Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Off-Season Hansen's Hints: Wide Receivers

Episode Date: May 13, 2022

John Hansen (@Fantasy_Guru) goes solo in the newest podcast mini-series: Hansen's Hints. Here, John looks at the initial 2022 WR Projections. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. What is up, everyone? Welcome to another edition of Hansen's Hints here at FantasyPoint.com and the FantasyPoints.com podcast stream. I am John Hansen, the dude giving out the hints here doing this podcast here on Sunday, a little Sunday afternoon activity on Mother's Day, believe it or not. I am about ready to go make some fresh pizza for my wife, the mother of my four children.

So do not worry. I'm just stepping aside for a quick moment here to do another podcast. If you missed any of the first two ones that I put out, I'm just starting this right now in early May to kind of get back into the podcasting a little bit more and do it on my own a little bit. So I kind of like this idea. And for those who want just my thoughts, here we go. You can check out these podcasts within the feed here at FantasyPoints.com. If you missed the quarterbacks and the running backs, you may want to go back and listen to them first.

I did a little bit more on the quarterback edition about the entire process as I just wrapped up doing the season projections. for fantasy points.com and a lot of depth everywhere. It's the story of 2020, the deepest year ever in the history of fantasy football. That is not hyperbole. And today, this podcast here, we're doing the wide receivers. And, well, let's go right back to the depth

because incredible depth. However, I'll give it to you this way. If you're in a 16 team league and you start three wide receivers, receivers, that's only 48, you know, so that's not a lot. There are well more than, well over 48 viable starters here. I think you can go into the almost at 60, early 60s with the viable starters. Maybe I'm pushing the envelope just a little bit here, but very incredible depth. However, and we start at the top here as we kind of just go over the landscape, if you will, we do have a big drop off, I see right at the top, actually.

If we looked at the tiers, if you look at the tiers that I added to the projections at FantasyPoints.com, you'll see Tier 1 only has seven dudes. I personally feel like some of these other dudes that are normally, you know, maybe Tier 1 guys, took a little bit of a hit this year. Tyree Kill moving on to Miami. A.J. Brown moving on to Philadelphia. Even Jalen Waddle, who might have been in tier one, he gets bumped down to tier two because of the addition of the Tyree Kill. And there are some other mitigating factors here that are affecting the wide receivers.

But in tier one, I got to say, I really only see, like I said, seven dudes. And no surprise, here they are. Justin Jefferson, Cooper Cup, Jamar Chase, Devante Adams, Debo, Samuel, Stefan Diggs, CD Lamb, insert, tear break. I really do think strongly about this little top heavy situation we have at the wide receiver position this year. So ideally, I would love to get a crack at one of these dudes. Ideally, I want to get a running back early and then come back and get one of these

wide receivers. CD Lamb, I thought, might make it to 24 or 23. for those drafting at the top of round one in the 12-team league, doesn't look like it's happening right now, especially, well, at least with the ADP data that we use, which is high-stakes players, and they're usually pretty ahead of the curve. So that's something to keep in mind.

I would love to get one of these tier one guys in round two, and your best options there and your best chances are digs, lamb, and Debo, who, you know, know, certainly has some issues here trying to apparently still force his way out of San Francisco. Tier two is certainly good, but again, I don't see quite as much quality there at the top in terms of tier two. Mike Evans, Keenan Allen, some older guys, not loving that. T. Higgins, looking good here, young guy, that's nice, but he's really only the two. Tyreek on a new team, AJ Brown on a new team. I have Deonti a little bit higher in this tier two, I guess, than the market.

So I'm pretty into Deontay Johnson. I like the quarterback situation there. I think ultimately it's an upgrade with Kenny Pickett and Mitchell Trebisky over Big Ben last year, who was obviously not good. You know, not, you know, the arm was shot, basically, and he was shot, basically. So moving on to tier three here, a couple of players that I might be a little higher on than most. I actually kind of like Amari Cooper at the top of round or tier three. We have him at wide receiver 15.

