The TRUTH: Top 10 Fantasy WRs + Big Love - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/1

Yeah, just looking at AJ Brown specifically and how those splits between the first half and the second half, the thing that really stood out to me is on the first half of the year, he caught 73% of his passes. That is a really good number. The second half of the year, he caught 59% of his passes. Now, sadly, 59% is closer to kind of his career average. He's been a downfield guy. I think his first year with Philly was 60%. So I don't know if that means that maybe the first half of the year was... If both halves were a little bit outlier, because I think that that's the truth. I don't think that he's ever going to... A little too much, a little too little. He's not going to ever be that first half where he has 2,000 yards and 50 touchdowns. He's not going to be the second half where he can't crack a thousand yards. So it's going to be in between, but if I had to lean which one was the larger outlier, it seems like the first half where you're connecting on 73% of your...

of your passes is the outlier for the type of passes AJ Brown usually received. And for what it's worth in that span, Jalen Hertz was a 69% completion percentage passer, and he dropped to a 61% in the second half of the year. Yeah. Like he struggled not just to AJ Brown, but all the way across the board in the collapse. So at eight is Keenan Allen. Keenan Allen was, he's 31.8 years old. He's a fourth round draft pick with a consistency rank of five. First half was eight, second half was five. He missed the end of the year, which was unfortunate because you relied on him. And let's be honest, if I had him, Mike obviously wouldn't be champion. It's very possible. But I didn't have him. Zero bust games for Keenan Allen, 31% great, which is a crazy good number for a guy his age with the archetype that he is. And then 46% good. Three times as the overall number one.

wide receiver on the week. That just seems impossible for a 31 year old, almost 32 year old slot receiver to be, to have that kind of weak winning performance. See, that's called peeking, Al. You can peek like Keenan Allen peaks. We still think you're going to get better. We really do. We believe that you could take the Keenan Allen career art. But right now, it's going to be a while. You're not there. Yeah, no, you're not. You've been a huge help, but you're not quite Keenan Allen. You're a real Quentin? That is, that is insulting, even for this show. Yeah. To call someone on our staff. Is that the worst thing we've ever said to anybody? It might be. I think so. And we, and we named Brooks Paul Giamatti, but calling him Quentin. Huge potential. Huge potential. Quentin while you're head. Oh.

Okay. Keenan Allen. He's great. Keenan Allen. He was great last year. Is he going to be great again? You know, it wore down. I mean, you didn't have Keenan Allen help you pass week 12. So final six weeks of the year, either injured or underperforming compared to what you were expecting, lost his quarterback, lost Mike Williams, lost Josh Palmer, Q's didn't do much. Is he a go-to receiver next year? Yeah, Keenan Allen should be a go-to receiver next year. Is Quinn Johnston still on that team? Quinn Johnson will still be on the team, yes. And personally, I expect, I think they've got the number seven pick overall. Given the age of Keenan Allen, the situation with Kuge and Mike Williams, I would, I think I would be surprised at this point if they don't take one of the great rookie wide receivers, even though they just did, even though they spent a first rounder.

I don't know if they're going to go back to back. I don't know if they can't. I mean, you know, TBD, we don't know who they're going to draft. But my point is if they bring in a really top in, top 10 NFL rookie wide receiver, I still believe as a rookie, you're going to have Ian and Allen as the primary first. Let me give you a different name instead because I think, I think, I think Brock Bowers is the name. A lot of people are associating with the Chargers. So you bring in a pass catching tight in. Wait, where are they drafting? Five seven. Five? So they could get. I've seen, I've seen Bowers mock to them plenty of times. Yeah, they don't really have a tight end. Gerald Everett is not under contract. So he's kind of aged out. Yeah, I mean, and that'd be, you know, possession type of situation there. But, you know, the shoe's going to drop on Keenan at some point.

