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

On today's episode of Prominent Quarterback, well, he got that bag of money. We break it down and we talk about wide receivers. We're ranking 20 through 11. We're counting down some very, very serious discussion here about Bengals players, about Eagles players, about Seahawks wide receivers. Don't miss a moment. Leave us a comment and enjoy. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. The Fantasy Footballers podcast. Tuesday, April 18th, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway, Judge Diamati, Al Borland, bald guy, inducers alley today. That would be Papa Josh. Who is, congrats. Almost 60 years old. Yeah, that's a big. Closing in. It's a big decade for you. Man. I'm so excited. He doesn't look a day over 52. No. So that's the great part.

Yeah, but I mean, I wondered, I have always wondered, your twilight years. You know, what are you thinking about? What kind of things do you? The books. The best is in the past. Your future is, it's shorter. Mm-hmm. And it's barely there. It's grim, really. Cheeseburgers. Yeah, nice. I mean, well, we have a wide receiver show today. I'm excited. The countdown begins. Wide receivers rankings 20 through 11. That's right. There are some interesting names in this list. This is the prime area where the do not respect wide receivers show. Yeah. At 20. We're coming out of the gates hot because you guys won't respect this man. Really? Yes. I mean, at 20, I remember verbatim last year. It's telling you both on the show, are we disrespecting this man? And you both said no. Well, let's get ready. So you watch yourself.

It is for the record. It's just Andy that's disrespect to them now. We have moved forward. Oh, is that based on existing current rankings? Yes. Oh, okay. Yeah, maybe. The Ultimate Draft Gets available, the presale right now, lowest possible price. Ultimate DraftKit.com. You can dive into the Dynasty Pass. I can tell you because I was witness to it probably two hours ago. There are some exciting new features on the way. Yes. I was actually kind of blown away. I normally expect purely mediocre work from our team. And this was just above that. What is great is you're referencing a very, very cool new tool and system that will affect a lot of things. And that's great. But that's like one of four big upgrades on the way. We've kind of announced this on the footcast, but we're going to have Superflex.

rankings in there very, very soon for all the dynasty and in season. Oh, man, dozens of people out there are so excited. Brooks and his friends. You super flex people. You rap scallions. And then they love their quarterbacks. You know, we've got risk ratings. We're adding a brand new feature called the upside meter this year that's going to help inform you in terms of variability with a player, how volatile they're going to be. And the potential for some of these players that look, We can't justifiably rank them in maybe the top 10, top 15. But there are players out there ranked in the 20s and the 30s. That have top 15 potential. And we're going to be able to illustrate that in the projections in the Ultimate Draft Kit. And very excited about the progress for making there. It releases on June 1st, but the dynasty pass is available now at Ultimate DraftKit.com. There is also something happening next week, Andy. What would that be, Mike? Oh, it's Ultimate Draft Week.

Again? I mean, it happens every single week. The draft is... Every single week? Every week is ultimate draft week. But every year, I mean, look, the NFL draft is next week. So next week is the ultimate draft week. Very excited about that. I mean, there's a lot going on. Yeah. Football is, I mean, we're hearing rumors. Come on to the show today hearing rumors about Dalvin Cook. Is he going to get traded? Is he going to get cut on June 1st? I don't know. Nobody knows. Into the news we go. News and notes from Around the League. Well, the Eagles and Jalen Hertz have agreed to a five-year, $255 million contract. Where's that money drop out? Yeah, I'm sure Al can find that. There it is. Get paid, Jalen. Congratulations. $180 million in guarantees, no trade clause. He is now the number one highest paid quarterback in the NFL and new money average per year.

Not that that's surprising. It seems like all the new deals are always going to be number one or close to it. But for a team that definitely wavered a little bit on Jalen Hertz, right? Last offseason, flirting with Russell Wilson, wasn't sure Jalen Hertz was going to be the guy. And then Jalen Hertz deserves all of the accolades, praise, and credit, along with Jason for believing in him. Jalen Hurts gets paid. But Jailen Hertz, Jason, the praise they both deserve pretty even. Yeah, I would say so. 50-50 between. One two. One believed. One did all those things and, you know, helped carry his team into the Super Bowl. The other one watched the Super Bowl. Watched it happened. I was there. We were both there, Mike. I was like, yeah, Jalen, I knew. I knew since you got picked him round two. I mean, if you're a dynasty player, this certainly is a, you know, you didn't expect him to go anywhere.