The ADP is 21. So we're a little higher on him. Michael Pittman. Our guy, we've always loved them. I have for sure. Wide receiver 16. He and the positional ranking right now is 19. So, you know, this tier three is is not bad.

Terry McLaurin is in here now. I'm kind of a little down on McLaren myself. Apparently he only wants to play the ex-receiver spot, which he might not even be an ideal fit for. I do like Jahan Dotson a lot, so maybe the target share drops a little bit for McLaren. Decent quarterback upgrade, I guess, compared to last year and Carson Wentz.

Yeah, I think that's an upgrade, to be fair. We also have my guy, Darnel Mooney. You see, you know, these guys are all solid here, but they're not like stud alpha dogs. These are guys generally in our wide receiver 15 to 25 range. Their ADPs are generally like 45 to 65, let's say. This is a good spot to maybe get, you know, a cheaper wide receiver two and a really nice wide receiver three. The depth does continue here as we move on.

by the way, Hollywood Brown in that third tier. We've got them at wide receiver 22, ADP at 23. We were ahead of the markets there, but I guess the markets have already caught up to us just a little bit. Moving down here, tier four would be guys that we have ranked in the, you know, 23 overall at wide receiver to like 33, basically. these are guys going off the board. Let's see here. You know, again, 50 to 70. Some guys are, you know, up to 90 in terms of this tier four.

But some good options here, really good options here. So this is really a good example of why I don't think you really need to attack wide receiver in the draft. I mean, look, look what we did last year for you if we're on the site. and listening to, you know, whatever, you know, the radio show even, some good examples. And then again, as I've mentioned in all the podcasts, what am I trying to do? I'm trying to price these guys strategically and rank them. I do the projections to come up with the rankings, but I do a little tweaking. And where I want to be, though, is higher than the markets on players that I like

and then lower in the market than the markets on players I'm not really into. And it was a really good year last year for, you know, mispricing. The players were mispriced, and we priced them more accurately. For example, Mr. Debo Samuel's ADP was 82 last year. We had him at 68. Now, that was me. Like I mentioned, I could have put him at 50, but does it really matter? Like, if his ADP is 82, I don't think many people are going to be taking them or were taking

them last year at 50 overall. I think I actually did in one league, but that was, with radio listeners who knew I love Debo. Michael Pittman. His ADP last year was 97. We had him at 72. Darnel Mooney, ADP of 103. We had him at 73.

That's 30 spots higher than the ADP. And I believe he was what? Wide Receiver 21. He was great. So on the other end, you know, juju last year was wide receiver 69 per the ADP. We had him only at 85. The other good example at wide receiver.

A great one was Hollywood Brown. Y receiver 114, we had him at 92. Once again, I think that's given you an edge. And probably the best example, actually. Amon Ra, St. Brown. I was very high out of him last year. His ADP was 189. I had him at 155.

So I know he didn't do crap for about five, six weeks, but I bet you a lot of people who were using our cheat sheet and listening to us got Amman Ra St. Brown. So don't forget, we're always looking to find these little gems here. But in this tier four, we do have some good options and maybe some gems. Gabriel Davis really stands out to me. We have him at wide receiver 25 and the ADP is 34. So I think that's considerably higher. You do have Jerry Judy here.

I think he's a little overpriced actually. Wide receiver 25. We have him at 27, but I actually kind of like Cortland Sutton, believe it or not, more than Judy. I've always loved Judy, but I just like the marriage of Sutton and Russ Wilson, the excellent downfield thrower of the football. Here's a great one. Totally mispriced. I'm all over it.

I think you should be to Rashad Bateman in Baltimore as the go-to guy. We're receiver 42 per the ADP right now. We've got them all up there at 30 and another one. Man, this is a great range. This is the range where. I think is reminiscent of last year when we had guys like Jamar Chase, Debo Samuel, Cooper Cup going off the board, you know, maybe not in Cups case. He was what, fourth round pick?

