Early WR Rankings Countdown: 20-11 + Target Power! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 4/18

I think his upside is certainly higher than 17. Now, he's a safe player, but safe doesn't mean that you're without upside. Like you said, he missed, you know, the majority of the first half of the season. And when he came back in week 11, he was the wide receiver four from then on out. So I do feel like we are a little low on... Yeah, I mean, yes, in cumulative stats. He was over 13 fancy points a game. Everyone we've talked about is nowhere near that. Sure. It was a consistency blast. Yes, it was a blast. Where in that time frame, so weeks 12 through 18, week 18, he was the overall wide receiver one against the Denver Broncos, but up through there, he was never higher than wide receiver 13. Not that that's bad, but I'm saying...

He showed what he could do in a spurt this year, but was injured for the beginning part of the year and hasn't had a top 10 fantasy finish since 2019. Yeah, I mean, the injuries are concerning for an older player. There is risk with Keenan Allen. And I do expect, as we talked about with Mike Williams, that they're going to add. another wide receiver here, an heir apparent to Keenan Allen. But I would just want to point out that his upside, you know, when I say he was over 13 fantasy points a game, that's including the injury games in the beginning. That last stretch, he was 15 points a game for fantasy and consistent. There's, I mean, you're the dude for a good offense as a possession receiver. I didn't see anything obviously on film at the end of last year to say,

he's, you know, lost a step. Because obviously we're getting to the age where you don't want to be holding the back. You don't want to be there when he does lose a step, which will happen. That could happen this year. If you want to take him off your boards because, you know, he's going to be playing at 31 and you just want to swing for upside and youth, I don't really blame you. That's kind of my normal strategy. But I like the situation, the system for him, the quarterback, his talent, what he did last year. And I will probably be drafting him. See, I.

I asked that question because I would rate him very low on the upside meter because of his age and the fact that they're going to add a player and because he's more of a, you know, those games that he succeeded in 14 targets, you know, those type of game. So I would put him low there. His best ball ADP is much lower than any of us have him ranked. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think I'm going to have him quite a bit. He's outside the, he's not even a wide receiver two. That's silly. How could he not finish as a wide receiver two or better next year?

other than just I just feel like we should have the same conversation as Adam Thielen with him. No. Because there was a point, I mean, I feel like you were trying to get rid of Adam Thielen for like four years. And with due to age. And like 31 is not a great age. Because you're going to have, you're going to have more injuries potentially crop up for him. And that has to be a factor where Adam Thielen was still kind of. chugging along with touchdowns and things like that. Keenan Allen is just his routes are still sharp and I think he'll still be demanding, you know, that plus targets again. I'm glad you brought up feeling because that's, and talking about these, these archetype players, because you look at what Larry Fitzgerald did when he was 33, 34, he was a slot possession wide receiver whose route running and hands were just.

unbeatable. You could throw him the ball and he can get 100 catches on the season. And yeah, he's not a burner. He's not going to get double digit touchdowns. He's not going to average 16 yards per reception. But like Adam Thielen, you know, he was a guy that, you know, every single year, he was a long, you know, 13.9, 12 and a half yards per reception, all of a sudden when he was 31, it went, he had the touchdowns, but it went down to 10.8 yards per reception. Then 10.2 last year, he's, he's just not built to be that style of player. I think that.

It should work for Keenan going forward to be that short area possession, you know, 10 and a half yards per reception type of player who just accumulates massive volume in that offense. Devante Smith at 16, 24 years old, being drafted at 13. Mike's got him at 18. Why do you hate him, Mike? The green jerseys. Okay. Just not a favorite color even though. Green with envy. You're in a green shirt right now, but just you don't like the. It's not Eagle Green though. Okay. This is... Yeah, that's puke green. Olive? Oh, that's what I meant. Olive puke. Olive puke. Olive puke. Very nice, Mike. Thank you. You're welcome. 136 targets, 95 for 1196 and 7. Finished at 10. I mean, it was a great year for Devante Smith. And I guess the question I'd have to throw out there first is, you know, was this just a special season for Philadelphia?

