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

That for you out there, when he plays a great defense, they were half this past year. I like Hilton. I will draft T.Y. Hilton next year. But T.Y. Hilton does not skyrocket to me to a top of the second round likely. Right. He's the first guy in this list, though, where, you know, maybe even more than Jordy, you could have had him as your third pick. Right. And that's how you win. That would have been a difference maker because if you had gone running back, running back, and then Hilton, you have a one.

And you have a one that ended up in the top five. So we're moving on. Julio Jones. Julio. Julio. No, it's a silent. Oh, Julio Hones. Yes, that is correct. It's a silent L. Julio. Whoio. All right. Only 14 games played. He missed two games. Look, we know the story with Julio Jones. Nobody's questioning the talent, the ability, the offense, the quarterback anymore.

83 receptions for 1,400 plus yards, and only 6 touchdown. That's been the Achilles heel for Julio Jones. You saw at the end of the season, when it didn't matter for fantasy owners, they finally used him in the darn red zone. What the crap, man. And he made an incredible catch-of-the-year type of catch. That's the problem. Look, Jordi, 14 touchdowns. Julio, 6 touchdowns. Yet he still can finish 6 on this list. I think Julio, because of this year,

Maybe he ends up being the best value in the draft next year. Because I think people are going to take. Maybe people are taking Brown Evans Beckham ahead of Julio, where last year it was a very solid debate that it was Julio or Brown. There's no reason Julio can't be the number one. Do you worry about Kyle Shanahan most likely being?

given a head coaching opportunity somewhere and losing that offensive coordinator who's helped Matt Ryan. I don't. I don't worry about that at all because Julio and Ryan have had a rapport beyond Shanahan for years with volume. He was 1,6006 the year before Shanahan got there. The problem is that six just needs to go up. And he's riskier. He misses a game or two with some sort of leg or lower body injury. Yeah, he's not playing 16. All that being said, consistency rating ended up.

Number eight in standard nine in PPR. So, you know, a little lower than his finished rank nine, top 25 performances for outside the top 48. He's Julio Jones. He's young. He's great. He's got a good quarterback. So let's talk about the big. Young, great, good quarterback. Oh, you're number seven? Yeah. On our list? Sounds like. Are you talking about Michael Thomas? Michael Thomas? ADP of 149. Yeah, that's how you win.

That's how you win some drafts, is getting the right guy. The number one wide receiver for the Saints is young, plays in the Marquis Colston role. He has, you know, 15 games. He only missed one and finished with 92 receptions for 1137 yards and nine touchdowns. Is he the, you know how sometimes those shows, they'll go two or three seasons in it, and then they'll change the character, the actor?

Yes. They'll change the actor for the same character. You said he played the role of Marcus Colson. I figured they just casted him. They just got younger with him. Hey, doesn't that guy look different?

Oh, yeah, they have a new actor in there. I think he's better. Brought to mind the boyfriend of in Game of Thrones. Yeah. I never remember his name. Completely changed his. I thought it was a brand new character. It's like, where did this guy come from? Yeah. Well, Michael Thomas. Fabio was not getting it done. Michael Thomas is a brand new character. He did sit a game too. He still had 92 catches and 1100 plus yards and nine touchdowns. He said, Julio, I'll see your six. I'll raise you three.

And I got Drew Breeze. His consistency rating didn't let you down. Number eight. Three top five performances, which is great to see from a rookie. Just an impressive season. And here's another little feather in the cap of Michael Thomas. 15.8 points per game against top 16 defenses compared to 11 against bottom defenses. He was outstanding. He was outstanding. That's all there is to it. Possession guy, red zone guy.

third down guy. Really curious to see what happens to that wide receiver court. Because if Brandon Cooks keeps being the squeakiest of wheels, you know, the wide receiver one is really a wide receiver two, but doesn't want to admit it. If that happens next year, you know, there was talk this past year about Cooks being traded. You don't, you're not going to pay him. I don't think they're going to go out and pay Brandon Cooks when the time comes. So.

Michael Thomas is the guy they're going to keep. Yeah, the thing I like about Michael Thomas is the red zone opportunity, the touchdowns, that he really became that go-to guy. And we've seen in years past when, you know, think of Jimmy Graham, right? When Drew Breeze has a weapon that is consistent, you know, in the red zone, he will abuse it. And that's what you started to see happen with Michael Thomas. So going forward, I think he's going to be a safe bet to have.

near double-digit touchdowns, because you've got Drew Brees, who's always going to be throwing, you know, well over 30. And this is, this is Cook's last, just to talk about what you're doing. This is Cook's last year under contract. He, of course, has that, oh, wait, rookie option. Is he, I thought the rookie option was the fifth year. Well, you're going to need to vet that before you.

Throw him into contract year discussion. I'm looking at his contract right now, and so he's played four years. This is his fifth year coming up in 2018, which would mean they need to invoke his fifth year rookie auction? I'm sure they will. Of course, yeah. Saints window opens, I believe, on Monday. Or actually last Monday, I think, is when they could start to actually put that in place. Okay.

So I don't know if they have done that yet. You should... They will, but I'm just saying, is this the last year? It would be an $8.5 million cap hit if they invoke it. Ooh. I think they'll do that. But is this the last year of cooks in New Orleans? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I do know Michael Thomas is great. And I look forward to seeing what he does in the future. Man, can...