He's been amazing, but this doesn't hurt. Nope. Get him paid. Very exciting. Lamar Jackson has been reportedly offered a deal that includes 200 guaranteed. All right. Let's wrap this up, Lamar. I know you want, well, allegedly, you want a fully guaranteed deal. 200. If this is really what the offer is, let's just, let's wrap this up. Go play with Odell Beckham. Go play with Rashad Bateman. with the new heavy passing scheme. Let's go. This deal is really good for the NFL and for quarterbacks because right now what Lamar Jackson has been doing has been trying to essentially, and not even incorrectly, you can argue rightfully, hold the NFL hostage and say, no, we want fully guaranteed contracts. If Deshaun Watson can get it, I can get it. But now that the...

potential MVP candidate who went to the Super Bowl, who is just as young and good as Lamar Jackson, deserving of an equal contract, does not get the Deshawn Watson level guaranteed money. This, I feel like, brings some normalcy to the quarterback market. And I do think Lamar Jackson will be forced to reevaluate. Now that Hertz has signed a contract like this, Lamar signed a contract like this. Yeah, the Chargers. And the Bengals over here like, oh, thank goodness. Thank you, Jaylen. Right. Thank you for doing that. Because if they dug in together, ooh. Well, it's the age old question. It's $200 million enough. Right. And Brooks has, I mean, I don't know. What's your opinion, Brooks? Is that enough? Nah, not quite. Yeah, 200's a little low. But, um, yeah, I mean, Mike, you have been, you want this thing wrapped up. Let's, I got to make a keeper selection next week, guys. It is coming up, isn't it?

Yeah, for those that are newer to the show and don't know what we do, our League of Record has a unique format where we, it's a three-keeper league, but we have a process by which we have a franchise selection that you choose one player and they're locked onto your roster, which is great. And then you choose three more from your roster of last year and those three going to a keeper lottery. They cannot match the position of the franchise player. And then we have a special day in our league that is right after the NFL draft where we all jump on Zoom, everybody's together. And that keeper lottery happens. And you only get two of the three at random on your team. And the other one goes back into the draft. It's a way that we've, you know, in the keeper leagues, sometimes some of the, all the best talent's gone. It's a way to randomize that a little bit, get some good talent at the top of the draft.

It's always very exciting. You're rooting for, everyone's rooting for a certain three-pack that they hope they get. And you've got to make a choice, huh? I have to lock in who goes into that lottery. So if he's signed, Lamar is now, what? Is he in the lottery? Yes. Who's your franchise? Christian McCaffrey. Okay, decent choice. Decent choice. Not the best, but. Yeah. You know who's going back in the draft? DeAndre Swift, get off my team. Bringing me down. That'll be a new twist. Bad vibes. Everybody chooses one player from their roster that they get to kick out of the league for a year. So that player doesn't exist in fantasy. It can't be drafted for one year. It's a relegation. We're so angry with this player. It's the spite pick of the of the year. And so DeAndre Swift wouldn't be available for anybody. Which that would be doing the rest of the league a favor though.

I'm being sneaky. I'm putting them back. I'm tantalizing everyone to draft DeAndre Swift again. Putting that bomb right underground. Enjoy. Enjoy your landmine. No, no, no. See how sweet that fruit is. This will be the year, Mike. This will be the year. But it was not this year. You just need to go Gibson, Swift, as your RB one and two. Come on. Do it. All right. The chiefs re-signed Justin Watson, do a two-year deal. Okay. Superstar. The Dolphins signed. Chosen Anderson. That's formerly known as Robbie Anderson. Formally known as Robbie Anderson. If you choose to change your name more than once, do I have to oblige? It's just, it is going for Robbie to Robbie where you just change the spelling a little bit. That's not really changing your name. But I really feel like that was an unnecessary move because not only was it unnecessary when it happened, but now you didn't even stick with it.

That change was not important, Robbie. No, chosen. Sorry. Whatever went to release Anderson. Oh, not anymore. No. He's on the, he's on a team that can actually win a Super Bowl now. From the bench. Whatever, man. He'll get the last laugh. More Dalvin Cook discussion. Vikings general manager came out. Said conversations are always ongoing with him. We're trying to be solutions oriented and always trying to put our roster together within our constraints. Dalvin Cook will not be a Minnesota Viking. Sure seems like that. Yeah. Like the odds of that, I put it sub 25%. They're going to try to trade him. If there's any kind of market whatsoever, they might cut him. I would just be surprised. They need the need the money. And I don't think they want to invest that in Delvin.

