Fantasy Football Today - WR Tiers! Too High on D.J. Moore? Low on Jerry Jeudy? (07/13 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

We bring on Jacob Gibbs to give his takes on Heath's wide receiver tiers and also give us the best advanced stats in the industry. Some of the more noteworthy observations of Heath's tiers include (4:10) D.J. Moore in Tier 2 and Brandin Cooks in Tier 3. We make Heath justify these decisions ... Speaking of Tier 3, we spend a lot of time there (10:30) as Jacob wonders why CeeDee Lamb isn't ranked higher (15:00). We also take a quick detour to debate who the #3 WR in Fantasy rankings should be (16:50). Why not Ja'Marr Chase? Then we discuss Tier 4 (23:00) which includes Michael Pittman, Tee Higgins and A.J. Brown. Are these guys Top 30 overall players? ... Tier 5 (28:50) is perhaps not much different than Tier 6 (46:15) and Tier 7 (48:00), but Heath tries to draw a distinction. Within these discussions we debate Diontae Johnson (34:30) and the Broncos WRs (37:15). Then we finish up with Tier 8 (53:15) which includes most of the rookies, then Tiers 9 and 10 (1:00:30) ... Email us at [e-mail] Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, 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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He's just going to go the distance. Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Hey, what's going on? It's Tuesday night and we are podcasting. This is your Wednesday morning edition. A little bit earlier, actually, a little bit later at night. Welcome. It's fantasy football today after dark. And I'll tell you right now, there's some type of gathering going on from my neighbors right outside my room here. And that is pretty distracting, but I'm going to stay focused here.

I'm Adam Azer with Heath Cummings talking wide receiver tiers with Jacob Gibbs. And Jacob, I hate to read one of your emails on the air, but I said... Oh, excellent. This is a great start. I said, Jacob is a great start. I said, Jacob heats tears. And he said, I said, not sure if I sent you these.

He said, wow, you had not, this will be an interesting discussion for sure. Well, okay. Like, and I don't think a lot of people know.

Um, maybe we talked about it last time, but like, if there's ever two people who are not going to argue on the show it's probably jacob and i but yeah it's amazing how much different these tiers are it is not quite as amazing as the fact that two people from our town are on the fantasy football today podcast at the same time but it is remarkable i mean we could just start with tier one and there's no disagreement is that right tier one is two people for both of you oh yeah how about that justin jefferson tier yeah that is the last thing that we will agree on tonight no i'll start i'll start

disagreeing with you right here justin jefferson number one that's a jacob has justin jefferson one and i refuse to acknowledge any rankings within my tears the whole purpose of me putting together these tiers which i never do is that i don't have to have discussions about rankings because they're tears everybody in these tiers are equal that is kind of the point right so yeah so heath has cup ahead of jefferson j uh jacob has jefferson won but they're both the only players in the first tier That's kind of the point, right? So Heath has Cup ahead of Jefferson. Jacob has Jefferson won, but they're both the only players in the first tier. So that's kind of the point.

Yeah, I mean, you can't really use those tiers, that particular tier, to your advantage. It's not that big of a tier, but we don't really have to argue that. I think there are more interesting arguments to have, but when you said, Jacob, when you said this is going to be an interesting discussion, what prompted that? I said the same thing when Heath and I jumped on here, just to be clear. This is not me badmouthing Heath in the emails here.

But there's just some really wide gaps. I have CeeDee Lamb as my wide receiver three ahead of Jamar Chase, and Heath has him in tier three. I think Brandon Cooks was outside of my top 30 last time I looked, and he's in tier three with CeeDee Lamb. Just there is like a wild starting point. That jumped off the page to me as soon as I saw it. Jerry Judy, obviously, like he hadn't done it in tier eight, and I think he's in tier five for me. Just really like normally Heath and I align on a lot of the ways we think about you know fantasy but like there's

definitely some some here that we're gonna have clear disagreements on and i'm just excited to hear why uh well and i think i don't know this but like adam really kind of busted my chops in the running back tier section about how I had too few tiers, too many players jumbled up in the same tier. And I do believe that your tier five ends at wide receiver 53, and that might be in my tier eight. Yeah, that's fair. So you have a lot more players in a few of the tiers than i do i think you have a very nice amount of tears heath you have 10 tears that we've laid out here cup and jefferson are in tier one i think my two biggest issues with heath's tears and will one of them will be also with jacobs uh is dj more and brandon cooks dj more in tier two so if we

look at heath's tier two you know because jacobs tier two is much bigger how many are in tier two for you eight it looks yeah yeah eight players nine players nine players yeah sorry nine players for heath it's only four and it's jamar chase davante adams, DJ Moore, and Stefan Diggs. Yeah. Wow. So you also have him as a Tier 2 wide receiver, but probably not a top 6 wide receiver. I don't know. You think you have a 10th?

Yeah, he's 10. But to be clear, all of those players in Tier 2 are also in Jacob's Tier 2, so we agree about them as well. Right, except Jacob also has A.J. Brown, T. Higgins, Mike Evans, and Deebo Samuel in the same tier as Chase, Adams, and Diggs and Moore. Plus, he has C.D. Lamb in Tier 2, and you don't. But I guess the best way to do this is really just focus on Heath's tiers, I think, otherwise there'll be too much jumping around and people will get confused. So, yeah,

I don't know. DJ Moore in the same tier as Jamar Chase, Devante Adams, and Stefan Diggs is shocking for me to see. And, you know, all of us, Dave was actually I think very lukewarm on the idea, I think, but

he still was higher on Moore after the Baker-Mayfield trade. All of us were much higher. Jamie said, I'm not as high as Heath on DJ Moore, but I'm very high. I got him ahead of AJ Brown in full PPR. I think he said he'd take him around the 2-3 turn. That's kind of where I am. I think that's where Jacob is. But in a tier with Jamar Chase, Devonta Adams, Stephon Diggs seems a little too rich for me. this is like this might be a little bit of the um i don't know if you remember the ben gretch talk about stefan diggs before stefan diggs had the breakout but one of the things he talked about that i really kind of took to heart was the fact that dj jay moore had shown the ability to excel in every way as a wide receiver and over the last

two or three years, we've really seen that. Now, there is one way that DJ Moore has not succeeded, and that's getting into the end zone. I don't hold that against him. He's played on a team that's not had more than 17 passing touchdowns in each of the last three seasons.

He's scored more than 25% of their touchdowns. Stephon Diggs has scored 26% of the Bills' touchdowns. I don't think it's DJ Moore's fault. And Baker Mayfield, for the problems that he's had, touchdown rates never been one of them. In fact, he's been above average in that regard. Maybe he'll be slightly below average in Carolina, but I don't think he's going to be bad. So I've got the Panthers scoring 10 more touchdowns this year than they have in any year in the last three, and twice as many as they did last year.

