The TRUTH: Top 10 Fantasy WRs + Goat Goodbyes - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/2

This year's truth about wide receivers episode is actually pretty important. I think there are a couple big takeaways of wide receivers in general that we can apply prescriptively to the future. Plus, we have some major news, major coaching news, and a goat is put out to pasture. Make sure you like, subscribe, and enjoy. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Thursday, February 2nd. I know for sure. Totally for sure. Proud of you. Jason has a post-lunch post-pickle ball glisten. Like over my eyes. Yeah, a glazing. Yeah, just I'm, I'm here, but I'm behind like several sheets. Yeah, no, I get what you're saying. Yeah, like a, like a.

Filter? Yeah. Like a real life. I'm looking through a plastic. Yeah. Across his eyes. Yes. I'm far. I'm down a hallway. And welcome into the show. Mike Wright is here. Is that a sick Photoshop reference? Yes. It is a sick Photoshop reference. Welcome in. Truth episode today. Looking at the top 10 wide receivers on today's show. We have completed what? The quarterbacks, the running backs. That is true. And it's wide receiver truth time. Oh, yeah. I wonder what's coming next. I cannot wait for the truth. Kickers? Fantasy tight ends. Tight end. Three episodes for tight ends. Oh, really? Yeah, we go to the bottom. If you took a snap at the tight end position, you're in the truth. I can't imagine how little listenership that episode would receive. Except for the Will Disley part.

Of course. I mean, the Will Disley part would be special. But welcome in one and all. There is a glisten inducer's alley today because Papa Josh is back there. Yeah, put the camera. Yeah. Reveal yourself. Reveal. Yeah. There it is. Oh, man. Kyle the Borgogan is here. He refuses to put the powder on his forehead. Although we do it every day for our faces because this is what you do when you're in showbiz. You're professional. No, instead it's reflected. The lights are reflecting off his dome. But, yeah, fun show today. Got some bigger news to talk about it as well. You can find us on Twitter at the FF Ballers. You can follow Jason at Jason FFL. Follow Mike at FF Thickman. No, that's FF Hitman. I'm sorry. We invented a new nickname if necessary at lunch. Yes. Like if worse comes to worse.

Well, yeah, I was trying to get my shout out from Alex on Peloton. And we're like, well, he just not read my name. And I thought, well, what if I changed it to FF Thickman? Yeah. Will he give me some love? Because I love Alex and Alex does not love me. Okay. You can't get a shout out on the Peloton? I keep trying. Is it because your name's so boring? That's why we're workshopping things like. You don't think you'd ignore Hitman. It seems like a name that should not be ignored. Right. But it is. Or else. Never cross a hitman. You can follow me at Andy Holloway. We're on Patreon. Join thefoot.com. That's where you get a bonus weekly episode of our podcast. The website's the fantasy footballers.com. Exciting stuff coming up. Super Bowl Sunday. That is when the ultimate draft kit for 2023 will be available for pre-order. And on that very day, you will have instant access to the dynasty pass. Yes.

Our team has been working very hard already. We're in the middle of a rookie mock draft. Team opportunity pages are being built, et cetera, et cetera. It is a delightful time of year. Absolutely. All right. Into the news we go, because there's some big news. News and notes from around the league. Thomas Brady. The goat is out to pasture. Again. He has announced via social media that he's officially retiring. This time it's personal. He said, I'm retiring for good. It was actually a pretty heartfelt message as brief as it was, didn't want to drag it on into off season. We kind of probably wanted to leave the off season drag out time to Aaron Rogers. That's kind of his. He's laid claim on stretching out the news there. I feel like this rubber bands back on Aaron Rogers. The news won't be stretched out because I think there was legitimate.

You know, it was a realistic outcome that Aaron Rogers would walk away from football right now. You know, he's still going on the Pat McAfee show and talking about how, you know, oh, these guys are talking about me, but I haven't been involved. I don't even know what I'm going to do. Well, here's what I'm, I am confident, and I am not Aaron Rogers. But I am pretty confident he doesn't want to be the second best inductee into the Hall of Fame. So if he retires right now. You are not the main event. You are behind Tom Brady. It's true. Yeah. It's a, it should not matter. Isn't there like $50 million at stake too? For Rogers? For Rogers? If he retired. Yeah, he's owed a lot of money. I don't expect him to turn away $50 million. So between those two things, you know, there are people that said the Raiders, you know, the number one target for them was Brady.

