Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - The TRUTH About Fantasy WR's in 2016, Part 1

Look, what more can you say about a guy who is both consistent and finishes at the top of the rank? Yeah, it was an unbelievable season for Jordy. And he's scraped by... Number one most consistent in both standard and PPA. Yeah, and he's scraped by the beginning of the season with touchdowns. But, I mean, we know that Jordy can be a touchdown machine. He just wasn't getting the...

the normal touchdowns that you're used to Jordi receiving. The yardage issues. Sure. It was getting very low yards but was scoring. And if you look at the way he performed against top half passing defenses versus bottom half defenses, it was actually slightly better against top passing defenses, which that's always good to see is you want those splits to be pretty close for when you're talking consistency. You don't want a guy who just.

Like Alan Robinson last year destroyed bad defenses, destroyed them. But when he got up against a good defender, he put up sub-average numbers. So it's always good to see that. Yeah, I mean, I think looking forward next year, Jordy Nelson is always undervalue. Always. Every single year. I don't think any of you guys. So he finished one, right?

He finished number one and a half point PPR. Do you draft him over Oda, Beckham, Jr., Julio Jones, or Antonio Browns, or Mike Evans? I don't draft him over the three. When it comes to Mike Evans and Jordan Nelson, it's going to be very close. I think I might because I trust Aaron Rogers more than I trust.

James Winston, especially when you look at that consistency. Now, that being said, Mike Evans was also very, very consistent. And Mike Evans is 23 and Jordy Nelson's 31. Yeah, you definitely have. But the point is, his draft value, where he ends up actually going, is probably going to net you a better value than most guys. That's the point. I was just saying most people, including maybe us, all things being equal, not draft value included, might take those four younger guys.

Yeah, I think so. And just to give a point to what I was saying earlier, so this year, Jordy finished with 256 fantasy points in half-point PPR. Last year, the sixth best wide receiver would have crushed him with 264. That was Alan Robinson. Wow. You know, you had Alan Robinson, O'Dell Beckham, DeAndre Hopkins, Brandon Marshall, Julio Jones, and Antonio Brown well outproduced that last year. Antonio Brown had 310 points last year.

That's interesting. And Jordy was the number one this year and a half point. So that's kind of what we're saying. There was this. So all those three big guys, they just didn't do what we had hoped they did. And most of it came touchdown wise. Do you think Des Bryant will go ahead of Jordy Nelson next year? Yeah, I do. Definitely do. If he, I will not. If he finishes the year strong.

I think he, I think no matter how he finishes in the playoffs. That's what I mean. That's why the value. Brian will go ahead of Jordy Nelson. I would rather have Jordy than Des. There will be an eventual drop off for Jordan Nelson. Oh, for sure. But it's not going to be his year 31 season probably. Mike Evans comes in at number two on half point leagues. He had 96 receptions. He outpaced Jordan Nelson for yards with 1321. Two less touchdowns with 12. Had 173 targets, which was 21 more than Jordan Nelson.

comes in at number four in terms of consistency. So even though he was number two in the rankings, number four in terms of consistency, you know, the one thing I love about him, he's the only wide receiver, the only one that did not have a performance outside the top 48. So what we would call a bust. He had zero of those. He had 10 in the top 25. He had three of them in the top five, so half as many as Jordy Nelson in the top five. But he played well. And much like Jordy Nelson, he played well against good defenses.

When he played top 16 defenses, he averaged 17 fantasy points a game. So that was better, three points better than what he did against bad defenses. Very impressive. You know, you have to wonder if that's a, you know, George, he's a target monster. Evans is a target monster. Led the league with 171 targets, which again would have put him sixth place last year. Which is incredible. And, you know, it's great that he came and he broke out and he had another great season and the touchdown numbers were there.

You know, I'm not sure what to attribute the better performances against better defenses. Maybe just more of a reliance by James Winston. Maybe they're down more and they're having to pass the ball. But he did not underwhelm against them. It wasn't too big for him. They're going to be interesting next year, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. What do they do with their running game? We're split here on what the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going to do with Doug Martin, regardless if they hold on to him.

They won't have him for the first three games. Who was going to be their running back? Will they have a running game to speak of? Or will James have to fall back on Mike Evans? Mike Evans was really cooking when they just had a very, very subpar running game. And they would just have to run through the air, as Jason would say, to Mike Evans. Bryce Butler was the other wide receiver I added in Dynasty. Oh, that's a... He is a free agent.

Well, so is Terrence Williams. They're both free agents. Okay. Yeah. So Bryce Butler was the other one. I believe, let me, I'm saying that boldly, but I just. I know Williams is making a list of these guys. So I'm going to double check that. Sorry to distract us, but I finally came to mind. Antonio Brown was number three on this list. Terrible. Number two in the consistency ratings. He is. He is. Bryce, sorry. Bryce Butler is. Only two.

Bad performances. He had four in the top five. He had 10 performances in top 25. And he did sit down one game, if you remember. So, you know, that's another one of those variables that maybe you don't think about when you look at the season-ending stats. But Antonio Brown only played 15 games. Still had 106 sketches, which was second in the league, correct, behind Larry Fitzgerald? Yes. And then 1,284 yards and 12 touchdowns. Look, Antonio Brown's still one of those guys that you have to think about.

above any of those three running back. Right. I wouldn't take them ahead of them because I value the running back position higher. And I think we've finally, unlike last year, part of last year's, the resurgence of wide receivers in the draft rankings, it wasn't just like this thought that they're better or that they're more consistent. It was that we didn't know which running backs you could lean on. And now I feel like you have three names that you can finally lean on.