But we saw Moore last year earn 163 targets on a team that like they weren't even one of the top pass attempt teams in the nfl they were maybe a little more pass heavy than they'd like to be but 599 attempts for the panthers last year that's just barely above league median so it wasn't as if moore earned those targets because they were throwing the ball 700 times like the Buccaneers. He earned an elite target share. We've seen it every year besides last year

when he had Sam Darnold produce elite in terms of on a yards per target basis. I think we'll get a little regression positively in terms of what we saw from his efficiency last year. I expect the target share to be similar, if maybe dinged a little by Christian McCaffrey. But I think it's all there, and Baker Mayfield's going to bring the touchdowns.

Go ahead, Jacob. What do you think about this? I love everything you said. I think Baker presents a huge upgrade just by being average or slightly below average. Everyone realizes Sam Darnold was bad, but statistically he was as much of a hindrance as anyone really could have at quarterback last year. Especially, I dug into this just analyzing the trade right after it happened. DJ Moore and Robbie Anderson are really, really good against man coverage, have been historically. DJ Moore has been a 90th percentile or higher producer

versus man coverage every year until last year. And Sam Darn is like one of the worst quarterbacks versus man in recent memory. Yeah, I think you can just take out versus man. You're right. Yeah, but like specifically that's somewhere that DJ Moore really excels and was just like taken away. He just can't hit open guys.

And DJ Moore is consistently getting open against man and like making big plays and when he just loses that that's huge um the other thing is I just dug into this today um so this is a wide receiver versus their teammates the discrepancy in their yard per route run rate um just to in some cases it's like obvious Devante is like clearly much better than everyone in Green Bay but in other cases it's like this guy's in a bad situation and just not able to produce because the situation is so bad. But he's clearly the only one that's being even a little bit productive in that situation. And there were just five guys that were 50% above the rest of their teammates. And it was Devontae, AJ Brown, D'Vo Samuel, Tyreek Hill, and DJ Moore. And there's just so many metrics that I look at that DJ Moore pops as truly, truly elite.

Sorry, was that just wide receivers? Just the wide receivers. Okay, because obviously you said Tyree Kill. He's not that much better than Kelsey, but sure. Right, yeah. Yeah. No, look, I get it, but when Stefan Diggs had his breakout, Josh Allen averaged 284 yards per game and threw 37 touchdowns.

It's just not going to happen with Baker Mayfield. I just don't see how DJ Moore has anything close to the upside that those three guys... Are they putting DJ Moore in the same tier as Jamar Chase? Are you out of your damn mind? Adams, I don't know what to expect, but Stephon Diggs, who's going to probably have more targets or as many targets than DJ Moore, with a significantly better quarterback.

I'm sorry, I can't just let this DJ Moore kumbaya moment go. This is outrageous. This was not supposed to be the fun part of the show, Adam. It was to give the Brandon Cooks cheer. We're just building up a little bit of goodwill before the disagreements. Okay. All right. I love DJ Moore. And we like – a lot of people like Brandon Cooks.

Heath obviously likes him more. So we go to tier three here. Are we really just like unleashing the tiers like this? I got to do my time codes a little bit better. Tier three is Brandon Cooks, Keenan Allen, Mike. And these again, I refuse to acknowledge any order within these tiers. Okay, good. Because you have the order completely wrong.

Brandon Cooks, just with Cooks. You don't have Cooks ranked ahead of Keenan Allen and Mike Evans. No. Right. No, I don't. All right. So Cooks, Keenan Allen, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Debo Samuel, CeeDee Lamb, and Tyreek Hill.

All right. So, Jacob, now you can disagree with Heath on something here. With Cooks being in this tier, with Keenan Allen, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Debo Samuel, CeeDee Lamb, and Tyreek Hill. Honestly, I would rather hear Heath start because I don't even understand. I don't know where to start. I think his ceiling's not comparable

to anyone in this tier. Agreed. And I think there's a decent chance that his floor is lower than we're accounting for. I think a lot of his volume last year came in times when there was no one else to throw to at all. Even Nico Collins was out, and that was helping him.

I think John Mechie is legitimately going to get targets. I think they're going to design plays for him. Last year, everything was designed around Brandon Cooks. I am curious how he fits into this. I really want to hear. Yeah. Yeah. And I just don't like, I don't think the target share is going to change that much. Like,

you want to talk about a guy who thoroughly dominated targets. There was Nico Collins was second on the team with 60 targets last, last year. And that was over what? 14 games. Cook's missed a game as well. But his 134 targets kind of sold short by the fact that they were so slow. I believe they were the second or third slowest team in terms of play volume in the league. So I do think there

will be more pass attempts. I don't necessarily expect Mechie, especially, I don't know if he's going to even be on the active roster for week one at this point. So I don't really expect he's going to impact Cook's target share this year. and the reason I think Cook will be better than he was last year is because in terms of efficiency he's been better than that basically every year of his career he was playing with a rookie quarterback last year who was better than we expected him to be but I do think you'll see at least a small amount of improvement

from Davis Mills which will be reflected in the efficiency of Brandon Cook so I would expect that if his target share stays the same his targets are actually going to go up over the 134 that he saw last year. And like we've, Brandon Cooks has been a borderline number one wide receiver, high end number two wide receiver for several years. And most of those years, the following year, we've just discounted it and said he's not going to do that again. And we've drafted him like he's not going to do that again.

Yeah, but he was not even top 20 last year per game. Although it certainly, you know, it felt that way toward the end of the year because he finished strong. But he was 23rd per game in PPR. He's never, in full PPR, Brandon Cooks has never had a top 10 finish. He's been 11th, he's been 12th.

He's always been around there, but he's never had a top 10 finish in full PPR per game. He's been 12th. He's always been around there, but he's never had a top 10 finish in full PPR per game. He has in non-PPR. His highest finish is 8th. So he'd have to... He'd probably have to have his best season ever to justify this team. I think that was my bold prediction, wasn't it? That he was going to have his best season ever?

A bold prediction is one thing. Putting him in that tier is another thing. You're tiering your bold prediction. I am tiering my bold... Well, I guess that's technically true. I don't know that he has to have a career year to finish at the bottom of this tier. What's that put him at? Like wide receiver 14 or 15?

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, I think. 13. Yeah, 13. So it's very, very close. But yeah, I guess Mechie would be the main difference between last year and this year. Because I do expect more pass volume, and I expect a slight increase in pass efficiency from the team. I think the offense itself is going to be slightly better just because of competence. So if Mechie doesn't impact his target share, I don't, I don't know how he's not better.

Real quick. Um, on routes with Nico Collins on the field, cooks was targeted on 23% of his routes compared to 29%. Uh, when Collins was off the field, which is a significant difference. 29% is like near Cooper cup,

Monte Adams, 23%. Right. Yeah. Really? I mean, why does it were to Cooper? Uh,

23% is probably would be good for CD lamb, right? CD lamb was like, yeah, really, I mean, wide receiver two. Cooper, 23% is probably, would be good for CeeDee Lamb, right? CeeDee Lamb was about, yeah, 22, 23% last year. So let's talk about CeeDee Lamb because he's in tier three for Heath and he's your number three wide receiver ahead of Jamar Chase. Go ahead. Yeah, so speaking of target per hour run rate, his rows to 28% in routes run with Adamari Cooper over the last two years. I think that's noteworthy.

