Top 10 WR Rankings + Bust Possibilities, Yardage Leaders

That's a three down kind of skill set that he would be on the field more often. If, I mean, so my two concerns a couple months ago when I brought up Sony Michelle as a bust candidate was obviously health is the big one with him. He's never been able to stay healthy. And the other is pass catching, right? Like these pass catching, these running backs who don't catch the ball, they can get game scripted out.

harder to do on the Patriots, admittedly. But, you know, they can really disappoint when they don't get the touchdowns. If Sony Michelle were to be involved in that work, you're talking about a clear-cut RB1 when he's on the field. Just get him 30 receptions. I do not believe it happens. I still, you know, look, in camp, every running back is running these routes and doing certain things. I think we've seen.

on the field how they use him. They have James White. They have currently still Rex Burkhead. Damien Harris has a much better pass-catching background. So I do not believe Sony Michelle happens, but you have to keep an eye on it. This is something where it's like if in the preseason you started to see him running a lot more routes going down field when he's on the field, I would start moving him. I don't think we've seen what they want to do with Sony Michelle yet.

because we haven't had enough of a – he was a rookie last year. I think the strong point is the James White point. I mean, you've got a better pass-catching option, but you need – it's kind of like David Montgomery in Chicago. If you don't involve the first and second down guy, it's like Matt Nagy with Jordan Howard last year. If you can't involve him in the passing game. If you don't write plays to do that, you either can't put him on the field or the team knows what's coming that you're playing against.

And that's the problem. You have to be able to throw the ball to these guys in the modern NFL. That was today's news and notes with fantasy football gearing up. Make sure you ask your commissioner if you're using the right platform use. Sleeper. It's where our listener league will be. You're darn right. And those listener league entries, by the way. We're going through them. They're unbelievable. They are incredible. In some ways, they hurt me physically because I know that I can't let everybody in that put time and effort into it. And look, it's really your fault.

Really? It's their fault for being so awesome. Yeah, that's true. If they were worse, I was worried where you're going. I could turn them down. Because I can genuinely say my heart breaks. I watch all these amazing songs, these videos, these whatever they're making. And it's like, oh, like, you know, right now we've got a handful of spots left. We'll announce it in a week or so. But there are way more than a handful of deserving submissions. You guys are amazing.

Yes. Before we jump into our top 10 wide receivers, I want to thank today's sponsor, Fantasy Champs. You need that fantasy football hardware, that gear, letting people know that you are the champ. Well, you go to Fantasychamps.com. You get rings that bling. You get trophies that you need to show your mom. You can get a draft. Are you doing a live draft? Grab your draft board from Fantasychamps.com. They even got the bell. You want to be Hollywood Hulk Hogan out there?

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Wide receivers. All right. A couple reminders. We are jumping into the top 10 wide receivers right now, but this is our consensus half point per reception rankings. All of these rankings are based on us individually statting the players out. So these are the real season long numbers that we're projecting for them. And obviously when you talk about the top 10, you are splitting hairs at the top because these are the top 10. These are the best players.

So if we say some negative things about certain players, it's trying to give the other side of the coin as to how we make decisions between them. Not all of these great, worthy players can be number one. In fact, only one can. So when they fall to two and three, thank you. When they fall the two and three, yeah, it's not an indictment that they are worse. Oh, he's so much worse than that number one range guy. Can we rank all the whiteouts number one and then just be right?

I think that would make us wrong. I think we would be right about one of them. That's true. And a reminder, you know, good offenses matter, opportunities matter, changes of situation matter. And there's a handful of those guys in the top 10 as well. A lot of touchdown variation between wide receivers, certain players that maybe don't have the volume. You know, they don't get the touchdowns. They're not going to be in that category. But number one, he's number one on my board. Number two on Jason's number three on mics. Again, splitting hairs. It's DeAndre.

Hopkins, his current average job position is the wide receiver one last year. His consistency rank was number two. His season finish was number two. What can you say about DeAndre Hopkins? It hasn't been said. Man, what can you? That hasn't been said.

He's got a perfect 99 Madden rating. He had. Yeah, that says a lot. Three fewer points per game when Kiki QT was playing. So if you worry, if you're splitting the hairs at the top of the draft and you look at, you know, the top three or four guys, you're trying to tie break, maybe that's the one you want to say, well, if Kiki QT is healthy and there's more targets to spread around, maybe Hopkins is, I mean, with Kiki QT on the field, DeAndre Hopkins was great.

just slightly less great than when he was off the field. That's about it. I mean, you're talking about a guy who has done it with terrible quarterbacks in the past. Someone that, you know, that's one of the worries, right? It's always, well, what happens if so-and-so gets injured? If Deshaun Watson, who hasn't been able to stay on the field, look, DeAndre Hopkins has been great.

his entire career other than one year when it was beyond bad quarterback play. But, you know, I remember back four seasons ago, he finishes the number four wide receiver with trash quarterback. So, yeah, Hopkins is great. All right, number two is Devante Adams. Jason and Mike, both have them as their number one overall wide receiver. I haven't at four. You're killing us. I know. Why do you hate? Yeah. You know, you've actually, it's a good point. I have them at four.

He's great, obviously. He never busted last year. 100% of his games were in that good category. He never hurt your team ever. He was great. 169 targets. But that's part of why I just am tempering a little bit on the yardage numbers for Devante Adams. Obviously, he gets into the end zone. Does he put up 1,400 yards again? I don't know. You've spent a lot of your offseason, Jason, bringing up the fact that the Packers.

had a historical low amount of rushing attempts last year. This was not prototypical for them and a lot of expectation out there for Aaron Jones and company in that backfield getting back to a more balanced system. So, you know, with players that are maturing like MVS, Geronimo Allison's return, a little bit of target distribution. So previously, his entire high,

target number was 121 on a season. He had 169 last year. He had never broken 1,000 yards. So career year for Devante Adams, no doubt. He's a great player. He's number four for me. I mean. If you want to make the argument that maybe he'll get fewer targets, I think that's very fair. Aaron Rogers comes out and says, no, I want to target them even more. But mathematically speaking, it's not very realistic based on how you expect the target distribution.

to be in the past volume of the Packers versus what you saw last year. The two years where Jordy Nelson was basically the wide receiver one in football was awesome. He was still only 151, 152 targets. So I agree that Devante Adams goes down in targets slightly from last year with more rushing opportunities and better up-and-coming wide receivers around him. But when you talk about who's going to be the wide receiver one on the season? The wide receiver one on the season always has a ton of touchdowns.

Double-digit, big touchdowns, and it's hard. That's a very non-sticky stat for most players. But Aaron Rogers' primary wide receiver one always is among the lead leaders in touchdowns. He targets them around the red zone. That's the reason I've got Devante Adams as my one, because I think if I had to bet money that one wide receiver this year was getting 14 touchdowns, it would be Devonta Adams. And last year, while the, yeah,

the rushing totals were low. So were Aaron Rogers attempts inside the red zone. You saw an over 30% drop in red zone attempts compared to his average over the last five years. I mean, that's from 110 to 100, down to 64 attempts in the red zone. So there's even more opportunity based off of what Aaron Rogers has historically done. Now,

It's a new offense, a new offensive coach calling the plays. But I can't imagine we'll see a world where Aaron Rogers is only throwing the ball in the red zone 64 times again. All right. Number three, we have Julio Jones out of Atlanta. He is the current wide receiver three off the board by average draft position. Last season we saw him emerge from a touchdown slumber over the second half of the year.

He led all wide receivers in percentage of great games. Those are games that we qualify as 20 plus point games. He had seven of them. Over the last five years, he's finished eighth, second, sixth, fourth, and fifth. What a bum. At the wide receiver position. It's him and Antonio Brown. Those are the two guys who have given you elite performance.

consistently for the last five years. And there's really based on that no grounds whatsoever to make light of limping off the field occasionally with his foot, considering he's finished inside the top six for four consecutive seasons. I have met two. Mike, you haven't met two, Jason at three. So obviously we love Julio Jones. It's all about the touchdowns. I mean, we joke that, you know, his nickname it became last year. I just want him to have one year where he has 15 or 16.

Because it would be a record-setting year for fantasy. Look, if he had 12, 11, let's say, he'd be the wide receiver. One, the issue is that's never been what Julio Jones, his modus operandi is not a touchdown machine. The second half of last year, you started to see that happening for him. So there's plenty of reasons to love him, but you're probably not going to see him much this offseason. You're not going to see him much at all in the preseason. Don't need to.

And you don't need to. And if you look at what Vegas projects for the odds of a player leading the league in yardage, Julio's all alone at the top at 6 to 1 odds to do that. He has led the league in yards per game three of the last four years. Yeah, yeah. So he's a machine. He's great. If I had to bet on one guy ending up the year at number one, like he's number two of my projections. But if I had like percentage chance of being the number one guy, Julio's at the top of my list this year.

Does it make a difference that he's in that high-flying NFC South too when it comes to tie breaking over some of the top tier guys? I mean, you have an opportunity to be in some high-scoring games. It's nice. If you are one of those fantasy players that says, I don't want to take, you know, Player X because of the division, they have to play these teams six times. That should, then you have to translate over that Julio Jones should get a bump in your opinion.