The nice thing, you know, Marvin doesn't have a lot of target competition. You've got Trey McBride and Marvin Harrison and then a bunch of... We're very consolidated. Slubs. It's hopefully...

It's very Kansas City Chiefs where it's Tyreek and it's Travis Kelsey and you just don't have to worry about anybody else. Yeah, that's what you're banking on, but it is a projection. He was really inconsistent. When he scored a touchdown last year, awesome. Almost 17 fantasy points a game. When he didn't score, you didn't get PPR numbers. You got five fantasy points a game and a lot of tiers and losses for fantasy. So he was a player that really, I think, emotionally. Oh, it was- It was brutal starting him because just when you thought you were out, you're like, I'm going to find the difference path for my fantasy team. Then he'd have a spike week and your chips would go all the way back in, and then he would just let you down over and over. Target share-wise, he was at 21%. That's good for a rookie. Yeah, so Garrett Wilson as a rookie was 22%, AJ Brown was 20. CD Lamb was at 19. So they're...

If you want to know what it wasn't as disappointing. We've said this all offseason. His year in totality of nearly 900 yards and eight receiving touchdowns is not a bad rookie year. It's a bad rookie year for a player where the expectation was we, I think he was going in the second round. He was drafted at the one two turn. He was like a first rounder or a second rounder depending on, you know, which league you were in. Yeah, you talk about target share. I'm most concerned with the way they were using him and where those targets on the field were. If you want to look at the film and you want to look at what Marvin Harrison struggled with, 69% of his targets were 10 plus yards down the field. You look at neighbors and Brian Thomas Jr. Those were under 50% for both those guys. They were, you know, lower probability. Lower probability targets. That's why you see variance. That's why you see 10 games of...

of 4.7 fancy points a game when you don't score. You do. You need the layups, Mike. You need the slant routes. You need the outs. And his, to be honest, that's where you can look at his performance and say that was not what you expected from a top five pick. He wasn't physical enough. He couldn't get off the line of scrimmage sometimes. He couldn't win the 50-50 balls. And he wasn't being used because he couldn't do that. So that has to change. Yeah. And he's obvious. He has changed his body to change that. He has worked hard. This is not a guy resting on his laurels or his draft, you know, capital. His rookie season is so close to identical to DK Metcalf's rookie season, you know, near the same targets, near the same receptions, near the same yards, near the same receiving touchdowns, and near the same fantasy finish. The year two for DK McAfee, he went from the wide receiver 32 to the wide receiver seven. And that was based on more downfield winning, more touchdowns. And if you look at a guy who.

Could go into year two with, you know, touchdown prowess, getting double digits. That's in the range of outcomes for, for Marv. T. Higgins comes in at number 11. The last name we'll talk about today. I have him at 16. Jason at 11 on the dot, which is where he is here today. Mike at 12, ADP is wide receiver 14. And, you know, we've been around the block with T. Higgins several times, right? We've had him. grabbed his hand and taking a stroll with T. Higgins season after season. There's a lot to like about T. Higgins. It's strange because he is also a player where the per game metrics, the per route metrics, all that stuff looks amazing. But when you kind of... Just don't look at games played. Yeah, when you get to the end of the year and the fantasy finish, we never get to say he's inside the top 15. But maybe that can change. You have the most efficient quarterback in football and Joe Burrow. You've got Jamar Chase soaking up.

coverage on the other side. I mean, this is the best tandem in football. It's just a little bit hairy in the middle of the third round, just making that call, making that decision. There are other players to choose from, right? We're not sitting there where he's some super value. No. You're going to be taking him. He's going right now, Tyree Kill or T. Higgins and Brees Hall. Those are the, that's kind of the. I mean, those three I'm going to take T. Higgins. Right. Um, if you go, if you go deeper, if you go deeper, you can also get Marvin Harrison, Garrett Wilson, Tara McLaren. Um, yeah. So when I look at that, that's, you cheated on that one. Cause if you say Bruce Hall's name around anybody, you know, I'm not going to. Yeah. Um, some stank. When I look at that, I'm fine with T. Higgins there. Um, you know, I've taken them in a lot of mock drafts. T. Higgins on a per game basis was absolutely outstanding, even better last year than he had been in the past. His metrics next to.