He saw clearly the biggest boost of him, Gallup, and Dalton Schultz when Cooper was off the field. Obviously, this is banking on some progression from what we've seen because he really hasn't been the guy that people thought he was going to be through two years. But we saw him you know get more routes on the perimeter and be more efficient with those routes when amara was out and so i'm just with i don't expect much progression from gallup i think his underlying data is really discouraging for the past two years um so i'm projecting a slight boost in don schultz numbers and a pretty significant boost in cd lambs in three. And it comes out to one of the best fantasy receivers available. Yeah.

And, and I don't like that type of upside. I can see the thing that holds me back is just the Dak Kellen more history of not actually having an alpha wide receiver. Yeah. It's, it's always just kind of an Adam reference, like 24,

25% I think is about the max anybody's head in that range and maybe they're in a situation now like especially if tolbert isn't what they want them to be and gallop isn't any good then maybe they'll just kind of be forced to but they both of them both kellen moore and dac prescott have been really averse to funneling targets to one guy, it seems like. I got to... Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead, Jake. I think that's fair. Honestly, I don't feel great

about him at three. I just don't feel great about any of the guys after him. I think that they're all interchangeable. I think if you could DJ more there, you will feel great. You're overthinking it by not having Jamar Chase in your top three. I'm sorry, but the guy is just – he's probably the best wide receiver in football,

and he's just going to – he's about to go all Calvin Johnson on us. He is that good of a football player. He's just going to own it. He's not better than Justin Jefferson. He's probably – he was teammates with him, and he was better than Justin Jefferson. He had a better rookie year. I think you could say they had a very similarly great rookie year.

But he's probably better than Justin Jefferson. Come on, Gibbsy. I'm not buying it. Nothing that I see points towards that. He hasn't shown that yet. I would not dispute the fact that that's possible and that he might show it this year. Yeah. But he, he was, and he was not a one trick pony last year, but so much of his production just came on the same thing.

And teams can take that away. No, no, that's not look at the plays. You're talking about the 50 yard touchdown catches. Well, the fact that he scored a bunch of long touchdowns. Yes.

Yeah. But, but he showed some of those, some of those were, he was got wide open, you know. But there were a couple at least, I would say two, where he just called the ball intermediate route-ish, maybe like 15, 20 yards, I don't know,

and just ran by everybody. I mean, the guy has incredible speed. And he's fulfilling the prophecy. Sometimes he ran by everybody before he caught the ball. Sometimes he ran by everybody before he caught the ball. Sometimes he ran by everybody after he got the ball. Look, you have to dream big, but Randy Moss did back up that rookie season with not as many touchdowns, but more yards,

and I think five more 50-plus yard touchdown catches. Jamar Chase can do that too. I believe in him. I think he definitely can. Yeah. I just don't think he projects that way. Really, Randy Moss and Tiger Kidd are the only people who have ever done it

sustainably over more than one or two years. Okay, so who's number three? CeeDee Lamb is number three for Jacob, and Heath, who's your number three? Well, we're not talking about tiers anymore. Yeah, yeah. Just a quick discussion here jamar chase is my number three okay because at one point it was adams right uh yeah okay it definitely was

when he was on the packers no no i think with the raiders wasn't it it might have been but this is a tear show i do want to read one quote for you here um that i thought was so interesting i just brought it up for those of you who are watching the live stream tuesday night i came across this uh yesterday an article on espn about the carolina panthers and how um terrence marshall needs to step up look at this quote from matt rule i i hire in hiring ben mcadoo that's their new offensive coordinator one of the things for me that was really important was I didn't want to just utilize one or two players. I wanted to make sure we had answers for every coverage. We had answers for every blitz.

That should give you an idea in terms of what some of my concerns were last year. So one, he is saying he wants to get more people involved. Whatever. DJ Moore's still the best. But man, did he just destroy Joe Brady? We didn't have answers for every coverage and every blitz. That should give you an idea. What he said was, I want to make sure we had answers for every coverage. We had answers for every blitz. That should give you an idea in

terms of what some of my concerns were last year. That is a really hot quote that you don't see very often. I appreciate that honesty. I would just like to know whether Matt Rule or Joe Brady had more input on the Sam Darnold trait. Because if you would like to have answers for every coverage and every blitz, Sam Darnold should not be your quarterback. Maybe it's a Sam Darnold quote. Maybe it's about Darnold and not Brady. Maybe.

All right, so let me talk about a few things real quick. We've got a lot of great podcasts that you need to check out. CBSSports.com slash podcasts. And you can vote for most of them. Most of them are nominated on podcast awards. But of course, we want you to vote for this one. So if you're watching the video, you can scan the QR code. If not, go to podcastawards.com or specifically, I think it's podcastawards.com slash app slash sign up

and just please nominate Fantasy Football today in two categories sports best sports podcast and best male hosted podcast if you want to do

people's choice we're nominated for that as well we'd really appreciate it follow Jacob on Twitter at JA Gibbs underscore 23

and sportsline.com is terrific content. So affordable. You'll make your money back immediately. Uh, cause it's got great gambling content, but the fantasy coverage is awesome as well. And that's where you can find most of Jacob's stuff.

And his Twitter feed is great too. Uh, really gets into the numbers and looks at stats that you just, you're not going to hear anywhere else. Okay. Uh, with that, just make me drop Brandon cooks to a 25% target share with his Nico Collins stat.

He's still in Tier 3. He just, if I was ranking them, would be ranked lower in it. I'm just going to recap here. Tier 1 was Cup and Jefferson. Tier 2 was Chase, Adams, DJ Moore, and Stefan Diggs. Tier 3 was, I'm going to read Cooks' name last. Keenan Allen, Mike Evans, Chris Godwin. I wish we had more time.

We should get into Godwin. We'll do that at a later date. I just don't know. Put Godwin wherever you want. There's a report. Every week we get a report that either he has no timetable or the Bucs are optimistic he's going to play week one. Okay.

Chris Godwin, Debo Samuel. He would probably be in tier two if he was 100% healthy right now. CeeDee Lamb, Tyree Kill, and Brandon Cooks. And that brings us to tier four. One more thing. Yeah. I really enjoy interrupting you mostly. You're doing great.

Because Jacob's tiers are half PPR, and we kind of went back and forth on that a little bit. Deebo and Mike Evans specifically would move into tier two and half PPR. And maybe Deebo should be there in full PPR if he's not going to run and he's going to get 10 targets a game instead. I just don't know which of those two Deebo's is the one to expect. Albert on YouTube right now is asking, where is Michael Pittman in your tiers?

Wait no longer. He is in tier four, a small tier. Michael Pittman, A.J. Brown, and T. Higgins. And in your 12-team drafts, you're into round three. Maybe, I've taken A.J. Brown 25th, overall 24th, 25th. A.J. Brown, T. Higgins, and Michael Pittman, this is Heath's tier. What do you think, Heath?