ESPN's John Kahn reporting the commanders have made it clear they believe in second year quarterback Sam Hal. Nice. You guys are. You're in for a year. Yeah, I am. And here's the thing. I like you address me with that. You know what it means to me. It was a global thing for everybody. Global, global. Sam Hal to take over the starting job in 2023, sure. I think he's going to be good. I really do. No, for the NFL or for fantasy? For both. I think Sam Howell is a good prospect. I mean, the commanders, yeah, why do you think that? Well, I love this tape last year. He's a dual threat guy that, to me, at his age, he's still very, very young. He looked as good as anybody last year. It was like him and Pickett.

were both first round grades to me, and I think they got a screaming deal on Sam Hall, and he's going to get the opportunity. I mean, we'll find out, right? Obviously, he fell in the draft. He's not someone that has the draft capital where they are going to stick with him if they lose games, and the mandars are probably going to lose a decent amount of games. So I'm not saying he's off to the beginning of a Hall of Fame career, but I do think he's a quality player. 11 for 19, 169 yards, one touchdown, one interception, three sacks. That was the week's... That was his only game. Which week was that? Week 16? 18. Who was he playing against? Cowboys. Okay. I mean, Cowboys were a top tier defense. Who won the game? The Manders. Oh, undefeated. So he's won or no. I think somebody might want this to happen more than it really will, but we'll roll with it. My guy, Sam Hal for Jason. Is he on your dynasty team? Him and Trask, I'm sure.

No, I do not believe I have some help. How did you let that happen? Fell through the cracks. You could have just scooped them up for probably like two bucks off of the waiver wire. Shall we move on to wide receivers? Sure. Wide receivers. All right, 20 through 11 at number 20 overall. Tyler Lockett, inevitable. The Frank Gore of the wide receiver position last year. 84 for over 1,009. Finished at wide receiver 13. Ho-hum, it's just what he does. Top 15 each of the last five years. It's very consistent with Gino at quarterback during the year. Had a decrease in the boom games in 2021 with Russell Wilson. He had 31% great games. You can go back to the truth episodes, listen in about that definition. But two great games last year, so not as many boom games.

But we were sitting here in the middle of the summer last year saying, Tyler Lockett, D.K. Metcalf, are we just being stupid to doubt them? Because it was Gino Smith. The answer is we were stupid to doubt them. I don't think that we were stupid to doubt them. Sure, the end product was they were fantastic. Doubting Gino Smith going into the season, I think, was a proper thing to do. Gino Smith was, is the reason that we were all. so horrifically wrong on these guys and you got a huge ADP discount on both of them. And Geno Smith is back. You have, you know, the continuation of that career. Can he build on what he did last season? And Tyler Lockett should be another draft A value because people will be focused again on D.K. Metcalfe, which I have D.K. Metcalf ranked higher, so I'm not going to argue with that. But Tyler Long, it's going to be fantastic. He's going to be over 1,000. He's going to have.

You know what, seven plus touchdowns? He's such a good, good wide receiver. Yeah, he's solid. And he's the reason that I won't, I probably won't draft any DK Metcalf next year. I have Metcalf higher, sure. But if you draft Metcalf, you are basically saying that you can't draft Lockett later. That's true. And right now Metcalf is going in the third round. Tyler Lockett's a seventh round pick, depending on your, on your scoring format. He's right around that six, seven turn. That is an exceptional value. You know he's going to be better than that. But because he's the number two, or at least the perceived number two, for his team, it's hard for players to go in and say, I'm going to bet on the wide receiver two for Gino Smith to do it again.

So we know he's not going to skyrocket up. If he's a little higher come, you know, the August draft days that will have, then he'll still be a value. You called him the Frank Gore, and you're exactly right, because Frank Gore did this year after year after year after year. He outproduced his expectation, outproduces his average draft position, but he just didn't have enough, like, juice to where people could think he could be the number one. And so he just... People picked other people. They swung for the fences. People picking other people. They swung for the fences and tried to go for upside instead of saying this is a really rock solid pick. So I'll have Tyler Lockett all over the place. Yeah. And I mean, I think I think I understand why you'd want to have DK Metcalf. I mean, he's more physically dominant. You know, he had more receptions than Lockett did. But Lockett scored more. And like you said, you do.