Jamar Chase, they're not that different. It's surprising. 26% target share to 23% target. This is for last year? Yeah, in particular. For last year, 25% targets per outrun to 24% yards per outrun, 2.4 to 2.1. First read targets, like where's Joe Burrow going pre-snap? 34% to 30%. It's like T. Higgins is, he's a 1B is just one. A is maybe the best wide receiver in the entire league. I mean, is his historical points per game valuable to you? Or is the 15 and a half last year? Because that was way above where he's been. So he missed five games. That's the other part of the story. So the historical points per game, this is so you have to make a lot of apologies. Yes, you do. If you go and you take out, if you go and you take out the games where he started and.

was injured, you know, played 2% of the snaps, which is super unfortunately not just one or two or three. It's like it's happened like five times. I mean, take those out. You're like the points per game are actually pretty darn good. He's always been right there. Well, you don't get to take him out. Just behind. No. No, no. That's the decision. It's funny because the five miss games don't include the games you play 2% of snaps. It's like we're talking about Kenneth Walker. And I find myself in on T. Higgins and out on Kenneth Walker, but it's the same argument.

This is a very, very talented player. Now, when I stat him out and he comes to wide receiver 11, guess what? I've statted him for 17 games. Maybe that is absolute foolishness. Now, I do think if he plays 17 games, he's going to be a great fantasy asset. So the question is just, you know, is this a quote unquote injury prone player that you will not get that from or, you know, based on his contract and he's paid to be out there, you know, he gets his money on roster bonus checks. Does he get the check? The game day check if he plays 2% of snaps. Probably. Oh, that's not good. That's not good. That's not good. That's going to work against you, Cincinnati. Come on. Meat. Meat Higgins needs to, he needs to shine. He needs to be out there. 12 games last year, 12 games a year before. That is the story. We have healthy meat. There are a handful of players you don't have to take if you don't want to take them because you just don't want to go through that experience again. And that's totally fine. Yeah. He's not, like I said, he's not a super discount. This is not some place where like,

All of that is being baked in because he had such a great points per game season and he's got such a great quarterback and a need to throw the football. You know, I think he came out and he's got a hundred catch target on the year. And he's always been more of the Mike Evans, you know, his career high in receptions in a year is 74. And he's done that like three times. 74, 73. That's about where he normally ends up. Yeah. So imagine 17 games. Impossible. Impossible. He probably doesn't. If you ask T. Higgins, how many games are in his season? I don't know if he knows the answer.

I don't know if he could answer you with, he'd be like, I have no idea. 12? It is very common year after year after year for teams to have two top 24 wide receivers. For teams to have two top 12 wide receivers, like when you have a good offense and a great quarterback, it is not uncommon for two wide receivers to be in the top 12. And that's kind of how I see. If any offense could do that, which is common, it would be the Cincinnati Bengals with bad defense and Joe Burrow. All right, tomorrow we're going to count down the top 10 fantasy wide receivers. We've got a mock draft episode on the way as well. We've got running back rankings to get into our top 10 tips and tricks and the my guys. We'll lock those in. We'll share them with you very, very soon. I think that's on the docket for next week. Check out the ultimate draft kit at ultimate draft kit.com. I think Jason just found out that the my guys. Yeah, it's next because you're not locked in on yours. Oh, man. Yeah. Next meet. Next meet. Okay. All right.

Thank you for joining us today. Shout out to the Deucers minus Josh. And we'll catch you on tomorrow's episode. Goodbye. Give me that smelling salt. Where's that smelling salt? Josh has it. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF Ballers.