Is this ideally your number two guy? Are you comfortable with this being your number one guy? All three of these guys are talented enough to be number one guys. All three of these guys are talented enough to have the types of seasons that justify putting them in tier two. All three of these guys,

I have just a little bit more concern about either situation or volume or health or all three in in the case of of uh aj brown i mean i love aj brown i think maybe aj brown could have a justin jefferson jamar chase season but the combination of jalen hurts and maybe only 500 pass attempts and he's like as far as receivers, had a hard time staying healthy. He's had as much trouble as anybody. You said that they have the talent to be in Tier 2, Michael Pittman, A.J. Brown, and T. Higgins.

How confident are we in that statement for all three of these guys? And I think specifically people would don't know who they don't know who michael pitman is yet so jacob what do the numbers say about pitman is he is he i mean he's not aj brown because i know you think aj brown i think the world of him um but is michael pitman that kind of player could he really be that good i have my tier below these two guys and i think it does kind of come down to talent um i think they're in similar situations. Tee Higgins is weird to compare to the other two because it's a higher passing volume offense,

more touchdown potential. But Pittman, no. What we saw last year was really exciting. He had a massive step forward across the board in all his underlaying data, but still is nowhere near A.J. Brown or Tee Higgins. Tee Higgins has been incredibly encouraging. This woke scene scene that's why i'm a little bit lower on jamar chase is when teagans and jamar have both been on the field

last year t higgins had more targets more area yards more fantasy points um and then aj brown what we've seen from aj brown is unprecedented he was targeted on 30 of his routes last year the only other guys that did that was cooper cup and vanta adams um he when he was on the field in 2021 had a higher percentage of his team's targets and air yards than any player in the nfl when they were on the field um there was another stat that was i gave on the fft and five that was the exact same as calvin johnson yeah uh so his 30 target per hour run rate in year three um made him the only receiver since 2010 to do that in an age 24 or younger season since Calvin Johnson. A.J. Brown stands in a tier of his own.

I believe that maybe he's just going to keep getting hurt every single season and have weird circumstances every single year. But, like, I believe he's a legitimate stud. Whereas Pittman is really exciting, similar to darnell mooney someone like that um but not somebody i'm ready to you know put into tier two yet i yeah and i wouldn't i wouldn't want to say that pittman like i wouldn't wasn't trying to say i think pittman has the same talent as aj brown i have more concerns about brown than i do pittman yeah that's fair do you think you take these three players michael pittman aj brown and t higgins Do you think you take these three players, Michael Pittman, A.J. Brown, and T. Higgins,

do you take them before Kyle Pitts? I do. Yeah, I do. You're just talking about redraft? Yeah. Yeah.

Do you take them before Ezekiel Elliott? Yeah. Yeah. Do you take them before David Montgomery? Most of the time, yeah. I do not.

Okay. But I'm the David Montgomery guy. And that's ADP. I mean, it's A.J. Brown, James Conner, Zeke, David Montgomery, T. Higgins, Cam Akers, Kyle Pitts, Michael Pittman. This is an early round three, mid-round three? Both. I'd say mid to late. Yeah, mid to late. A. I'd say mid to late. Yeah, mid to late.

A.J. Brown is 29th. So, yeah, mid to late round three. Pittman is round four. Yeah, I guess Pittman 29, Brown 30, Higgins 32. So I'm right in the same range as ADP. The problem is, and we were talking about this, especially with guys like six or seven, if you're ranked similar to ADP, you're never drafting them because there's always guys you have ranked higher than adp that

are still available so yeah okay uh good options around 30th overall uh for for the tier four in pitman aj brown and t higgins we're gonna take a break when we come back to your five six seven eight nine and ten and exciting tears here uh for sure i mean if you if you listen to last week's episodes you know what we're talking about but tearing them is it very interesting so we'll be right back on fantasy football today what does possible sound like for your business it's having the spend to powers your scale with no preset spending limit more cash on hand to grow your business with up to 55 interest-free days and the ability to reach further with access to over 1400

airport lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash businessplatinum. All right, let's take a closer look at Tier 5. It is Deontay Johnson, Terry McLaurin, Jalen Waddell, Mike Williams, Darnell Mooney, and Cortland Sutton. Deontay Johnson, Terry McLaurin, Jalen Waddell, Mike Williams, Darnell Mooney, Cortland Sutton. Heath, describe tier five.

For reference sake, this is wide receiver 17 through 23 in the ranking. So this, in terms of some people's tiers, may be like tier three. But just that Brown, Pittman, Higgins tier, I think, kind of throws everything off. This is a weird one because you've got some guys like Johnson and Waddle and maybe even Mooney who have been in situations where they've earned just really elite target share but didn't do with those targets what we would like or what we thought they were going to in the case of Waddle. And now I have concerns about whether the target share is going to be the same.

Waddle's got Tyreek Hill coming into the situation. Johnson's got a team that might just throw it 100 times fewer or at least 60 times fewer, with Ben Roethlisberger no longer there. But for the most part, these are just number two wide receivers that maybe if everything goes right and a couple guys get hurt, could sneak into the top 12. All right, yeah, I think we need to talk philosophically more about these tiers because this is a six wide receiver tier for me.

You said it started at wide receiver 17? Yep. And you've separated them from their next tier. I'll go through all three of these names again, but this tier is Deontay Johnson, McLaurin, Waddle, Mike Williams, Mooney, and Sutton. Then it's Cooper, Marquise Brown, Thielen, Michael Thomas, Metcalf. And then it's Juju, Bateman, Alan Robinson,

Amandra St. Brown, Robert Woods, Tyler Lockett. You've got six players in this tier. At this point in the rankings, Jacob has 18 players in this tier. And I can see it, right? I mean, that's kind of wide receivers rounds four through six kind of this is it's sometimes hard to separate them so heath if you would say

the one thing that separates tier five dionte mclaurin waddle mike williams mooney and sutton from six and seven would be what i think it's way more likely these guys have, in my estimation, a borderline number one wide receiver season. Okay, Jacob, now— Like, if you went robust RB, took a couple running backs early in a tight end, and one of these guys ended up as your number one wide receiver, I don't have to dream that hard to figure out a way that maybe I don't have a terrible number one wide receiver. Maybe my number one wide receiver's okay. Okay. Jacob, why do you have such a big tier with 18 wide receivers? Cause I, I just don't think that there's much that separates

most of these guys. You've I, so you've got some guys that, um, like Darnell Mooney, who I feel very confident that he's going to have the volume of a wide receiver one. And like, even if he can just have kind of the types of seasons we've seen from Deontay lately, he's going to be a top 20 guy. But then you have Jalen Waddell where it's like I have no idea what to expect. I have a hard time projecting him even to be a top 24 receiver. There's just a lot of more volatile you know wider ranges of outcomes and then more like sure things like maybe darren mooney or like i think jerry judy if he's healthy this year um chris godwin if he's healthy um but like i want to keep

the rankings aligned the way that i actually have them ranked. So it ended up just being this massive tier. Yeah. See, I didn't do that at all. That's the beauty of our creative freedom that we have. I did think it was interesting. Like while Jacob has a much larger tier, all of these guys that are in my tier five that we're talking about are in Jacob's tier three, except for Deontay johnson who or no all of these guys are in his tier four except for deontay johnson who is a tier ahead of all these

guys and darnell mooney i have in tears oh no you're with johnson oh he's just behind you right okay so you like deontay johnson a little bit better than this big group so yeah okay do you like Pittman or Deontay? I prefer Pittman. They're really, really close. The more I run predictions on Pittsburgh, the more I get a little bit worried about Deontay. And then also, the more I dig into Chase Claypool, we're getting off topic here a little bit, but the more I dig into his numbers, his throwout rates are, again, really good in year two.