and did we see some peaks, whether it's from Jalen Hertz or Devante Smith and, you know, A.J. Brown, does it cap the ceiling of Devante Smith? Like, what's the, like, if you had to project the next five years of DeWante Smith and its average fantasy finish, are you putting him at wide receiver 10 where he just finished? Oh, that's, maybe close to that. It's, AJ Brown is not the issue to me. The issue is Dallas Goddard. And what does that offense look like when all three players are on the field and all three are doing their thing? Because the Devante Smith breakout, it lined up pretty well with Dallas Goddard's injury. Now I know there was a little bit of overlap, you know, week 16 through 18 where Goddard was back. But, I mean, he's just recovering from the injury. And they're trying to work his way back into the offense. And so that's my concern is.

While Jalen Hertz is just got the bag, deserved to get the bag, he's not going to be putting up Patrick Mahomes' 5,000-yard seasons where you can really sustain a whole bunch of guys. And my concern is that A.J. Brown will get his. I think that he's the true number one of the team. And then it'll be Dallas Goddard and Devante Smith kind of fighting for. for number two on the team. Smith could certainly take that role, but I'm baking in the risk of what he did last year with the excitement for him moving into next year that his ADP might be a little bit too rich for me. Yeah, he's a difficult prospect because you put it, I think, accurately, Andy of questioning, was that just a magical season for the Eagles? Are they going to come back down to Earth a little bit? Probably, right? Their schedule will be harder because they did so well this last season.

Usually when a team does as great as they did, they're going to revert. They lost all their coaches. Their coaches are gone. Yeah, there is that too. Offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator. Then they took people from their teams. Like, there's a lot of turnover in Philly. And so I would expect it to be a less magical season. But put that to the side, Devante Smith is an outstanding wide receiver. I mean, you. He's a top 10 NFL wide receiver to me. I don't know how you could be much better than him. I mean, it's a shame that he's not, you know, 200 pounds and can bully people around. But as far as the skill set of a wide receiver, he's as good as you could ask for in all facets of the game. So if this is a high powered offense, you know, we've been talking about Tyler Lockett and.

Brandon Iyuk and these kind of twos for the team because he is the two. A.J. Brown will be the one. But they weren't that far in targets, 145 to 135 somewhere around there with the targets. He was like 10 away. And they're still upside for him. It wasn't like he had 1,600 yards and 12 touchdowns. He was great, but 1196 and 7 sounds repeatable to me. When did Goddard get hurt? He missed weeks 11 through 15. Okay, so it was a smaller window than I thought. His, Devante Smith's target pace from before and after the buy went up quite a bit. I mean, he was, you know, as consistent as they come in terms of getting targets every week, 899, 8, 8, 8, 8, 12, 13, 8. So it's a lot like Jason Higgins to me. Offense you believe in, players that are legitimately talented, not just opportunistic.

Devante Smith is a really, really good player. Yes, he is. You know, I just, the only thing I'll say, if you want to say anything about him is I think he had four games inside the top 10 on a weekly finish. So out of 17 weeks. Yeah, his upside is not, he's not going to have those many week winning performances. And AJ Brown have like a three touchdowns week or something like that. That sounds very AJ Brown. DeAndre Hopkins at 15. who still averaged more fantasy points than that Keenan Allen season. He's at 13.3 in nine games played. He's only 30 years old. He'll be 31, though, as well as Keenan. Do you guys have Keenan or Hopkins higher? Okay. Hopkins is really tough, right? Because right now he's going to be in Arizona. The presumption is he's not going to be a Cardinal. We don't know where he's going to go. There's teams where he could land like.

the Buffalo Bills where all of a sudden he's not necessarily the dude. It'll be great, a great offense. But now you're not talking about 150 plus targets when you're splitting that with Steph Diggs. And there's other teams he could go to where he could show up and have a Devante Adams like season where he's got 160, 70 targets. Let me give you the four teams that he decided to on Instagram respond to whether he'd be interested in playing. Oh, I did not see this. The teams he was in favor of playing for. Give me the peak season for these two teams. Okay. Bills? Peak season would be wide receiver 11. I agree with that. Chiefs? Peak season would be wide receiver three. Okay. I think that would be really good. His body language in the video did not have him excited to play for the Patriots or Jets as options. Patriots have been rumored very often for Mr.

