Fantasy Football Today - Ideal Landing Spots for FA Wide Receivers - FFT in 5 (03/03 Fantasy Football podcast)

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

This isn't the strongest free agent wide receiver class ever, but as we saw with Christian Kirk last year, a change of scenery can sometimes be huge for a player's value. Chris Towers and Dan Schneier preview the upcoming FA receivers, along with some thoughts on the potential trade targets floating out there.  Enjoy FFT? Try Fantasy Football Today in 5 if you're in need of fantasy advice FAST! Download and follow Fantasy Football Today in 5 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever else podcasts are found. 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

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. Let's preview the wide receiver free agents class next on Fantasy Football Today in 5. Welcome to FFT in 5. I'm Chris Towers here with Dan Schneier. And Dan, last year was a pretty

good year for wide receivers who changed teams. Remember Tyree Kill, Devante Adams, A.J. Brown all had maybe not the best years of their career, although Tyree Kill and A.J. Brown certainly did, but all were still elite fantasy options. Christian Kirk also was one of the better wide receivers who changed teams last year, ended up having a breakout season after signing with the Jaguars. Do you think that was just a case of a particularly talented group of wide receivers changing teams? Or do you think this is a situation where guys who change teams don't necessarily have to be downgraded anymore whether it's because of you know the way offense is changing and what

passing production is going up or what i think it was mostly the former here we had some of the best talents in the nfl moving teams and that everyone now thinks you that's the solution that's what you can do but i don't think it's gonna happen every offseason these disgruntled receivers i think you know some of these teams even learned a hard lesson. The Titans general manager was fired in season after this decision, so I don't think it's going to be a trend. All right, let's talk about, before we talk about the specific guys who might be changing teams, let's talk about some of the teams

we'd like to see signing some wide receivers. It turned out last year that Miami was a really great landing spot for Tyree Kill with the changes that they made on offense with the new coach, all that. What are the best landing spots for wide receivers that you're looking at this offseason? Yeah, I have a big three here. I'm going to start with Baltimore being the number one spot for me. They've made it clear they want to bring back Lamar. They're going to bring back Lamar.

But today we also saw Rashad Bateman levy off a really interesting tweet where he's coming at the Ravens general manager. That's a weird spot. And I feel like that could lead to potential trade maybe, but even if it's not, there's still a lot of targets to go around there. We know Bateman has been hard to, he hasn't stayed on the field much throughout his NFL career and he had injuries at Minnesota as well in college. So I think that's the number one spot. And they're actually eighth or not. Sorry. Tenth on the list of vacated targets. They still have Andrews coming back.

So that's one. Two for me would be the Houston Texans. Fourth on the list of vacated targets heading into 2023. Who knows what's going to happen? Brandon Cooks. I think he's going to move on. He wants to play for a competitive team, but they will likely bring in an upgrade at quarterback. It's impossible not to upgrade over Davis Mills in my mind.

And then lastly, for me, my third team is the giants because no homerism here, but besides Isaiah Hodgins, there's no guarantee. Any receiver will be back on that team. And Daniel Bellinger is an interesting young tight end, but he's not the command of massive target chair. So there's a lot of targets to go around there. And if they re-sign Jones, they're saying, we believe we can be a pass first offense with Jones. And we saw the second, you know, final fourth quarter of the season, they went be a pass first offense with Jones. And we saw the second, you know, final fourth quarter of the season, they went to a pass first offense. So I like the giants too,

as a landing spot. Yeah. I mean, we saw last year, Richie James and Isaiah Hodgins became very fantasy relevant, especially in PPR formats, not exactly the most talented duo there, but the fact that,

you know, the opportunity was there and Daniel Jones taking that step forward, definitely created some opportunities. The Ravens are an interesting one because I would love to see them go out and get a number one wide receiver but that's mostly for Lamar Jackson's sake because we've seen him at his best like when Rashad Bateman was healthy last season Lamar Jackson was playing like an MVP candidate and his season kind of fell apart when Rashad Bateman got hurt we've seen him play at a high level with Marquise Brown so I'm not I think it's probably like wide receiver to upside for someone who lands in Baltimore, but would love to see it for Lamar Jackson's sake.

This is unfortunately not a great wide receiver class in terms of the free agents. If you go to CBS Sports dot com slash fantasy, you can see Dave Richards wide receiver or a free agency preview. And his top wide receivers are Jacoby Myers, DJ Shark, Al Lazard, Juju Smith-Schuster, and Mecole Hardman. Not the kind of names that, you know, get excited for that generate excitement for fantasy. But I will say, like, there are some similarities between those guys and like Christian Kirk a year ago, who we all laughed at when the Jaguars gave him that big contract, but he ended up having a breakout season was must start player for fantasy. Who do you think could be this year's Christian Kirk from that group? Yeah, there's two players, one who was on Dave's list and one who wasn't even on Dave's list. The first one would be Jacoby Myers, a player who's consistently scored really well in Matt Harmon's reception

perception. For those who don't know, he evaluates wide receivers based on their film on how often they get open, not how often the ball comes his way. So I think Myers could be that, that example of somebody who in a better situation with better targets and a, you know, consistent game plan for him on a week to week basis, like Kirk had could be the Kirk. The other one would be Odell Beckham jr. I know he's not on Dave's list. It's coming off the injury, but now he's had a ton of time to rehab the injury. He still, to me has the highest upside of any of those players. So if he gets the right situation, I know he's not on Dave's list coming off the injury, but now he's had a ton of time to rehab the injury. He still, to me, has the highest upside of any of those players. So if he gets the right situation, I'll definitely be considering him.

And then we got to talk about, you know, the potential cap casualties or trade candidates, because that's where the more interesting list of names comes from. DeAndre Hopkins, Keenan Allen, potentially Michael Thomas, Brandon Cooks, like you mentioned earlier, Curtis Samuel and Corey Davis those are the top options uh for Dave's list and of that group who would you most like to see change teams and and who do you think could have you know a big impact for fantasy out of that group I think for me it would be Brandon Cooks and I know he wants to go to a more competitive situation it was a really ugly situation last year with Houston but just you look at year before that and the year before that, and Brandon Cooks went on the field, was incredibly productive from a fantasy football standpoint.

So I'd love to see him get a better situation. Yeah, and also, you know, DeAndre Hopkins is a tough one because we don't know what the QB situation in Arizona is going to look like. Kyler Murray coming back from the torn ACL. You know, I would love to see him have a number one wide receiver. DeAndre Hopkins was very good last season when he was on the field and when he was healthy and not suspended. So wouldn't necessarily want to see him change teams. But if Kyler Murray is not going to be 100%,

I still think DeAndre Hopkins is someone I would like to see playing with a high level quarterback. So we'll have to keep an eye on the reports out of there and see if he returns to Arizona. But that's definitely one to keep in mind because I could see a situation where he gets really downgraded in fantasy this offseason and then ends up having, you know, another very good season because he was productive when he was on the field last year. That's going to do it for FFT in five.

We'll be back tomorrow to talk some combine stuff, more free agency preview, and more Dynasty talk. We'll see you then.