Early WR Rankings Part 2, Alphabet Soup

Wide receivers. Eek. Eke. Don't worry. That's not for you guys. Okay. All right. Look, the top ten recap from last week. DeAndre Hopkins. I'm sorry, from Tuesday's show. Hopkins was one. Devante Adams was two. Julio Jones 3. Michael Thomas 4. Odell Beckham Jr. 5. Tyree Kale came in at 6. Juju 7. Antonio Brown 8. Mike Evans 9. And T. Y. Hilton.

at number 10. All right. Now, we're going to go from 11 as far as we can on today's show. I thought it might be interesting to look at some of the surprise top 24 guys from last season and maybe just bring their names back up because it's interesting. When guys can slide into the top 24 and you might not expect it. For instance, Tyler Lockett was the wide receiver 15 last year.

Hyper efficient. Tyler Boyd was the wide receiver 16. Calvin Ridley, who I have not seen in a top 24 or remotely close to it, was the wide receiver 19. He's there. Do you happen to remember how many touchdowns Calvin Ridley scored? I do, 800. 10. Yeah. He was one of the 10 touchdown guys. Well, that's one of the common denominators you'll see in the surprising guys that got in the top 24.

Tyler Lockett, Mike Williams, Calvin Ridley, all three with 10 touchdowns. You score 10 touchdowns. Yes. You've got a real good head start getting in the top 24. Emmanuel Sanders was still wide receiver 23 despite the torn Achilles. Man, if he had not torn his Achilles, it was a very solid year. It really was. So we're going to get into the rest of our rankings. I think we should start right here. Number 11. That makes sense, right? Good place to start. AJ Green.

AJ Green at number 11, Mike and Jason, you both have him at 10. I've got him at 13. Last year, his consistency ranking in the games that he played was the seventh most consistent wide receiver. So when he was on the field, he was still the guy. Fantasy finishes in recent years, though, been banged up. He was the seventh best receiver in 2015. Then he dropped to 34th. Only played 10 games. Then he dropped to 11th in 16 games.

in 2017. He was last year the 40th fantasy wide receiver only played nine game. That factors in. That's a component. When I look at AJ Green, the reason he's not ranked in my top 12, my top 10, it simply comes down to I haven't seen the whole package from AJ Green in quite some time. In fact, you go back to 2013 for a fantasy finish in the top five.

You mix into that the inconsistency of Andy Dalton, a new head coach, the emergence of Tyler Boyd, the up and down nature of their offensive line. Those factors, they push him out for me. Yeah, I don't blame you for being concerned about the injury, but based off of where I believe he will actually be going in your home leagues and your redraft leagues, I think that he's going to be worth the cost of admission. He was the wide receiver 9 in points per game.

through week eight. That's when the injury happened, right in there, week eight, week nine. He was a top ten guy. So I have no problem still buying in to AJ Green as being one of the, being a top talent at the wide receiver position. He's still Andy Dalton's best friend. And I think that he has enough, but can he stay on the field? You're both saying he will.

Because if he was number nine through eight weeks of being healthy, you're both saying you're planning on him staying healthy by ranking him at 10th. Yeah, I mean, when I ranked everybody in the top 24, I pretty much was ranking everybody as if they're playing a full season. Who do I like best? When it comes to factoring in risk, risk is high with AJ Green. He's dealt with a lot of injuries and you half factor that in. That's why he won't, I don't think he'll be the 10th.

wide receiver drafted because of that risk. He'll fall a little bit. So it's really just a matter of who's ahead of him, who's behind him, how that risk factors in. But you talked about the coaching change, and that obviously can hurt, but you have to realize it could also be a positive because they're going from Marvin Lewis and kind of the old sluggish system that's been there for a while. And they brought in Zach Taylor, someone, you know, from who was near enough.

to Sean McVeigh to get a head coaching job and wants to bring in an offensive system. So maybe he's opened up because when you saw him on the field last year, to me he looked every bit as good as Julio before the injury, you know, same draft class, same age. But that's what if you take away the system and the head coach with which you put up perennially great numbers, I don't.

I wouldn't naturally imbue a better season on it. Like if you're used to a system, like a good example would be Matthew Stafford, right? You bring in a different system. Yeah, but they brought in a different head coach. And change is my point. It doesn't really matter. I mean, change is change. They brought in a defensive head coach of Matt Patricia. And if you look at the, I mean, the last time AJ Green was dominant, that was when they had a really good offensive coordinator there in Gruden.

You still have to load your AJ Green software on top of the Andy Dalton platform. That gives me concern. That's a problem. A couple, couple, you never know. You may have to blue screen of death every once in a while. He did see 52% of his team's end zone targets last year. That was the second highest rate in the league. Yeah, we'll take that. But do you look at the emergence of Tyler Boyd over the second half of the season as maybe an illustration to that coaching staff that, hey, we have more than one guy here?

that we can lean on and go to in critical situations or around the goal line. I mean, a player is not the same player of the whole career, so did Tyler Boyd established himself? I think Boyd did establish himself to be, he's a very interesting player. I can't rake him in my top 24, but I'm very interested to see what Boyd does for his follow-up after the big breakout, but that doesn't detract from the way I feel about A.J. Green is a top 10 guy.