I just want to hit the pause button as we were talking about all of these great wide receivers. Michael Thomas, we're about to move to Devante Adams, Jordy, T.Y, Antonio, Mike Evans. They all have good quarterbacks. I mean, Mike Evans is really the only one that doesn't have the true elite quarterback, even though obviously, you know, first round draft guy. But as you look at these top, even after that's going to be Brandon Cooks.

They all have a great quarterback throwing to them. And if you look at last year how they, you know, how guys were drafted, sometimes we, you know, we discount the quarterback for wide receivers. Well, yeah, I mean, you have obviously elite level talent in a guy like Demarius Thomas that suffered from quarterback play. Right. It ended up outside of the top five, a guy that used to be a top five guarantee down at 16 this year because quarterback. Even guys like Jarvis Landry, right? I mean.

It hurts. It hurts. Devante Adams, number eight, ended up the number five most consistent standard league wide receiver. For a guy who is kind of known for dropping the ball. Yeah. But came through, you know, 997 yards that has to stink. But it's incredible to me because I look at his stat line. And he's the number eight.

And I guess it all comes down to those touchdowns. He had 12 touchdowns on the year. Only 75 catches, 997 yards. If you had to ask me right now, chance for regression, Adams is the number one guy on this list. Because those 12 touchdowns, I don't believe that the catches go up or the yards go up next year. And so do I believe 12 touchdowns might stay the same? Maybe. I think it probably comes down. And so because of that, you know, you had Jared Cook injured for a lot of the year.

You know, Randolph Cobb was injured. I don't think he gets 12 touchdowns next year. So you talk about a regression candidate for me personally. Were the numbers impressive? Yeah, but I'm not on the Devanti Adams boat. I know Mike is. Yeah, I'm still on. It's a shaky boat. It certainly is a shaky boat. But it does have a good captain. And that's why I like Devante Adams. Aaron Rogers just has the, he seems to love Devante Adams, regardless of the drops. There was.

Jay had brought up this a tongue-and-cheek highlight video of Devante Adams. So it's just all of his mistakes over the year. And this is, how do you want to look at that video? Do you want to look at and say, ha, spite of, he, he's terrible. He drops touchdowns. And he drops easy passes. The guy had 12 touchdowns. That means he could have had a lot more. So it depends on how you want to look at it. 121 targets from.

Aaron Rogers was consistent, far better for standard. He was only the 14th most consistent when you're talking in terms of PPR, gave you four dud games. So this isn't a top two-round pick type of guy. And his split against bottom defenses is also, it's not T.Y. Hilton drastic, but you're talking 47 yards to 74 yards when you talk the split against good, top half and bottom half.

passing defenses but i still like him i would as a two though yes as a two uh or like he's a guy that i'm fine drafting and are probably around that fourth round area all right we need to move on unless jason has something he wants to say about um i'm i'm more on the side that i think he will

repeat close to here because we saw it with James Jones for years. Just going to bring him up. Remember James Jones. And it feels like he's playing that role. Okay. So I think he can keep up with it. That being said, I do think that Aaron Rogers is not throwing 40 touchdowns next year because hopefully they can get, I'm just saying hopefully they get their running game better and their defense better where he doesn't have to. Yeah, he might. Obviously he's great. But 40 is a lot. That's a lot.

Yeah, Brandon Cooks is number nine. And here's where you start to see a big disparity between finishing position and consistency. Brandon Cooks was the number nine overall wide receiver. His average reposition was in the late 20s in standard leagues, 23rd in PPR leagues. He had 1100 plus yards on 117 targets. The numbers are good. The numbers are real good. And if you had to, you know, if you look into next year and you could make an argument that says just take the...

lower valued wide receiver and New Orleans between Thomas and Cook. Right. Because their numbers were so similar, eight touchdowns, nine touchdowns. But the consistency is really the thing that would make you go, well, maybe I don't just want to take the lower guy. Because if Cooks ends up being the lower drafted guy, I think his value is much less than his end of season numbers. His consistency numbers put him at number 23. Oof.

As opposed to number nine where he finished. Those guys just kill your team. He only had six top 25 performances, three in the top five, and four bust performances. If I could line Brandon Cooks up as that wide receiver two, I would be really comfortable because Cooks will give you weak winning performances from the wide receiver two. But if I had to lean on him, here's a great question. How would you feel about having both those guys as your starting wide receivers every week? The Saints.

Thomas and Cooks. You just run them both out there. Not bad. It's like a Marshall Decker. Yeah. We'll get the question as we always do. People wondering, how do you feel about stacking guys from the same team? And you say, well, there's always, there's a couple offenses that can carry that. You have the Packers when Cobb and Jordy, you would have been sensational. The Broncos when Manning was the quarterback.

Marshall and Decker. There's scenarios where it's okay because you know that. Colts when Manning was the quarterback. Yeah. But you know there's certain offenses that just have a, they have that scoring threshold that they can sustain multiple fantasy wide receivers. Yeah. So Brandon Cook, that's his story. Not consistent, but a great season. So you have to evaluate what that value is for you. This is the last one we're going to discuss today on the show. So we'll get through the top 10.

The next guy? Dougie. Dougie second half. Dougie, you know, Doug Baldwin ended the year as the number 10 fantasy wide receiver. It's a tail of two halves for him, and so that put him at number 33 on the consistency rankings. He had three top five performances, five top 25, and four outside of the top 48. You know, 94 receptions, 1100 yards and seven touchdowns. It all looks good.