Top 10 Countdown + Stash the Smash

All right. Number eight. Number eight on the top ten list today, Devante Adams, wide receiver for the Green Bay Packers. His average jack position is right here at 108. His risk rating is low because this guy gets targeted over and over and over again. And then in the offseason, Aaron Rogers comes out and says, you know what? I'd like to throw him the ball some more.

He's more open than even I could have thrown him the ball. Last year, 111 receptions, 13 touchdowns, 169 targets, which is unbelievable. We've listened to Matt Harmon talk about Devante Adams. If you look at the ultimate draft kit and the reception profile, there has been no player who has improved more than Devante Adams over the course of his career. So we know he's a bona fide stud.

Last year, number three overall, at the position. How does it go right? How does it go wrong for Devante Adams? What do you guys want to talk about? One, I would like to say the fact that he's this low is, I take no fault of this. This is everyone else. It is not me. I like Devante Adams more than being this low in the list. We then pulled it to ADP, like the average, right? Because that's where he's going. He's going right now. So you're higher than average, which is fine.

So why don't you tell us how it goes right? It goes right that you see what happened to him last year where he had. It was a breakout season for Adams where he took the leap of you know that he's going to be great because he's evolving into a good wide receiver and he's Aaron's number one. But then he really came through. This was his first year over 1,000 yards. Am I remembering that correctly? That is correct. Yes, you absolutely are remembering that correctly because I loved.

loved taunting him. That was your favorite stat just like my favorite. 997, yeah. He'd never been over a thousand. Yeah, because he did stink. Yes. He doesn't stink. That's what the reception profile showed is he became a great player. I fully acknowledge, I was dead wrong with the player he became. Yeah, it was hard. It was difficult to see this path unfold after his first couple years in the league. But to me, the way it goes right is that.

Is that the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rogers gets back on track? It was a crazy year last year for Aaron Rogers. The way I talked about, David Johnson wasn't getting used in the 10 zone. Aaron Rogers was not throwing the way that he has statistically has inside of the red zone. You're talking compared to the previous four years, he threw the ball about 40 times fewer in the red zone, which that's insane. That's a massive drop.

for Aaron Rogers. So the way that things go the way they should for Adams or even better, Rogers gets back on track and the rest of the crew, the rest of the Green Bay Packers wide receiver finally start pulling their weight. And it's not just Devante Adams. They turn into the number one scoring offense in the league and Adams hits that 15 touchdown mark.

Yeah, the nice thing about Adams, Andy brought it up at the beginning. It's his consistency. A lot of people won championships with Devante Adams last year because week in, week out, he was reliable. And when you have Aaron Rogers number one wide receiver, look back over time, whether it's Devante Adams or Jordy Nelson or Donald Driver. Brig Jennings. The number one wide receiver for Aaron Rogers is a must-have asset in fantasy football. You want to make him the number one wide receiver?

Great. Do it. How's it going to go wrong for Devante Adams? I mean, it would take an epic collapse. It would take something of an injury. I mean, I can't imagine. He's as safe as they come into position. Yeah. Because he doesn't have a history of injury like the next guy. He has his concussion history, if you recall. He's taken a few big shots to the head where if he suffered another concussion this year, then he could be missing some major time.

All right, let's move on. Number seven. All right, another wide receiver. We're higher on this player than the consensus. Julio Jones, Atlanta Falcons wide receiver. All he's done over the last five years has finished eighth, second, sixth, fourth, and fifth at the position. Julio found his way into the end zone over the back half of the year. His average draft position is at 112 right now.

Last season, 113 reception, 1,67 yards, eight touchdowns on 170 targets. We know who he is at this point in his career. To me, that's still a player that if the touchdown, if the ball falls the right way, if the things go the right way for him, he's still in the category of finishing at number one at the position. Right now,

Fantasy owners like Devante Adams a lot more than Julio Jones. If you look at high stakes leagues, Jones is going 12, 13. He's going anywhere between the sixth off the board to 21, whereas Adams is higher. Why do we have him higher than Adams? What's the argument for that? Well, I guess I will. I will tell you that. I will say this. I think that what you saw over the back half of the year, like Julio's too talented and not getting the end zone. I like the fact that the Atlanta offense has...

predictable pieces to it. An underrated quarterback in Matt Ryan, a quarterback that this year, I brought this up on a radio show the other day, they play an inordinate amount of games inside of domes where Ryan has been exceptionally better. Obviously, the home games are all there, but his away games happen to be in domes this year. He's guaranteed for 1,500 yards. So does he score 6, 7, 8, 9 times, or does he continue to have those problems? Jason, where do you sit in this? Because I know that I've been very bullish on Julio.

I am certainly not as bullish as you are, but the process from a fantasy football analysis side is strong to say, look, first of all, this guy is always, always a top 10 wide receiver in fantasy, usually a top five wide receiver. That's for a guy who doesn't usually score touchdowns. He's going to be at or near the league lead in receptions and in yardage. So it's like, okay, he's got the safest baseline that we know what we're getting.

You know, if Devante Adams doesn't happen to get the double-digit touchdowns, which I do think he's got a higher odds to get, you know, significantly more touchdowns than Julio. But touchdowns are the least sticky of all fantasy football stats. From year to year, guys who have great touchdown rates can disappear. We saw that with Jordy once when he went from 15 down to seven. But if Julio, who you're pretty much just expecting five or six touchdowns from on a season,

If he ends up with 10, which he has done in the past, he's the number one wide receiver. So I think he's just a matter of when it comes to the safe play volume over touchdowns, but I love both players. All right. Let's move on to a guy ranked much higher in pretty much every format. Number six. DeAndre Hopkins, wide receiver, Houston, Texans, 2017, number one overall, last year, number two overall at the position.

