Fantasy Football - Early Top 15 WR Rankings + Team Draft Hype - Podcast for 4/17

Much. They're so much better when they're together. Well, are you saying that because Chase was averaging 20 points per game as the number one wide receiver while on a points per game basis, T. Higgins was 15.5 as the fourth best wide receiver last year in fantasy on a points per game basis. Obviously missed games. But yeah, when they're both out there together, they're both just freaking awesome. And to be clear, I mean, this is not the first rodeo for T. Higgins. He's played, well, when he's been healthy. He's played with Joe Burrow. for many years. This was by far his best points for game performance. Yes. He has traditionally been 13, 11 and a half. So, you know, maybe, maybe the double digit touchdowns aren't coming back. I mean, that's, that was his touchdown high by three in his career. So, so that would be the one thing you look at and say, okay. In 12 games. He just, yeah, in 12 games. So maybe, maybe you don't get double digit touchdowns. That's certainly possible, but.

very safe. If he slips and drafts, I would put him on every one of my teams so that I can feel pain like Mike. Yeah, I'm really sad to see that right now. Join me in the pit. I'm really sad to see right now that he's like at the back of the second round. I don't think people are as low on him as I hoped they would be. I'm very bullish, very confident, and I'm not scared at all about the games missed. I'm really not. Maybe it's because I haven't lived that experience with you, Mike. You should be a little scared of that. Yeah. He doesn't play 17. He'd rather be dead than play 17. It's a minor concern. I think you should have. Yeah. Okay. I mean, this. You are going to miss games. I don't know. That's a guarantee. You've seen that check bonus on his contract? It don't matter. Guess what? Let me tell you this. What was he playing for last year? Oh, yeah. Free agent contract. That's a lot of checks. Miss four games.

Yeah. No, sorry. Miss five games. He's quite good at starting games, which I think that the that is the hard. I think if he is on the field for snap one, I think the check clears. Good point. Oh, man. He does that a lot. That will be a risk. What could go wrong for T. Higgins? He doesn't mind limping around in the first quarter. Ladd McConkey comes in at 14. Apparently I'm by far the lowest. It's not really... It's embarrassing. Not on purpose. I mean, it's just... I remember in the college scouting time last year, Andy was like, this lad guy sucks. That's what he called him last McConkey. Yeah, last McConkey. He was always anti-Lad McConkey. Who chuckling at that? Because that one was not good. Is that you, Matt? No? Yeah, it was... Matt, as I was telling the joke, I'm like, this is not good. But I'm going to finish. To be clear, I was a lad guy.

And then you're like, man, I want to be like Andy. And then you got on the lad bandwagon. And he's outstanding. He's an incredible player. His catch percentage is outrageous. He was like the 10th best in football. He broke a ton of tackles. So you wouldn't think that that's who he is. Yeah, he is. He's the fourth highest tackle-breaking wide receiver in football. He's just a complete wide receiver. He is literally the picture you should draw for quarterback's best friend. He is open, sure-handed. We'll catch the football on an important third down. And I think the question for everybody in fantasy is just, what is he going to be for the team moving forward? Is there more upside to Ladd-McConkie? And I don't think there's a lot more. I think, you know, 82 for 11, 55, and 7, you can go up from there. You can catch 100 passes. Lad can catch 100 passes. Yeah, he could be 100.

for 1250 and 8. Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, there is room. There's not number one overall. That's not an outcome. That's realistic for Ladd McConkey. But this is this super solid player that, you know, he's being drafted at wide receiver 13. He's being respected in drafts. Yeah, he is. He seems to me like a pretty much guaranteed top 15 wide receiver. He's playing that role that it's not the same system when Keenan Allen was there. But that that Justin Herbert. to super reliable wide receiver role. Like, I'm, you know, the, I've got to move the chains. I'm going to go to my guy who I know exactly on this step. He's going to be in this spot. He's going to catch the ball when I put it, catchable ball on him. So lad is very, very safe. But yeah, the upside case is, is difficult. I think I have hope from, and I know it was like the Brandon Staley era. So, you know, take shave a few fourth down, go for it's off. But.

What we saw per game with Keenan was like surprisingly high. And we also saw in the second half of last year the new system with Harbaugh. We saw Justin Herbert kind of allowed to take more control and be the leader of this offense versus just like establish it in the run game. So I, you know, I don't think we've seen Lad's best, but he, but you're right. He doesn't have like wide receiver one upside. After the bye week. which that's not a, that is a common marker. When we look at rookie wide receivers, the by week, you know, guys can take off. There's was early. Talking about the chargers, they had a week five by. But after the by week, the pace would have been 95 catches for almost 1,400 yards. Oh, my little lad. Like, I think that there is a lot of room. Who else were they throwing their football to? I mean.

That's the big question for the offense is you're going to have. They were throwing it at Kuge. You're going to have a better running back situation potentially. I'll go lateral. You're definitely going to have more wide receivers in the in the picture this year. You've added Mike Williams. And you got the draft. Yeah. They've worked a lot of guys out. That would be the, he could be somebody that I think moves a lot based on draft selections. He could, but they draft a prominent, you know, a. If they draft a day two wide receiver or above day one or day two wide receiver, Lad will fall a little bit. Or a tier one tight end even. Sure, yeah, yeah. He'll fall a little bit, but I think that'll only help. Here's a wild, because we've got to close things out. We've got to get to 15. You can still talk about Ladd, but Ladd and Terry McLaren are the final two names. Terry McLaren comes in at 15. Apparently I barely kept in there by ranking him the highest among the three of us. They almost have the same numbers. I mean, they both caught 82 passes, Ladd and McLaren. They both had.