I'm talking about the wide receiver discrepancies versus teammates. That was another area where Clay clayco really really stood out um and the route really runs aligns more with the types of routes that trubisky is like to target and can you pick it as well um so yeah i just keep getting a little bit worried about dionte which i hate because i've been so high on him for the past three or four years and like think he's legitimate like wide receiver one stud target drawer but yeah i hearing he talked about him as well and this next year i think i might be moving behind pittman keenan allen tyree kill some of those guys a couple things here uh first of all this comment from timmy adam is on something tonight ha ha ha does

it sound like i'm on something no remember that you had. I remember I saw a picture of you once that looked like you were on something. Yeah, I've never been on something in my life. When I had bronchitis when I was like sixth grade or something, I think I took codeine and it messed me up. But that's about it. But I think night shows tend to be a little bit goofier, a little bit more fun. Maybe we should do more of them. No, we shouldn't. The other thing is, let's have a couple of discussions right now before we get into tears.

Let's have a Deontay Johnson discussion. Because I think Heath would say the metrics are not kind to Deontay Johnson. And Jacob, who's all about metrics, likes Deontay Johnson quite a bit. And then let's have a Judy versus Sutton discussion. So let's start with Deontay Johnson. And bit. And then let's have a Judy versus Sutton discussion. So let's start with Deontay Johnson. And we're going to be positive tonight. So let's have the pro Deontay Johnson. Jacob, why don't you kick that off?

Yeah, so a lot of the metrics that are not pro Deontay Johnson are per target metrics. And that's fair, but we're talking about PPR formats here, half or full. And part of the reason that his per target numbers aren't so great is because he's drawing such an obscene amount of targets. When it comes to fantasy and his ability to draw targets, nothing correlates more strongly with fantasy points than targets.

We've seen that finally come to fruition last year with Deontay, even in a bad situation. There really haven't been any guys who have drawn targets at such a high rate at such a young age. Do you think he's just been a guy who's benefited from volume and he's not that good? Because Heath will point out he has been terribly inefficient with the targets. I want to separate two things. I think he has proven elite at earning targets on a very high pass volume team.

I am concerned he's no longer on a very high pass volume team. I am concerned he's no longer on a very high pass volume team. And I'm concerned that he's not getting a quarterback upgrade for the types of things that he does. But you're also concerned that he has been so inefficient with the targets, right? I think even for a player earning targets like he is, he has been less efficient than you would expect. Yes.

Okay, Jacob, anything to follow up on there? No, I think that's fair. We did see him be more efficient last year, finally. But yeah, I think he's generally a pretty low average at the target guy. And I think it makes sense the way his efficiency has been, given how bad Pittsburgh has been offensively. He does stand out compared to his teammates,

even in efficiency. He's stand out compared to his teammates, even in efficiency. He's been one of the most efficient relative to his teammates of any receiver in 2021 at least. And so it's just like I think that's something to consider as well. Is that in targets per route run, yards per route run? No, no, no. Yards per route run. Yards per route run.

Right. Pittsburgh, it's been so bad. It's been so hard to be successful there outside of the volume, you know? But, like, in terms of being efficient, like, I think it's amazing that him and Claypool have been as efficient as they have been. You prefer yards per outrun to yards per target? Generally speaking. I mean, like, it's contextual with every stat, but yeah.

Okay. All right, let's do the Judy versus Sutton. Heath, you have Sutton in this fifth tier, and you have Judy in tier eight. And Jacob also has Sutton in this tier. It was in tier four. Is Judy also in this tier for you, Jacob? Judy is in this tier.

Sutton is in this tier, but I have Judy ranked 20th and Sutton ranked 31st. Okay. Heath, why do you like Sutton better? I don't have. I've been looking forward to listening to the case for Jerry Judy because I am more than willing to change my position on this one. I don't have a strong opinion other than a couple of things.

Cortland Sutton is the only Denver Broncos wide receiver who has actually had a good fantasy season. Cortland Sutton is the wide receiver who the beat writers who I trust or reporters who I trust are currently saying has the best connection with Russell Wilson.

I don't know and I'm sure there are some things underlying. Jerry Judy, I really liked him two years ago, and I would be open to believing in him again. But good grief. Sell me, please. All right. Yeah. Challenge accepted. When Judy and Sutton were both on the field last year, Judy, well, really, when Judy was on the field, it doesn't matter who else was on the field. He was clearly the widest of the one.

Different quarterback, of course. But Coleman Sutton has, he is the only receiver who's had, you know, one good season, but he's also only had that one good season. And it came in a role that's completely different than the role he's playing now. When he's been used as a downfield weapon, we have two years worth of debt on him with an a dot above you know 12 13 14 yards which is a again what i would expect um while playing with russell wilson and playing from the perimeter judy occupying the slot role uh he's not been good at all he's not been targeted at a high rate at

all um and has not been very productive in fantasy whereas like judy on a per route basis at least has been productive each of his two seasons even while dealing with really really poor circumstances um but yeah the last year 59 percent of Courtland Sutton's routes came with Jerry Judy off of the field 83 percent of his fantasy points came during that time no when you say off the field are you having the games Judy missed or no Jerry Judy just doesn't play as much as Courtland sutton routes routes run with judy on the field versus routes around with judy off the field okay because there's a third of the plays during the game when jerry judy's not on the field but everybody else on the offense is yeah no uh well it's not like sutton's playing 100 of the snaps right okay right and i think

20 will be higher yeah 20 maybe um yeah i i just think like with the data that we have judy projects to be the guy and also his route tree lines up well with um with russell wilson and the types of routes that he's preferred to target um and so like everything that i've seen points towards him being the guy over a sudden. And then also, Judy has been really good. Like, it hasn't come together because of injuries and everything else, but, like, he's been really good when he's been in the role that we expect him to play. He's been similarly efficient to DJ Moore on similar types of routes as a year two player.

