Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - The TRUTH About Fantasy WR's in 2015, Part 2

much closer than I said on Tuesday. And so I'm going on record to say that, one, I want to see Peyton Manning go out with a ring, just personal. I'd like to have them have the same amount as Eli. I think that'd be great. And I'd like him to not have three losses in the Super Bowl, and their defense is outstanding. So are you switching to the Broncos victory? Because you were, you were Panthers blowout. So you've gone all the way to the Broncos victory. I'm going to completely switch.

I don't blame you. I mean, I was the only one here that said it was going to be a really close, really low-scoring game. I'm going to take Denver. I think it'll be a good game, though. Yeah, I'm excited. My pick is still the same, the Panthers. But what I want to see more than anything in the world is Peyton Manning win, and then I want to see some massive dabbing. I want to see Peyton Manning. What would that look like if he tries to throw the shade and sleep?

On the Carolina Panthers, what does that look like? He'll do it wrong. No, that's the point. He would never. He'd just immediately retire. The giff where, both of them dancing. Yeah, that was great. There's like a Newton. Newton and Manning? Yeah, Manning's on the bottom and he's white manning it up. Is he doing the twist? Basically doing the twist. All right. Tony Horton has reached out to Eddie Lacey to reach out to Eddie Lacey and offered him help to get into shape this offseason. Tony Horton.

P90X fame, beach body superstar. Yeah, Tony Horton's awesome. He's a hilarious guy. I like Tony Horton. Yeah. So, but the real line is if Eddie Lacey gets onto a weight loss regime, you've already had the coach come out and talk about it, if he were, you know, is he going to be a guy that just starts getting pushed back up boards because of what we've seen before? Maybe. Either way. Do they want him to be the workhorse?

I think they do. I think that he can do it. If Eddie Lacey shows up in shape, which I actually think that he's going to do this offseason, I think this was one of those years where he realized to be a professional NFL player, you have to take it serious the entire year. And Jason is watching the gift. Yes, I have found it. We'll have to post this.

on our Twitter feed. It is excellent. I'll post it right now. Cam, oh, man. Cam Newton's touchdown celebration is just... Peyton Manning's dancing is the best thing. But anyway, so if Eddie Lacey, if he shows up in shape and he's going to be a steal, in my opinion. So the Eagles have signed Brent Seleck to a three-year $13 million extension.

Why this is news is just because Zach Ertz just got his extension. So was Brent Sallet going to be expendable? Nope, he's still on the team. Yeah, they love Brent Selle. And he's actually more of a weapon when you have Hertz on the field because every once in a while they'll throw him into a pass pattern. And they're not, you know, he's still capable of doing that. So anything else you guys want to talk about before I get into the wide receivers?

There is the NFL saying they're going to investigate the HGH investigations for Peyton Man. The only reason I bring this up is because there was investigations going on with Tom Brady last year he won the Super Bowl. So it's looking good for your picks, Andy. You know what this is going to be? This is going to be Ray Lewis Deer Antler Spray or whatever, if you guys remember that. Oh, yeah. Where he was in the Super Bowl and allegedly he used an illegal product and Peyton Man is going to retire.

What are you going to do? That would be a bad... It is a bad move. I'm saying they will... He's going to retire and they'll drop it. You think? Yes. There you go. The NFL is not going to smear Peyton Manning after he retires. All right. Let's move on to the wide receivers. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. Can't handle the truth.

All right. On Tuesday, we broke down the truth about the top 12 wide receivers in 2015. I'm going to recap those names for you. You can go back and listen to the show if you want all the info that we were laying down. All right. Antonio Brown was number one. Julio Jones, Brandon Marshall, then Alan Robinson, O'Dow Buckham Jr., DeAndre Hopkins, Doug Baldwin, A.J. Green, Calvin Johnson, Eric Decker, Larry Fitzgerald, and we rounded out the top 12 with Brandon Cucks. And we should remind everyone that is standard.

Those are the standard top 12 finishes. Non-PPR. Yeah. And so we kind of looked behind those numbers. I remember some things sticking out. One of the big things was how Alan Robinson's reception totals didn't match kind of where he was and how he played against.

bottom 16 defenses. He just took so much advantage of the worst teams in the league. Didn't seem to be matchup proof. But we break down each and every guy on Tuesday's show, so check that out. Number 13 on the list is somebody who before this season had been really a perennial top five guy. Demarius Thomas. Now, we saw on many teams, quarterback tumult that resulted in worst years. Now, Hopkins seemed to be matchup proof, but really, I mean,

Is it easy to say he would have been better with consistency at that position? He just would have been better with a better quarterback. I mean, his second half wasn't like his first half. We talked about some of the reasons. Jason broke that down. But Thomas had to go through bad manning, okay Osweiler. Now you've got some good manning in the playoffs, but it wasn't a normal season for Demerius Thomas. But he was still almost the top 12 guy.

The really big difference was touchdowns. Yeah, that's really the main thing, right? Three of the last four years, he had been a double-digit touchdown guy, and this year he finished with six. He had 105 receptions, just over 1,300 yards, and only six touchdowns. So, I mean, you give him the four more touchdowns that you had to been expecting. He's right back there. He's right back where he should be at the time. So the question then, as we look towards the future, is, you know, was that...