He's the only wide receiver in high stakes leagues that even has gone at number one overall. Hopkins last year was a monster. 11 touchdowns, 163 targets, 1,500 plus yards, 115 receptions. He's led the league in target share. Two consecutive seasons. His average draft position is 107. How it goes right. He just does what he does. Status quo. He just does what he does, right? What is an argument?

for Hopkins having a below Hopkins standard type of season? The only thing that I can come up with is that Kiki QT and Will Fuller actually stay on the field, and Deshawn Watson doesn't feel it's fully necessary to feed everything over to DeAndre Hopkins. Mike Clay had tweeted out in games where QT played five full games.

QT had 50 targets and Hopkins had 47. Now that's not to say QT. Different targets. Yeah, yeah. Hopkins is still by far the more valuable wide receiver. But what it's saying is there are players, there could be wide receivers on this team this year that are actually worth a target from Deshaun Watson where that's.

It's been rough sledding when Will Fuller was not on the field for them to find someone. I mean, they traded, they threw a Hail Mary, and they traded for Demerius Thomas halfway through the year because they said, we need somebody, anyone who can come in and catch passes. Who's not going to get injured? Yeah, then, well, man, that didn't work out. No. What is this? But, so that's how it goes. That's how Hopkins goes from number one to number three or number four. Right. Right.

Even if this catastrophic. He's unguarded. Cataclysm I've introduced. I've made up. I've fabricated. He's still top five. You can't double him. Oh, you can double him, but he's still going to come down with the ball. I saw Akeed to leave the other day. They went rapid fire questions with him, cornerback for the Rams. Best hands in the game. DeHop. DeAndre Hopkins. Makes sense. He's done it over and over again. Finds a way to get into the end zone.

on some ridiculous catches. Hopkins is like taking Julio Jones and Devante Adams and kind of putting them together because you've got the yardage and the PPR monstrosity of Julio, but you've got the touchdown capability and history with Hopkins. So I think that's why Hopkins universally is usually seen as the number one wide receiver. Before we jump into the top five, percentage chance Hopkins ends the year, the number one overall fantasy wide receiver in your mind, Mike. I will go 30%. Oh, wow.

Okay. I will go 13%. All right. I was going to say it's probably 50%. Because he's your number one guy. He's not number one for us. And the thing is, is not a disrespect for Hopkins so much as I think that there's, I think Juju could. I think Julio could. I think Devonte Adams could. I mean, there's competition there. And obviously, yeah. Okay. Let's move on. Number five. All right, Melvin Gordon comes in at number five. Running back for the Chargers.

He's got a risk rating of four in our ultimate draft kit. The last three years finished seventh, fifth, and seventh. Only played 16 games one time in that span. That's why the risk rating is up a little bit. He's been banged up. He's played hurt. So he's played through injury. And then he's missed some games. Played 12 last year. 10 touchdowns, 50 receptions, 175 carries. Monster efficiency improvements over his career, Mike.

Yeah, he has gotten a lot better. I mean, this was actually, shockingly, if you didn't realize this, this was the first year that Melvin Gordon has finished over that arbitrary 4.0 yards per carry. He's been a 3.9 type of guy, and this year it was over 5, which to me says it's not just that Gordon has gotten better, but the Chargers offense as a whole is...

is very deadly. And Melvin Gordon gets the Todd Gurley workload that fantasy players want. It just didn't feel like it by the end of the year because he only played the 12 games and Todd Gurley happened to finish with a couple more. But he is absolutely fantasy gold 9.8 yards per reception. He has a year with 10.2 yards per reception. He's a big play guy. He doesn't through the air and on the ground.

And as a touchdown machine. What do we got? 28 touchdowns the past three years, only playing one full season. Well, the nice thing is when he was actually on the field last year, you didn't have to worry about it. Right. He never busted. He had one game where he was in that kind of meh category, but he didn't kill you on the week. He did not have a pure bust week. His efficiencies through the roof. He has to stay healthy. I think we know all the good things about him, but do you worry about, you know, some people out there they believe the workload?

you know, it needs to be reined in and Austin Echler needs to get more work or Justin Jackson who had a chance at the end of the year. Maybe Phillip Rivers starts to show his age and this team regresses a little bit. And so his passing game upside, goal line upside goes down. It doesn't seem like this is the year we're going to be disappointed in Melvin Gordon. Not to me. And it doesn't matter if we, as the general public, believe that his workload should go down because he keeps getting hurt. It matters what the team thinks.

He wants to be out there. I think that the team is still going to rely heavily on Melva Gordon in that level of workload, but he's behind some other running backs because of those reasons of the injury and the risk concern. Yeah, if it wasn't for injury, I mean, you've got a team that is, so like.

You know, the thing about fantasy is whenever a team makes big splashing moves, they get the publicity, they get the press, they get the excitement, the unknown. But it's usually the teams that stay the same. No coaching turnover, no playbook turnover, no huge, you know, changes on the offense. That's the Chargers where they take a step forward as an offense. And last year in the games that he was playing, look, there were only two players who outscored him.