Number 12 on our early wide receiver rankings, Keenan Allen. I haven't at 11. Mike and Jason haven't met 12. He was, he had a very interesting year. Keenan Allen, 16 games, 97 receptions, 1,196 yards, and six touchdowns on 136 targets. I am a huge Mike Williams fan, Truther, have been since its entrance into the league.

He is a red zone monster. He's also a player that I think is ascending in talent. He also has something that Keenan Allen doesn't have, which is just natural size. So I do imagine that Keenan Allen will be around the six touchdown. Total. The question then is, is that enough to make him, are you happy with him as your wide receiver won if you penciled in six touchdowns? If you pencil in six touchdowns, I'm not.

thrilled to have him as my number one. That's what you're getting because he hasn't scored more than six touchdowns since his rookie year. 2013. Yeah. And I totally get that. But if you look at his target, you know, volume percentage, snap percentage, all of the things that he did great two years ago and how he was utilized this last year, you might feel like, you know, they started getting other players more involved. But nothing actually changed for Keenan Allen. And if you look at.

yardage versus touchdowns, you'd expect him to have a few more. Now, I agree. Mike Williams, Hunter Henry. It's going to be difficult for him to be a, you know, 9-10 touchdown guy. So, but he's consistent. And, you know, it's one of those things where I've got him at 12th, so I've got him as a wide receiver 1.

But that's not who I want to be my wide receiver one being the guy. You know, I feel like you need a wide receiver that's going to go out there and dominate. Keenan can, but I don't expect on the year him to be a dominant type. I don't think he's got a top five ceiling in him in 2019. Yeah, I agree with that. Between weeks 9 through 14 last year, he averaged 19.2 fantasy points per game. That was second in that span. That was his run. For a guy who doesn't score touchdowns.

He scored in five straight games. It was very bizarre to see that happen, and then the touchdowns just vanish again. Do you look at the return of Hunter Henry to be a negative or positive for Keenan Allen? Neutral. I think it's good for the offense. I don't think it takes away from Keenan Allen. He had the fourth highest target share at the wide receiver position. No Tyrell Williams this year. Right. Well, that's just, that's Mike Williams now. Okay. Those targets for me. Yeah. Travis Benjamin.

Yeah, Travis Benjamin could go into the Tyrell role a little bit. A little bit. Yeah. I think Keenan is a fine guy. You're not going to be disappointed, but he's not going to be a top five wide receiver. So take that for, you know, how you want to draft come your draft. Hey, Footland, we want to thank today's sponsor, a new sponsor who not only makes a really great product, but they are a very good company. That's one of the things I love the most about Lisa. Lisa knows.

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on Adam Thielen. They have him at 14 and 15. Last season started by setting the earth on fire. In fact, the last two seasons, he finishes the 10th and 7th. He's actually, speaking of cameos, this Sunday, he's filling in for one of the dragons. But just for the first half of the episode? Yes, the first half of the episode. And then Keenan's taken over for the second half. Yes. Look, Theelan set the world on fire and somehow it works against him.

in the court of law. That's the way I feel this offseason. Every time that we talk about Adam Thieland, and we've done it several times so far, it's he did too well in the first half, so his second half is too poor. It's not that it's too well. It's the fact of, like, as great as he was in the first half, he was that bad in the second half. I don't agree with that. If you're on a thousand-yard pace over half of the season, that's not.

bad. No, no, no. But I'm saying first eight games. Yeah. 100 plus yards, eight of eight. Scored in six of eight. Ten plus targets in seven of eight of those games. He was the wide receiver one. He was scoring over 20 points a game. He was absolutely dominating. The final eight games, 100 plus yards twice. Did score in four of eight, only 10 or more targets than two of those games. In that time span, he was averaging 10 and a half points per game. The wide receiver 30.

wide receiver 30 for a player that you're going to have to spend an earlier round draft. Now, if you had taken week, if you could alternate weeks, like take some of his, like if he went up and down and he finished where he finished, how would you feel about it? You would probably rank Adam feeling in your top five. Right. Because 1373 yards. Nine touchdowns, 113 targets. He'd be here, he'd be around there. Now, I'm not saying, I'm not saying you should do that. That's why we have him at 12, 14, and 15.

You saw a transition in offense over the second half of the year. You saw a discomfort in Kirk Cousins and what he was doing. I believe in the player. I mean, at the end of the day, I believe the player, Adam Thielen, is one of the best wide receivers in football. I believe the cream rises to the top, and he's my highest rated Viking. He's my highest rated. He's in the top 12 for me because he does have the potential to go on a nine-game span where he dominates the NFL. And at the end of the day, you can want to do something with your offense. We talked about this before.

and then you can be forced to do something else. Their defense struggled last year. Worst performances at almost every defensive position, you probably see a little bit of balance there and you probably see a better than the second half at him feeling. That's why I feel pretty comfortable at 12. But what are the real range of outcomes for him? The question here is, is he a perfect wide receiver too? For me, it's like, of course he is because he could be a one. Yes, of course. If you could rewind the tape however long Andy was just talking and then just like,