Fantasy Football Today - Dynasty Wide Receiver Review with Matt Harmon of Yahoo Fantasy! (10/17 Fantasy Football Dynasty Podcast)

Episode Date: October 18, 2023

Looking to dominate your fantasy league just like your redraft league? Look no further than Fantasy Football Today Dynasty hosted by our very own Heath Cummings! Download and follow Fantasy Football Today Dynasty on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you find your podcasts.  Matt Harmon and Jacob Gibbs join Heath Cummings on Fantasy Football Today Dynasty to dive deep into rookie, 2nd-year, and veteran wide receivers! First, the guys review rookie stud Puka Nacua (18:00) and if they are buying him long-term. Then, go further into the rookie class and discuss Zay Flowers vs Jordan Addison (24:35) and what we can expect from Josh Downs, Tank Dell, and others (33:05). Then, we run through 2nd-year players like George Pickens, Jahan Dotson, and Romeo Doubs (47:34). Finally, we wrap up with veteran WR talk, including players like Calvin Ridley, Adam Thielen, and DeAndre Hopkins. (57:57) Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Get 20% off Fantasy Football Today merch: https://store.cbssports.com/collections/fantasy-football-today%20?utm_source=podcast-apple-com&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=buy-our-merch&utm_content=fantasy-football-collection Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Metrolinx and Crosslinx are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, Dynasty. I am your host, Chief Cummings, and I am so

happy to be here with you in this space talking about Dynasty for the next hour, not talking about Week 7 waiver wire, not looking at Week 7 rankings where I try to find 24 running backs to rank as starters. Mostly I'm excited, though, because of who I've got here with me. It's a Gibbs week. We're always excited when it's a Gibbs week,

and we've got Matt Harmon from Yahoo Fantasy, from Reception Perception, the guy who hosts a podcast with Austin Eckler. You know who he is. I don't need to tell you any more about him. Matt, thank you so much for being here today. What up, boys? Very excited about this. Jacob, always excited to go back and forth with you. And Heath, it's always great to be with another member of the Football Guys coaching tree. So very, very excited for this today. I think Gibbs is technically on the Football Guys coaching tree. So very, very excited for this today. I think Gibbs is technically on the

Football Guys coaching tree. He wasn't actually at Football Guys, but he's there now. And you would be, I mean, you may not be surprised, but a high percentage of the guests on FFT Dynasty so far come from the Football Guys tree. Gibbs, how are you doing today? I am great, man. You know me. I've been excited for this episode for like a month. Just looking forward to getting mad on talking to my receivers. And like we've already said, it's so good to get away from the week-to-week grind. We've got so many exciting guys to talk about today. Like, I'm psyched. So, man, I am certain that 90% of the people that are watching slash listening know all about reception perception already. But just take a couple minutes, tell people what you

do specifically with the wide receiver charting and how they can be a part of it. Yeah, sure. So I'm the lunatic that about 10, 11 years ago decided to dedicate my life to charting wide receiver film. So you all don't have to out there. Yeah. So reception perception is when I go in over an eight game sample for NFL players and college players, I chart every single route that they run on every snap where they line up because I think that's where we have to start receiver discussion. Where are they positionally on the field? And not just slot and outside, which matters a lot, but there's a big difference between your big X receivers and these flanker guys that move around pre-snap especially in today's NFL offense so starting with that and then going on to the route data where again I'm charting every single route that they run how often they get open against press man zone coverage how often they get open on each individual route type so really

trying to not just obviously break receivers into buckets and like which guys fit into which positional archetype but really obviously it's trying to spot these guys who are performing well in isolation because as much as like, and we all love all wide receiver stats, but we know that they're very inherently dependent on outside variables like quarterback play, the role that, that I mentioned, what type of offenses are they playing in the coaching and deployment and everything. So reception perception is really trying to isolate the wide receiver and just understanding

the one thing that they can control, which is how often do they get open. And even that obviously is kind of dependent on other variables as well. So again, really reception perception, you can find all this stuff, reception, perception.com. The, we have three tiers of subscription. I'm doing in-season charting data which is what we're going to talk about here so a little kind of like snapshots within the season so again really the goal is to try to isolate receiver performance and and really understand them as as individual players outstanding now we usually start off with three questions for our guests and you know i i have a friend who longest running longest-running fantasy league. He's one of those guys who's always churning the roster,

always making like 17 trade offers a week. And his tagline, it seems like, is don't fall in love with them. And I don't fall in love. I absolutely fall in love with some of these guys and watching them play. And I just wonder, who is the guy when you're charting wide receivers that watching him at his craft is just a joy? Oh, well, number one, we could sit here and do the whole hour on that like guys that i really just like watching and i'm so with you heath look i don't i don't disparage anybody how they play the game whether it's fantasy dynasty

whatever but for me i'm not trying to play this thing like it's some faux stock market like oh this is the moment when we can sell this guy because this is at his peak. Yo, I like players, man. I got into fantasy because I like football, right? And I love to watch players. I love to kind of, again, understand players and really put the whole piece of the puzzle together. So for me, I like having guys on my team that I like. And I don't care if this is the moment to sell them high or whatever.

Again, I'm with you. I like the player part of it. So for me, there's been a ton of guys over the years that I've really admired, but I think if I've got to give you just one player, it has been and remains Stefan Diggs. He's not a sleeper at this point, but at the beginning of reception perception when he first came into the league, he was putting up top five success rate versus man and press numbers prior to really that big breakout in Buffalo. We all knew he was good in Minnesota, but RP was kind of screaming, no, this is an elite-level receiver, an elite-level separator. We have obviously seen that come to fruition from a quarterback wide receiver marriage in Buffalo there. And still to this day, man, I just everything about his game is so flawless to me. I think he's a clear cut top four receiver bare minimum in the NFL right now. And he remains at the height of his powers. So those guys that sort of, you know, pop at that like potential elite level before it comes together from a production standpoint, you know, AJ Brown way brandon iuk i think is and and has been that way so kind of those that archetype of

player is my favorite and i don't know jacob is this way as well like when there's a guy um and you mentioned iuk i think i think that was him the last year maybe six months or a year but when there's a guy that we think is better than everybody else thinks he is and hasn't quite reached that potential and then we see you tweeting or writing about how no this guy's special this guy for me the guy i remember was tyler lockett yeah i mean it was several years ago but like who's that guy right now and i'm sure there's several of them but who's one guy right now that hasn't quite hit the high end potential that you know that he has? I think it probably could have been IUK like three weeks ago, but no longer. receiver in isolation i think we're all kind of seeing that now as he becomes probably after christian mcafree the second most important skill position player on that roster it's tough to not name george kiddo because of what he does in the run and pass game but you know i think right

now right there's so many it's it's hard to say like who the fantasy community isn't in on because there's so much attention paid right and like everybody's got to take on everybody i think chris olave is probably the guy that will be next in that sort of group of what i said where we all agree he's a good player but i think he could potentially be like a top 10 player i think we'll talk about johan dotson later he's definitely someone to potentially think about in this group along with some of the rookies too i think josh downs is another one that is sort of in that Tyler Lockett mold where it might take a few years. And the last guy I mentioned, I'm rattling off a ton of names right now.