If you take D.K., you're done. You're not taking both of these guys. And the value on lock, it's going to be better than DK. He's still young. D.K. could have a much higher ceiling in terms of a future season, so people are going to prioritize that. Yeah, D.K. Metcalf can turn into the overall wide, like wide receiver one. He could have just a freak outlier season where he catches. Yeah, 13. 14 touchdowns. He has 1,200 yards. I mean, not projecting that, but that's in. Something that could happen to him. That won't happen for Tyler Lockett, but he's going to be so solid and a screaming value. He's going to be a top 15 wide receiver, because that's what he always is. Speaking of tantalizing players that maybe never are more than that. Mike Williams comes in at 19, 28 years old. Best ball ADP's wide receiver 20 right now, and we all got him right around 20. 13 games last year, 93 target, 63 for 895 and 4. That's a disappointment.

on what you hoped you would get from Mike Williams. Came into the season, it was really Mike Williams that was around. I mean, you lost Keenan Allen to injury. Jalen Guyton was out to injury. And Mike Williams had every opportunity and didn't do anything with it. He had his own injuries as well. But that's just part of his story, isn't it? And that the big problem with Mike Williams is that I'd love to, nothing more than to be in on him again and then look the fool. But this is a fool me thrice type of a situation. Yeah, I mean, the rumor mill right now with the charges is they're going to get a wide receiver. Jordan Addison. It could be Addison. We'll be Addison. Okay. Well, I hope you got your bets in, Jason. Yeah, I do. Jordan Addison, for example, could come in, demand a lot of targets. Mike Williams, 60 reception seems like kind of where he's destined between injury.

and just disappearing acts. Like that's been the problem with Mike Williams is you can have a game where he goes out and dominates and then you could have a game where he goes out there and you forget he's playing for the team. I don't understand it. He was eight targets, 77 yards a game when he had a full allotment of snaps last year, but it didn't feel like it. Yeah, and that's why I think his best ball ADP is a little bit higher than I think he's going to go in your home leagues because you know that when he has a big game.

They're monstrous. His volatility is all over the place. He's not a consistent wide receiver, but he obviously could be the wide receiver one on any week. So there's some upside there. And depending on where he falls in a draft when you're, when you've got a big target for Justin Herbert there, he could be a good pick. And he could be a post type sleeper because he disappointed a little bit last year. It only did the third time he's a post type sleeper too. Right. I feel like he has been that many times. No, I, but. What you're saying there, I believe is the correct takeaway. We are going into year seven. Oh, gosh. And he was the wide receiver 10 two years ago. But outside of that, he hasn't been in the top 20 one other year in his career. So we kind of know what we have here. We've got a talented, inconsistent wide receiver who will most likely finish outside of the top 20. All the promise in the world isn't going to come to fruition.

His points per game last year were 11.2. His wide receiver 10 season was 13. So he wasn't, I mean, it was still an okay per game season, but it just, you know, four touchdowns instead of nine from the year before and then missing the games. Yeah, he missed four games and one, you can say he basically he missed five because you had the week 11 against Kansas City where he came out, caught the one pass. And if you remember, re-agravated, I believe it was the ankle. So. What about Kellynne Moore? Can he fix this? It could happen. The thing, it'll be an ADP thing here for Mike Williams because he still had, you know, if you take those five games out, so let's say 12 games, four times he was a top 10 wide receiver. Like, there's not a lot of guys who will be drafted in his range that can give you four weeks of being a top 10 player and really help you in a week. So he will be fascinating to watch of,

what does the fantasy community actually do with Mike Williams in redraft? Because I think at this point, with how many times he has been, you know, a post-hype type of a guy, the majority of your fantasy football league has been personally victimized on their roster by Mike Williams already. So who goes in? I would love Mike Williams as a flex player. Sure. That would be the kind of boom-buss player I wouldn't mind having in there. 18. It's Debo Samuel. Oh, 27 years old. I've got him at 16, the highest of the group. Mike at 19, Jason at 21 in these early wide receiver rankings. This is a, what do you do with Debo? I'm out. I'm out. I'll let someone else grab him. He was. He was the wide receiver two in 2021. Yes. He was unbelievable. Last year.