But if either of you don't believe it is, I would like you to please trade for him because I have him in Dynasty and I am willing to give him up for, I mean, Jason, Jaylon Wado, I know you want to get rid of him. Yeah, no, thank you. I think we got one more year. You want to push it? Would you be happier with Keenan Allen or Mike Evans on your roster next year? Mike Evans had the higher fantasy finish. Keenan Allen was more consistent. I would rather have Keenan Allen. Keenan, yeah. Mike Evans had 13 touchdowns. Oh, that's like a low for him. This year, no, I mean, he has several times had double digit touchdowns, but. So you'd go Keenan. Yeah. If I have to bet whether Baker is back or Baker is pumpkin, I would put my dollar bill towards pumpkin. Now, he is, uh, Keenan's about a year and a quarter older than Evans. So it's a fun discussion to figure out. I mean, I think it's, what do you need on your roster when you're drafting those guys, too?

because Keenan's probably going to catch a lot more passes. Yeah, and usually where those guys are going to go in ADP, they're not going to be your wide receiver one. So I want the volume. Yeah, I guess vulnerability of drafting a powerful pass catching option. Keenan's probably more vulnerable to a change in his total volume. Yeah, we'll see if the Harbaugh pass attempts of the past are the ones that we end up with, really low volume. Well, Nico Collins came in at nine. Just 24 years old. Consistency rank of 16. Stead. Did he really finish as the wide receiver 9 on the season? You bet you. And that is with what, one, two missed games? Two missed games and he finished as the wide. I was unaware of this. I've looked at all the consistency metrics, but I didn't look at like the just the total fantasy finishes. Really three because he, in week 14 against the Jets. Yeah, he barely played. Played 5% of the snaps.

40% good, 27% great, 27% bust. Amazing at home. Like double the production at home. Amazing against bad defenses. More than double the production against bottom 16 past defenses. In fact, the biggest discrepancy in the true series history at wide receiver, Nico Collins got shut down by top 16 defenses and dominated bad ones. But I think that that's probably very indicative of where C.J. Stroud was. And what that strategy was going to be. But he was a monster. Top 10 all time, yards per route run number with a rookie quarterback. So the sky feels like the limit for a 24-year-old Nico Collins moving forward. We've had the Nico versus Tank Dell discussion, and I think, Mike, you said you kind of lean the Nico way. A little bit. It's hard not to, ending the year the way that we did. Him and Tank will probably be in the exact same round. Would not be surprised. That sounds exactly right. Which round will that be? Three, four.

Oh, they won't get to the fourth. They won't get to the game. So three, third? Both of them? Both of them gone by then? I think there's going to be a lot of debate about Nico versus Tank. And I'm not even sure which side I'm on. There's time for that. Yeah, there's time for that. I mean, I find myself leaning Nico solely because of size, just weight and hopeful durability. But it's not like he didn't miss games. No, he did. And Tank is, tank's great. 84, 12, 97, and 8. That was the numbers for Nico. So, you know, little Mike Evans-esque in terms of the, you know, 80 receptions. That's about where Mike settles in. And we didn't get to see Tankdale for five weeks, but Nico stepped right back in. Number one overall wide receiver in week 18, which didn't help your fantasy team, but it did help his fantasy finish. That's six top 12 finishes with zero finishes between wide receiver 13 and 25.

All or nothing, baby. You are not allowed to scroll down in the dock, Mike, because I'm going to tell you the 10th receiver. Okay. His name is Stefan Dix. Okay. I haven't seen it yet. But I'm going to give you the numbers because they're just spectacular. Now, what was the one you were surprised at? AJ Brown's crazy bad splits. AJ Brown was four to 40. Four to 40. Okay. I'm going to paint the picture. Okay. Stefan Diggs over the first half. Consistency rank. Go for it. Three. Two. Okay. Second best. Second best. Unbelievably good. Yeah, wide receiver four off of the board, so you dropped him in the first friend. And you got which you drafted in Stefan Diggs over the first half. I dare you to get close on the second half. Well, now, I don't want to overguess and like ruin it, but. Well, would you guess be somewhere around 76? No, I would have gone to the 60s. Oh, man. 76? Six. Second best to 76th best. That is.

He had zero bust games during the first half. And he had... Yeah. Oh, yeah, two for him. For sure. Oh, that sounds real bad. That's what he deserved. It was like that I just want you to pretend that you had a fantasy team that was doing well. And then you had this cool opportunity to swap a wide receiver spot out for like an IR spot. Because it was like you just deleted. You just deleted a position, basically. You did worse than that. I mean, you were putting in a player, like if you were to play straight up off the waiver wire every single week last year from week 10 on, you said, I have to play someone off the wire. I'm going to find what I think is the best option. More often than not, you would have outscored Stefan Diggs. When you look at that stretch from 10 to 18, yeah, in week 12, he had 16 fantasy points.