In recent days, some of us in the office may have placed small wagers on Brady to San Francisco. What? Who would do that? That were evaporated instantaneously. But, you know, one quarterback off the free agent market for teams that need one. Yeah. And there's another quarterback that is also looking. like he will be off the starting market. Brock Purdy officially diagnosed with a completely torn UCL in his right elbow. We do not know yet which type of surgery he will get. There is bad and then there is worse. There's either like a six to nine month timeline, which, you know, is not nice. And then there's the full Tommy John surgery where he's gone for the year.

And in that situation, which I've seen some credible doctors say that that's what they believe will happen. And in that situation, you've got Trey Lance back for sure. He's the starter and there's no controversy until they maybe resign Garoppolo. And I am here for that. Yeah, if Kyle Shanahan's not seeking counseling just to talk about his own quarterback situation, he will be soon. You're right. Brock Purdy's situation, it's not good. It's such a bummer, man. And you know what's crazy is there were snap judgments made on Twitter when he didn't come back into the game immediately. And you almost felt it from Shanahan a little bit on the sideline where it was like, you know, you're over there in good spirits. Why aren't you back out there on the field? He literally might need Tommy John surgery. So this was a devastating injury. Trey Lance, we don't know. He did say he would be 100% by OTAs.

Yes, he says. He did say that. And so we'll see. What's kind of wild is Nick Mullins, who was a former backup that started some games in San Francisco, tore his UCL. And he had the bracing version of the surgery. And I believe he was starting to throw three, four months after, kind of back at it in six months. But we'll see what happens there. Michael Gallup. More procedures for Michael Gallup, right knee and ankle. So you've got left knee meniscus in 2019, left knee ACL in 2022, and now what, right knee, right ankle? Yep. So Dallas needs a wide receiver. It feels that way. I mean, people wanted us to give more credit to Michael Gallup because obviously his injury was very late in the season last year, so not coming back and being ready. Look, it's either an indictment on.

the Cowboys in some capacity, right? You let Amari Cooper go, and if Gallup wasn't going to be ready, then you needed another. I mean, T.Y. Hilton was part of your offense. Yeah, I mean, obviously, in hindsight, they should have stuck with Amari Cooper. That offense would have been great with Amari Cooper and C.D. Lamb as C.D. Lamb is the one. But with this injury, I mean, obviously, you know, a meniscus. I think the timeline is he should be back. I haven't dug into the specifics on this. But obviously they have to add a wide receiver. I think they'll do that in the draft. The problem for Dallas was Michael Gallup and the schedule. And he was ahead of schedule because everyone who's recovering from an ACL is ahead of schedule. So adjust the schedule. So we'll get actual realistic timelines for these players to return. Speculation is super fun when it comes to that stuff. And I don't know if they'll do it through the draft or not. Obviously, Jalen Tolbert didn't work out as a rookie.

I think they can only do it through the, I mean, I guess unless you're thinking Jacobi Myers or Juju Smith-Schuster are the answers. There's just not a great crop of free agents. There's the kind, though, that fit into the mold of being complimentary, I think, to CD-LAM. But we'll find out. They're on the precipice of potentially hiring a new OC that likes to run the football out of Carolina as well. So a couple of coaching updates. The Broncos and Saints, they've agreed to compensation. Sean Payton will be the next head coach of the Denver Broncos. The Broncos sent their 29th overall pick, the first rounder, second rounder next year, and they get Peyton and a third. They have no picks. So this situation was always going to be strange because Peyton has to come in and then have fewer assets on that new team. This was the only path to having another.

painful offseason of optimism around the Bronx. It's unbelievable because when you put Sean Peyton with Russell Wilson and midway through this last year when when Sean Peyton was an analyst, he was basically saying he thought Hackett was using Russell Wilson incorrectly. And so you bring someone in with experience and all the weapons that are on this offense. And we are going to have optimism. I said. About a month ago, I said that if this move happens, I am not going to be in on Russell Wilson. And I am so happy I said that. Because now you're going to flip up. Because the temptation is there, man. I think this is a good move. I really do. I've seen a lot of people say that they think it's silly to trade that much compensation for Sean Payton. But if you grab a coach that is a long term, a 10 year type of asset for your franchise.

Of course it's worth it. If he fixes Russell Wilson, of course it's worth it. You have to take a shot at these things. I agree with that. But it costs a lot. And you could be wrong. I mean, it could just be Drew Brees. That was the linchpin of the Sean Payton success. Like that is a possibility. And, you know, we're going to find out. We're going to find out with fantasy players and what they believe about these assets. And we'll find out what Sean Payton, you know, he's coming into a team with a really good defense. Literally, they just couldn't get out of their own way on offense. So going from one of the worst in the league to the middle might be enough for this team to start competing, but that doesn't mean that they'll be great for fantasy players. One of the things that I do love and respect and expect for the Broncos going forward is that the running game should be significantly better. The utilization in the receiving.

for running backs. The Sean Payton system, you know, gets so much credit for Drew Breeze and Michael Thomas and all the passing, but their team running backs were basically top five for a decade. And that's what he's spoken about getting that going. So we don't know the health of Giovante Williams, but I do think going forward next year, they're not going to be starting the season. with, you know, Latavius Murray and, you know, retread veteran options that were mid-season pickups. And Sean Peyton clear, like, Sean Payton would not make this move from his super cushy broadcast job, which I think he was being very transparent saying, I have a great job. I'm not going to give this up unless I go to a situation that I really want to be in. Sean Payton believes that Russell Wilson can be fixed.

He 100% thinks that. Or he would not have made this move. Okay. Because you're... I guess I'm less bullish. Well, I think you... The $16 to $18 million a year also makes me make the move regardless. I mean, you're getting paid more than almost anybody else in the league. So, you know, we've seen this a million times with coaches, right? You always believe you can do better. Mike McCarthy just fired Kellan Moore because he believes in himself. He can fix the offense. McCarthy can't. So I'm just saying there's room on both sides. I don't want to... I'm trying to be the...

counterbalance to that sentiment that everything's going to be repaired and fixed. Because what we saw in the field was very troubling for a very long period of time. My statement is not I know for sure that Sean Payton could come in and fix the offense. I'm saying Sean Payton believes that he, that Russell Wilson can still be that guy. How many years without Breeze did he coach? Was it just one? Just one. And that's when the offense went. You can argue that. You can also argue that the offense. was pretty good for a Taysom Hill, you know, offense. It wasn't a catastrophe, and he had, you know, a backup quarterback unexpectedly. All right. One of the other strange parts about the Denver trade for Sean Peyton was that they were pushing really hard for Domingo Ryan's, and at least multiple reports. Yeah. That was the preference. DeMico Ryan's ends up becoming the head coach of the Houston Texans, a team that he was a multi-year pro bowler for.

comes, you know, leaves the 49ers. So the 49ers have lost a couple of D.C.s in recent years. And a six-year deal to become the Houston Texans head coach, you know, great leader, great coach, great opportunity for him in Houston. I like the signing. Yeah, I like it. It's a up to all climb. He's up against it. That's kind of where, you know, you had two coaches that went back to places that they have familiarity and almost like a nostalgic love for them. which was Carolina with Frank Reich, and then now DiMico Ryan's in Houston. Sometimes you need that, I think, to attract those. I was going to say part of it's from the standpoint of the former player now coach coming back home. But a lot of that, I think, has to do with knowing what your fan base thinks about this. Like the news around Houston is outrageously high. I heard their beat reporter talk about this is the third best moment.

in their history of their franchise is bringing in DeMico Ryan. Like this is seen around there as monumental because he was such a star player for them. And now he's the bell of the ball that they're bringing back home. Franchise is all-time leader in tackles in Houston, D'Amico Ryan. Okay. That is it for the news. It's truth time. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers. I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. All right, the top 10 wide receivers from 2022 diving into the truth. We've looked at a high level overview of each position that we've covered so far. We're doing that with wide receivers. They experienced much of what we saw at the quarterback and running back position in respect to touchdowns. The fewest wide receiver receiving touchdown since 2017 this past year. The second fewest over the last decade.