Basically, the change of having Kubiak coming in and being that running team, running first, you know, you get down along that goal line, not necessarily calling the past plays to Demarius the fades, things like that, is that an indication of, you know, he should finish in the 6, 7, 8 touchdown range, or he'll bounce back and it was just a bad year with quarterback play? Because I lean more towards, you know, if he's, if he and Emmanuel Sanders are both back, I lean more towards it being the.

the 6-7-8 range going forward. His yards, his average yards per catch were down. And I think that's indicative of the system as well. He had the lowest yards, total yards in four years. He had the lowest touchdowns in four years. Because Denver had just been, their offense was out of control the last few years. There's really been a change of method and of the desire of what they want that team to be with Kubiak coming in. They want to play...

Better defense, slow the game down. It's just not great for fantasy numbers. So I expect this to be more of the train. The baseline. And now he was better against bottom 16 defenses. He put up 16 a game against them versus 11 against the top 16 defenses. And the entire reason, touchdowns. You're looking at end of season rankings. He just wasn't scoring on top half defenses. I lean towards the bounce back candidate. I think Demarius Thomas is...

is a guy who can, similar to a Des Bryant where he's just going to, he's built for a 10 touchdown season. It just didn't work out this year. The question of the quarterback is huge next year. They, I mean, Denver, look, Peyton Manning, I think he's going to retire. Brock Osweiler's a free agent. So they have to make the decision. Is Brock Osweiler the quarterback of the future? Because you're going to have to pay him to keep him around because he's going to shop his services.

Or do you have to find a new quarterback? I mean, do you find a stopgap veteran somewhere? So I guess, yeah, a lot of questions that need to be answered. But as of right now, if Demeris Thomas was your, excuse me, if he was your number one wide receiver, would you be comfortable next year, you think? Yes. I would. On your fantasy team. Yeah. Okay. I would. All right. Number 14. Look, he's only, what, Eric Decker was number 10, and that's a wide receiver 2 on his team. Number 14.

is his counterpart in Alan Hearns. Yeah. These guys were surprises to some. Mike was really on the Decker train, but I don't know if you expected a top 10 performance from Eric Decker. Not top 10, but I thought he would be a two, but 10 was just whew. Now, Hearns battled some injuries this year, played hurt a little bit.

missed the game. Jason, what do you see from Alan Hearns moving forward? He was 14 in this list. He was 16th in terms of consistency with eight top 25 performances, three top fives, and four that were outside of the wide receiver four range. His consistency is what I really liked. And when you're looking at, you know, in next year's draft, when you're looking at a second wide receiver, obviously I don't see Alan Hearns as the type of guy that's ever going to, you know, go into that tip top player.

What you liked, so we talked last time on Tuesday. Alan Robinson had such a disparity between the top defenses and the bottom defenses, one of the biggest of every wide receiver out there. Alan Hearns was very consistent in that against the top defenses or the bottom defenses, he pretty much put up near the same amount of points per game. The way that Blake Bortles used him, you know, wasn't dependent because he was the number two.

He didn't really change from week to week as far as game plan. He used him consistently the same way. Went to him a lot on third downs, which you like to see. He's super young. So I feel like Alan Hurons is a guy you can rely on a little bit for next year. And you know, when it comes to playing through injuries, similar to Decker, I mean, this is a tough guy. He's not a guy that's going to allow, you know, being banged up to take him out of being productive. So, you know.

Number 14, I think that's a little higher than I will project him to be next year because I don't expect him to have 10 touchdowns. But he's a guy that you can rely on and more so than I think the guys that are going to go in his ADP range. My concern for Alan Hearns, I haven't written down. I've got to get back to my thing. He had plus seven targets. Okay, so he had seven more targets. He had seven more catches. Then what?

Last year. Sorry, yeah, thank you. This is then last year. Seven more targets, had seven extra catches. 350 yards and four touchdowns more than last year. So while I agree with Jason, I like Alan Hearns moving forward. I like just the way the offense is. Hopefully Bortles can continue to evolve as a pro quarterback. And though I imagine there's still going to be some delicious garbage time from Jacksonville next year. But...

You got to be careful. Do not overdraft Alan Hearns. With those, that kind of improvement on seven targets, you've got to be careful for regression. Well, you also have to keep in mind that the offense really changed. They brought in Greg Olson. Blake Bortles, they brought in Greg Olson, the offensive coordinator.

Yes, not the tight end. The offensive coordinator who said... Well, I thought you were going Julius Thomas direction for a second, so I was like, wait, you got the wrong guy. But they are opening up the offense more for Blake Bortle. So the yards per pass, you know, what he's actually... Bortles, 1,500 more yards than last year. 35 touchdowns to 11, okay? So you can continue, but my point was just...

the disparity might not go away. Right. It's possible for a regression. I definitely would not. Here's what I would not do. I would not project for the, hey, this is now the next year. Blake Bortles is in his third year, Alan Robinson, and everybody's going to go up and project them higher than this year. Right. But I don't necessarily see regression here. I think.

The way that we broke down Robinson, I think Robinson comes down a little bit. Yes. Or other guys are going to surpass them. There's names behind Herns on this list that I would take ahead of Allen Herns next year. That being said, I do think he'll be a two. I think it will be a wide receiver two in fantasy. Because it's consistency levels, you've got the stability of that offense in the same way that you have with New York. They're committed to Bortles. Their head coach is coming back, despite Jason's protestations.

So let's move on to the next guy here. Jarvis Landry played 16 games, had 165 targets, 110 receptions, over 1,100 yards, only 4 touchdowns through the air, but this is a guy who, though he finished 15th, he was the 11th most consistent. He didn't really give you a lot of boom games. He gave you one, really. That was the top five performance.