DeAndre Hopkins. Maybe he does not believe in the quarterback situation. Is that because the Patriots don't? That would be a good reason why. Yeah. Zab! Zab! Hopkins, look, yeah, like you said, it's a hard projection right now. This ranking is based on the talent we believe he still has, and the destination will determine our final ranking. Yeah, exactly. I mean, what we learned last year with Devante Adams moving teams, he's older. but he looked great on film. That's a lot of what we saw from Hopkins. Hopkins came back. And when he got back from his suspension in week six, week seven, week eight, week nine, week 10, week 11, week 12, he was a wide receiver two or better every single week. A wide receiver won half of those weeks. He was absolutely outstanding. So TBD on. He was, he was fantastic. And he still had some good games with Colt McCoy. I'm not sure if you had said that. And then it was that who came in for the Cardinals?

For the Christmas... Did I stop watching then? David Blow? Was it Blow? No. It was... Shoot. We'll have to look that up. Trace McSorley? Yes. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. So we were McSorily mistaken. Shocking. Hopkins production fell apart when Trace McSorley was the quarterback. Also, something I don't know if you guys had realized this because I did not. When they signed Hopkins to the huge extension, He had a no trade clause. That no trade clause went by by because of his six game suspension. Oh, he violated it because of that? So the Arizona Cardinals can send them back to the Texans. This isn't a, but I'm saying they're not, Hopkins has no leverage, you know, business wise over the Cardinals saying, nope, the Patriots are the highest bidder and we're shipping you to New England. It's very interesting.

that that took place. I did not realize that about Mr. Hopkins and the suspension. Things have gone downhill for Arizona. I don't know if you guys had noticed that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm now in the crash, crash the season for Caleb. Is that what they're saying? I don't know. I'm trying to collapse for Caleb. That makes more sense. Don't mind it. Although we've already ruined a bunch of quarterbacks, so I'm not sure he wants to come here and be ruined. Yeah. Hopkins wants out is going to get out. Buda Baker wants out. It's going to get out. Our star quarterback is injured and rehabbing. He'll get out too. Don't worry. Yeah. Uh, yeah, let's not talk about them anymore. Um, on Ross St. Brown at 14, just 23 years old, 106 receptions, 11, 161 yard, six touchdowns. Finished at wide receiver eight. What? No, he did. Yeah. No, he was. No, he didn't. He was unbelievable.

You finish inside the top 24 only six times. So that is a product of consistency. I'm looking at this game log. This guy is the wide receiver 8? Mm-hmm. Playing 17 weeks goes a long way, doesn't it? Well, he missed a game. There are a lot of games where he scores 10.4, 10.4, 11.7, 11.1. Yeah, okay. And those games are technically not wide receiver 2s. But they're good games. But they're still really good games. I know that our color is yellow, but those are solid games you'd be happy with. You were happy with him so awesome. The fantasy footballers, we are in fact doing Amman Ra Dirty. Five games that he wasn't double digits. That's a better way to look at the great season that Amman Ross and Brown had. It was great. Now, again, this is going to be another one of those situations where people.

You know, how heavily do you invest? Mike and I am at 15. Jason has them a little higher at 11. I think we all believe in Jameson Williams having an ascension there. You know, what does this team do in the draft? They got a great offensive line. Is Jared Goff going to put together a good season? Like there are variables there, but if you have variables around a situation, I want it to be a player that gets 140 plus targets and catches 100 passes. I mean, It helps fix the issue. He finished his rookie season on the season at wide receiver 21. If you don't remember what happened, he went freaking nuclear at the end of the year. One people championships was unstoppable. There were a lot of questions as to whether that was situation or whether he's that talented. What he proved to me in his sophomore year last year, finishing as the wide receiver eight and being solid every single week, is that he is that talented. He is going to demand those targets. And in this modern NFL,

a big bodied slot receiver can get 100 receptions, he's going to get his. And if James steps up, I don't see that as something that is going to preclude Amman Ra from getting near 100 receptions again. So in a PPR league, I am 100% in. It's going to be Jared Goff. I don't think that the lions are going to trade up. You listen to Dan Campbell talk. He just literally comes out and says, I love golf. We love golf. Everything's on the table. But he's our dude. And why wouldn't he be? He was good. You're the odds on favorite to win the division. So I think they're going to invest in. What? Yeah, right now. No. It makes sense. Minnesota? Who would you put? Minnesota. Yeah, Minnesota makes sense too. Sure. But yeah, they are last, last I checked. That's wild. Which is all that you need to do to ruin their season. I'm not saying they don't have a chance to win the division, but the.

