WR Rankings Part Two + Buy/Sell, Sam Bowie'd - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/12

wide receiver 15 on our consensus rankings, which is well above ADP. He's a fifth round pick. That's why he's on every one of almost all of our teams. Wide receiver 20 by average job position. Mike has him at 11, Jason 12. I have him at 18, which has translated into me being a DJ Chark Hater, having him two ahead of his ADP. Look, this is still a tough situation. Jacksonville, I saw a mock draft this morning.

Do you know who went number one overall? Jacksonville drafted a quarterback of one overall in the, in the 2021 mock draft. Makes sense. You know, it's a push comes to shove situation, even if Gardner is okay. If your franchise is at the basement, which I'm not saying it will be, but that's the way the mock drafts have Jacksonville at the top for a lot of people. So if their defense is as bad as it is and they have the chance to draft a player, you know,

that's graded out as maybe the best quarterback prospect. Sir Lawrence? Yeah. Yeah, Trevor Lawrence. Highest graded quarterback prospects since Andrew Luck in 20, you know, 10 years ago. So what do you do? Do you stick with a sixth round guy that kind of was okay on a team that loses a lot of games? Look, if they have the first overall pick, they're going to take a quarterback. Yeah. But.

But that doesn't mean this year is void. I don't think they're going to be the first overall pick. Gardner Minshue was 500 as a starter. He was six and six. The defense is. The defense was bad last year, too. Not this bad. I was saying if you win four games, you're not the number one pick overall. But anyway, so back to DJ Chark. He was seemingly out of nowhere, but.

He really wasn't. He was a second-round pick. He's very tall, very fast in the mold of a younger AJ Green. And you paired him with Gardner Minshew. I love talking about deep passes, but Gardner Minshu had the best pass rating on deep attempts last year. Better than Patrick Mahomes, better than Kurt Cousins. And part of that is because he has, he has players like Chris Conley and DJ Chark.

turned into the number one receiver for Jacksonville. And I can't believe that he's going in the fifth and sometimes the sixth round. We talked about this early in the offseason, whether or not we could make DJ Chark a breakout for our ultimate draft kit. And we decided we couldn't because he's already broken out. Except not according to where you're drafting him. You're drafting him as the wide receiver 20.

That's not someone who broke out. From weeks 1 to 11, he was the wide receiver 5. Then he dealt with some injuries or maybe just regress to the mean, depending on what you believe was. He did have an injury. He had an ankle injury for the final 25% or so of the season. Sure, but you know, players play through that, get better, get back. But here's the thing. He was legitimately good. Statistically great. Josh Hermzmeier from 538 did this great new write-up.

with a new metric separation over expectation. So it's basically how good the player is doing compared to what most players would do in that situation. And DJ Charks 2019, they charted the last three seasons, DJ Charks last year ranks first among all players in that metric. He is a separator. So you talk about Minchu was good throwing a deep ball? Well, it helps to have the best separator.

Down the field. You can hear more on DJ Chark on the fire and ice episode. Right. Last Monday, Mike made the case further. A.J. Brown comes in at number 16 on our consensus wide receiver rankings. I have him at 13. Jason at 17. Mike at 18. You are living a boom bus type of life with A.J. Brown. But it was really, really boom from week 12 on last year. Just kind of took the fantasy world by storm.

And won people, a lot of championships that invested in A.J. Brown, the question marks around him have all been around what Ryan Tannehill will you get. Right. Because it wasn't pretty with Marcus Marietta at the beginning of the year. Obviously, AJ Brown was a rookie. I kind of, you know, you get a complete free pass with rookie season plus Marcus Marietta. But with Ryan Tannoh, he was a monster. The targets went up. Everything went up. Yeah. And A.J. Brown, I mean, it took until.

About week 10 for the Titans to go, oh, maybe we should use A.J. Brown the whole time. Stupid Tage Sharp. He was on the field for about 60% of the snaps up through that point, which is absolutely ludicrous. But, I mean, over 20 yards of reception, that's also ludicrous. It's not happening.

Again, I can't possibly. 8.9 yards after the catch per reception, which was I think number one in football. I cannot project those types of numbers for AJ Brown, but he is extremely interesting. It's funny we have this clump of players, you know, like Mike Evans, a 60 catch guy. AJ Brown, what's the ceiling for receptions for AJ Brown? 80. Oh, 80.

You think he can get to 80? Well, you said ceiling. 70. I think that's where he caps out at because we don't know if he's going to end up. Like you said, he was on the field 60%. If he's 100% player, if he becomes the read from week one, I don't have him for that. But I think that's the ceiling. But even still, he's not 100, like his best, his best case scenario is never going to be a possession consistent guy. He's going to be a little bit more boom-bust. Yeah, those games last year, week 12 on.

He was on a 66 reception pace when he started to get the big boom games. But we have a small sample size with AJ Brown, plain and simple. Sure. Very small sample size. I don't think the fantasy community has overinflated his ADP because we thought maybe that would happen. Tennessee had a run in the playoffs. I think it's been reasonable. So he's the kind of player that you love is your wide receiver too. Mm-hmm.

He's a perfect two, especially if you have somebody a little bit more stable. Yes, I was going to say that. If you were able to get, you know, a Julio or even first round, you take Michael Thompson, so you get someone with, that is a hundred reception guy. Or what if you go wide, running back, running back, and get Woods and A.J. Brown. Oh, yeah, I'll take it. Baby, yes. Calvin Ridley comes in at 17. We all have him ranked at 16. Oh, we are clearly on team Calvin Ridley. Yeah, so his, his ADP guys, 16.