And we're going to include Week 18, which you didn't need and wasn't that great with 12. Aside from those two games, 4.9, 4.7, 4.4, 6.8, 5.4.4, 5.1 fantasy points. Wrecked your team. And he was so good the first half. And he's been so good for so many years. It didn't matter how many weeks he did it in a row. So what do you just kept, you had to put them in your life. What do you do with the fact that, look, we are fantasy players, we are stat analyzers. We love stuff like targets per route run and target share. Stefan Diggs had a 27% target share, 28% target per route run in that span. Yeah, with Joe Brady. So he was still a focal point, the focal point of the offense. It just didn't work. I am out.

I'm out. Whatever his ADP is. You don't want to see that sweet Stefan Diggs name on your roster with the upside because I think he's going to be tantalizing people. It will be tantalizing. And he is one of the quintessential players where you just have to be okay being wrong. Wait, let me, hold on. Let me just reset you real quick. Okay. What if I told you had a 27% target share and 28% target per route run? You want him now? That. That almost makes me more upset because it feels like... It's broken. Well, and they were winning games. And they just, you know, they took that OC and they said, hey, you're full time now. You're not interim. So they got far with that. And I mean, maybe the season starts okay for Diggs. I'm sure he'll have his games, assuming he's still a bill. But, yeah, I'm not going to... Did he hit the cliff?

He won't fall to like the fifth, six round. No, he won't. He's still going to be a player that is probably drafted. Yeah, Kyle says right now for the shout out to all the DGens on underdog already doing basketball drafts. Wide receiver 15. Oh, yeah, I'm out. What if I told you the pass rating for Josh Allen on deep targets to Spondigs this year was 34? I would ask, what's the top end of the pass rating again? Not that. And it's hard not to look at players. I mean, there are players like Julio Jones and AJ Green and DeAndre Hopkins and Devante Adams that they hit a cliff. And then you go, ah, it's Julio. Ah, it's AJ Green. Ah, it's Hopkins. Well, guess what? You know, the truth is, it's over. That's the, I mean, the truth is that DeAndre Hopkins can be as mad as he want that no one wanted him. But you weren't that good.

You certainly weren't. When I say that good, I mean, compared to what you were. Right. Yeah. Diggs will be fine. Yes. For the bills, but not Diggs. He won't be Diggs again. He will never be Stefan Diggs. I don't think. Top 10 fantasy wide receiver. Jason is very confident. No, I'm very confident. He will never be a top 10 fantasy wide receiver again. But he's so loud that the target share is always going to be there. But it was. It was there. I know. That's what I'm saying. It's going to be the hardest player next year. I mean, they have, they'll have a whole off season to iron out the kinks of the Joe Brady system. And then 27% target per run. He's still guaranteed $40 million. They have to work him in. Well, and right now, I mean, they don't really have a lot of other options. Gabe Davis is not under contract. And who boy. Khalil Shakir, baby. Yeah.

Don't King Cade. Don Cicade will be the biggest jump up in targets next year. So you're in. Yeah, I'm in. Sophomores. There you go. I'll be out on Brock Bowers 2 this year in redraft. Don't you worry, especially when he goes to the... Even when the rookie Sam LaPorte is like the best tight end in football. Sure, but in hindsight, no, that wasn't who people were banging the drum for. Like, oh, it's got to be Sam LaPoward. No, it was all Don Cicade. Sam LaPorteur was... barely drafted. Like there was debate in the footies of whether he should have been a waiver wire gym or technically it was like his ADP was like round 15. If you could have made Jason the maddest possible this off season, you would have taken Leporta to start and then you would have gone like the Nico Collins tank Dell wide receiver combo and just depended on rookies. Didn't you're such an old school guy, man. I love rookies. I don't love wide receivers with rookie quarterbacks and I don't love rookie tight ends. Okay.

It seems like you like some rookies. Doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like you got big love. That's all I'm saying. That sounds like little love. He's very focused. I pour my love into great rookie wide receivers with good quarterbacks. All right. We'll dig into the second part of the truth series on the wide receiver position on Tuesday. Thank you for joining us. You can check out the community, ballers discord.com. Go chat it up over there. Goodbye. Bye. you for listening to another episode of the fantasy footballers podcast join our fantasy football community on join the foot dot com and follow us on twitter at the ffballers