Top 10 WR Rankings Episode - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/4

Hey, this is Austin Eccler, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Friday, August 4th, the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Thank you for joining us, Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway. We are here. We're ready to talk.

Top 10 wide receivers on today's show. Outstanding performance from Zach Wilson. Oh, yeah. I tried to watch. I wanted to see all the Zach Wilson snaps. Sure. I wanted to see Israel a Bannacanda. Oh, hold on, Mike. Come on. But, I mean, there just wasn't much to see, I would say. Wasn't particularly impressed. Fame game. We're just more excited that football is back. That it exists. It's just a reminder. It's like, remember this? Yes. Get ready. Someday it will look like this, but with players we care about. Yeah. Happy to have you with us. Like I said, Ultimate draft kit.com. Head over there. Jam packed. Every year it gets a little bit better. I believe last I heard over one Harry Potter novels worth of analysis within the UDK.

in terms of written word. Interesting. Not in terms of his spells. Did we shuffle the players into different houses? Not yet. That's a great idea, Mike. It's a little different than tier-based drafting. It's house-based drafting. But no, it's great. You've got to check it out. Ultimate draft kit.com. We do have a Voldemort, so we're already on our way. Twitter. X. Brooks, you're going to have to change the show, Docs. Guess so. Next is going to give it to you. At the FF Ballers. Follow us over there. Follow Mike at FFHitman. Follow Jason at Jason FFL. Follow me at Andy Holloway. And a quick question of the day. Alex in Indianapolis says when a player is falling in a draft, how far past ADP before the value is too good to pass up? I love this question because I think it kind of, it kind of pulls that.

the whole ADP world in general of how you view, and that's average draft position. And so every platform has their own average draft position based on historical drafts that have taken place. I was just in an underdog draft and I had this exact situation pop up and, you know, who fell? I'm trying to remember who it was. I don't remember it off the top of my head. It was like a name that just kept falling and kept falling, but I didn't need that position. And so I didn't take the player. There wasn't a number I was looking for. I mean, maybe we would have gotten to this point where I messed up my entire team strategy to take the player, but that wasn't the goal. Like, if I took that player, I was going to be deficient someplace else. And so I would just say that like a couple things at the top, like I don't.

look at ADP like I'm missing out on something if I don't believe in that player and then ADP tells me I'm supposed to that's one way I wouldn't I wouldn't just take the player because they're falling and the other way is if I've built the team a certain way and I'm going to disrupt that like Jason how do you approach it? Yeah for for me it's very different between whether this is like one of my leagues I'm in, like the league of record or, you know, a startup, a redraft, um, or if I'm doing underdog drafts, because an underdog drafts for me, there is a number. It's like if there, if there's about 20 spots behind ADP, I'm going to take them almost no matter what. Now, your, your example of like, if, if I've got three tight ends, I'm not going to grab a fourth one. Um, so there, there's, there's rules to that. But the reason that I would do that on underdog is because.

We're pretty good at fantasy football. And by we, I don't just mean us three. I mean humanity. Average draft position. Just clip that, though. Average draft position has proven especially, it gets better and better every single year, more and more accurate to the fantasy finishes of these players. So generally speaking, it is a good guide. to where people's value would last. But, you know, I try to diversify on Underdog. If I've got a ton of drafts, I want players sometimes that I don't like. You know, I want to take a shot on them there. Whereas in my home league, it's like, I'm with Andy. I don't care so much about ADP. I want the guys that I believe in. The only place where it really changes for me is the middle round tight ends. Like,

I don't like drafting Hawkinson or Kittle or those guys. But if they do, you know, go a couple rounds later, then I'm willing to pull that trigger. Sure. There is an inner battle for everyone who plays fantasy football because you have your process, which has gotten you to the players that you believe in, and then watching someone fall, you know, in ADP, there's... You need to leave room, you need to have a margin of perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps my process on this player is wrong and there's a reason that they're being selected where they were, but in this draft they're falling. And then there is the emotional aspect of it of drafting players because you feel like you're supposed to that you don't believe in and then they are bad at the end of the year.

Oh, that feels bad. It feels really bad. Like, this is, this is not a, this is not stat or scientifically based. This is, this is the, the human element of the game, of the emotional, if I draft someone, I knew I shouldn't have because they all of a sudden became a value. I will, I never move away from it. Like, I never forgive myself for drafting that player. And that, that brings it to the point of, like, feeling pressure. To make the pick people think you're supposed to make. Exactly. So you don't look stupid. Yeah. And inherently, if a player is dropping that you don't believe in, like, they're not, they're dropping. So like other people aren't taking the player you don't believe in. So it can be a bit of a mental hurdle to get over to kind of stick with your process. And ultimately.

You don't want to live with that regret. I mean, Brooks mentioned it too. It's like if you take that player you didn't believe in because you feel like you have to so that it looks good as a name on your roster. It's the worst. It's the worst. And here's the other thing. And maybe it's a good August reminder now that we're into five days a week. None of the players in the NFL perform based on their average draft position in fantasy football. There is no direct correlation to perform. You're saying, like, they don't look at it. They don't look at it? They don't care about your fantasy team? No, they don't get a little ADP injection on the sidelines from the training staff that, like, helps them perform. They're at the goal line and the coach is like, well, hold on, hold on, hold on. Get the backup in there. Yeah, we got to get him some more points. Here's a good example of an area where I am bucking some trends, ADP-wise. Carolina's wide receiver, Rue. Okay. Adam Thielen.

Jonathan Mingo are traditionally the two players, and Terrace Marshall, right? Those names, they come up. I'm drafting DJ Chark above all those players. Okay. And because that, you know, we have this established average draft position that just comes out and then everybody just does it. But I think DJ Chark is a really talented player that is going to be able to earn opportunities there. And I don't really care what everybody else thinks about how that room's going to go. Now, I'm going to pay attention to preseason. I'm going to pay attention to camp in reality. But I'm not, you know, we get these average job positions going in February, March, April. Like they kind of persist for a really long time. JSN, Tyler Lockett, that's been an interesting ADP thing to watch. Yeah, that one got pretty crazy pretty quickly because.

You know, when something happens months ago and an ADP is quickly established, it's really hard for anyone staring at that to not just obey it. And so it's obey the ADP. And so it just kind of sticks. And when things change, they don't catch up quick enough. So as we get closer and closer to the end of August to your actual draft, be willing to know that if new information has happened and changed. recently over the last couple weeks. ADP will not reflect it as well as it should, so be a little bit more aggressive there. Oh, because it's lagging. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you drafted JSN around behind ADP three months ago, you're like, oh, man, I took the value I wanted, and then now he's behind Tyler Lockett in drafts. So it's not a value anymore. So, yeah, it is an interesting discussion as a whole because I think the overarching thing is there's a lot of pressure.

when you're in those drafts because every time you click below like if you're on a platform ESPN Yahoo whatever sleeper and you see that list and you take a player three or four below like you feel like you did something wrong yes yes and even we even we feel that way our our job is to talk about fantasy football and I still feel the pressure of an online draft room and the guy who's at the top of 80p I'm like well I mean, it's the best guy left, right? It has to be. You can take advantage of that in the fact that the other people in your league are going to feel a lot of pressure to take those top guys. You've got to fight against it. But it's hard because you also pick and then you wait maybe 15 picks before you pick again. So good question. Thank you, Alex, for sending that one in. Let's jump into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, we got some.

News from the Seattle running back room. Zach Charbonnet. Cobbler strikes again. Peach Cobbler with the unknown injury for Zach Charbonnet. He's back. He's back on Thursday. In practice. Indefinite means whatever you want it to make. We got to figure out this word indefinite because it is ominous and terrifying. Yes, Pete Carroll used it. technically it was appropriate. Lasting for an unknown or unstated length of time. Yes. But usually when you say that, you're like, this guy's going to miss some time. I just don't know how much. You're not like, if someone's going to miss three days, you go, yeah, he'll be out a couple days. I would use only that word. If I was a head coach, I would never use another word. Yeah. You're not accountable to that word. And you're not even, like as a coach, you don't know. It's the training staff. So I would, like mid game.

You're like when they're trying to talk to you. Oh, we saw, we saw your send I got a little shook up there. How long? Is it going to miss time? Indefinite. Yeah. We just don't know. Next snap. They're back. That's a good bit. I didn't know. I mean, a coach could get away with that. Well, yeah, because they, I mean, you don't actually know. So maybe indefinite does sound more ominous than just saying like, I'm not sure when he'll be back. I hope he's back soon. Like if you say that, it is saying the same thing. Because you hope they're back soon? We have a follow-up quote from Pete Carroll on Zach Charbonnet. He said, quote, so now we know what indefinitely is. He said that. What? Freaking Pete Carroll. Oh, he's with us. Gosh darn it. He's a clever. He's the sneaky snook. Yeah, he really is. Kenneth Walker didn't practice groin injury, but they're not concerned about that injury. Indefinite. According to the team. They said he'll, you know, he'll be back. Elijah Mitchell, out of practice with another injury.

Man. His punch card for the year of injuries, starting to get it filled. The 49ers backup situation is something that needs to be monitored. You would have presumed it was Elijah Mitchell because it has been him before the Christian McCaffrey thing, but Elijah Mitchell can't seem to stay on the field. We've seen last year's third round pick, Ty Davis Price, getting some run with the ones. But I've also seen some beat reporters that I trust saying that Jordan Mason. looks like he would be the next man up currently if Christian McCaffrey were to miss time. And let's go here. Broncos head coach Sean Peyton said Giovante Williams is going to play in the preseason. This is insanity. It's great. If Giovante Williams is truly healthy, this is, it's fantastic news, incredible talent. We, it, it.

Even if he's getting snaps in the preseason, you still don't know what his workload is going to be. Like, how soon will he be truly the guy? Like, will he ever be a workhorse? We just, we don't know that. So this actually, while this is great news for Javante Williams, the player, the man, the truthers, the Javante Williams truthers, it makes the situation all the more messy where it felt like you could get some Ajay P. Ryan, who's a good player. at a decent value in the draft and fill in for two to four weeks while I'm trying to figure out some things up in the running back position. Now, who knows if that's true? I mean, what are you guys doing with this information? Are you, like, are you moving your risk down on Giovante? Are you moving him up? How have you reacted? I have been continuing to watch and monitor the situation, and I want to be aggressive.

to jump in if this just continues progressing. I think it'll get me a discount on Pryne, who I think will be very valuable throughout the whole year. So, Giovante, I don't think, is going to be, like, I think Somacei Rine's good. Yeah. So in that regard, like, Giovante, we have, you know, we were waiting last year to have that big opportunity. Only got to see him for, what, three and a half games. It was just a few. And I'm excited to see what both of those guys can do in the backfield. It's really great news for Giovante to get out on the field, get this worked through, and maybe he's a second half league winner. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Wide receivers. Well, if you missed it yesterday, we started the wide receiver rankings countdown, went from 2211 or a whole bunch of wide receiver twos.

talented wide receiver 2 is out there that we talked through. You can listen to that show. Today we start with the number 10 overall receiver in our rankings being drafted as the wide receiver 10. Okay. We all have them ranked very closely. Jason at 9, Mike and I at 11 is a late second round draft pick. It is sophomore Garrett Wilson. Last year, you got to see it on display against all odds. Really productive rookie season. Rookie of the year, right? Offensive rookie. That's right. 83 for 1100 and 4. Well, really productive half a season. Yeah, I mean, he busted in 47% of games despite the output being at that level. And those games, those 47%, we call those the Zach Wilson games. Yeah, I mean, it's a big transformation and change for him this year. Right, right. Just, yeah, just, you know, because of the math.

So where are you with Garrett Wilson's ceiling with Aaron Rogers? Is it a breakout 1,500 yard season? Is that in the cars for Garrett Wilson? It is. I mean, that's the ceiling. The ceiling is, you know, 10 touchdowns, 1,500 yards, a true breakout. It's like a top three guy. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we talked about, I think, Andy, you brought up a couple weeks ago that you believe he has the ability. to finish as the number one overall wide receiver with Aaron Rogers. If he were to get 12, 13 touchdowns, that could be in the cards. And if you look what he did rookie year, you know, the jokes about Zach Wilson, he scored 6.7 fantasy points per game was Zach Wilson. 14.2 without Zach Wilson. Now he gets Aaron Rogers. Yeah, 23 years old, right at that prime age for a huge breakout, we'll have every opportunity in this offense is the most explosive, the most athletic.

Camp has been great. And, you know, the price is pretty high for Garrett Wilson. It's pretty well baked in, but the ceiling could be higher than where he's being drafted. So I don't personally have a problem with it. It starts a season against Buffalo, Dallas, New England, Kansas City, Denver, Philly. So we've talked about the Jets start to the season. That's suboptimal. And... You know, you're going to see what this team has right away with the Jets. So anything to add on Mr. Wilson. He's really good. Yes, he is a tremendous player. Like, we're all in. I mean, the fantasy football community at large is in on Garrett Wilson. The ADP is a little scary because you're, you know, you're basically all but guaranteeing that the breakout is going to happen.

But all the background stuff for Garrett Wilson with the perceived upgrade of Aaron Rogers, you know, I kind of tongue in cheek brought up, well, what if Aaron Rogers is, like, what if this is another situation of the Denver Broncos happening? We don't think that's the case. But it's, like, there's definitely some risk with Garrett Wilson, but it's exactly the profile that you want to bet on because you want the upside. of if Garrett Wilson hits, top three is in the range of outcomes. Yeah, I mean, he's the number one on this team that is clear and evident. And I have no problem with him at that draft price. Where like the next player we have ranked higher clearly because it's number nine. So I'll just move it along. But it's Amun Rae St. Brown for the Detroit Lions. But when you're looking at these two, you know, talking about the risk of Garrett Wilson, Amin Ra finishing.

in the top three would be pretty surprising to me. Yeah. Like, Amun Ra is sensational. We haven't ranked very high, but just saying, you know, the risk of drafting a more, a player who is slightly more proven in Amman Ra versus slightly unproven for Garrett Wilson, but the, you want ceiling. If it was a full point per reception, I could be talked into Amman Ra above Garrett Wilson. I have them one spot below. You guys both have him higher, but certainly in half. and standard leagues. I want Garrett Wilson. I want the touchdown upside. We've seen, like, that's something that Aaron Rogers has always been able to do is provide high touchdown totals for his number one receiver. You know, Devante Adams, it was an automatic situation. He's given the keys to the red zone a lot of the time. Aaron Rogers is efficient down there, effective.

I think Garrett Wilson is a much higher upside play than Aman Ra. Agreed. But Amman Ra is going to be an automatic producer for your roster. So let's turn there. Being drafted, one spot higher at wide receiver 9 on average. Like I said, you guys are both a little bit higher on him than Garrett Wilson. And he is tied for the most receptions, 196 through the first two years of his career with Michael Thomas and Justin Jefferson. So this is a very, you know, if you. listen to interviews with him or you watch training camp video like this is a very driven individual to be great i think there were 20 wide outs taken ahead of it how many wide outs were taken ahead of where he can list them all off the top of his head he has had a persistent chip on his shoulder as a wide receiver since he came into the league and and this team has a lot of weapons so and we're not going to see jameson williams for a while marvin jones is older sam laport is a rookie jimier gibbs is out of the backfield like i don't see how it goes wrong from on raw

Outside of injury. No, that's the thing about Amun Ra is he is as safe as it comes. In half PPR scoring, he was the wide receiver eight last year. And he scored six touchdowns. Right. That's that's that's I mean, he could absolutely score a ton more. He had 106 receptions and only six touchdowns finishes a top 10 wide receiver. The offense now you've got another, you know, year with golf and. Everything is, you know, full steam ahead for him. I would agree that the, you know, the area that he lacks is the downfield stuff, right? So you're 1,500 yards. That's not going to happen for a player like that who's a possession receiver. So you're right. He's better in full PPR. If I'm staring down those two guys on the clock, I mean, I've got Amin Ra at my wide receiver 7. My stats have him finishing the season better than Garrett Wilson. I think that the.

odds are that he will finish higher than Garrett Wilson, but the conversation is definitely which one has the higher ceiling. And that's, if you're in the ultimate draft kit, pay attention to the upside meter that we have there because that is the difference there. I would probably still take Garrett Wilson ahead for the shot of superstardom. And just to highlight that a little bit more. So Amun Ra, you know, the season opened very well, wide receiver 14, wide receiver 3. gets banged up, okay, you know, kind of in and out of the lineup, getting low snaps, low opportunities. Once he was back and healthy, that's week eight. So from week eight through the rest of the season, in actual total points, he was the wide receiver six in that span. And yet, in that time period, on a weekly finish, he was in the top 10 three times. And every other game, he was outside of the top 20. Now, this is...

It's not bad because in those weeks, you're just saying that some spike weeks are happening for other players. He's just, he's very consistent. It's a lot like Keenan Allen. It is a lot like Keenan. Where it's just, he is a true, it depends on how you play. He's a chain mover. He's a, he's a stable piece to your fantasy football team through, because you know the yards will be there, you know the receptions will be there. But overall, he's not going to be jumping into the top five. on a weekly finish as much as these other players. Yeah, and we did talk about a little bit of positive regression potential inside the red zone for this team through the air. Right. Because of, you know, Jamal's touchdowns. And so you could hope. But these type of players like Keenan, you kind of peek at maybe an eight touchdown year. You sit around four or five every year and then you soak up PPR points and Amun Rale is that type of guy. Quick break back with number eight.

All right, at number eight, we have a 24-year-old wide receiver being drafted as the wide receiver seven. We've got them at eight. Mike's the highest at six. I'm at eight. Jason's at 10. And that would be C.D. Lamb of the Dallas Cowboys. The breakout finally happened last year. Wide receiver six overall was fourth in reception and targets, led the league in slot receiving yards. And from week eight on, he was the wide receiver, two in fantasy points per. game. So we've seen it with an offensive coordinator we trust. Now we have to trust C.D. Lamb to do it in spite of maybe a slight change in offense because DAC has been turnover prone, also in training camp from what I hear. I'm not worried about that, honestly. I'm worried about it when it comes on the heels of the amount of intercepts. Just a quick aside.

Like, mistakes are supposed to happen in training camp. So this is just like I'm talking about quarterbacks throwing interceptions. Don't freak out. I don't blame Andy. I don't blame you of like DAC was struggling with that the last couple of years. And if you're like, oh, well, the struggles continue. But don't overlook into interceptions during practice. Like the quarterbacks are encouraged. Make these throws. Like, Just try it. See what happens because you want to know what's going to work here as opposed to figuring it out if it's going to work during a game. Yeah. And I know that this offense is part of the transition, Kellamore, leaving. Mike McCarthy and company, Brian Schottenheimer taking over, is to put them in a position to protect the football. Score less. Their defense is strong. And, well, it's tough. It is tough. I mean, he was on pace for, you know, over the last.

10 games, 24 interceptions on the year. That's a huge problem. Happened in the playoffs as well. What was Dak's injury? Doc heard himself. Wasn't in his hand? It was a thumb. Yeah. So I don't know if that factored in or not, but the guy did break his thumb. Like was that his throwing hand on his right thumb? Yeah. So I don't know. Maybe that factored in. Yeah. So the team is transitioning. CD Lamb. Well, he have the same opportunity to put up this kind of a season. So the opportunity is the scary part for me. He has the same talent. He's an exceptional wide receiver and he's got the same quarterback. So you've got a lot of safe qualities here. But the opportunity is what's scary because last year you had Michael Gallup who wasn't fully, you know, he wasn't all the way back to full health. And you had the departure of Amari Cooper. You had Kellyn Moore with a fast pace of play. And I don't think that the...

I don't think that the offensive coordinator shift is going to make them run the ball even more. They ran so much. But I think it will slow them down. Pace of play. Pace of play will slow down. Total offensive snaps will go down as they want to rest the defense and play old school football a little bit, not so much that we're only going to run. But then you add Brandon Cooks in, and there's just a little bit more competition. for targets and a little slower pace of play. That's why I've got him at wide receiver 10. I mean, I'm still in on CD Lamb. I don't think he has a bad year by any stretch, but I think it is not as good as last year when he was the wide receiver 6. And I think it's important to say this right now because we're counting down the top 10 wide receivers. So when you hear us say something negative, it's because we're trying to find a way to differentiate between these players. These are all players.