So the world is on the exact same plane. Oh, man, I thought we were like breaking news that Calvin Ridley is projected to be a breakout in fantasy football. Since 1990, only eight wide receivers with their only eight wide receivers of 17 plus touchdowns and 1,600 receiving yards in their first two seasons combined. So those are names like Randy Moss, Odell Beckham, Markey's Colston, Larry Fitzgerald, AJ Green, Julio Jones.

That's a list I would like to be on. Moon hands. Oh, man. Hakeem. Hickin Nicks. Hakeem Nicks. Yes. You go Butler? Yeah, I was going Cardinals. And Calvin Ridley. So he pretty much mirrored his rookie year. I mean, statistically speaking. He scores touchdowns. He finished it 25 last year, but in 13 games. So he's a little bit better actually overall on a pace. And then he was number 20 in his rookie year. And he played a bizarre. It was very similar to AJ.

Brown in the sense that he wasn't on the field as much as you would have wanted him to be on the field until he had to be. But Muhammad Sunu is gone and Austin Hooper is gone. So this is, you're trying to get the Chris Godwin this year. You're trying to get the guy that going into the season, you go, I love him as a number two, but he has zero, zero chance to be the number one for this team because, you know, Julio's there. Because Mike Evans is there. It's almost hard to remember.

that last year it felt, I remember us saying like, well, he can't be the one. Because Mike Evans had been a dominant one. And now it seems like, well, no, we could have seen, you know, it seems impossible that he could be the one after this season. But I don't think that is impossible. So that's the upside that you're hoping when you spin that 16th wide receiver pick on Calvin Ridley. After they traded Mohamed Sanu, Calvin Ridley was averaging six receptions in 82 yards a game.

Like, those are big boy numbers. And I get that Austin Hooper was injured for some of those games as well. There's a lot of things that play when Ridley really started to take off last year before his injury. But how many touchdowns do you have him projected for? Ooh, I can pull that up. Because his rookie season, he put up 10, seven last year despite missing three games. He has been a touchdown beast. Well, he's, someone's got to catch the touchdowns that Julio refuses to. I just bats him down.

I only have him down for six. I've got him for eight. Yeah, I was going to say over under of eight based on how his pace has been at or above that. Push. Push. But we know he has the ability to be a touchdown guy. He is also one of these elite route runners. We're not breaking news here telling people about Calvin Ridley for the first time. The fantasy world is on Calvin Ridley. Most vacated targets of any team. Don't forget Austin Hooper is gone.

He was a first round NFL draft pick for a reason because he's a great wide receiver. Honestly, I do forget that. Like Calvin Ridley was a first round pick by a team when they drafted him. You went, really? You also have guaranteed passing volume there. You just know that Matt Ryan is going to throw the ball a lot. And O'Dale Beckham comes in at 18. Odell Beckham, Jr. finished at 18 last year.

Oh, how the mighty are falling. His ADP is 18th this year. Finished at 26 last year. And yes, his first three years in the league, six, five, four, and fantasy finish. But the last three years have been rough. 83rd, 16th, 26. Yes, there have been injuries. Yes, there have been injuries he's played through. Yes, yes, yes. We have excuses for an Odell. But here we are. Excuses or no excuses. Three straight years of disappointment. Look, if I'm grabbing, you know, A.J. Brown or.

Odell Beck, someone in this range. He's the Ronald Jones of my wide receivers. I was not high on him last year. I didn't, you know, I was calling for the Browns to be a bus, but I look at the opportunity here. You don't have to draft Odell Beckham in the first round. You're getting him in the third round, the back of the third round, as the wide receiver 18. There's nobody in this range that I think has the ceiling.

Oda Beckham's ceiling is the wide receiver won. He had a thousand yards last year, plenty of targets, and was a complete unmitigated disaster. I still believe that's the case. I mean, when he was putting up the five and four finish, he was getting 158, 169 targets. Last year 133 and you got Kevin Cefancy coming in. Do you think that the targets could be there in this offense for him to actually finish number one?

I think they can be there. I'm not projecting it because we have him down here at wide receiver 18. Sure, sure, sure. I'm just asking. Yeah, I still believe in the talent of Odell Beckham. And Andy referenced the fire and ice. When did I talk about Odell Beckham? I don't know, recently. But anyways, so I'll make the case. Listen to all the episodes and find it. Really quickly. When I was researching for Odell Beckham, I came across a quote from December that I don't hear people talking about very much. But is Beckham,

talks about something happened to his body in training camp. And we're used to seeing players on the injury report week in and week out. You know, you just... If it's a Patriot for sure. Yeah. Yes, for the Patriots for sure. And you just, it's just a glancing blow. It's whatever. I see them all on the injury report all the time. But Odo Beckham was...

You watched the tape of O'Dell Beckham, and even with all the tumult that was going on with the team, bad play from Baker Mayfield, like, O'Dell was not the same player that we saw two years ago. So I make the excuse. I'm fine. I'm there. I know it's an excuse, but he was hurt. He has the ability to be a top five wide receiver, and to get a player like that at wide receiver 18 is wild.

The easy way to not go through the Odell Beckham experience in 2020 is to not draft him. So this is a... That would. If you don't want to deal with it, like there are certain players that are an adventure. They're not like... This is not Julio Jones. We just talked about Julio yesterday. This is not Julio Jones. It's an adventure. Oh, at best. Yeah, I mean... Put out my fedora. Give me my whip. You're not wrong about those narratives about the injury, but we...

unequivocally, he has not done it with Baker Mayfield. Questions about Baker, Stafansky, Beckham's health, Cleveland offense, Cleveland in general, has a little bit of a... Sure. Baker was bad. His offensive line was much worse than the year prior, and Odo Beckham was injured. Those are the ways... I guess that's why his ADPs were... Those are the ways that I think there's opportunity for change where we know the offensive line is better. That's a barring future injury. That's a done deal.