These numbers here are really interesting to look at, which is which teams had the biggest changes in terms of wide receiver target share, which means, you know, how involved were the wide receivers in the offense before and after they made major offseason moves? I think it's really interesting because you had teams that had major jumps. Philadelphia was number one. They added A.J. Brown. Last year, they were a 51% target share to the wide receiver position. 70% target share in 2022. The Goddard injury probably inflated that even more. That was the biggest in the league. But Miami, they jumped 12.2%. That would be the wide receiver position in Miami with the addition of Tyree Kill and her new head coach. Atlanta, it was kind of a comical thing last year. I mean, they were at 45% target share for wide receivers. They go up to 57%. It's not that high. It's just much higher than they were. Still a big jump. But Drake London.

the addition of Drake London, the loss of Kyle Pitts contributing there. And the Las Vegas Raiders, you add Devante Adams, you lose Darren Walter for part of the year and they go up 9.4%. Yeah, and the opposite is true as well. A lot of these teams that were dealing with injuries or rookie quarterbacks, they might have gone from teams. You know, the Steelers had a high pass rate to wide receivers two years ago this last year. Not so much. that's going to be kind of expected when you have a rookie wide receiver come in. Quarterback. A rookie quarterback, yes. I mean, technically right with pickens, but I know what you were saying. And you had the Rams, another, I think they were the second biggest change and they obviously lost Cup and Stafford. But yeah, it's telling. Added Alan Robinson. Right, another negative. Lost Alan Robinson. It is telling, though, that when these wide receivers change teams, the offensive system.

obviously was like, well, this is who we want to be. We're making this move because we want to be a pass first, pass to the wide receiver position. And so you've got to act accordingly, you know, when we're looking at projections for next year and there's, you know, if a team is trading for DeAndre Hopkins, for instance, we should expect that offense to change. The worst disparity change in 2022 was the Ravens. The Ravens, not only did you have the Lamar injury. I mean, obviously they were lucky to be able to move to a Pro Bowl or like Ty. Oh my goodness. Like Tyler Huntley in his two passing touchdowns. They were tremendous, though. Those two? Yeah. But they lost Bateman and they lost Hollywood in the trade that took place with the Cardinals during the draft. So, you know, you didn't have anybody that you could throw the ball to. They went from 57%, which wasn't that high, but down to 43%. Yeah, they just didn't have wide receivers.

Yeah, and, you know, I don't know if you have, do you have the target share for the New York football giants? I can look it up. Yeah, I'd just be curious because that's one of those situations. Mike Kafka is getting a lot of interviews around. It could be, you know, the Cardinals and Colts don't have head coaches yet. And it's always hard to evaluate coaches when they don't have weapons. Right. You know, it's like, did you do the best with what you had? Like you kind of said with Sean Payton in New Orleans? without Drew Brees? Did you do the best you could do with those weapons? It's a hard thing to evaluate. That's why bad coaches get hired. And good coaches don't get hired. Giants were at 61%. Okay. Sixty-one. All right. Well, at the wide receiver position, diving into the truth data, we consider a great game more than 20 points at the wide receiver position. A good game, that's more than 12 points. And a bus game is fewer than eight points.

If you get seven points from a wide receiver, are you sitting there going, dang it? Yes. I think that's a very disappointing outcome, especially in half PPR, which is where we are. If you're in a standard league, okay, you can survive with seven, but seven is a pretty lousy game to me. All right, let's talk about Justin Jefferson. He comes in at number one, drafted at the end of the first round, the wide receiver two off the board. Consistency rank was actually fourth. It's a little interesting to me. 71% good games, 53% great. That number is insane. 53% great is give me all the, every once in a while, busts. If you give me 53% great, you are winning me weeks. Yeah, I mean, that is the best number of all wide receivers. That's why he finished as the wide receiver won in fantasy. It is even a higher percentage than the consistency ranked number one wide receiver that we're not going to talk about because he missed half the year, which is Cooper Cup.

Cooper Cup was un... He had a lower percentage of great games, you're saying, than Justin Jefferson. If you take out the injury game, he was at 50% to Justin Jefferson's 53%. So he was there, but he even beat that. That being said, Cooper Cup was unbelievable. Isn't it worth a moment for Cooper Cup here just so that people don't underestimate the value? His metrics were. So if you take out the injured game where he just got injured right away, and maybe that's not fair because... You started him that week. But just for illustration purposes, if you take that out, he had 50% great games. What do you think his percentage of good games is? You're going to tell me it's like 50%. It's 100% great, 100% of those were 100% good and 50% were great. Like week winning performances all the time and never a bust. Just always absolutely awesome until he got injured. We know he's coming back. We know Sean McVeigh is coming back. We know Matthew Stafford's coming back. He finished as the wide receiver 24.

and he played nine and a half games. So talk to me for a second. He's good. At the very top of this. Because it feels a little bit like Jonathan Taylor's CMC situation. Last year, a lot of criticism for people that wanted to go with CMC. He played 20 games this year. So you won. You won the gamble if you went with him at number one and you actually lost it, obviously, if you went with Jonathan Taylor. But Taylor was this bona fide, guaranteed number one because of the big season. I can't imagine Justin Jefferson is not drafted over Cooper Cup next year. Oh, he will absolutely be drafted over Cooper Cup. He's younger. His arrow is pointing up. There's no reason for it to go down. He wasn't dealing with injury. He was the number one wide receiver. I would prefer Cooper Cup next year in a redraft league. I don't think there's any reason to believe that Cooper Cup.

He didn't show any sign of slowing down. He's not injured. Like, he could have come back at the end of the year, but didn't need to. So for my fantasy purposes, I see him as what he has been the last two years, which is a wide gap number one player versus the number two. Yeah, I don't mind putting him in the exact. I mean, putting Jefferson in that category with him based on this performance, but I think it's worth talking about Cooper Cup here because we won't get a chance to. He missed a lot of the season. One impressive thing about Justin Jefferson, higher fantasy points per game against top 16 defenses than against bottom 16. They were very comparable, but like he did not falter when the team, you know, you'd expect him to go out there and just try to shut him down. There were a couple games like that, that Green Bay game in Championship Week, obviously. Oh, man. That was brutal. The Dallas game. There were a couple times they disappear. We're going to start with the refrain here soon of most wide receivers are very inconsistent.

So it's going to happen to the best of them. It has the most targets through the first three seasons in NFL history. And what do you say about a guy that just goes out there and gives you weak winning performances 53% of the time? Nothing needed. I say thank you Justin Jefferson as part of my championship roster. All right. We will take a quick break and come back with the elite wide receiver duo in Miami. And that's, of course, that elite duo is Albert Wilson and Trent Sherfield. Oh, bird alert. Wait. You don't remember that? The old, uh, the Harvard related? Yeah. Oh, okay. That was from Harmon. Oh, that's been Harmon's thing. All right. Well done. Uh, no, it's Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle. Hill comes in at two. Janlon Wattle at seven, so we'll cover them together. When you look at the Tyreek season, it was, it was everything you could have hoped for. Any fears related to Tua were, they were frankly unfounded.

I mean, if you passed on Tyree Kill, you paid the price. He was good 76% of the time. He was great 41% of the time. He busted 12% of the time. That's a lower bust rate than even Justin Jefferson. And then Jaylon Waddle was a 47% good, 18% great, 35% bust. Yeah. But dealt with injuries. He dealt with repeatedly. He did deal with injuries. He did not miss games, but obviously was hampered during several of the games just kept. playing and playing poorly. You know, I didn't get to experience Tyree Kill a lot this last year. I don't think I was high enough on him. The Jalen Wattle experience wasn't always great. You did have, you felt the busts, and while there were absolutely weak winning performances, there can be no doubt whose team this is. Maybe three years from now it'll change, but Tyree Kill was unbelievably great.

might be the best wide receiver this year. You know, he has the consistency rank number two, but he played the whole year, unlike Cooper Cup. He did not let you down. He dealt with backup quarterbacks and was great with everybody going forward. That is a very good point. Going forward, he, you know, there's no reason to put his arrow pointing down whatsoever. And something that is, is interesting is no teammate. who has a duo of wide receivers finishing in the top 10, which is the situation here, have repeated that the next season. So you've got Jalen Wattle and Tyree Kill. That one seems, that seems really interesting because on the surface, Jalen Waddle is 24 years old. We saw how explosive he was. You would expect him to be able to be here again. And you obviously expect Tyreek to be able to do it. Now, part of that could be, you know, I'll often do two mates.

two teammates play 17 games two years in a row. But that's an interesting stat. I mean, Waddle was much more up and down. But I think he benefited more from Tua being in the football game. I think it's interesting that Tyreek was much better against bad defenses. To me, that says a little bit about the quarterback position. Like it was a big disparity. It was 9.93 points difference for Tyree Kilt when he played, you know, almost. 21 points a game against bad defenses, but just 10 points against good ones, they couldn't take advantage the way that Jefferson did. Yeah, I would agree with that. But at the same time, there's nothing negative you can say about Tyree Kill. Maybe he didn't have as big a games against good matchups, but his skill set fits this system so perfect. And Jalen Waddle, I mean, you saw Tyree Kill over and over.