But Debo and Jamar Chase, they were what, sixth round picks last year? Oftentimes, man, that's great. And we do have a similar phenomenon here. How about Sky Moore? He is wide receiver 53 early on that that data needs to be. correct a little bit more. We've got them at 31 here. So once again, a lot of depth at this position.

So I could name all these names. It would be kind of defeat us of the podcast. What I'm trying to do is just give a nice little overview. And we are through four tiers. And let's move on to tier five and see the type of players here. These are players that we have ranked around, let's say, 35, 45 maybe at Y. wide receiver. We have guys like Elijah Moore. I kind of like them still. I don't think Garrett Wilson is going to blow up, but he's going to take some pressure off Elijah Moore,

who already has some time working with the quarterback as Zach Wilson. We do have some tricky guys here in this little range here, this tier five, Michael Thomas. I mean, I don't know. Nobody seems to know what's up totally. Like, you know, he's under contract. People are expecting them to play, but I don't even know if he likes playing, honestly, at this point. But we'll say you do have Brandon I. You're intriguing, you know, because he's talented. And Debo, you never know. I put Hunter Renfro in this group as well, wide receiver 33 on our board. Now we have the rookies who come in here at the bottom of tier five guys we have ranked in

the low 30s at wide receiver, upper 40s, Drake London, Traylon, Traylon, Trayland, Traylon Burks, the aforementioned Garrett Wilson. Another player I like here in Tier 5, though, is Christian Kirk. I think you can make a case for him. I know it's a little crowded receiving core, but he's getting paid really well. Alan Lazard, I don't like him that much, but the opportunity there is terrific. We also have D.Hop falling down into this tier. He would have been way up there, obviously, although he is getting older.

Chris Alave in this tier as well. So we continue to see excellent depth here moving down the board. I'm at wide receiver 53. That's Jahan Dotson, followed by Jameson Williams. I know they're rookies and you can't really count on them, but I still like targeting these guys because it's a buying opportunity. Look at Jalen Waddle last year. Jalen Waddle was going off the board in like the 11th round, 10th round.

Dude caught over 100 balls. So Rondell Moore didn't work out, but Jell and Waddle sure as hell did. So the depth that receiver continues, we go on, tier seven, guys like George Pickens and Alec Pierce, my guy, John Mechie. You want to work in some veterans to kind of compare in this range. Nico Collins is second year player. Kendrick Bourne, who is going to, you know, lose out on the targets, but he was very good last year.

Byron Pringle, wide receiver 67 on our board, the ADP. see is 93, so I don't know what's up with that. But the depth is incredible. Let me just go back to the top and isolate some of the discrepancies. It's kind of been a theme here. It's kind of what it's all about when I look at how do I find my players to target, who are my value players, who I think are, you know, steals, basically. So let's take a look here.

Mike Evans actually, I'm not like overly enamored with them. I just plugged in what I thought were very fair numbers, considering the circumstances with Chris Godwood coming off his ACL. And he came in at wide receiver 8, and the ADP is wide receiver 12. I don't love taking older players. He has had some injury concerns, but, you know, for what it's worth,

if he slips a little bit, I'll certainly take him in round three as my wide receiver one. Deonti Johnson, we've got a little bit above the ADP of wide receiver 14. and as I mentioned, Amari Cooper is wide receiver 21. I've got him at 15. We do. I think he's a nice little value.

Darnel Mooney is wide receiver 27. I love him. I know I probably go a little too overboard. But hey, the guy was really good last year. He way out produced the ADP. So no one complained about our aggressive ranking of him. I'm back because he's still the guy.

They didn't add much in the draft or in free agency. so you almost worry if it's not enough to take some pressure off a darnel movie, but I think you can handle it. I think he showed that last year. He really did well. Moving down, Gabe Davis again, I really like. His ADP right now is 34. I've got him at 25.