Well, it was reliability. Left Bell had the suspension. Right. When you look at data as to which wide receivers taken early and the percentage of ownership of those teams that won the championship when you're talking about teams that drafted and held them, Antonio Brown still did very well. I think he was like a 13% championship-owned player, and he was drafted to one spot. So if you want to put him ahead of other...

wide receivers or even running backs next year. I am still fine with that. You have to look, this was a real, I mean, surprisingly down year for Antonio Brown. You're talking about 154 targets. Granted, he missed the game, but that's still 154. He's usually at the 200 area. So, you know, you've got room to improve on this season. He'll still be my number one next year. Overall?

My number one wide receiver. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I think it'll be my number one as well. That's the story of Antonio Brown. ADP number one. He's really good. He's good. Odell Beckham Jr. His ADP was two in standard leagues, three in PPR leagues. Ended the year with over 100 receptions, 1367 yards, had 169 targets, which puts them just behind Mike Evans on the target count. Consistency-wise, he was good.

He was very good. He only had one top five performance, which is kind of strange for O'Dow Beckham Jr. I think that's why people felt. Underwhelmed by him. Because he was, you're used to these explosive games with frequency from O'Dell Beckham. The weak winners. Exactly. And he was actually real solid. I mean, his numbers were on par for the first couple of years of his career. Eli Manning had.

Just a brutal year. I mean, watching Eli play, he just looked bad. It didn't look like, it looked like he was declining. And I don't, did you see those comments from the Giants? I believe the GM was saying, yeah, he's probably on the back of his career. I mean, just, wow, man, that's rough for your GM to come out and say that. But Beckham on the year was solid, did take advantage of, uh,

He played well against good defenses as well as bad. So there wasn't a problem with Beckham. It just was those lack of those weak winning performances. I'll tell you right now. I would take Mike Evans over Oda Beckham Jr. next year. Really? I can tell you right now. I will know. I will because not only did Evans finish better than him this year, which I think, you know, they're so close that who cares. Right. But O'Dow Buckham Jr. is much more risky to me in terms of potential suspensions.

risks. He's not as big. I think injury risks are higher for O'Dell Beacom Jr. You know, I guess you could convince me in a full PPR that I might lean that way. But I mean, even reception-wise, they're pretty darn close. And I, you know, O'Dell Buckham Jr., you got this report coming out punching through the wall, hitting his head against the wall, cursing out, you know, the, the Green Bay Packer. He's a fiery man. Well, I, I, look, we've seen it with certain players. And I'm not going to classify him as the,

You know, the Gordon Blackman because he hasn't had those type of mistakes. Very, very different. But there are what I meant. My point was this. High profile wide receivers have missed time. Bryant, Gordon, whatever. I just want the least amount of risk if all things are equal in that equation. I can get behind the fact that out of Beckham is fun to own. Is risky. So let's move on now to the number five guy. You know, those first four, they were pretty darn consistent. They were drafted to be that. And they were.

So T.Y. Hilton is number five. T.Y. Hilton's number five. He was drafted in the 30s. He was drafted to be a two. Yeah. And he, over 16 games, career high in yardage, 1448 yards on 91 catches, six touchdowns. This is, you know, on an offense where the offensive line did not protect Andrew Luck at all, pretty much. In the slightest. But yet, consistency-wise, he's still number six.

He had four performances that were outside the top 48, but you're starting to get down into that range anyways. T.Y. Hilton was another one of those wide receivers drafted because most of the, most of your top wide receivers that you drafted were actually below the normal average for winning your championship. But T.Y. Hilton was one of those that was well above. The highest was Jordy.

So if you look at these guys who, let's take out the top three, right? Your massive wide receivers. What are the guys have in common that were the slightly lower drafted, you know, falls to the second, third, fourth round that really helped you win a championship? Quarterback? Yes, exactly. T.Y. Hilton, Jordy Nelson. The thing that really helped them is that they had Aaron Rogers and Andrew Luck. I think that's something we need to keep in mind going next year. We know that.

If you're going to have a tiebreaker, you know, and you've got up and coming, you know, got Aaron, Alan Robinson. Yeah. And you take a look, Ben. Brandon Marshall. Exactly. The quarterback is really the solid tiebreaker. Now, Sir Mix a lot would love this because there is a big butt with T. Y. Hilton. Okay. And that is. I don't like big butts. And I'm not going to lie. But B.U.T. Single T. The top six against good defenses?

He was averaging just over 57 yards against bottom half over 123 yards. I mean, that's a red flag. All right, so who is a disparity? That is a yellow flag for me. Oh, okay. It's a red flag for me. And the reason is, is because despite that disparity, his consistency rating was still sixth. Fair. And I attribute that to... An easy schedule. Well... I mean, that's... No, they did. They...

Well, he had eight against top five, eight against bottom. But I attribute that in part to, you know, what is T.Y. Hilton do? Big place. Yes. Down the field. When Andrew Luck has three or four minutes, T.Y. Hilton normally has a radius of about 10 feet around him. Three or four minutes. I'm sorry, three or four seconds. Three or four seconds in the pocket. It's the longest pocket presence of all time. I must talk about the Raiders. Sorry. No, but when luck has time, you see, he finds Hilton, and Hilton has no one around him. Yeah.

I attribute that disparity to the fact that pass rushes are different between those two type of defenses. And I will say Moncrief missed half the year. So we did. But Hilton really took advantage of when he was the alpha dog. Not that I'm, and I'm just saying this to keep in mind. That's a big disparity. His points per game were half.