Like, I think we're – See, this is a hard sell this is why you're on because i i think most people would would question that because i don't like the just look at the back of the baseball card kind of thing that's that's not evident for jerry judy this is a place and it that I'm really curious about is, do you think, because the guys I've been talking about, Benjamin Albright, Cecil Lammy, they seem to think that it will still be Cortland Sutton

and Tim Patrick playing more than Jerry Judy. That Judy will still play in the slot and still play 60%, 70% of the snaps like he has and so if he's better on a yards per route run but he's not running as many routes he could be really good on those routes run and not be as good i i don't know like that's that's part of the i'm not i'm not trying to make any declaration here i'm trying to like mentally process through how that equation works out. Or do we think that this year Jerry and Judy just gets to play a lot more?

Well, that's what I was going to say. There's been a coaching change, and they've talked about being more pass-heavy, letting Russ cook and all that. I think they're going to play more through receiver sets. And so, yeah, if he's stuck only in the slot, then I guess, and they run similar offense the last year, then I get what you're saying to some extent um but yeah i i expect him to be prioritized as number one but i i mean that it's all speculation it's fun we really don't know um but just based off the depth we have on

everyone in denver i think he's the most talented receiver so comparing the three of them um because i think like we've talked a lot, and I brought it up earlier in the offseason, kind of as a downer for both Sutton and Judy, and then I pushed off of it a little bit. But the fact that Tim Patrick, in terms of not yards per route run, but just about everything else, yards per game, yards per reception, yards per target, has looked just about as good as Jerry, Judy, and Cortland Sutton. And I think if he is,

that's a problem for them. Unless for some reason, Russell Wilson just decides he doesn't like Tim Patrick. But is there a significant difference when it comes to like yards per route run or some of the other stuff you look at? No, I think, I mean,

I think Judy stands out as being better, but I think Tim Patrick has been really better than people realize. And honestly, I just, I think he stands as as being better, but I think Tim Patrick has been really better than people realize. And honestly, I just, I think he stands as more of a threat to Sutton. Like he, his rap tree aligns better with Russell Wilson than Sutton's does based off the data that I found. And I, you can find it on Sportsline. And I think it's,

it wouldn't shock me if he occupies a larger role from the perimeter than Sutton. Yeah. That's that's that tell, that should tell people what we have to be careful with, because you hear this, and then you also will hear people say, I wouldn't be surprised if Cortland Sutton leads the team in receiving, and Tim Patrick second, and Jerry Judy's battling with KJ Hamler. People say that.

And so I think that could scare people away from this situation because it's terrifying. But there's going to be somebody who's really good. So I don't think you should avoid them all. The reason why, as much as I love your stats, I'm not following you on this one, Jacob, is I don't want to say that Cortland Sutton hasn't been efficient running downfield routes before he gets Russell Wilson as his quarterback. I could easily see one of two things happening. One, he just becomes much more efficient

because Russell Wilson's been so good throwing the ball downfield, and Russell Wilson is not a guy who throws short. He throws downfield with Seattle. Or two, he's got more of the 12 to 13-yard ADOT this year and not the 15, 16 or whatever. That's not ideal for fantasy. Maybe he goes back to what that ADOT was in his breakout season,

his 1,000-yard season. I can't sit here and say this is why it would happen, but it wouldn't shock me if that happened. I just think that it's so easy for Cortland Sutton to be a much better receiver now that he has a much better quarterback. I think his skill set fits very well with Russell Wilson's. Yeah, that's fair. I think there's so many different variables here,

new coaching staff, new quarterback, everything. We really don't know what the roles are going to look like. So tough. I just think Judy's role is more solidified,'s it's more likely that he plays a fantasy relevant role we saw something be completely irrelevant last year at times judy's generally been like someone you can at least plug in any ppr league when he's on the field i would say they were honest to god all pretty damn irrelevant but like when they when they were all playing i mean i can i can give you the numbers uh after well judy didn't score any touchdowns.

Like, his volume was there and is that of a relevant receiver. And, like, I think his talent is as well. Not really. I mean, so the last 10 games, Cortland Sutton had 40 targets. Jerry Judy only played nine games. He had 49 targets. Tim Patrick had 46. In those nine games, Jerry Judy had 395 yards, 32 catches, 395 yards.

Noah Fant was also part of this. He had 41 targets in nine games. So they played, it was 10 games where, you know, after Judy returned, and they all sucked, unfortunately. And this is, they could all be like very, they could all be good, which you want someone to be great, maybe. But but Fant included, you had four guys getting between 40 and 49 targets in that stretch. And they were all pretty bad with them, unfortunately. So I don't know what to even take out of that just horrible mess that denver was last year i i i mean yeah i just may go back to uh what i had originally done and just put judy and sutton like right next to each other with no preference and i'll take who goes last okay uh all right let me move on to tier six now for heath uh marty cooper marquise brown adam theelin michael thomas, and DK Metcalf. Cooper, Brown, Thielen, Thomas, and Metcalf.

God, I wish they all followed some sort of theme. Like, yeah, they're older or whatever, but they don't. So define tier six. I think these guys are good unless Michael Thomas' ankle doesn't exist anymore or Adam Thielen finally went over the age curve. But I'm scared of Jacoby Brissett thomas's ankle doesn't exist anymore or adam phelan finally went over the the age curve um but i'm scared of jacoby brissett and i'm scared of deandre hopkins coming back after week six and i'm scared of phelan's age and thomas's ankle and drew luck um but i like these guys i think are

good okay so that's so you love the talent here i do i think amari cooper's specifically is really underrated and if you told me that he was going to be deshaun watson's number one wide receiver all year i'd have him up a couple of tiers higher yeah man you've talked about what jacoby can do a wide receiver it's so bad just so bad absolutely destroy them yeah i mean if if if watson suspended for the year what tier would amari cooper be in um like the drake london garrett well the rookie tier oh behind them probably nine that's behind the rookie so that's renfro dotson davante parker christian kirk russell yeah but if deshaun watson was suspended his none of the year, then he might be in three.

Yeah. When I ran projections with Watson, just like playing the whole time, I think he was right at tier 16. Yeah. Which is nuts. How wide of a gap that could be. Yeah.

Oh, totally. Totally. All right. Tier seven is Juju Smith-Schuster, Rashad Bateman, Alan Robinson, Amonra St. Brown, Robert Woods,

Tyler Lockett. So we're looking at a little bit of a talent drop-off from Amari Cooper, Marquise Brown, Adam Thielen, Michael Thomas, DK Metcalf in tier six. Tier seven is Juju, Bateman, Alan Robinson, Amandra St. Brown, Robert Woods, and Tyler Lockett. What would you say about this tier? I would like to know, I'd like for Jacob to tell me one of these guys that doesn't belong in either direction, or two. But no, these guys are just like, there's a lot of shrug emoji here.

I mean, it's Milner or St. Brown. In which direction? I've heard people argue either way. So his year-end data last year is really exciting for a rookie but like i was not excited about his profile at all um coming out of college um and then it was propped

up so much by swift and hockinson being out he's targeted on 33 percent of his routes when those guys were off the field compared to 16 when they were on the field um his target baron rate wasn't above 20 with either one on the field and the other one off um so it wasn't like just when they're both off like anytime one of them was off it made a huge difference um and then you bring james and williams added to the question as well he just doesn't project well for me at all i think i have him outside of my top 40 yeah i i did um i moved him up when i saw the speculation that james and william Williams might not come back until after the bye which I think is week 7

this is another one where there's just been it may be something we laugh about or it may be something we say why didn't we listen more but I think I saw something today where Dan Campbell or somebody was quoted as saying if Dan Campbell could create a wide receiver on Madden it would be a Monroe St. Brown he's a great blocker. He's a tenacious monster. Just loves the guy. Yeah.

I remember reading a lot of articles about him when he was starting to emerge, and it sort of reminded me of Stefan Diggs in his rookie season where guys on the Vikings were saying, Stefan Diggs is going to the Hall of Fame. Different profiles for sure. It reminded me of Michael Thomas with all the catching stuff. But Diggs was also a day three pick and Amonra St. Brown was a day three pick,

so they didn't have the pedigree. Very different players. I wonder if we're selling him a little bit short. This is why I have no interest in Hawkinson. I think it's more likely that St. Brown is a problem for Hawkinson rather than the other way around. I think one of those two guys probably massively disappointed. Yeah. Yeah. I'm totally out on both. Campbell and Ben Johnson were both tight ends coaches though,

right? Yeah. The tight end can't disappear. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead.

It feels like with a monorail, like there's a, there's a clear path to him having no fantasy value. And what's the ceiling in Detroit? I don't know. You think so? I don't see it that way. I think he obviously has a nice connection with golf. And not only that, he actually had a nice connection with the backups last year because golf missed a little bit of time, maybe just one game. But it didn't slow him down.

How can you fake that? How can you just fake that performance as a rookie? Everyone's going to bring up Tyler Higbee, and I get it. But how can you fake that as a rookie, that stretch? Tampa Mike. Tampa Mike. So he had much worse quarterback play, as I recall, in his second year. So I have that document of all the sophomore

wide receivers and what was the Josh Freeman period of time I think Josh Freeman had a good year and follow that up with a crap year I think that's kind of what happened at Tampa Mike and golf didn't have a good year that's true so um all right is there anybody in that tier you like a lot more than this tier because I'd be willing to move somebody up. I'll tell you, I think that you could say Allen Robinson and Adam Thielen are very similar players. And you have Thielen a tier ahead of Robinson. What do you think? Yeah.

The only real argument that I've heard for Allen Robinson I don't like because it's basically that he quit on the Bears last year. I hate to say that about somebody. But if he didn't, it's kind of the opposite of the St. Brown question. How could you be that bad? He was pretty bad. He was pretty bad. And at that age, too,

it's the prime, oh, no. Michael Clayton had almost 1,200 yards as a rookie. And in his sophomore season, he had 372 yards. I don't know how many games he played. Mike Williams had 964 yards and 11 touchdowns. He followed that up with 771 yards and three touchdowns. Yeah, he led the team in receiving both years, but Josh Freeman was much worse. So, you know.

I actually think if you look at the Detroit quarterback performance in those six games, it probably wasn't that bad. So it is possible that St. Brown will just have worse quarterback play than he did in that six-game stretch. Tier 8. It could just be tied to Jamison Williams. Sure. Tier 8, a lot of rookies here.

Drake London, Gabriel Davis, who I know that's kind of a controversial one, I think. Heath lower on Gabriel Davis than consensus. Drake London, Gabriel Davis, Garrett Wilson, Traylon Burks, Devante Smith, Jerry Judy, Elijah Moore, Michael Gallup, and DeAndre Hopkins. So Jacob, I think you probably have a lot to say about this tier. I have a lot of problems with this tier. Jerry Judy obviously wouldn't be here, but London, Gabriel Davis, Garrett Wilson, Burks, Devante Smith, Elijah Moore, Michael Gallup, DeAndre Hopkins. Get them.

I want to soften things just a little bit by just bringing back the context into it. These guys are the same ranking as Jacobs Tier 5. I have to say something here. Dave has a comment in the chat. Hawk is 100% a problem for Amandra he did nothing last year when Hawk was healthy actually he there was only one game where he did something but in the first game of the six game stretch

Amandra St. Brown had a huge game and Hawkinson was healthy so I just want to point that out go ahead Jacob what problem do you have with with tier eight so back to Amandra like there's just guys in this tier that have clearly like such a higher ceiling I feel like Gabriel gabriel davis obviously um traven burks drake london elijah moore jerry judy like all of those guys um i really really like gary wilson as well but i think elijah moore is so good that he might kind of get in his way and you're one um but these guys like i think any of

the names i just mentioned could push into the top 20 and it wouldn't surprise me at all um i don't know if you want to start with a name specifically for me it would be elijah moore I think any of the names I just mentioned could push into the top 20 and it wouldn't surprise me at all. I don't know if you want to start with a name specifically for me, it would be Elijah Moore. So you like Elijah Moore over Garrett Wilson? Yeah. I think Elijah Moore like is one of the absolute best young receivers in the NFL. His data at Ole Miss was so freaking good.

And then like he came in and did nothing but dominate the volume when he was on the field. It came in a sort of small sample size, and he was targeted at a significantly lower rate when he ran routes with Zach Wilson at QB. Those are the only two data points that are not just overwhelmingly positive about what we've seen from Elijah Morris so far. You know, he had a big game against the Eagles in Darius Slay. just overwhelmingly positive about what we've seen from Elijah Moore so far. He had a big game against the Eagles and Darius Slay. He had a big game against the Dolphins, who have great cornerbacks.

He had 141 yards and a touchdown. He had 77 yards and a touchdown against the Eagles. I loved that about him. He had 84 yards and two touchdowns against the Colts. They had a pretty good secondary last year. I think, Jacob, I got to start drafting him a little bit more. I don't think I've taken Elijah Moore once, and I'm regretting it. I just, because I don't necessarily Do you have any faith in Zach Wilson

or some faith in Zach Wilson? I think it will be better than last year, right? I hope he is better than last year, because the reason I hope he is better than last year. The reason I say that is I loved Elijah Moore. I didn't like the fact that the Jets seemingly first thought this offseason was we must get a number one wide receiver. I thought they had a number one wide receiver.

I thought they had a number two wide receiver in Corey Davis. They're paying like $16 million this year. But don't you see the Cowboys did it. The Broncos probably did it with Sutton unless they didn't really view him. I think teams can double dip at wide receiver. No, no, they definitely can. But who like they just spent the 10th overall pick on Garrett Wilson. When they a year after taking Elijah Moore in the second round, who is the number one wide receiver in their eyes?

It was, I don't think the number two wide receiver for Zach Wilson's going to be very good. Right. I think that's fair. That's why I have them. I think 24th rather than like up in the Darnell Mooney, Michael Pittman type of range,

or I guess Jalen Waddle where it's like, this guy's a clear stud and like, it's going to break out this year. I there are question marks there's definitely downside with any sack wasn't receiver um but yeah what he did last year was unprecedented he was targeted on 25 percent his routes uh only 13 receivers did that um and he was the youngest to do it um and what's really impressive about that is those are really deep routes. His average route depth was 10 yards. The next highest of players that were targeted on at least fourth of the routes was Justin Jefferson at 9.6, AJ Brown at 9.2.