To be the betting favorites is interesting. I'm pretty persuaded by what Jason said. I think I'm a little too low at 15. I don't see a lot of objections to or things that stand in his way to repeat what he did. And I don't think Jameson Williams is going to hurt him. I mean, DJ Chark is gone. Jameson Williams is a big play guy. You know, you look at the running game. Well, the running game was too efficient last year. Maybe he scores more touchdowns. I don't really see a lot of problems with Amman Ross short of. some other weapon being added to the offense, which I mean, I guess is possible. When you have a guy in his rookie year catch 76% of his passes, follow that up with 146 targets still catching 73%. You don't go away from that player. It is a chain moving guarantee. He's got separation on every play. Yeah. T. Higgins at 13. Still no extension for T. Higgins. Rumors abounding. 24 years old.

We all got them in the same spot just outside the top 12. I'm guessing they have to resolve a Joe Mixen situation before they can. They may need to resolve a Joe Burrow situation before they extend T. Higgins too. That's coming too. Contract year for T. Higgins. He's going to be expensive. Jamar Chase is their one. T. Higgins is as good as it gets, though, on the other side of Jamar Chase. He's just 24 years old. Leads the NFL and contested catches. passes the eye test every time you watch and play football. Had 109 targets last year, Jamar Chase was up at 134, finished at wide receiver 17. Would you have looked at last year and considered it a good, like a meet your expectation season for T. Higgins? No, I don't think so. I think it was maybe a little worse than we thought it would be. It's hard to say, is that expectations or is that hope? Because they were kind of one and the same with T. Higgins.

certainly would have wanted him to be nearer to a wide receiver 1. As the wide receiver 17 this last year, he did have a solid season. And I see a repeat of this where he's going to be a really, really solid wide receiver 2. But I do think we have, you know, the idea that he and Jemar Chase are both going to have explosive wide receiver 1 seasons, this happens very frequently in the NFL where a team will have two. wide receivers from the same team finish as a wide receiver one. I don't think that's going to happen with T. Higgins this next year. Now, there are some arguments that with if you lose Joe Mixon and they pass more and they've lost Hayden Hurst, okay, maybe then T. Higgins is more involved, there's more targets. But I feel like what we saw this last year is going to be kind of a carbon copy this next season. There was nothing he did wrong. He was very good. He helped the team a lot. And this is who he is. Now, Chase did miss five games last year.

And that would have been an area. Maybe you think Higgins could have jumped up higher than wide receiver 17. The only thing I will, the only thing I'll really say about T. Higgins is I don't think he'll be on any of my teams because I don't think he's getting disrespected in any sort of draft format. I think people want a piece of the Bengals offense. It's sexy. It's flashy. And so they pay up for it. And, you know, I don't think he's going to end up on my team because I have to take him where likely I'm taking him to be my one.

and I don't know how comfortable I am spinning that draft capital where I don't get a, I don't get a bargain on him. No, and to speak to Jamar Chase missing games, he missed weeks eight through 12 right in the middle of the season. During that stretch, that was T. Higgins' best stretch for fantasy makes sense, but he would have been on a, like that four game. Stretch would have been a 153 target pace, not 109 targets. He would have been scoring, he did score 15 and a half fantasy points per game in half PPR. So if you say, okay, well, now Jamar's going to play the whole season, maybe it's not wide receiver 17. Maybe it's, you know, wide receiver 20, 21, 22, 24. But if you're playing the game of, well, if Jamar Chase plays the whole season, you'd have to ask, okay, what if T. Higgins plays the whole season, because he technically missed one game.