injuries, played 13 games, 94 targets, 42 rushing attempts, finished at wide receiver 37. Yeah, his 17 game pace is like three receiving touchdowns or maybe even fewer than that. He averaged, you know, obviously dealt with some injuries, right? But he averaged 10.8 fantasy points per game. So that is not the wide receiver 2 of two years ago. That isn't, it's not, it's not bad. That's not crushing your team, but it's not that huge upside that you're wanting, you know, Amari Cooper was 12 fantasy points a game last year and was good, but not, you know, outstandingly great. So now that you have IUC, now that you have, who's come fully into his own, you've added Christian McCaffrey to the team. I'm not, we're not sure who the quarterback is, but let's say best case scenario, I think we assume that would be Brock Purdy for the sake of Debo. Sure.

you're talking about a guy who's a very, very talented player that isn't going to get enough opportunity for me to invest any kind of high fantasy draft capital into him because I don't feel like he's going to return that. Well, and I mostly agree with you. I think Debo is a player that's going to go higher than I'm probably comfortable drafting him. You get kind of put into the same box where like you're probably, if you take Debo, you're not going to take that late round upside of Ayyuk. The team no longer has to use him to win a ball game, which I think was part of that wide receiver two season. Christian McCaffrey or a kiddle game or an IUC game or an Elijah Mitchell. There are enough weapons where you're going to have off games with Debo. But he is an elite physical athlete. And I want that to be something people remember. These elite athletes make elite plays. He just went from a touchdown every nine touches to a touchdown every 19 touches. And so.

That's a pretty big extreme. You don't get those touchdowns. You're not going to be happy. And they don't have to play them at running back as much. Right. Yeah, right now, and obviously ADP is very early. But right now, Debo is about the wide receiver 10. So that is very, very high. It's higher than any of us have them ranked. It's pricey. Brandon Ayuk last year, his teammate. outscored him in fantasy points per game. He's 11.1 and half people. Yeah. So this is another one of those D.K. Metcalf versus Tyler Lockett's situations where you're going, one of these guys is going to cost a lot. Maybe has a higher, Debo has the higher ceiling to me over IUC because again, he's a guy that could just break 50 tackles on the way to a touchdown 50 yards from the line of scrimmage. That's, you know, IUC isn't going to do that, um, quite the same. But the,

cost to get someone who's probably going to be just as good in IUC for this offense so much cheaper many, many rounds later. This is why I'm pretty out on Debo. An interesting thing here looking at Iyuk is 21 was such an outlier, right? You have 77 catches turning into 1,400 receiving yards. That's 18.2 yards per catch. That is redonculus. And then that's now sandwiched in between. You had the 2020 season, only seven games, but 11.8 yards per catch. This past year, 22, he had 56 catches and 630 yards. That's 11.3. So like back to a baseline of sitting in that 11 yards per catch, which is still fine. And then you're looking at the rushing production, he went from 59 attempts down to 42, so not drastically different.

But the touchdown regression caught up with him where he had eight rushing touchdowns in 2021, which was absurd. And then back down to three this past year. So I think that, I think Debo will be, will be interesting. He'll be very good for fantasy football. But you're not getting that ludicrous wide receiver two season. Well, because he was, he was their best running back. And now they've got Christian McCaffrey. He was so good. No, he was great. He is. He is that good now. He just doesn't need to be used as much. Yeah, he's not going to touch the ball nearly as much as he did when he was the wide receiver two with Christian McCaffrey on the roster. Yeah, the truth of Debo is he's probably a fringe wide receiver one type of player with Jason leaning to the outside of it. All right, we are back with our early wide receiver rankings. It's a shame Kyle's not here today because when we talk about Keenan Allen. He may just appear.

So if you say Keenan Allen three times, Kyle, Kyle the board Bogan like pops out of a trash can. Yeah, that's, that's fair. Did you say Keenan? Just don't say it three times. But Keenan's 31 years old, will be when he starts the season. He was elite over the back half of the year. Wide receiver four from week 11 on. That offense, though. That's a lot of green. I mean, it was a mess. And you remember the playoff game too, right? Or did you put that out of your mind? The actual? Charters playoff game or fantasy playoffs? No, the fan or the actual Chargers playoff collapse. Actually, I did. Remind me. Yeah, Jacksonville came back from being down by a million. Ah, yes, that game. We all have him right around this range, 17, Jason and Mike at 16. We're adding an upside meter to the ultimate draft kit. What are you ranking Keenan Allen's upside meter at?