Good. Sorry, that's what I do. But Michael Pittman, and he's sort of kind of coming into fold more this year, especially when Minshew's been under center. But I think that guy's another one that in the right circumstances, he might not have the ceiling of a digs or a brown or an iuk but i think he's like a really really good player and uh was way under drafted this year you know i i got save me a little angst at least for 30 minutes

jacob because you know that i've been a lot higher on johanotson and this has not been a fun first month to start the season no it has not I've been really looking forward to talking to Matt about Dotson specifically because like I'm hoping somebody can help us feel a little bit better about him this has all been great to hear from Matt so far like Stefan Diggs is somebody whose reception perception really turned my view on him around this summer and same with Michael Pittmanittman i think you had pippen like 10th or 11th on your youngest receivers like under the age of 25 ahead of some really really good names like a monroe st brown i think just for actual like real life value and then both those guys have been much better this year than they were last year i think people were a little bit down like digs people were thinking maybe he's kind of hitting the cliff or coming

approaching it but like no he's been unreal this year like you said he's still yeah absolute best at almost everything it feels like right now it's weird it feels like every year people try to kind of talk themselves out of digs um even this year it's like all right well you know it's about like garrett wilson and obviously wilson i think could have had a really truly special season if rogers had played obviously you know it's kind of not fair to look back on that fantasy pick with that in mind. But I think people get bored of Diggs because he's not the flashiest, right? He's not a Debo Samuel who breaks a ton of tackles or stuff like that. But he just is so good.

And he's got such a mind meld with Josh Allen that he's a guy that probably if we redrafted today, I think he would be a top five pick maybe. And I think that would be pretty deserved. So this is a dynasty show. And so we spend and will in this show as well, a lot, most of our time talking about the younger guys, the first year wide receivers,

the second year wide receivers, but we've had a pretty fantastic start to the season. Like digiggs, not quite 30 from these 30 plus year old wide receivers, not DeAndre Hopkins. We'll get to him in a minute. But is there something that when you're charting these guys and you've done it year over year over year, that you kind of start to see in the older wide receivers that, that might be a sign that the cliff is approaching, or do we just have to wait for the production to fall off? Well, it's really difficult. I actually think, Heath, this is a great question because I think of the one thing that I'm the least confident in projecting with reception perception, it's age cliffs, because there have been times where I think Des Bryant's

a great example. His 2016 season was still very good in reception perception, but then his 2017 season, he fell completely off the cliff. And he was released by Dallas, and he didn't sign with any team until November. I think it was with the Saints, and he tore his Achilles, and he never ended up playing. But I can remember, this was before I was with Yahoo, it was actually right kind of between. I was going from NFL Network to Yahoo.

And I remember just like the breathless conversation about Des Bryant on air for NFL Network. And I was like, man, if I wasn't like in the middle of a contract thing, like get me on one of these shows and let me tell everybody that like Des is cooked. Right. But there was no warning sign really there before that happened, like in the previous season's data. And then another example is like, you know, Hopkins we'll talk about later and I'll, I'll save my specific notes for him,

but like Keenan Allen this past year, like from 2020 to 2021 to then in 2022, there was like a steady sort of drop off in his success rate versus man coverage. And then specifically in 22, he, he fell to kind of around like the league average when we're talking about a guy who at his peak was special, like top five consistently every year in success rate versus man. Then you kind of had to ask yourself, though, like, all right, is this the beginning of the decline? Or is this really just an injury ruined sample here in 2022?

And that's hard to account for, right, because you don't truly know the answer to that. I bet in fantasy that it probably maybe was the start of a decline, and clearly that has been an incorrect bet, right? So it's the hardest thing to know. I do think with older receivers, a great guy to talk about is Adam Thielen, where role and deployment matters

so much. And we can maybe save the whole feeling specific discussion, but like, we're not having this conversation about Adam Thielen and his production. If he's still playing as a perimeter receiver, the fact that they've moved him into that, like big slot role is really can be something that saves your career. If you're a guy that is sort of declining physically

at the receiver position well and we saw larry fitzgerald late in his career kind of kind of thrive in that type of role right yeah great example he's kind of like the the poster boy of that if you want your older receiver to like extend his career you want them to sort of um buy into the larry fitzgerald thing which by the way, I say buy in as a serious part of it, because some of these dudes do not want to do the dirty work that comes with being that big slot receiver. You know, I think Bruce Arians had to like sit Larry down and be like, I know that you were a, was he the third overall pick when he was drafted? Like, I know you are a former top five draft pick and you are like the dude, i promise you i can extend your career three four

years if you want to get in here and like block your ass off a little bit and like you know get get get into the gritty stuff i think feeling's been good to do that in carolina this year so um you know that that can be a thing where some of these guys want to do that and some and look it's you're working in the trash i would understand if you don't want to do it but but it does help extend your career. To Matt's point about it being tough to predict the fall off, Ryan Heath of Fantasy Points wrote an article this summer where he looked at breakouts and fall offs at each position group. And I believe a wide receiver fall off late in the career

was the hardest to predict, the most random of any positions, breakout or fallout age. And so it's just like, it's there have been lots of guys where the cliff just comes fast and there's not much you can do about it i'm i'm curious are you worried about tyler lockett at all because this perot that is a lot worse this year but i think that might just be a product of the offense yeah i think their offense has been weird so far um where you know they're working without their two starting offensive tackles for most of the season and like they've really had to troubleshoot and problem solve that

in real time and i think shane waldron who i have a lot of respect for as an offensive coordinator has done a great job with that so i'm kind of willing to see like willing to kick that down the road with with my conclusions on lockett and with jsn and all of these guys uh i want to kind of see what this offense looks like more at full capacity but um it's at least something worth wondering could but he would be a great example because you loved what you saw from the last year right like i hit this best success rate verse man of his entire career in 2022 so if he falls off this year which i don't think i've seen anything so far to indicate that he is falling off as an individual but if he did

um like if and that's another thing right like as an older receiver you can look one way in september and you can look another way in december right and it can go both by the way both ways like positively and negatively so if he did fall off it would be a pretty big surprise and kind of like be a big proving point of what we're talking about right now no well and in his favor like they got one of the tackles back this week and tyler lockett looked a lot like tyler lockett this week so right hopefully that offense gets right and he gets right with it let's take a short break and then we'll get into the young guys because that's what everybody wants to talk about anyway all right we are back and i'm

going to hand some of these questions over to jacob gibbs and and thank you jacob because you wrote up all the notes for the show i got to to take a little time off. Not really. But during Monday Night Football last night, I do have one question, though, Matt, before Mr. Pukunukuwa asks a bunch of Pukunukuwa questions. With these rookie wide receivers, how much, and I asked Matt Waldman this last week, like how much are you changing your opinion this early in the season? How much are the data points from them and what they're doing in the NFL versus what we thought about them six weeks ago? And I know obviously Puka's probably a guy you have to change a lot on. I'm really curious actually what Walden said to this because I know for me, I think the data that you get on these guys in the NFL is so much more critical than what you did in college.

And I think I'm not willing to completely write off what they like their collegiate profile based on like, especially the first six weeks of their career. Right. I think full season, like reception, perception data, I will move my opinion on a player a lot.

Well, then actually was just on reception, perception, the show last night with me. And we talked about Ayuk as a guy that we weren't too impressed with his collegiate route running. But then I know for me, I changed my opinion completely.

And I didn't actually have a Reception Perception profile on him because it was one of the two years where I didn't chart college prospects. So maybe I would have been felt differently about this, but I thought there were holes in his game as a route runner. But then you see him as a rookie and I'm like, Oh no, this guy can like play. And, and there was obviously the weird dog house stuff after that.

But for the most part, we're, we're back on track with IU obviously. I think generally it's just, it's so much more critical, the stuff that you're seeing from them in the NFL. Like, and that goes positively or negatively,

I think especially negative stuff stuff like even in these early parts of of the the going here is i'm willing to really move my opinion um on like if we're seeing poor play to start like in isolation i'm like truly the isolation stuff not as much like statistically or anything but um and then on the positive side of it too which obviously we'll talk about with puka nakua um it depends on how how i felt about them as a prospect like and what level we're moving on well and i think like to answer your question matt was basically if you gotta be careful saying matt waldman was basically uh if he if it was somebody that he thought was a surefire no doubt about it guy he's not discounting them at all based on what's happened so far. I think was basically what I got. His first round one

wide receivers, not going to be concerned that they haven't produced. I don't think he's got any concerns about JSN, like you said, at this point. It's probably too early. But if we get through a full season of this with JSN, maybe we have to have a different conversation. Jacob, take it away with Pukunukua. Yeah, we are going to talk season of this with JSN, maybe we have to have a different conversation. Jacob, take it away with Puka Nakua. Yeah, we are going to talk about a lot of rookie receivers. And I want to jump right in with Puka Nakua and Zay Flowers. I think both guys have really performed well and have a lot of really cool underlying data. Flowers hasn't had the results that Nakua has, obviously.

I want to parallel these two because they've both been significantly better against zone coverage. Puka Nakua has a 33% target per route run rate versus zone coverage compared to 20% versus man. Way more efficient versus zone coverage as well. And I think that that role makes sense for him. We did see in college he was a little bit better against zone as well well but he was still good verse man um so i just i wanted to bring that side of puka up because obviously we know all the other stuff like he's third in the entire nfl and target per run rate he's second in open or wide open targets per fantasy points data suite uh even with cooper cutback he's drawn targets um first read targets at a really high rate. So like within

the offense, he's clearly playing a fantasy relevant role. He's not going away. And we can see already that like he has the ability to be a highly productive fantasy receiver. So I think you have to put him in the top 2024 for dynasty going forward. But like, can he push beyond that? Because a lot of his historically elite stuff to start his career is like totally unprecedented and would potentially imply that he's a special player but like just the fact that he's not beating man coverage to me is like maybe let's slow down with a little bit it's mostly been inflated by the role i think he has been beating man coverage like okay in an isolation standpoint uh especially like the first few weeks of the season yeah it was really look i'm gonna be barking up the right tree here with puka nakua stuff um for me i i think you do

see ability to beat man coverage ability to beat press coverage um look he's not playing outside even as the flanker he's not going to play outside if he's got real issues against um man coverage that would not have been the role they placed him in to start the season and that's what's always been so important about puka and i know this is kind of like rehashing old stuff because we're six weeks into the season now but you know in the first couple weeks it's like oh is he in the cooper cup role no he's not at all which a cup is i mean like efficiency wise i'm not sure but you know from just an individual player standpoint he has been always so much better and like one of the best in reception perception history at beating zone coverage and consistently working open against zone coverage uh so he's been that big like slot

receiver that they move around the formation and they move puka around a little bit too but he's almost more of just that pure flanker type so he certainly has great ability to get open against zone coverage and understanding timing and the routes and everything but you certainly even that week one game against the Seattle Seahawks, which I think now six weeks into the season, we can say Seahawks have some pretty good cornerbacks. You know, Tariq Willen's a good player. The rookie Devin Witherspoon's a good player.

Like they have a pretty good defense overall. He was beating man coverage even that first week. So I don't really have any questions with that. And on top of that, that was one of my favorite parts about Puka as a prospect and why I really liked him as a prospect so much. Obviously not expecting what he's done so far but he had a 74 success rate verse man in the games that i charted for him for reception perception he had a pretty good profile there beating man impressed and i think that's been the reason that he has stuck so far in the

nfl about that it's probably a small sample size thing then with the splits so with that in mind like how would you compare him to somebody like christian watson nico collins some of these younger guys who are playing really well but i think have more um wide range of outcomes with the type of archetype that they are compared to puka who can kind of get open everywhere like long-term outlook for like dynasty like him compared to those guys or even like jordan addison or jsn like has he vaulted ahead of those guys for you or a great question the first two guys particularly um you know this jacob i'm a long time nico fan uh and so i nico's been a guy that since the mid-season rookie report in 2021 when he came in i've been like higher than consensus on nico collins by the way, that's another thing I'll be working up for these guys as well that will go on the site probably early November, the in-season rookie report.

Some of these guys have many samples on the site, but they'll be kind of more fully profiled there. Man, Nico versus Puka is interesting. I do think the big X receiver can beat man press coverage archetype that Nico falls into is super, super valuable and shouldn't be understated. By the way, CJ Stroud looks like such a dude. We can't even really – he's going to be there, you'd imagine,

for quite some time, Nico Collins, right? Because they have such a good thing going on there. I think I'd still rather have Nico, but that's because I've been such a Nico thing going on there i think i'd still rather have nico but that's because i've been such a nico guy for a long time watson is really interesting and this would have been like heresy if we had said imagine having this conversation in august right like puka nakura christian watson and dynasty but i think it's worth a legitimate question because i'm with you that watson to me fits that bucket of like volatile number two receiver in the NFL, not a true one.

Whereas I think Puka, maybe he's not a true one either. I think that's an open question. But he is a guy that is consistent and steady as a player. So I think I'd probably rather have Puka right now than Christian Watson. Are you able to separate Puka from the situation completely? Because we've seen it not just with Cooper Cup, but the Sean McVay offense, and even once since Stafford's been there,

we have these stretches of four to six, eight weeks where they find something. I mean, everybody remembers the Tyler Higbee month and a half where they find something and they just hammer it. I'm still trying to forget that. They just hammer it over and over and over and over until somebody does something about it um is there any of that here at all or it's just 100 legitimate with puka honestly i would argue that they have not really found their way completely offensively because if you just look at like their first and second half splits so far this year and that wasn't really the case last year where he was um the offense

was pretty consistent wire to wire um you know it was against the cardinals and everything i i think that's worth mentioning but like the weeks two to five specifically were pretty volatile um from the first half second half splits so I still think they're kind of troubleshooting and figuring things out in real time with these guys. I think that Puka is legitimately a very, very good player. I do understand, and I'm with you, that the ceiling of the player, I think, is still in question. All right.

I want to give some notes on Jordan Addison and Zay Flowers and then compare, just kind of use Puka and some of the guys we've been talking about and kind of compare them. I'm curious where you have these guys ranked as well, Heath. So Zay Flowers, like I said, has been much better against zone. And that was something I saw in college as well. I think you liked what you saw against man coverage in college, right, Matt, from Zay Flowers? Yeah. Yeah. And so far in the, too. I think he just needs to work a little bit in the intermediate area because it's been a little hit and miss so far in the intermediate area

where he's been very good short and underneath. He's been actually really good on big boy outside breaking routes, corner routes, out routes, comeback routes, stuff like that, but it's mostly been deep and mostly been short. I think there's still a little bit of a lack lacking of um true full nuance from a route running perspective in the intermediate area i've just been shocked at his ability to demand volume he's like immediately supplanted mark andrews is the top target in this offense and really i was a little bit worried about flowers coming to the nfl because obviously he had questionable quarterback play but he wasn't

someone who ever like dominated the targets in the way I would have liked to see when he was in college. But that's not been the case. He has a 28% target share compared to 24% for Mark Andrews when both players are on the field. So that's not even being inflated by week one, 36% area for say flowers, 23% for Andrews when both players are on the field that's way down for andrews so we're seeing flowers clearly the primary guy working the intermediate and deep area of the field like you talked about i think everything we've seen from him is super super exciting jordan addison i am not as enthused with what we've seen so far we both had concerns about

his ability to beat press coverage and win on the perimeter when kind of true wide receiver one situations which is why the landing spot next to Justin Jefferson was perfect and then now he's gonna have to fill a different type of role than he was drafted to fill and I don't know if he's gonna do very well that his per route data is not good you see it on the screen if you're watching on YouTube. 17% target per route run rate, only 1.39 yards per route run. He's only been above 20% target per route run rate in one game. It was only 15% in the first game without Justin Jefferson. So I don't love what we've seen from him. And they haven't been putting him in this slot as much as I thought that they would. And I would really love if we could see more free releases you know we've got

o'connell from the sean mcveigh tree like i thought we might see more priest that motion to get him free releases but like they're kind of just asking him to go win as the wide receiver one and i don't know how well that's gonna go um i to me he's like i think we're approaching zay flowers over him and quentin johnson like definitely short-term and potentially even long-term. And I'm curious what you guys like, if you're regrouping this rookie class at all at the top end. A slightly unfair question for me because I had Zay Flowers over those guys. Oh, wow.

As prospects, like if you look at my three-year stack board on the site, I had Zay Flowers above Jordan Addison and above Quentin Johnson. They're in the same tier though. so it's kind of like whatever. But I was a huge fan of Zay Flowers. I do think with Addison, your points about press coverage, that was the biggest issue in his reception perception profile from a collegiate standpoint. 17th percentile success rate versus press.

So far in the NFL, 48.7% success rate versus press in weeks one, two, three, and five, which is the four games sampled so far in the nfl 48.7 success rate burst press in weeks one two three and five which is the four game sampled so far that score from 2022 would have been best or would have bested only dj charke in the database of like you know 50 60 receivers that i sampled last year so not exactly great not a good start there i think he's a good player i think he if you can give him off man coverage and like those free releases you mentioned he can really eat up space i think bad defenses he's going to tear up but i'm i'm certainly with you that the the ceiling question is is tough there and i think obviously now with justin jefferson like you don't just replace a justin jefferson player you your offense completely transforms without him so i think continuing to track his progress in that role

will be really fascinating. Yeah, I haven't seen anything that caused me to be more down on Addison than before. The concerns are the concerns. And I do wonder, Matt, and you can kind of follow up what I'm done with. Is that something that guys who come into the league and aren't very good at it or rookies who struggle with it improve on or can improve on throughout their career or it's just you can't beat press coverage you can't beat press coverage as far as the quentin johnston discussion maybe we just go into that but i i agree with flowers over johnston addison over johnston i if you had concerns about him coming into the year all of those have been validated like there's no there's not a whole lot of reason for hope. But as far as Addison, especially with the target per route run stuff,

how high do we expect his targets per route run data to be playing with Justin Jefferson? Adam Dillon was supposed to be washed because he had a low targets per route run. It's like, yeah, well, no kidding, he's not going to get a lot of targets per route run because the other guy across from him is going to demand some of the most highly target totals in the NFL.

So, yeah, I think his targets per route run data like we can't. We, of course, have to recognize that targets per route run is going to be influenced by the players around around you. So if Justin Jefferson's out for the next four weeks five weeks six weeks you know freaking knock on wood it's not that long but we'll see however long he is out then i think the targets per route run um are going to matter a lot although i will say like yo kirk is going to dump that ball off to tj hockinson okay on stick routes and little hitches and stuff like that that is 100 going to continue to happen so um i think think that will be really critical in the Jordan Addison targets per route run discussion. I think the press concerns are real because it's what we saw in college from him

and it's what we've seen in the NFL. He would probably have to become like a master A-tier technician to continue to get better at that which is by the way totally possible i don't know him and i don't know his work ethic and stuff like that that would be a total guess on my part but because he's like a you know not i don't think he's an exceptionally special athlete and he's a smaller framed guy like he can definitely get eaten up by by big corners on the outside we saw like davante smith improve verse press um i think he's that's someone i try to compare to but davante was clearly better verse press coming in wouldn't you agree yeah totally yeah he was uh i think the number one

receiver i tracked in that draft class and success rate verse press so um i that's obviously like the high watermark for for a player like addison if he's going to get to there if you want to talk about quentin johnson yeah that's that's sort of similar where here's the deal like the chargers i don't think we're counting on quentin johnson to produce as a rookie which you could then sit there and say well why did they draft quentin johnson in the first round when you're a team that is a win-now player? That being said, I probably would have taken Zay Flowers. I probably would have taken some of these other guys ahead of Quentin Johnson,

but they took Johnson. I also kind of think that they are – let me say this the right way. They're now forced to count on him because mike williams is out but he's not a mike williams player and that's really what's concerning about this is that i think they took him to have him become somebody else than he was in college right in college he was like a yak merchant and and get him on these like quick hitting things and people have talked like well why don't they get him some of that stuff so far this year? It's like, well, because number one, it disrupts the flow of your offense.

That's why I like guys, you know, that don't these gadget players aren't consistently targeted at a really high rate. They're targeted at a high rate when they're on the field and stuff like that. But it can disrupt the flow of the offense and they don't get consistent playing time for the most part and i think that would be a good way to get him going but they want him to develop and become like a real downfield route runner the signs so far have not been good and i don't think that i don't think they're at a point where suddenly like that i mean i'm i'm a believer in the post by rookie bump but i'm sure you guys are too but it also came for him in week four and it's not magic right like he doesn't just suddenly become a different player just because they went on a

bi-week and i think we're seeing the results of that based on what we watched last night no speaking of downfield route runners i want to hear your opinion on michael wilson um in arizona rookie he had some of the worst data that i've seen of any of the prospects evaluated it's basically jonathan mingo and then him um so do you have any thoughts on what you've seen from him so far uh i i kind of like what i've seen from michael wilson so far like you know within a certain level of context do i think you know michael wilson looks like he's probably going to be you know a superstar i don't know about that but he does look like he's gonna be a useful player uh i also

kind of like that they have lined him up at X. They've also lined him up as a slot player at times. He's shown an ability to beat man coverage. He's shown an ability to kind of stack and win on vertical routes. He's shown an ability to win in tight situations. He had two really good games. The two games that I sampled for him came against Dallas and San Francisco, which is pretty impressive. They're two of the best defenses in the league josh downs we've got to talk about josh downs you mentioned at the top

he's one of your favorite players he's awesome in contested catch situations obviously he's awesome against man coverage that's carried over i think you had him first in the circuit class and man coverage success at the college level that's yes yeah he's looked so good like i'm curious what you think what you've seen from him and like what the ceiling is for this type of a player like i feel like when i was valuing his prospect i compared him to like elijah moore and like a better version of like sky more like does that sound about right or do you think he can be more than that yeah i think he's a better college prospect than um those guys uh or at least was a better college route runner than those guys uh from from the slot perspective i really did like eliza more at the time and his career has

been so weird so far so it's kind of it's kind of hard to tell with him um but josh downs i think shows a great ability to beat man and zone and press despite the fact he's probably going to be a slot guy like i think he is more along the tyler lockett access than the you know like wandale robinson guys like these sort of low average depth of target um gadgety type slot players like the the bunny hop slot players um yeah so i i really like what i've seen out of josh downs i think him and pitman are a really nice duo and kind of probably a pretty underrated group because they're both really good separators but in very different ways so yeah i think man i'm very excited about what i've seen from josh down so far i do look forward to the uh harman tweet storm if the

colts rumors about trading for Jerry Judy come true. And we've got a Pittman-Judy Downs trio. But I will say, as somebody who does not chart wide receiver routes, just watching that game on Sunday and the route that Downs ran on his touchdown, it's just like, oh, wow.

He's doing that. Not everybody can do that. Yeah. He's doing that, like Jacob said, he's doing it a lot. He's a consistent separator. I mean, I know it's a Titans defense, but he was open like on almost every play against the Titans in that game where he kind of had one of his breakout performances. So, yeah, he's a player I'm very excited about long term.

I think that red zone stuff could become a real thing because he's just so good in tight spaces. Not to mention too he you mentioned the number one success rate versus man in the class he was also the number one in contested catch rate in in the class for me because it was despite the fact he's like a tiny little guy uh because he's just so tough and so um technically strong at the catch point as well i think his ceiling is probably going to go underlooked um throughout the course of the season you said something i want to i want to stay there for a second because i've been thinking I think his ceiling is probably going to go underlooked throughout the courts of the season.

You said something. I want to, I want to stay there for a second because I've been thinking about this with quarterbacks a lot. And I want to, I want to hear your thoughts on it with wide receivers, this idea of a red zone success. Like I don't think anybody,

the common fantasy football player would look at Josh downs height and weight and think, Ooh, red zone threat because the common perception is it's the big guys you know we're going to throw the jump balls to the corner but we've seen another team in that division jacksonville um struggle so much in the red zone and like i don't know six seven passes that have been caught out of bounds now what is it about wide receivers that you're looking at that makes you think this

guy could really have a lot of success in the red zone well this is great part to talk sort of about how the entire league has shifted more towards zone coverage in the last few years like it's more of a zone heavy league than it was in you know like 2015 2016 2017 um that being said i think people then look at it like okay, okay, well, the ability to be man coverage is not as important. It's still the most important thing in, in like a receiver's profile to me, number one, because it's shown at least in reception perception to be more historically predictive of future success than, than ability to beat zone coverage. But two man coverage rates rise in high leverage situations, third down, fourth down, inside the red zone,

inside end zone targets, stuff like that. So that ability to beat a guy like one-on-one from a slot perspective or even from that X receiver perspective is still very, very critical there. And I think there is a lot that like Jacksonville is actually a really good example of this heat. I think their receiver usage has been very static. They just kind of line Ridley up as the X, Kirk as the slot, and then they've got Zay Jones when he's available

as sort of like an off-ball guy that Christian Kirk and him can sort of alternate spots. I think they'd be smart, far be it from me to tell Doug Peterson what to do, but I think they'd be wise to kind of move Ridley around and get him on some of those like iso red zone routes and stuff like that so um there's a lot that coaches can do to get these guys freed up but like in the red zone it is it certainly it helps when you have a big boy that you can you know throw the ball up to but those are pretty low percentage throws and it's a rather high percentage throw if you can get a guy like Josh down so just you know whip a guy in one-on-one coverage to matt's point um when outside of the red zone

teams are using main coverage 21 of the time inside the resident it's 33 inside the 10 it's 39 um so being able to beat one-on-one coverage there is definitely important and i'm glad that you highlighted this heath because when he said that who came to mind for me was tank dell i think both those guys like tank dell scored a ton of touchdowns in college i think both those guys can just beat one guy can just shake one guy and get open um and then downs particularly is like good on the contested catches as well um i just want to talk about tank dell so like downs dell jayden reed rishi rice I kind of want to stick with that group right there because I think they're really interesting going into the draft pre-draft. I had downs higher than all of those guys. And then I ended up moving Jane Reed and rice. And I think maybe Dell ahead

of him as well. When I, we got the landing spots, I was worried about volume, um in indianapolis's offense but how would you guys rank those four at this point we've seen encouraging signs from all of them yeah i can go i can go first um because i actually have my rankings i think i have dell the highest yeah i have it tank dell and then rishi rice and then jane reed and then josh downs Rice, and then Jane Reed, and then Josh Downs. Which feels wrong because we've been like, I've got Dell and Downs considerably ahead of the other two. And I have Reed quite a ways behind Rice. So it's Dell and Downs, and and then Rice and then Reed for me.

I think Downs is probably when I do my latest Dynasty rankings is going to be the top guy because he was the best prospect of these players. I actually had him in the same tier as Quentin Johnson, Jordan Addison, and Zay Flowers. I really liked Josh Downs as a prospect.

I think he'll probably be the highest ranked of those guys. Post-draft, I did bump Jaden Reed quite a bit up because I like the landing spot. I think he has an ability to climb that depth chart. I still think that's true. So I probably will have him second. And then Dell and Rice is really hard to parse out because I really do like what I've seen out of Tank Dell so far. 71.4% success rate versus man in weeks two and week three. Like you said, that ability to beat man coverage,

especially from a downfield route running perspective has been really impressive. He's certainly not a slot guy. He's probably more of like the consummate flanker in that receiver core. I still just think like Nico's a better player and probably has a higher ceiling long term. He's kind of pigeonholed there a little bit. Rasheed Rice is really interesting because Rice's collegiate profile was not good, but he did play with an injury throughout the course of almost every game that I charted. I had somebody reach out to me about that basically right after I published it, so that was worth noting there that that injury might have ruined his separation stuff,

and especially his contested catch stuff. And so far, he's been really impressive in limited looks. But before we go crazy about his per route data and stuff like that, I really do want people to watch the Rishi Rice plays. It's kind of the same play every single time. It's just a slant route over the middle against zone coverage and hey to his credit number one that's really good number two i mean he is gonna crush at least one dude after the catch basically every single time if he catches it he does have to clean up some of the drops and stuff like that but

they've got a very specific like idea for him right so far where like let's get him on these routes over the middle of the field, slant routes from the slot, and let's get the ball in his hands because he can make stuff happen in a real wide receiver way, not a Kadarius Tony type of way, like a real wide receiver. And I think Rasheed Rice has shown a really good ability to beat zone coverage, by the way. His success rate for zone is really impressive in the games I've charted so far. So I'm very excited about what I've seen with rishi rice i think i want to see

more from him and and again let me say what i said about doug peterson far be it from me to question like andy reed's uh you know ideas on offense but i'd love to see rishi rice run as like more an outside receiver and run like big deep over routes and deep posts and digs and stuff like that because I think he can make plays there. And using Sky Moore as an outside receiver is like, I don't know what the hell they're thinking is going to happen there. I like Sky Moore as a prospect, but he can't survive on the outside in the NFL. It just makes no sense. So I'd almost kind of like to see those guys flip their positional roles.

I've seen enough of mbs and all that stuff so i'm talking a lot about rashid rice i think you can go a lot of different directions by about what we've seen so far but bottom line is we've seen a lot of good so i think i'd probably have rice over dell but i'm not very convinced about that i i and i don't i'm gonna do this thing that i do all the time because i see the tweets in my mind from weeks ago and i don't see the the handle um so i don't know who to give credit to this idea that the chiefs are people are saying people yes people are saying um and i and i feel like it might have been one of you guys in this conversation that the chiefs are kind of hacking per route data oh that was because i i said their

whole their whole offense is uh you can i'm the people that are saying that was that was matt quote retweeting me we're the guys we're the people we're the people that are saying it's like their whole offense is designed to hack per route data because yeah like you're gonna make the point here that like more and and mvs are running a ton of routes and not getting any looks. But then like, all right, now Rasheed Rice is on the field. Let's get him the ball. Like now Kadarius Toney is on the field. Let's throw him a screen.

So it is like whacking out the data for sure. Matt, you never need to apologize for talking too much about Rasheed Rice. I got the notes done and realized I didn't have any like detailed section for Rasheed Rice. And I'm like, I got to put this in there for Heath. So you guys were both lower on dell than i expected i actually have him at the top of this rank because i feel like his you mentioned is 77 of his routes are coming out wide and the potential for him to be someone who's more than just this slot guy or more than just the complimentary two like jordan addison like josh downs i wonder if he maybe has a higher ceiling than those guys.

Do you think he's dependent on Nico Collins and is only going to be like a compliment type of piece? Or do you think Dell could actually be like the wide receiver one in an offense? Because he's operated as the one on a few games, but we're just dealing with such small sample sizes that I don't want to overreact. Yeah, like you can almost do anything with with a four or five game sample size. And obviously, I think he's only played five games so far because he missed last week.

But yeah, there's probably going to be games where he has more targets than Nico Collins. That can happen in almost any receiver core. I do think he probably profiles long-term as a number two. Okay, so long-term upside, pretty comparable to downs. Yeah, I just like downs more as a player but that's right yeah yeah okay that's uh that's great stuff we had a couple rookies we didn't quite get to but i do want to make sure like there's a couple of second year wide receivers

that we've got to talk about we need to get a quick break in got about 15 minutes left we'll work through these guys as quick as we can i just just quick thoughts, Matt, and I think we kind of touched on JSN. We're not really moving what we think about him. We talked about Quinton Johnston. Marvin Mims, Sean Payton. Are you hopeful that Mims could be a full-time

player at some point, or is he just that deep shot guy, the big play guy that's probably not going to play 75 of the snaps ever i think he could probably be a 75 snap guy i don't know that he has upside to be like a one or or anything like that but i think he can be a full-time player and i mean my god if and when we get a jerry judy or courtland sutton trade and and we're still getting like brandon johnson and little jordan humphrey didn't they sign trae kwan smith to another you know sean payton saints

crony like if we're still getting those guys playing over marvin mims i mean then we really got to ask questions yeah but again i still feel like i'm going to be asking the questions about sean payton and not the questions about marvin mims i'm gonna have to see marvin mims with somebody else before it's so bizarre that they that this is like sean payton's guy that he trades up for in his first draft pick and like somehow this is the guy we're complaining about not being on the field it's it's especially because the other receivers haven't been good like that's another thing too so um yeah i i'm with you heat that i'm i'm like raising i'm raising my eyebrows at the sean payton experience for a lot of different reasons but this is certainly one of them let's take a short

break and then talk about George Pickens. Okay, so George Pickens has, I've been all over the place on this guy, and a lot of it was the fact that and Jacobs highlighted this on Twitter over and over and over again. Like, they basically had him run two or three routes all year last year, and then in the preseason, we

basically saw him running two or three routes, and it didn't see a whole lot of improvement until Deontay Johnson got hurt. And then he's kind of looked over the last couple of weeks like he's shown me some things that he can do. And now Deontay Johnson's probably coming back. And I'm a little bit lost on George Pickens as to whether is there actually wide receiver one upside there. I understand why people get super excited. His catches are more fun to watch than the average NFL wide receiver one upside there? I understand why people get super excited. His catches are more fun to watch than the average NFL wide receiver.

Or do you think he's just going to go right back to that field stretcher role? I don't think he'll totally go back to a field stretcher only role. I mean, I won't put anything past Matt Canada. I want it on the record that I hated Matt Canada's offense before it was cool for everybody to hate Matt Canada's offense and try to go viral with every sort of anti-Matt Canada thing out there.

So I won't put anything past the guy, but I do think it would be kind of crazy if you go back to only running clear-out routes and only getting targets on clear-out routes. I sampled two games for George Pickens. It was the Ravens game and the Texans game, so a good mix there of a really good game winning performance and then a not so great performance to 25 yards,

right on three catches. And in those two games, 20.4% of his routes were go routes. 11.9% of his routes were corner routes. 10.4% of his routes were post routes. So again, these big vertical routes and it's, it's a little bit of a weird thing Heath,

because number one one you can't really even have a rational conversation about george pickens especially on the internet uh because you either have to say that he's like the greatest player ever he's like the next aj green and maybe better like he's secretly a top five receiver and you you all are too dumb to to notice it uh or you have to say that like he can can't get open at all. And he sucks. Like, you know, he's,

he's overrated only OPI stuff like that. So can't really have a rational conversation about George Pickens, but it is weird that like people want him running all these other different routes. And generally I think if you want him to produce for fantasy, you want him running other routes, but at the same time, like he's really good on deep routes and he makes his best plays on deep

routes. So like, does it make a ton of sense to have him run a bunch of slants and flat routes? Probably not. I don't think so. You can certainly get him on some crossing routes and stuff like that. That would be great. That would be good to see.

But he also has to get better at separating on those if he wants to be a high-targeted player. My thing with George Pickens, does it hurt your feelings if I say wants to be like a high targeted player um my thing with george pickens like does it hurt your feelings if i say that he's like mike williams like that's his that's his that's his best player comparison because if it does i think i don't know that's kind of how i view him as a player i think he's probably like in the mike williams mold based on what i've seen through one and a little more than a quarter season in the nfl then then like the next aj green or something like that.

But he's certainly not like DJ Chark either. You know, we're talking about X receiver profile. I, I perpetually thought that Mike Williams was just about to be better than he'd ever been as well. So it's a perfect, perfect.

Another guy. And you referenced him at the top and, and Jacob and I have been waiting. So John Dotson loved everything about him coming into the NFL. Loved what he did, especially in those last four or five games of last year. Really thought special things were possible coming into this year. And it's just like, not only is he clearly behind Terry McLaurin, but Curtis Samuel is outperforming him and out-targeting him. He's the third at best option in an offense that seems to want to throw to tight ends

more than wide receivers anyway. Does it just put John Dotson on your bench and hope that something's different next year? Yeah, I think that's probably how it is because, one, I think he's a really good player, and I think he was a good player in college. He was a good player as a rookie. And I think he had a really bad game against the Falcons last week, right? He gets one target and he drops it, and it's brutal and stuff like that. But by and large, especially to start the year, I thought he was playing extremely well. Like the first two weeks for him, 76.9% success rate versus man, 80% success rate versus press,

and they were using him like in the slot. They were using him outside. So I think the player is still good. And so generally my advice to dynasty managers or people that like want to hold on to their John Dotson stock or any player like this is, yeah, it'll probably be fine because he's a good player um i do think we got a little over our skis with dotson in in like the offseason in the preseason which you know to be fair they just featured him a ton in the preseason i'm kind of ready to cancel the preseason like or cancel fantasy analysis off the preseason because has there any been any storyline from preseason that's that's aged well like christian kirk's not playing in two receiver sets in the preseason. Oh, no. Well, that hasn't aged well.

This John Dotson excitement hasn't aged well. I literally tweeted last year. Instead on the podcast, my analysis would have been better this year if I had just completely missed the preseason. And then I reacted to things in the preseason again. Yeah, I know. It's hard not to because we're excited, right? And it is a clue i think that's the thing is it here's here's a good here's like preseason and the

calvin ridley thing is a great example um i think calvin really has played well this year outside of a couple drops and he's been fine but i do think that like i came into the year excited about calvin ridley's role in the jags offense i generally think that role has come to fruition and he's been a good player in that role. But the preseason, I think, caused me to double count Calvin Ridley enthusiasm. It's like, just take it as, okay, you saw evidence that what you thought was going to happen is probably going to happen.

Not like, ooh, more is going to happen. So I think that probably happened with Jahan Dotson too. And obviously Terry McLaurin's late pre or late preseason injury also caused him, I think, to get steamed up a little higher than he probably should have been. But if we just like remove all of that from our minds for a second, he's a good player. I think we can agree on that. Washington's offense is a little shaky.

One, I don't think the enemy has done a great job of personnel usage. They've rotated these guys off and on the field way too much doesn't make any sense especially when you've invested in your top three receivers that doesn't make any sense um also by the way like your quarterback's not on pace to take a bajillion sacks if one he's not a shaky player and two your protection designs are not very good either like something's wrong in both areas there so shaky offense shaky quarterback new play caller and also curtis samuel is good like logan thomas is good these guys are not the the diami brown and byron pringle and jameson crowder stuff is a different conversation

but like curtis sam was a good player man and like i i'm the longest standing you know last guy on curtis samuel island potentially so i probably should have put more stock in that as well i remember the dj more curtis samuel battles uh from like six years ago um the ultimate like you're allowed to like two receivers on the same team guys like you were it is legally allowed jacob you had some good stuff on romeo dobbs and then i think you may have also in the notes called him a jag and so i I think, what did you have on him? Let's talk about the Packers wide receivers a little bit here before we get to the bets. if Dobbs is a Jag, if he's just a guy and Jayden Reed's rise is inevitable, or if he's good and the team really likes him and Jordan Love really likes him. Cause that's what it seems like to me. He has a team high 26% first read target share on the year, which is the same range as DK Metcalf,

Nico Collins, Calvin Ridley, his target per hour rates up from 21% to 24%. I think Jordan Love really likes this guy. And so like, have you seen anything from him? You said you just watched some of his recent stuff. He mostly seems like a contested catch winner and I don't see much else from him. But like, is he good enough to hold off Jaden Reed? Um, I, that depends on how Reed progresses. And I really like what i've seen out

of jayden reed so far so i do think that there's a lot of um potential upside for jayden reed just on romeo dobbs though like his numbers so far this season look a lot like how romeo dobbs looked in the mid-season rookie report last year in reception perception if you pull up that sample like he's probably you know an average to slightly below average separator but not completely horrible if you look at his end of season numbers that's when he really tailed off but he also came back from like a high ankle sprain and there was again another potential injury situation there i think romeo seems like a really really solid receiver like a not i would i don't know if like jag is it seems so disrespectful to call him a jag but like yeah he's a he's a fine he's

fine right like i think that's that's where i'd stand on romeo dobbs is like he's a fine player that as a day three draft pick for the packers that's a huge win um do i think he has a lot of upside to be like a number one receiver? Probably not. But I'm also asking the same question about Christian Watson. He's just a far more exciting and explosive player in his own right. So I think the Packers receiver core long term, I'm kind of ready to believe anything with these guys.

You could tell me by the end of the season that this player is the one or this player is the one or this player is the one or the receiver distribution looks this way, that way. Or I'd believe that. Or I'd believe that by the end of the season, they need another body. They need to add another player here to kind of complete the room.

I could also believe that as well. Yeah, to me, Reid is the one who's the best at working multiple levels of the field and could legitimately be a top target. But also, there's not even really a clear path to playing time it seems like because they like the other two guys so much it's yeah i think they could be a frustrating like rotation team too um and they also want to play two tight ends and like run the ball so and split aaron jones out and use him in creative ways so yeah and we don't know how good jordan love is just

yet so there's a lot of open questions the packers offense so calvin ridley is a jag not not just a guy but jacksonville jack and he you kind of talked about him already matt but i just want like do you see him as almost 29 years old in terms of dynasty as a guy who could still be a top 12 consistent wide receiver or should we just be happy that they've got a pair of fantasy number two wide receivers on the team and that should be the expectation ridley and kirger both starts every week but not maybe there's not quite the elite upside that we thought three or four years ago in dynasty there was for calvin ridley yeah i mean my podcast co-host on reception perception james co said that he finds it to to be disrespectful to the game that people think that –

and by the way, he's talking to me here. This is a conversation back and forth between he and I. Disrespectful to the game that we think that Calvin Ridley can just miss a year and a half of football and come right back and be a dominant producer. And so far he hasn't been. I don't think all of that is Ridley's fault. I think Ridley's been a really good player. And this is funny too because the expectation stuff is what we're talking about here.

Because I think if you ask any NFL analyst, they'd be like, yeah, Ridley's been a perfect addition for what the Jaguars needed, and he's been exactly what they were looking for. I think we, and I'm saying we, got out of over our skis about Calvin Ridley in the preseason and in training camp and stuff like that we, got out of over our skis about Calvin Ridley in the preseason and in training camp and stuff like that because, again, sort of double counting. He's exactly what they need, and they're going to remake their entire offense around this. That has not been the case.

I think overall probably what you said, Heath, the second option there where two top 24 guys, two really good players because, by the way, Christian Kirk, this is like the second year in a row. Everybody's been super disrespectful to Christian Kirk. He's a good player. He's a really good player who was good in Arizona and people were way too mean. I said this at the time, at least, if I'm going to give myself one piece of credit here while I'm flogging myself for the Ridley stuff. Christian Kirk, people were too mean to him about that contract. He's just a good player that they needed to bring in,

and he's a good player they need to keep in their offense. So I think probably the second option is the truth here with Ridley. So we saved this for the 59-minute mark, but Adam Thielen and DeAndre Hopkins, I like the way that when Jacob put the notes together, and again, thank you very much for doing that. He wanted to put a special note that Heath wanted to ask about these guys. He doesn't want you to think that Jacob's asking about these guys these guys and that's kind of how dynasty fantasy managed i think feel about

these 30 year old wide receivers 31 year old wide receivers but the fact is we're at week seven there are teams that are contending for championships that are looking for one more piece to add at wide receiver or running back and 30 plus year old wide receivers a little bit cheaper sometimes than adding a running back so i do want your thoughts on like is this anywhere close to prime feeling is it pretty much just a role thing uh it's not just a role thing but i do think him moving into this role has been really critical uh i said this on our podcast last week that the truth is somewhere in the middle here with Adam Thielen where last year it's, oh, he's washed because of the targets per route run stuff that we mentioned. That was not true. But then if you look at his numbers this year, like he is balling out.

I don't think that's necessarily true either. The team is 0-6. Okay. If they had a receiver that was balling out they wouldn't be 0-6 they have a guy who's very productive who's crushing it in this role who is still a very viable NFL zone coverage beater and can and isn't like hopeless against man coverage some of their other receivers on the roster are hopeless against man coverage Adam Thielen is not he is a very solid NFL receiver like a guy a guy that you are not embarrassed to be your starting NFLfl receiver if you're a carolina panthers you're embarrassed about way more things than that right now um so

overall i think that's kind of where adam thielen stands and i do expect this to continue as long as he's out there and they need like a jonathan mingo type to step up because he's he's probably the only one that they that they can count on to to progress a little bit going forward um so i think that's like the the answer with with adam thielen yeah it's it's he's gonna he's gonna continue to do this i wouldn't say it's like anything crazy impressive because the team stinks but from a fantasy perspective those numbers count all the same well i think one of the questions about him coming into this year and he was just a complete after that in fact people were making fun of those people who were

drafting adam thielen the double digit rounds and redraft because why are you drafting adam feeling at all uh well this is why uh heath heath people made fun of me for i posted an adam feeling video after and like why are you overreacting the this that was a pre-season overreaction that was worth it if you remember like i'm getting you know targeted like crazy uh in in in the preseason so i was literally like made fun of for like oh this is how you know the seasons has been gone on to preseason gone on too long the season needs to start because we're getting adam feeling hype like i don't know man he can produce probably in this role and and so far he has yeah it's like he's boring and like no upside but again the points count the same right so the one of the valid concerns about him

with his age and his history is that he might get hurt at some point this year. Like everybody might get hurt. Is there anybody in this Carolina receiving core that if he does go down, has the ability to be fantasy viable? Yes. I've looked at one game for Mingo so far, and it was just the most recent game against the Dolphins.

I do think Mingo is a player that has to be used in the right role uh talked about that in his college profile i think is an off-ball player who can be a flanker that you move into the slot sometimes he can successfully be put in that role that is kind of the role that adam thielen is playing right now though so um although he's more primary slot and mingo's more primary flanker um those two guys are i I think Mingo – he's a guy that could see a legit growth throughout the course of the season. I think he will look like a much different player. And I don't even think he's looked bad necessarily so far. He's just been unproductive because the Panthers offense can't do anything

other than throw the ball to Adam Thielen. Bryce doesn't have time to do anything else back there. And there's a huge gap in even how well Thielen's playing and how well Mingo's playing as an individual player. So I've got hope for Mingo long-term. But like TJ Chark, no. Terrace Marshall, I can't – look, Frank Reich deserves a lot of crap for a few things so far this year.

But I can't believe reporters were like on him for Terrace Marshall not playing a couple weeks ago. Like, yo, give me a break. It's not Terrrence marshall and even like i don't wish injury on anybody right you're a sicko if you do um but removing the temptation of the like lavisca chennault gadget stuff from this offense is probably not the worst thing in the world because i usually say with guys like lavisco when you see um like a head coach say in a press conference uh we got to find ways to get him more involved.

That's kind of a signal that you're out of ideas. When it's like, all right, we need more juice. Let's get LaVisca Chennault involved. So I think the only guy I have hope for here is Mingo. Did not expect LaVisca Chennault to catch strays on today's show. But there it is. Last guy here. And it was a sad, sad week six for DeAndre Hopkins.

Ryan Tannehill's got a high ankle sprain it's been a roller coaster for hopkins but more more bad than good is is there are there negative signs about him or is this just a situation quarterback thing i think it's just a situation quarterback thing like tannahill hasn't played well this year generally like hilarious that there was any sort of like oh the jets can get ryan tannahill maybe there'll be a playoff teams like are you watching ryan tannahill play right now um we'll see if will levis can support ryan or excuse me deandre hopkins if he gets in there because it's probably not malik willis he's like sam howell if if he actually had like athleticism

uh that's what that sam howell would play like malikik Willis. I kind of mean that as a strike on both players in a weird way. But I don't know. That situation is rough. I almost kind of think that he can he get traded at the deadline? Is he somebody that could get moved because now the Titans have paid the money? Could he go to Kansas City? Because I think Hopkins could play another three years and maybe even be like an Adam Thielen type, right? Like who in three years from now, we're talking about, I can't believe DeAndre Hopkins is catching nine passes as some young quarterback slot receiver.

It's just probably not going to happen in Tennessee unless Will Levis is ready to rock. Absolutely fantastic stuff. Thank you so much, Matt. I know how busy you are this time of year. So I appreciate you taking the time to join us. Thank you, Jacob Gibbs for everything.

No, it's, it's been, it's been a fantastic hour here and thank you everybody who's listening and we will talk to you next Tuesday.