but he really missed four games because he was knocked out of three contests very early on in the game. I love T. Higgins, but I don't disagree with anything you said, Andy. I think he's being drafted appropriately. He has huge upside just on a week-to-week basis, even when Jemar Chase is on the field. You've seen games where T. Higgins, he takes over that particular game. I love him. I think he's a fantastic wide receiver too. And those players, if their counterpart goes down, I mean, you brought up Donate Smith. Like if AJ Brown gets hurt, Devonce Smith is a world beater. Same goes with T. Higgins, something that is built in there for sure. So I do think this offense is going to look different, though. Like we're talking about T. Higgins right now, if they draft Bejohn or they draft. Oh, man. Or they draft Michael Mayer, who is, I mean, I know people in Cincinnati would love to draft.

a top flight tight end into this offense. There's a lot of expectations of that potentially happening if Dallas doesn't take them first. So we'll see. Chris Oliva comes in at 12. Yes. 22 years old. Rookie season lived up to that hype. It wasn't a great end to the season. He was the 11th overall pick in 2022. Over the last decade, ranks top five among all rookie wide receivers in yards per route run and targets per route run. Everything that you saw with your eyeballs all season long said, Chris Oliva is going to play a long time at an elite level in the National Football League. Is Derek Carr enough to give you the confidence to put him inside of this top 12? Yeah, I mean, Derek Carr, this isn't.

me saying Derek Carr is a huge upgrade and Chris Olav is to the moon. But this is to say Derek Carr is the same as what he just had. He's better. Sure, he's better. He's better than what Dalton was. My point is he did it with Dalton. So I'm not saying Derkar isn't good enough to be able to allow Chris Olave to succeed. You read that stat of being top five in yards per out run and targets per route run. The other guys there that he's with is Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, O'Dell Beckham, and A.J. Brown, world beaters. And that's kind of the talent you saw on the field. So I don't trust this offense necessarily. The, I don't know, the game plans and.

the patentless shenanigans of this offense kind of had me scratching my head, but they also lost a lot of pieces last year in the wide receiver position and kind of scrambled. So I don't know how much of that was just them patchworking their offense versus having a poor system in place. But the talent of Chris Oliva is undeniable. I think Olave is a stud. Is there any world where after this year we're looking at him as a top five type of guy? Yeah, I think so. The numbers just form more context this past year was 2.42 yards per route run. That is, I mean, that's ahead of C.D. Lamb. That's ahead of Amun Ra. That is like, you know, just behind Devante Adams. And 26 and a half percent of his routes, he was getting a target. That is.

truly a top-tier number. I, and in fantasy football, we want to target these second-year-wide receivers because they make the jump. You know, see Devante Smith this past year where if you know a player is good for sure, you aren't speculating. Because there's some second-year-wide receivers where you have to speculate of, like, back when I was in on Michael Pittman, it was the second year plus some speculation. This is, Crystal Lavey's good. He is. a very, very good wide receiver. If he gets at least a slight upgrade in the quarterback position, he is going to be an absolute monster. His first 10 games, his pace was 86 receptions on 140-plus targets, 1,300 yards, and five touchdowns as a rookie. And what I like to see last year when watching those games was how quickly as a rookie he became the go-to guy. Like if you needed a third down and you needed a big play, they were willing to throw it his way. And you had, like, look at what Devante Adams.

The change of the archetype for Devante Adams last year. With the Packers, he was more of a shorter yardage, guys. Yes, he could hit a home run every now and then. But last year with the Raiders, I think that was his highest average depth of the target of his entire career because they were just sending him down the field and he was succeeded. Different offense. But the point being, Derek Carr was the one. Send in the car. Was the one getting it done. This is, it's sounding a little too much like a gooey love fest for Derek Carr. I don't want that to be what this sounds like. Nope, my guy, Sam House. My guy, it's Derek Carr. Yes, but seasons off to a great start. He, to me, is an upgrade over Andy Dalton. Oh, gosh, yeah. And I think, like, the discussion of, we won't, it won't be Garrett Wilson, I was talking about him today, but making the choice of like, do you want Oliva or do you want Garrett Wilson? I think it is a.