110 and 114 targets. They were very similar in the total yardage. Ladd was a little bit above. Double the touchdowns for McLaren, but that is part of his arsenal, right? His average up the target is four yards better. So you're kind of, despite ending up with the same numbers on a lot of areas, there are different types of players in the offense. 13 touchdowns is a lot. I feel like there hasn't been a single moment this offseason where we're like, giving Terry McLuhan credit for 13 touchdowns. We're giving credit. It only works against him. I feel like if we went out here and Terry McLaurin had nine or 10 touchdowns, we'd be like, okay, you can come back and do that. But because it's 13, it's like, oh, let's just throw that season away where you were the, you know, one of the best players in the game, which we've always known by film. It's not throwing it away. It's just having, what, six, no, five seasons before that where you're high in touchdowns was.

What's his average touchdowns per year with Jaden Daniels? That would be a clean 13.0. It's not even a decimal. Yeah, I don't think 13 is going to be there, but I think double digits is. And I wouldn't put him at double digits. You also added, you also added Debo Samuel to the roster. Sure. You know, they were desperately looking for a wide receiver two. They're talking about past catching running backs. Like we need to, was that them? Yeah, yeah, that was them, which I felt was a little disrespectful. To Mr. Eccler? Yes. Yeah. So that they're like that position will be upgraded and used a bit more. Just it's, well, is he going to catch half of the ADP reflects. I mean, he's not high. He's a third round pick. I think is that I like it. Wide receiver 16, that's, I'll take that. And he was the wide receiver five last year. So he comes in at 15 for us. Um,

16 Zavins, 17, DJ Moore, 18, Devante Adams, tied with number 18, Marvin Harrison Jr. And Garrett Wilson at 20 to round that out, just giving you some more names. Oh, real quick, my last point that I wanted to make on Ladd-McConkie was... I'm sorry, your time has expired. I do not yield. I'm not listening, go on. Wide receivers who break out as a rookie, and so in their first year, they finish as a top 24 guy. statistically speaking by ADP, those are like the best bets in fantasy football. And we have three of them. But the other two guys, their ADPs are absolutely Jews because it's Malik Neighbors and Brian Thomas. Like he lads the only one sitting right there in that sweet spot of I think that he can outproduce. A top 24? Is that what you said? Yeah. If you finish this top 24 as a rookie.

Garrett Wilson says, watch this. Garrett Wilson, watch this. Garrett Wilson is one of the names that screwed it up. Of the other names that we didn't mention real briefly, is there somebody that you can finish in the top 15 for me? I'll throw Marvin Harrison out there. I think that's definitely within the realm of possibilities. Marvin Harrison has. Double-digit touchdown potential every year. It should happen. He should be top 15. I would throw Rushie Rice out there. I don't want to forget. I know there's suspensions. There's Xavier Worthy. There was a slight update. But you're keeping it a secret. No, no, no. There was a slight update. I can't remember the fellow's name. He does all the law stuff on Twitter. I'm sorry, man. I can't remember your name right now. But he was talking about the Rice situation and how the.

where the case is being pushed. And in his opinion, Davenport? Yes. Okay. Yeah, Davenport was saying it's not impossible that this thing gets pushed all the way again through this season and no suspension actually takes place. If I were to. This year. If I were to run into, let's say, a legal situation, how does one push it way off into the future? How might one? Well, I might want, because I could. I think you start by being famous and rich. Yeah, wealthy athlete. Okay. That's a great place to start. Yeah. I'm going to have to play some sports. Yeah. Because like I think my strategy would be do some, do some bad stuff and then like push it until after I die. Ooh. Don't get keep pushing the date. Loophole. Loophole. Yeah. Get the court date like. Just do that and just keep swiping credit cards. Oh, so he's just going to be a master crime machine. Well, it's not a crime machine.

He's just didn't have time to pay it back. It's just delaying. Delaying. I guess I see a swipe in that credit card of, I can do it again. Yeah, I don't know. That's interesting. Mike, did you have a name you wanted to throw out real quick? Oh, maybe you already did and I didn't listen because I had been tuning you out. It would be Chris Godwin. You know what? Chris Godwin, wild numbers last year in his games played. They were probably going to be the most ignored, stupidly ignored player this year. I'm just, I'm personally waiting on the injury updates. Obviously, he got a bag of money. That's my update. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's good enough for me. I don't, you know, I don't know if he's ready for camp, ready for week one. So as soon as that happens, like if he goes to training camp and he's just healthy there, then he should be, he was the wide receiver two on a points per game basis last year. He wasn't good. He was great. So, Jason, he was, I was just going to say he was.

better than Brian Thomas yards after the catch. Like Godwin was... He was on an unbelievable tear. And before we close, Jason, I have to... Matt has called something out here. Oh, no. Okay. Because you... You were going on your tangent and swipe that card. You've been doing a lot of credit cards swiping lately. Old man? You're the one that said swipe. Did I repeated you? Old man. You know what's funny is... Did I say swipe? Tap that card. I didn't think you were talking about the language at all. I thought you were talking about the one person in the studio who actually stole from the company via credit card. Oh, man. What a great story. No, no, no. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. This story is. Can we get a digital zoom? This story is way too good for the end of an episode. So stay tuned. We're putting this in the show docs. Our next episode, he's batting lead off. And you're getting wrecked.

You're getting wrecked. All right. We'll have a story for you. You're going to have to wait until next week. And you're showing up. You're not fired until after that episode. You understand me? Sure. Oh, man. Next episode. Don't miss it. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers.