Fantasy Football Today - FFT Dynasty: 2023 Breakout Wide Receivers With Special Guest Alfredo Brown! (05/23 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Special guest Alfredo Brown joins the FFT Dynasty crew to discuss breakout wide receivers for the 2023 season! But first, we discuss the latest news from around the NFL. Then dive into the first tier of wide receivers, including Jahan Dotson, Christian Watson, and Treylon Burks (23:23). Next, the second tier includes Jameson Williams, Kadarius Toney, and Skyy Moore (32:20). Finally, the guys wrap up the third tier with Rondale Moore, Rashod Bateman, Wan'Dale Robinson, and more! (38:20) 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

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It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races! And he stays on his feet! He's just going to go the distance! Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Welcome to Fantasy Football Today, Dynasty. I am your host, Heath Cummings, joined, per usual, by Dave Richard, and a very special guest, Alfredo Brown from Football Guys.

Alfredo, it's not often that we have a comment in the chat about the guest before the show even starts, but Joey Wright, friend of the program, says yesterday he recorded with me. Today, FFT, talk about moving up in the world. I'm not sure that's entirely true, but we're going to talk a lot about pre-breakout wide receivers. And I made the joke that it was like pre-workout for Dave and I because we go to the gym so often, but you actually do go to the gym a lot. So this is like the supercharge your dynasty team with these wide receivers before they break out. Yeah, there's nothing like a good pre-workout. And so if this is like the dynasty version of it, I'm all in. That sounds great. I saw Dave perk up a little bit. I think he was insulted by my joke

about us going to the gym. Dave goes to the gym all the time now. I went last night, Heath Cummings. I'll have you know. I will probably go to the gym at some point in the next 48 hours again. I know you can't tell because all you can see are my shoulders, but I have

shed all of my body fat. I am now in as good of shape as DK Metcalf. Well, congratulations on that. We are going to talk about real things today as well. Traylon Burks, Jahan Dotson, Christian Watson, many other pre-breakout wide receivers, but we like to start by letting you talk about you, Alfredo. Tell us what you're doing in the industry. I know you were at Football Guys. That's where I was before I came to CBS. I've been on your podcast.

Tell the people about that. Just give us the elevator pitch on you. Yeah, well, I mean, you can follow me on Twitter at ThePretendGM. And I've been working at Football Guys for a little while now. I just became the head of video content over there. And I come from a really interesting background. I did sports radio down here in South Florida. I was a former scout at FIU, Florida International University here in Miami. And now I've just kind of taken all of those old skills and put them into what I think the world

would see as a really useless skill, which is fantasy football. But I'm having a lot of fun doing it. And so we've just been taking this show, my show that I have, the Pretend GM, and diving a bit deeper into some of the topics. And we do a lot of teaching and bring some context to things like a rookie mock draft or trade targets and stuff like that and really dive into the why. So it's been a lot of fun. And as you saw, I got to record with Joey Wright and a whole bunch of the great staff members over there, football guys. We have a lot of really cool stuff that's going to be coming out throughout this summer. I'm not allowed to say it just yet, but I'm really excited about it. I am really excited to see it.

Now, Dave, he mentioned FIU, and I know from speaking with Chris Towers that they have – there's a thing that I always mess up. And I don't know if it's like their chant or if it's something they put on their t-shirts, but I think it's see the paw, fear the claw, but I might be wrong. That's a question for Alfredo. I have no clue. No. Yeah.

I don't know. That sounds familiar. I think it used to be like, see the paw, fear, fear the claw, something like that. Now I think it's just paws up.

They made it a lot simpler for the next generation. Paws up. Now it's not that menacing though. If a Panther put its paws up, it would fall, right? A hundred percent. I don't think they thought it through.

Okay. We should probably pause that discussion. We've got three questions for Alfredo. Who is the one rookie you keep drafting and rookie drafts? Man, I have been finding that I end up with a lot of Jaden Reed, the wider seer for the Packers. Yes.

It is so hard to ignore, uh, his really good draft capital, the 50th overall pick. And, uh, whether it's super flex, I'm getting him like in the late second round or a single quarterback, I'm getting in the mid second round and I'm gladly taking him at those spots or even way ahead of that. I think he is such a good player. He got trapped on that Michigan state offense in college, really good as a true freshman for Western Michigan and led the team in receptions, way ahead of that. I think he is such a good player. He got trapped on that Michigan State offense in college. Really good as a true freshman for Western Michigan and led the team in receptions better than the guys

that ended up becoming NFL prospects like Dwayne Eskridge who was a second round pick. And he's just got this really good skill set that I think is it lines up with being a target hog

over there on Green Bay. He's good against man, good against zone, good route runner. He's going to play a lot in the slot, probably some Z receiver work, get a lot of that underneath work for Jordan Love

to get him comfortable. And I think we'll see sort of a new wrinkle in the Matt LaFleur offense that we didn't get to see with Aaron Rodgers, where so much of it was like, let's just line up and shotgun, let Rodgers run around and do his thing. Like now we're actually going to see a bit more

of Matt LaFleur's thumbprint on this offense. And I think that's going to pay dividends for a guy like Jaden Reed. So I'm really excited about seeing him likely be a starter and contributor on day one. I was about to say, I think he's their day one slot receiver. Yep. Yep. A hundred percent. I mean, I remember watching, I remember watching him flash while watching Kenneth Walker last year, Alfredo, and now he was a prospect this year, and the stats are terrible. But the offense was terrible.

And I think he's good at so many things. It's hard to find things to complain about with Jane Reed. I came up with he's a little old because he's 23. I came up with that his upper body could use some muscle. That hurt him when he was playing press coverage. He hurt his foot. He hurt his hip. That hurt him when he was playing press coverage. He hurt his foot. He hurt his hip. So maybe there's some issues with staying healthy.

And there were five drops last year. And that's not great. But otherwise, I think he can do almost anything that you can ask him to do. I think he's a great wide receiver who can help fantasy managers maybe even develop into a wide receiver three for a long time. You both get one-word answers to this before we move on to question number two because we are going to talk about romeo dobbs at the end of today's show who is your second favorite wide receiver on the packers and dynasty i've got these guys ranked within 10 spots so i think it's it's debatable either way

but would you rather have romeo dobbs would you rather have jayden reed jayden reed reed two guys for reed i've got dobbs just a little bit higher i would not argue strongly for it we're starting a new dynasty league next week alfredo unfortunately adam azar is going to be the commissioner we're going to try to help him on next week's show set this league up in a way that doesn't make everyone want to quit after one year what's the one rule or feature that is a must for this new Dynasty League? So this was the rule that I actually had to, I was the commissioner, I'm the commissioner of my Dynasty League

with my college buddies. And this was the rule that I had to put in so that people wouldn't quit was everyone was not used to the Dynasty League and like what happens in the off season. So I created the rookie draft lottery, just kind of like the NBA. And we turned it into this event

with the ping pong balls and everything that people got excited about because, you know, you get the guy who they're ready to quit dynasty because, Oh, well my team is bad and now it's just going to be bad forever. So I'm going to tank. Right.

And I'm okay with taking like, it's part of the strategy. I've done it, but it's for people who aren't that into the dynasty league, they will back out of it really quick. And so this became just something fun. It added a new wrinkle. And you know, it was, it was one of those something fun it added a new wrinkle um and you

know it was it was one of those things where it takes the guy who's not really into the rookie picks and all that get a little bit more excited because i was like okay well uh first picks up for open auction who wants bijan robinson and you know the chat starts going all throughout the offseason because that guy who doesn't want the pick who somehow ended up with the number one pick is willing to trade it to whoever and all of a sudden now the league just gets really fun dave this does sound like more work for me, but then again, Adam's the commissioner of this league. So it sounds like more work for him.

Well, I was going to ask Alfredo how he actually goes through the process of the lottery, whether you actually have like one of those giant, like vacuum containers. I don't know what the hell you call it, where the ping pong balls are bouncing all around like they have in the lottery. And then like something comes out there. Maybe you used to work for the lottery. I don't know what the hell you call where the ping pong balls are bouncing all around like they have in the lottery and then like something comes out there maybe you used to work for the lottery i don't know but how do you go about actually producing the lottery for your dynasty so what i'll do is i'll i'll plug in the bottom six teams that didn't make the playoffs and i'll put i'll use like one of those like online things where you can determine the lottery

odds right and then uh it had a bunch of like old ping pong balls sitting around the house got those put them in like one of those glass fish bowls and just started swirling it around and we'll do it like live on a stream with the whole with everybody from the league watching and we'll pick it out and start just going down that list the number six pick is this guy and just keep going all the way down to one so uh it's it's not the most perfect process not the most professional process but it's a lot fun. And it took the guys that weren't as interested and made them really enjoy the offseason. But if I didn't want to get a fishbowl and buy ping pong balls and all that, I can still use this random RNG software that's on there. Yes, yes, absolutely.

Not as fun. It doesn't sound like a lot of work, Heath. No, not a lot of work for us, but I think Adam should probably get the fishbowl. Okay, question number three and i would expect you're going to you could answer somebody we're going to talk about later today alfredo there could be someone not even in the top 12 that i put on this list who is your favorite non-rookie pre-breakout wide receiver it's a lot of filters to go through i'm uh i'm gonna say here it's it's drake london um i mean it's i don't know how high the breakout could really be i had i had a different answer i'm saving that for later in the show though because i do want to talk about someone else but

uh drake london is the guy that i'm still really excited about i'm not too worried about bijan robinson uh the falcons already ran the ball more than any team last year it's how much worse could it really get for Drake London? And that was with Mark's Marriott under center. London and Ritter, they started to develop a bit of a rapport late last season. This offense should be better, should have more scoring opportunities with Bijan being part of it. And that was something that Drake London didn't have a lot of last year,

with just four touchdowns. So his rookie season was actually better than a lot of people think. This was a guy who was 22nd in targets in the NFL, fifth in target share, second in targets per route run, which is really, really important. If he's on the field, is he actually getting targeted? And now from a football standpoint, you look at what the Falcons did. They added another tight end, Johnnie Smith, pause up, FIU.

And they're going to be running a bit more 12 personnel, two tight end sets. So you're not going to see that extra wide receiver on the field. And that's, oh, I can't remember his name right now, but Matt Collins. So you're not really worried about the wide receiver competition there. One study that I really liked, and this will be it for Drake London, is from JJ Zacharyson of lateround.com. He did a study amongst rookie wide receivers with 50 or more targets since 2011. And Drake London was third in targets per route run, second in target share per game,

only behind Odell Beckham as a rookie. And then at fifth in yards per team pass attempt. The only other guys that were ahead of him were Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase, AJ Brown, and Odell Beckham Jr., all as rookies. And I think that's really good company to be a part of. I think there's still a bit of nuance here with this Falcons offense,

but I like where all the peripheral stats lie for Drake London right now. I would like to think about Drake London, but I'm sitting here looking at the chat and I can't think about anything other than the Alfredo looks comps. Alfredo is a better looking Jimmy G. Kind of looks like Nick Sirianni. Alfredo looks like a young George Clooney. Wow. Wow. Someone did say you're looking yoked already, Dave. So I think that's good. That is good.

But no one's calling you Nick Sirianni or Jimmy G or George Clooney. No, but they're not calling me Andy Reid. You know what? I think Andy Reid's a very, very nice man. Yeah, I didn't put London on the show today or on the list today, and I probably should have. He only had 866 yards last year. I think, Dave, it's interesting when you look at all those per-team pass attempt

or target share, those things show us how good Drake London is and how good Drake London could be in an NFL offense. I don't think Arthur Smith's going anywhere this year, though, and if they win the division, he might not be going anywhere for a couple of years. So how do you blend those two things, Dave, with London, who I think we all agree is an elite talent and has elite upside one day? How long does he have to wait for that upside to hit, though? I think it might take a while, and I don't know if I agree with the term elite with Drake London.

I think he's very good. I think his game is what it is. He's a physical receiver. You can line him up anywhere, but you're hoping that he can make plays after the catch and come down with a lot of contested balls. The problem is where he is and who he's playing with, and I think the Falcons are going to double down on being run-oriented with Bijan now there.

Bijan can also catch passes out of the backfield. They're going to use him in that way. And when London had his – remember the last four games of the year, Ritter was playing. London had some good games then. There was no Kyle Pitts. And I wonder if Kyle Pitts is going to be the one that actually benefits the most from Ritter, especially without Mariota

there, because Mariota was a total mess last year. And from Bijan being there, and defense is having to account for Bijan from play to play. They used Pitts much more as a downfield weapon than they did Drake London. A-dot for London last

year, 10.4 for pits, 13.8. I know both of you remember the game. I think it was against Carolina. It was like all they did with pits was chuck it downfield. And all Mario did was miss him. He got open and you're hoping that Ritter can find him. We'll see if he can,

but I think London's going to need that volume that, that target share when he's on the field target per route run that we heard Alfredo talk about. That's going to need that volume, that target share when he's on the field, target per route run that we heard Alfredo talk about. That's going to be huge, and that needs to stay high, and you have to hope that the Falcons take a step in the direction that I'm not saying they're going to do, and that's throw a lot more in 2023. And that's the thing is if you look at what they did last year,

it was so historically run heavy that even if they want to remain a run heavy team, you would expect them to pass more. It's just how much more do they, and Arthur Smith's talked about it. We're going to throw the ball more. Now I think they're probably going to throw it more to Bijan Robinson than they did to Tyler Algier, but Bijan can take those Cordero Patterson targets from last year and everything will be just fine. Let's get 30% of the targets go to Kyle Pitts, 30% to Drake Lennon, 20% to Bijon. I don't care who they throw the ball to besides that.

Let's get these three studs going. And again, I think the Falcons might win the NFC South. We've got some real quick news and notes. I've been on vacation for a week, so some of these things may have been talked about already on Fantasy Football Today. We're going to talk about them more from a dynasty perspective. And this first one I know is a running back, Alfredo, that I'm lower on than the industry for sure. I got a lot of trouble for not having in my top 12 dynasty running backs.

But there is talk from former Patriots running back coach suggesting Ty Montgomery will be the third down back and that the Patriots want to take a little bit off of Ramondre Stevenson's plate. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how much I really care about the Patriots reports because every year we hear that someone is going to be the third down back or this person's the new breakout. And like last year we were supposed to be really excited or about all these rookies coming in and really worried about Ramondre Stevenson. And we,

we just, we don't know. We really don't know. And it's almost not worth it to try to figure it out. Ramondre Stevenson's still going to be good. He's still going to get a decent amount of workload. For all we know, James Robinson returns to form and does something for that team.

When it comes to the Patriots, I feel like there's just such a fantasy blind spot for all of us. It doesn't matter how hard we try to analyze it. And Dave, that's kind of my point, is I don't want to rank a running back in the top 12 when I have this little confidence in how he's going to be used from year to year because it's the Patriots.

He's running back 19 for me in my dynasty running back rankings. But how confident do we feel that Ramondre Stevenson has one more season with last year's usage, much less more than one? So that's where the road splits for me. I think next, just look at who they have on the roster. I'd be stunned if James Robinson reverted back to his rookie year form. I'd be stunned if Ty Montgomery or Pierre Strong or Kevin Harris

did anything to take significant work away from Ramondre Stevenson. I think the Patriots know what they have in Ramondre Stevenson, and they don't want to overwork him. But there's a difference between, well, we don't want to overwork him, and, well, we've got to split carries with him, and he's only playing 55% of the snaps or something like that. He's too good. They can't afford to leave him on the bench.

If they take him off the field, they lose a very important piece of their offense, and they need pieces because their offense without Romandre on the field, it might be the worst offense in the National Football League. I mean, what do they have? That wide receiver, a quarterback, their other running backs who already went through it. And by the way, Ty Montgomery,

he hasn't been relevant for fantasy since 2017, and I'm not just making a joke that's literally the last time he meant anything in fantasy he had three games in 2017 with 10 or more ppr points since then he four games since 2017 so i don't even i don't even know if he's making the team what i would be worried about is the Patriots finding somebody. Maybe somebody comes off the scrap heap at running back, comes to new England,

fits in seamlessly. And that guy takes 10 to 15% of the work off of a remand. Ray Stevenson's plate for now. It's not happening. I think this year he's a must as like a top 15 ish type of pick. Can he do it in 2024 and 2025? I wouldn't be so sure. So that's where I think I'm close to where you'd have him ranked. You said running back 19?

19 for Dynasty, yeah. I think he'd be a little bit higher than that for me, but I don't think he'd be top 12. I'm not ready to say, oh, yeah, this is the Patriots running back of the future. The thing you hit on was, I agree, it's not actually a Ty Montgomery concern. I was surprised to even see that his name was being mentioned as someone who might play football for a full season next year. But I do think it's a third down back concern because we've not seen very many years at all where the same guy who's getting 15 carries a game for the Patriots,

and I guess it was just technically 12 per game last year for Ramondre, is also seeing 88 targets over a full season. And I know people don't love yards per target, and there's lots of better ways to look at it, but six yards per target is pretty close to average for a running back. He was at 4.8 last year. That's 20% worse than the average. It's quite possible they don't think he was very good last year as a pass-catching running back. Then they threw it to him a lot. it just didn't turn into productive yards we'll go quicker through the rest of these uh we'll just go one at a time so alfredo tank bigsby should have the inside track to the rb2 spot in jacksonville do you think he matters at all for trap ctn i think he matters

enough uh i think he's going to take away a lot of that goal line work and i think it is significant that tank bigsby is relatively well-rounded not that he's this fantastic receiver he led auburn in receptions as a running back last season for a terrible offense and everything ran through him so i don't think that he like becomes a starter or he just totally torpedoes travis etn but i think it's relevant enough that you are not as excited about travis etn as you were prior to the draft. Dave, I lied. We're going to go two because Travis Etienne had 220 carries last year and 35 catches. He turned that in just over 1,440 yards.

Does he have more or less than 255 catches next year? I think he'll have less. And it's one because of Bigsby taking some work off of him. And it might not just be Bigsby. It could be Dearness Johnson. My guess is that there's a camp battle where one of those two will earn that short yardage goal line type role, but both of them make the team.

And if they're both good in training camp in the preseason, then maybe both of them end up taking work away from Travis ETN over the balance of the season. And I'm not convinced that ETN's going to take a big step forward as a pass catcher in that offense. It would make sense that they find ways to utilize him more. They did it at Clemson. And if teams are going to be scared off by Calvin Ridley playing on the outside,

on top of all the other guys that they had last year, there should be things that open up underneath for Etienne to catch the ball and make a play after the catch. That's just smart football. That's what the Jaguars should do. I'm not convinced it's going to be a huge jump, like he gets to 50 catches. I'm not ready to say that.

And then on top of all that, Travis Etienne isn't exactly the biggest guy in the world. You've got to worry about him getting hurt and missing a few games. Well done, Dave. That was the perfect amount. I just think he had 255 touches for Etienne last year. I think there were 170 for the other running backs on the team.

I expect a pretty similar split. Etienne only had five rushing touchdowns last year. I think that he will be just fine. We had a couple more news items here. I'll just pull this up here. Hakeem Butler is back in the NFL. I won't make you guys talk about that. Samaj P. Ryan should have a significant role this season.

I think we all know that, but tell me who has the most touches in the Denver Broncos backfield this year, Alfredo. I actually think it could be Samaj P. Ryan. And I don't think it's a talent thing. I don't even know that it's like a Sean Payton thing either. I think it's just that when we see running backs come back from an injury like this, like Javante Williams has, where it's multiple ligaments and it's like a Sean Payton thing either I think it's just that when we see running backs come back from an injury like this like Javante Williams has where it's multiple ligaments and

it's such a rough recovery uh you could be looking at something where it's like JK Dobbins a guy that says I'm gonna be ready for week one he's really not ready till like week eight and then he gets in the field and he's really not good for those first few weeks and you don't really see much of him till like week 13 and then why did you even pick him for your fantasy team so I think samajay pirine ends up with the most touches on this team and he was pretty good when he was thrust into that role in cincinnati he was i believe like a top 15 running back every single time that joe mixon was out and samajay pirine started so uh he could be one of those guys that ends up just being an absolute steal this year love love love pirine as an rb3 right right in that rb30 ish type range in the rankings.

Dave, the Browns are content with Jerome Ford as their RB2. Either that or Kareem Hunt's asking price hasn't come down enough yet. We'll figure out what the truth is there. But if Jerome Ford's the RB2 for the Browns, we should be drafting him, period. But much sooner than we have been also. Where have we been drafting him? That's why I said we should be drafting him, and I stopped there at first.

But in best ball, he had been drafted, just not high enough. Right. And he just went. He was a free agent in our dynasty league, our OG dynasty league now, since there's going to be two. And he was like a fourth-round pick in our rookie free agent draft. So he even fell then. It's robbery.

He's going to have some pretty good value. And think about where Kareem Hunt has been drafted each of the last two years in your fantasy leagues. He's probably been in that round six through eight range. Well, you're going to get forward after that range, unless he just has the most mesmerizing preseason of his life, and then he's pushed up. But he's going to be in the double-digit rounds.

That's good value. You just put him on your bench. It's especially good. Think about how much of a pain in the butt it was to draft Nick Chubb. And then you have to spend a pick, if you really wanted to, to get Kareem Hunt in round six or round seven. Now you don't have to do that because Ford isn't proven like Kareem Hunt is. But now you can safeguard your Chubb investment if you want to with Jerome Ford in the double-digit rounds.

Thank you for that as well, Dave. I do think that there may be a little bit overblown about Chubb seeing more work now because of this letting Kareem Hunt go. I think they're just going to throw the ball a lot more than they have the past couple of years. Nick Chubb can have the same workload. The RB2 isn't as important because they're not going to run the ball 550 times. That's enough about running backs, though.

Let's get to the pre-breakout wide receivers right after this break. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters.

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So the way that I broke these wide receivers up, Alfredo, is I've got four guys, kind of three different tiers, where I have them all ranked relatively close. It was tough to fit in Sky more because I know I'm the high guy on him, so I put him in the second tier. But I'm going to give you four names. I'll tell you where I've got them ranked. You tell me who your favorite is and sell me on them. Then Dave will get to sell us on his favorite of the three remaining guys. I'll talk about the other two. Hopefully it's not the two that I have ranked the highest because that would be embarrassing. But the first tier, I did not put Drake London inon in so trailing burks at wide receiver 15 johan dotson at wide receiver 18 christian watson at wide receiver 20 and george pickens at wide receiver 22 who's your favorite from that group i think

the most exciting guys are probably like christian watson and trail on burks because they're like the sexy names and the deep downfield guys. And they're really tall, fast, all that stuff. I really liked Jahan Dotson. And I, and I like where you have them ranked here. Injury really held him back last season,

hoping he can be healthy again this year. But we, we just, we kind of see this man, like rookie wide receivers that get drafted with good draft capital in round one, more often than not, they hit in dynasty fantasy football.

For every Jalen Rager, there's three or four other guys that end up really panning out. And I don't know that Jahan Dotson's ever going to be that top 12 guy, but I think that he ends up being a really consistent wide receiver too for his career. And one thing I think that a lot of people are looking at is, oh, he had so many touchdowns last season and touchdowns are so fluky and that's hard to carry over

from one season to the next. But really what he had was a really high red zone target share. And when you're getting targeted in the red zone, that is one of those things that does carry over. It shows that there's trust. It shows that there is a want to use this player when you get into the most important part of the field. And his 33% red zone share was awesome. And he tied for the lead amongst rookies for touchdown reception. So I'm excited about Jahan Dotson. Maybe not as much as the Drake Londons and Alaves and those other guys.

But I still think that there is a really good shot that Jahan Dotson ends up being a guy that's going to be a top 15 wide receiver. I think right now you have him at wide receiver 18. So, yeah, I think that he has that ability to get into that top 15, maybe top 12 area. And last year he was a top 20 wide receiver in three of his final four weeks of the fantasy season. So we saw him be able to do it. And this is probably the least analytical approach you're going to hear me say all day,

but I think he's just a better wide receiver than the other guys here on this list. I think he's a better route runner, better hands. And you see him get drafted after all these guys, Burks, Watson, Pickens. He gets drafted after all of them. So I love the value. I love the player.

I'm in on Jahan Dotson. Hey, I think he's a great value right now in both redraft and in dynasty. But I've talked a lot about Jahan Dotson. I do think that you made a really good point. A lot of people I hear when they push back on Dotson, well, he's got some pretty big touchdown regression coming. And that's true if the volume doesn't spike. But I don't know why it's not also true for the guy that Dave is going to say is his favorite from this group, I think.

Because they scored the same number of touchdowns on pretty much the same number of targets. Dave, who's your favorite of the remaining guys? So we've got Trey Lumberks, who I rank at wide receiver 15. Christian Watson, wide receiver 20. George Pickens, wide receiver 22. You know me well, Heath. It's Christian Watson who had as many touchdowns as Dotson, but he did it on fewer routes and fewer snaps.

It was a tale of two halves of the season for Watson. First half of the year, really didn't have his act together. You could almost tell that Aaron Rodgers didn't want him on the field. And then the second half of the year, he started to pick things up really quickly. And he ended up finishing 2022. Think about this with a 24.5% target per route run rate on the Packers, meaning that when he played, he was getting thrown at a lot.

Once he started to get into the swing of things, he had almost twice as many red zone targets as Dotson did with 13, seven end zone targets. That's one fewer than Dotson, but really just great stats all the way around. And this is where I might couch it a little bit. Like I agree with Alfredo that Dotson's a great receiver could easily seeing him have a nice solid career with a couple of spike years mixed in potentially could be the better receiver in Washington than Terry

McLaurin. But I think Watson has the higher ceiling. And so if I'm picking one of these guys, and listen, you could say, well, he's got Jordan Love now. He doesn't have Aaron Rodgers. Man, all four of these receivers that you named, Heath, none of them have good quarterbacks around them. But I think that we could say that eventually if Love isn't the guy, Green Bay will find somebody else.

Just like if Sam Howell isn't the guy in Washington, the Commanders will find somebody else. As silly as it soundsell isn't the guy in Washington, the commanders will find somebody else as silly as it sounds, because it's, it's almost like the commanders never try to find anybody at quarterback. They struggle every time they've got to go down that well. I just, I think the upside is what I buy into with Watson and I buy into the other thing that Alfredo talked about earlier. I've mentioned it before. This is going to be a different looking green Bay offense now because they're not beholden to Aaron Rodgers making all kinds of decisions for them.

Now this will be what LeFleur wants the offense to be, and I think that'll benefit Watson. Drafted by this coaching staff, drafted by this GM, same thing with quarterback Jordan Love. I think there's potential for Watson to be an absolute game-breaker. I want him on my team. So the other two guys, and it is disappointing that neither of your favorites was my favorite, Traylon Burks. Just to sell on Traylon Burks

again, I'm mostly throwing his rookie year away. I'm not holding that against him. He was another one of these guys who was drafted round one, 18th pick. And why did that happen? Because his final year at Arkansas, his junior year, he had 1,104 receiving yards. The number two pass catcher on that team had 337 yards receiving. He had 11 receiving touchdowns that year. No one else on the team had more than two. This guy is a stud. We've talked about it a lot with Chig Okonkwo because he has such an easy route to being number two in targets on that team.

But they've put nothing around Traylon Burks at wide receiver. I mean, unless you count Kyle Phillips or Nick Westbrook, he has the opportunity, if he can just be healthy this year, to be in that Drake London huge target share on a run-first team situation. The other guy in this tier, George Pickens, I'm not so sure. I'm really starting to kind of sour on him. His target involvement last year, the low rate of targets, the way that Deontay Johnson just absolutely destroyed him. And the fact that Pickens basically is a one trick pony. Like, I don't know that he can do anything within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. He's just going deep down the field and having Kenny Pickett throw YOLO balls to him.

I think the offense is going to be the same. I think the quarterback's going to be the same. And I don't know how he earns a large share of targets with Deontay Johnson and Pat Fryer on the field. Well, he did have the higher a dot than any of the other receivers that we're talking about. His a dot was 14.8. And that's too high. That's not too high, but it's higher than Burke Stottson and Christian Watson. And not too high but it's higher than burke stotson and christian watson and it's crazy that it's higher than christian watson because you think of watson getting all kinds of deep balls he also had the highest explosive play rate where where he struggled compared to these guys he is yards after catch per reception well these are all

all these things that you were telling me are a product of the same thing it's the fact that he runs 30 yards down the field and gets yolo balls thrown to him and doesn't do any – it's hard to have yak when you're catching a ball over your shoulder right next to the sideline. Yep. But I think that that's a quality – I think that's a trait, the fact that he can win contested catches down the sideline. That was like the best thing he did last year.

I think it's a good thing to have in your bag. It's a bad thing if it's the only thing you do. Yeah, I don't think that's the only thing he can do. I wonder how much of that is a causality. Like how much is that them actually are the Steelers really getting into the huddle and saying, all right, Pickens, just run it 30 yards downfield. We're going to toss it up. And then how much of it really is Kenny Pickett just freaking out, getting scared as rookies do and say, OK, if I just throw it to him, he'll probably come down with it. So, yeah, that's not necessarily a stat that you want to stick with for his career and it doesn't look great going forward.

But I wonder how much of that is just the causality of Kenny Pickett being a really scared rookie. It could also be like the offense is terribly unimaginative and they see that he's good at one thing and that's all they have him do but i i don't think he has shown either in college or in the nfl a lot of the traits that the other guys in this tier have which is why it's not quite as controversial to have him in this tier as it is to have sky more well ahead of everyone else in the next year i don't think but uh let's just put them all together i should just leave the rankings out of it we'll move on to tier two alfredo gets to go first again because he's the guest, and Dave will do just fine in second.

Probably has a second better favorite anyway. Sky Moore, wide receiver 29 for me. Kadarius Toney, wide receiver 41. Jamison Williams, wide receiver 42. Elijah Moore, wide receiver 43. I could see three of the first tier breaking out. I think in this tier, you literally might be trying to pick the one guy who's going to have the breakout in 2023.

Who's that going to be, Alfredo? Man, I feel like you set me up with this because you kind of knew who I was going to pick here, but I have to go with kind of my de facto sleeper all off season here, and it's Jameson Williams. And that's even despite the whole off the field stuff. It's just, as a prospect, I really liked his film.

I'm trying not to stick to that too much, but you know, he, I liked his film more than anyone from that rookie class. And I think a lot of draft analysts had him as that wide receiver one until he tore his ACL. And it's just been a really bad downhill slope for him all the way through,

whether it's the recovery and now the suspension, but the lions are so invested in this guy long-term, they traded up to get him, they rested him and rehabbed him properly. And we just, we haven't been able to see something that, that gives us a lot of proof, you know,

like there hasn't been a big sample size from last season, but in that really small sample size, it was really exciting. And like, there's, there's nothing to me that screams breakout more than this, these kinds of numbers that are so exciting from a small sample size so like when you look at his he had the highest average depth of target amongst all

nfl wide receivers once again i know small sample size but we saw him touch the ball just literally three times and those three touches were a 41 yard touchdown reception a 40 yard end around run and a 66 yard touchdown reception called back on a penalty he touches the ball three times and it goes a minimum of 40 yards or a touchdown every single time. To me, if I'm looking up the definition of the guy that could break out, that has to be him. I think

you're going to have to deal with a lot now with the suspension and him coming back. This might be really the last time that you can go buy low for him in Dynasty and trade for him. I think we're seeing it right here, even in small sample size the ceiling is absolutely crazy i just think you have to be willing to be patient yeah this is a guy that i had definitely ranked in the first tier um the suspension has really bothered me i i hate the fact that he's not going to be practicing with

the team for the basically the first month and a half of the season after not being playing with the team for basically all of last year. I don't like the fact that you mentioned those three times that he touched the ball. He played six games. You touched the ball three times in six games and one of them was called back. So yeah, I think you're right and I think you're 100% right to hold on to that evaluation from a year and a half ago because nothing that happened last year should really take away from that. I'm getting spooked, and I'm getting Trey Lance vibes that when he shows up at midseason this year, is he actually going to have a big role on the team when they're already rolling?

Dave, who's your favorite that's not on this list? My favorite that's not on this list or my favorite remaining on this list? Well, it can't be Elijah Moore. As talented as he is, I hated what happened to him last year, and now he's in Cleveland where he's not going to be. He'll be the second fiddle at best there. Really don't see a long-term path for him to be a breakout this year or maybe any year.

I think it makes me frustrated because I think he's talented. I'll say Sky Moore just because second year in Kansas City's offense should play in the slot. Doesn't quite have the same type of injury issues that Kadarius Toney has. And I just think that he's small in stature, but got huge hands. I think he had seven drops in his entire college career. And it's just perfect against zone coverage, great short area target for Mahomes to lean on. And it might not necessarily be a big number in terms of targets

for however long Travis Kelsey's there. But, man, when Kelsey's gone and that middle of the field is open and you know that the Chiefs are going to scheme up that offense for Mahomes, that's where I think Sky Moore can truly flourish. And so he'll be, I think, 23 when week one comes this year. Certainly somebody that fantasy managers who drafted him, they're not going to be ready to let him go into trade unless you're offering a lot for him.

And that is the big thing. I believe he may actually still just be 22 when the season's open. He was 21 going into week one last year. And he was a guy who I think coming into the NFL had played wide receiver for three years. That was it. I believe he actually showed up at SMU as a running back, did not really know the position very well.

And then we don't see a lot of rookie wide receivers come into Andy Reid's system, learn it, and have success. Again, another guy I expected to be raw, I'm not holding last year against him. Dave, you're laughing. I'm laughing because of Sky Moore's birthday. His birthday is week one, the Sunday of week one. The Chiefs obviously don't play that day. They play the Thursday before, so he'll be 22 for that game. When they play in week two, he'll be 23, but that's, it's an example of how young he is. He's very young

wide receiver with lots of room to grow. There are several wide receivers in the incoming rookie class who are older than Skymore, I think. And, and definitely several wide receivers who have played wide receiver more than Skymore. The other two guys on the list, Kadarius Toney, I have no idea how to project or what to expect from this guy. I do think he's one of the guys, and Elijah Moore fits right in too, that should give people a little bit of pause when they're looking at a small number of routes and using per route for first or second year wide receivers. Elijah Moore was that guy after his rookie year. But one of the things that didn't get talked about was Elijah Moore didn't really take off until Corey Davis got hurt. I do like the fact that the Cleveland Browns traded

for him. The Jets regime was behaving last year as if they didn't really like him. They didn't really think that he was good enough. The Browns obviously feel a little bit better about him. So I'm a little bit more hopeful, I think, than you are on Elijah Moore, Dave. And I think the Kadarius-Tony-Sky Moore thing is basically Sky Moore is a year and a half younger. I'll take Sky Moore. I don't know how many football games Kadarius-Tony is going to be able to play, but either of them could absolutely break through the ceiling if something happens to Travis Kelsey or if they just become the number one option for Patrick Mahomes. We have one tier left of these pre-breakout wide receivers.

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Visit OntarioOneCall.ca. It's free. It's easy. It's the law. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report. Okay, so we're outside of the top 40 wide receivers now. We'll get through this tier outside of the top 50 by the time we get to the bottom of it. But we have Rashad Bateman at wide receiver 45, Romeo Dobbs, wide receiver 47,

Rondale Moore, wide receiver 51, and Wandale Robinson, wide receiver 55, finishing with the small guys, Alfredo. I mean, I'm going to make you choose one and sell me on the breakout case, but do you actually have any hope for any of these four wide receivers? I do. I do for at least for the guy that I picked because I don't, I don't think he necessarily belongs in this tier. It's Rashad Bateman, Rashad Bateman, a wide receiver 45. I think so much of that is just the fact that we didn't see him. So it got really easy to just start dropping him lower and lower and lower.

But to have him, this is not like a shot at you, but it's seeing where we are. Rashad Bateman, for some people, is nearly 20 spots lower than Sky Moore for Dynasty rankings. And to me, I don't think that he deserves that kind of, I don't want to say hate, but we're having to reevaluate him as a player now. And I love the value of Rashad Bateman, especially in best ball. I think you're getting him as wide receiver 46, very close to where you have him in your dynasty rankings. He's the only guy amongst this tier that I think could actually be the leading wide receiver for his team.

And I put the emphasis on wide receiver, because Mark Andrews is going to continue to be the leading receiver for his team. But I mean, what are we really looking at here in Baltimore? Odell Beckham Jr., who we don't know what kind of version of him we're going to get. And then a rookie was a Flowers who's super talented, but doesn't fit that traditional X mold that Rashad Bateman does. And his injury from last season was tough. It's a list Frank injury.

I've had it. I know how much it sucks to play through. And I don't know why he was trying to play through it. So it does take time to come back. The good news is he's already in OTAs. He's running around. There's a chance they could bring him along slowly. And I think that's the only thing that might start to continue to torpedo his value here.

But he's one of those guys that by week five, week six, we could see him really start to break out in this offense. And Todd Monken's the new offensive coordinator there in baltimore and we're we talked about you know the packers looking different the ravens are going to look really really really different uh monken's been with the bucks and the browns and university of georgia and you see what they've done they are taking shots deep downfield they are putting wide receivers in a position to succeed they're getting them high value targets where they're doing a lot of play action deep deep shots, high, low crossers for guys to catch and run. This could be a much more exciting offense.

And last year, something that I think is just going to be a big change is the Ravens were last in the NFL and 11 personnel, meaning having one tight end out there. They consistently worked with two tight ends. I don't think that they are going to do that as much this season with all these new wide receivers and this new offensive scheme. So, yeah, as long as Bateman's healthy, he should see a really, really big year. Dave, I think it's what people do is they look at this Baltimore situation and everybody just says, okay, Mark Andrews is the one. So do you have to bet against Zay Flowers to bet on Rashad Bateman or vice versa? Do you have to bet against Rashad Bateman to bet on Zay Flowers? Or do you think this offense could be different enough to where there's enough targets for Mark Andrews and two wide receivers? So I don't think that there's

enough to go around. I just, I think Andrews is going to get his, and then one receiver will have a chance to do really well. But here's the thing with Bateman. He's only 23 years old. He's in that Sky Moore age range, and so when his contract is up in Baltimore, based on how he responded to the team and what they did this last year, I don't know if he's going to be a Raven for life, and so there's a path where Bateman has a good year this year. Does he have one year left after this year?

He has two years left. What's that? Two. Right, this year and next year. Yeah. He could be gone. He could leave for a different team and be the number one receiver on that team. So I don't hate the call at all for actually – it's not I don't hate it.

I like it because everybody else in this tier grosses me out. All three of the other guys, Dobbs, Moore, and Wondell Robinson, I don't know where they're going to be in three years. And we could say the same thing for Bateman. We don't know where any of these guys are going to be in three years. But I think Bateman does have a path to be given another opportunity on another team. Yeah, I would hesitate to say

that any of the other... All these guys are so early in their career, I don't think we know that they don't get another shot on another team. If you're not choosing Bateman, Dave, you just don't, you're, you have to choose one. Pick one. Oh, I'm choosing one. I'll go with Robinson because I think he's locked into his team and this current coaching staff for three more years.

I know where Wandel Robinson's going to be. He's going to be in his contract year with the giants in his fourth year, assuming that he stays healthy enough to do it. But typical slot volume type of receiver who can make plays after the catch, they were really scheming him up when he was healthy for the six games last year. And I think that there's a plan for Wandale. This year might be one of the worst for him just because he's coming back from the ACL, and we don't even know if he'll be ready to go.

You saw them add so many guys that are kind of like him already this offseason, but I think that Robinson does have a chance to evolve into a 110, 115 target guy year to year. Their short targets, his ADOT was low. He can catch a high percentage of them. He caught almost 75% of them last year. If he's catching 75% of 110 targets, that's still pretty good volume for fantasy. Yeah. I think the problem is, and we talked about this with Chris Godwin, if you're, if you're doing that and you're averaging 10 yards per catch and not doing much after the catch,

then that's not a very good profile. But if you can make some big plays and I do think he has some big playability. I love Rondale more. I just don't have any idea if he can stay healthy. I do think there's slightly more upside for Rondale than there is for Wandale. But again, two guys who are going to have a hard time ever being the true number one. I do think you're right, Alfredo, that Bateman has the best likelihood to be the number one in his offense. And really, looking at the way I tiered these, he's only two spots behind Elijah Moore for me, so he could have easily been in the tier above either of you. Is there anyone who you would say is probably being ranked below this list?

So not, not the Drake London that I left off, but any, but any potential breakout candidates this year that I left off that dynasty managers can go by pretty cheap right now and maybe hit in a big way in 2023 or 2024 even. Oh man, you're going to have to give me a second. and maybe hit in a big way in 2023 or 2024 even. Oh, man. You're going to have to give me a second.

I got to look at my dynasty rankings here. I can't even think of one. Dave, you take this one first. No, because I'm with you. I wasn't prepared to answer this question. I think you can think of the Alec Pierce. I know that there's some people that think that Nico Collins could be the number one. John Mechie.

That might be mine is Mechie. I got one for you. Yeah. I got one for you. I think Van Jefferson. I know he's a little bit older, but we don't know what the Rams are going to be. That offense could still be relatively good with Stafford and Cup, and they really don't have anything else. Ben Skoranek, we don't know what else Cup and they really don't have anything else like Ben Skoranek and and like we don't know what else they have they don't have anything

Van Jefferson in his limited time playing he was pretty good and he profiles really well as that deep threat that can stretch the field so uh yeah you're getting him really really low in startup drafts really low in best ball I love him there too and he's one of those guys I think that's way outside of this tier that we could be talking about him being like a, not anything crazy, but like a wide receiver three or four by this time next season. He is exactly my wide receiver 100. So he made the top 100 and absolutely that's the perfect guy, probably available. Um, if your rookie draft allows you to draft veterans in round four or round five. He may be sitting on the waiver wire right now.

So, Dave, did we give you enough time to think of one more name? Does it have to be a wide receiver? No. Why not? Let's go with a tight end. Let's go with Cade Otten in Tampa Bay. Offense is going to change down the line. We know that Mike Evans won't be there for the long term. I think he's got a good role there. I think he's a good pass-catching type of tight end. This year, I think he'll benefit

from Baker Mayfield being under center because Baker seems to lean on his tight ends. I think that that's somebody that you could buy real low on in Dynasty. That's another one of those offenses that I just have absolutely no idea what they're going to look like this year. I fear that it could be a disaster, but no, I think in terms of dirt cheap tight ends, Kay Dutton is an excellent one. And I love the fact that you didn't follow the theme with the wide receiver, so that's even better. Alfredo, I want to thank you for coming on today, for dropping some wide receiver knowledge. And again, go follow him on Twitter at the pretend GM, go follow his work at football guys,

go listen to the podcast. And, uh, we will talk to you next Tuesday with Adam Azar, making his first appearance on FFT dynasty, setting up his, uh, hopefully not terrible.

Thanks. Talk to you next Tuesday.