Now, that is on the strength of 10 receiving touchdowns. But just look at the numbers. The guy has scored a touchdown 12% of his target. So if you throw him a ball, 12% of the time he scores. And then if he catches it, I think it's 21% of the time, the guy scores. So it'll be interesting to see the targets rise for Gabe Davis. Can the efficiency rise?

We all know what he did in the playoffs, though. He's Mr. Redzone, Mr. Touchdown. So I do like him. I mention Cortland Sutton. We've got him a little bit higher than the board, way higher, most likely, than the ADP on Sky Moore, the rookie wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs. one of my favorite interviews I've ever done, honestly, on Sirius XM, about a month before the draft. Elijah Moore, Y-Receiver 26.

We actually only have him at 34. I do like him, but he is priced pretty aggressively, I will say that. Moving down the board here, some of these other options, nothing else truly stands out. We do have Lizarre at Y-Receiver 43 for obvious reasons. He's at Y-Receiver 54. We are, I will say, you know, right around the markets on a lot of other players down this board here. I will say Kenny Goladay. I've never liked him, but he does stand out a little bit to me this year at Wobosur 55.

I mean, that is dirt cheap for a supposed number one in Kenny Goladay. Kader's Tony, his teammate, we have priced right there at the markets. Jahan Dotson, we've got a little higher. I'm always a little more aggressive on the rookies on the chance that they blow up. And, you know, we believe in the talent of Jahan Dotson. You know, look what Terry McLaurin himself did his teammate now a few years ago as a rookie. Jameson Williams will see about the knee and all that. But he's priced right around the markets at this point.

Juju Smith-Juster way overpriced at wide receiver 29. We only actually have him at wide receiver 55. And his former teammate Chase Claypool, I think, is overpriced at this point, given the addition of Calvin Austin, especially George Pickens. Wide receiver 43, we have him at 57. Speaking of Pickens, we have him at 58. His ADP is 67. Again, I'm a little bit more aggressive on these rookies.

Alec Pierce, I like. He's wide receiver 73 early on. We've got him at 60. John Mechie, wide receiver 76. We have him at 61. So generally speaking, I'm always trying to be a little bit more aggressive on younger players, ascending players looking for that buying opportunity. And we have seen in the National Football League,

it's been a little up and down for the rookie wide receivers, but that learning curve is not quite what it used to be as the NFL has adopted more and more college concepts, the RPO game, all that good stuff. And it sometimes gets guys wide open and it makes it easier for them to assimilate. So I'm always going to be aggressive. And this year, I did my best to be. wary of the older receivers.

I know I've got a couple of them high up there and like Mike Evans and Keenan Allen, but generally speaking, I'm all about youth. If you look at the top 15, it's mostly all younger guys. I think the new age now, you start worrying. We saw it play out this year. 29. 28, I don't want to go there yet, but 29 is when it starts to be worrisome. If you look at the leaders from last year, I believe the top 20 wide receivers

only one was 29 or older and was Keenan Allen. It could be a function in part of the pandemic, but these dudes, the expiration dates on these players is, it's bumping up right now. So there it is, a quick look at the wide receiver position here. Obviously, we're hoping you're a subscriber to FantasyPoint.com so you can see all the rankings and all the cheat sheets and all that. well, plenty of time to truly break these guys down and really isolate them as good values.

I'll add my favorite picks to my draft plan article, which I'm probably going to start on real soon, at least the initial version of it. And last year, again, some really good stuff in there. And we hope to do it again this year, especially a wide receiver. And great depth. So let's be smart. Let's be judicious. Let's make the right picks.

let's not just go for quantity. Let's load up on wide receivers. No, you don't have to do that. Let's cherry pick the quality, though, when the draft comes to us, if you will, with this great depth. So there it is, a quick look at the wide receivers. I'll be back for the next podcast in this little mini series on the tight ends. Until then, thanks for listening to Hanson's hints.

And please throw us a bone. Give us a good review on your podcast platform, iTunes, all that good stuff. and we'll talk to you next time. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.