And so obviously those types of guys, when you have that formula, they're running really deep routes and still being targeted at a high rate, you just get massive air yards. And that's exactly what happened last year. When he was on the field, he had 44% of their air yards, which was the fifth highest of any player in the NFL. I think Garrett Wilson is really, really, really good at everything. He could come in and legitimately disrupt all of this,

but what we saw last year shouldn't go under the radar just because it came on meaningless snaps for the Jets. I think I found the archetype. The Jacob Gibbs going to break out better than consensus, meaning was snaps for the jets and i think i found the archetype like the the the jacob gibbs going going to break out better than consensus uh archetype it's it's the high per route run low per target not quite a full-time player like those guys are the are the guys that stand out versus like what they actually did. Because I think a lot of people, not even looking at yards per target, but just like looking at Elijah Moore's rookie season, he went over 50 yards in four of 11 games.

Yeah. An average 6.9 yards per target. And then you hear Jacob say what he did last year was unprecedented. That's quite a juxtaposition. I think it's because players who demand that type of volume generally do it again. It's really rare for someone to demand that type of volume at a young age. Really the only player who's done it and not been a complete stud in the last 10 years is Kelvin Benjamin. Outside of that like anyone who comes in and draws targets in the way that he did ends up continuing to draw targets and eventually becoming like a fantasy wide receiver one

um so i generally trust in it but um yeah i mean i don't blame a guy for having bad efficiency with the jets last year yeah i mean that when he succeeded the problem with more is when he succeeded zach wilson typically wasn't playing c Corey Davis typically wasn't playing. And the Jets quarterbacks in the four, he had a six game stretch. That was great. In four of those games, the Jets quarterbacks averaged 46.8 pass attempts per game. And they were just so much better than Zach Wilson. So I think these guys are going to be tied to Zach Wilson. And that's going to obviously give you a chance maybe for value on draft day. They're going to go a little bit later. We are almost out of time. So let me move on here. So do you have basically everyone in this tier higher than I do? In tier eight? Everyone except for DeAndre Hopkins and Michael Gallup and Devonta Smith. I love Devonta Smith, but I just don't, I can't find a way to project him for volume to be relevant here, which I hate. Yeah.

Yeah. I also wonder if he has upside, unless obviously if AJ Brown gets hurt, then he certainly does. But how can he have, how can he have huge upside with AJ Brown on the field? It's tough. Tier nine. Sorry.

Do you guys agree with that premise? Yeah. I think we should just spend more time on Tier 8, but we can go to Tier 9. Jacob, give me two players from Tier 9 that you think should be in a different tier, higher or lower. The names are Renfro, Dotson.

Nobody needs to be lower than Tier 9. Renfro, Dotson, Parker, Devante Parker, Christian Kirk Christian Kirk Russell Gage Jacoby Myers Alan Lazard Chase Claypool George Pickens Chris Olave Kadarius Tony Kenny Galladay Jameson Williams and Brandon Ayuk this is like 40 through 55 the guy I feel the most solid about is Christian Kirk he is another guy who stands out when you look at his discrepancy versus teammates. He was really explosive last year in an offense that couldn't create explosive

plays. And he's been really, really good when occupying the slot role. We finally saw him get it last year. That's the role he's likely going to play for Jacksonville, whose coaching staff and quarterbacks have targeted the slot at a high rate historically. I think he's going to play a big role and probably be a top 36 receiver.

I don't think he has upside that someone like Chase Claypool might in this tier or honestly, Kadarius Toney. We want to talk about per route rates. Kadarius Toney. Jacob is the reason why I love Kadarius Toney. Jacob has given me this Kadarius Toney Kool-Aid that I just... We need to not go overboard with it because it's a really small sample size. It's like the tiniest.

It's almost as small as Caderius Tony. But at the same time, he was targeted at the fourth highest rating in the NFL on a per round basis. Wow. It is a small sample size, but he was targeted like he was AJ Brown or something. That's amazing. And a lot of that was mike lennon yes and also some of that like quite a bit of that came with stern shepherd off the field when and this is an even smaller sample size but when he was on the field stern shepherd he wasn't targeted quite as high of a rate i don't think that much of it was mike lennon the way. I think his best games came with... Half of it came with Lennon.

No, the Saints game... His best game came almost entirely with Lennon. The Saints game was Daniel Jones. The Cowboys game was like a quarter of Daniel Jones. And the Rams game, which was my favorite game of him, where he had like three catches for 39 yards on one drive, was Daniel Jones. So it wasn't all Mike Lennon.

And then a bunch of crap later in the year was both Glennon and Jones. And who the heck was the... Jake Fromm. Okay. Tier 10, Heath? No. Okay.

Christian Watson, man. I'll take Christian Watson all day at a tier 10. Yeah. Jalen Tolbert, too. I'm. Yeah. Jalen Tolbert too. I'm very excited for Jalen Tolbert. Are you a Watson or Lazard guy, Jacob? Watson. There's more like hypothetical upside with him.

Lazard's rates are really bad. Who's Watson? I'm sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm so turned around. I am on something. He's on something. Watson or Lazard.

You said Watson. I thought I said the wrong name. My bad. Yeah. He's on something. Watson Elizar. You said Watson. I thought I said the wrong name. My bad. Yeah. I need to be on something right now. So you said Christian Watson? Christian Watson. And then, yeah,

Jalen Tolbert is the only other guy that really stands out as having like big upside from this group. Okay. All right. Is there anything else? I'm so tired.

This is a great show, guys. This is very fun. This is your, like, you're entering into almost hour five on YouTube today, aren't you? Yeah, man. I've done a lot. Let's see. We had, yeah, over four hours of live programming. Yes, we're into hour five. Throw David Bell in here. If Deshaun Watson actually ends up getting a kind of minimal suspension i think david bell could have a really good year david bell over donovan peoples jones then yeah for sure yeah i think the the way the offense will run it favors him i think he i mean we've seen jarvis landry jarvis landry on a per

route basis has been targeted like in the top 5 or 10 over the past few years. I think there's so many intermediate targets that are vacated. They're either going to go to Njoku or Bell. His college dad is really good too. I'm really excited for him. David Bell led all FBS players with 67

catches on shallow or crossing routes since 2019. According to ESPN stats and information. How many of those types of routes has Deshaun Watson traditionally thrown? Like, I wonder that between his... I'd be curious on that. Like, Watson versus Stefanski. Because it seems like they've definitely, their tendencies have not been similar.

Yeah. But I could be wrong. I wrote about that in detail right after the trade was made. You can find it on Sportsline. Amari Cooper is a guy who really stands a benefit. His route tree is really similar to what they've done with DeAndre Hopkins in his time in Houston. And he has excelled when running those routes in Dallas, Amari. But he has, you know, hit the intermediate routes at a, you know,

similar to league average rate. I think of Deshaun as like a downfield, you know, thrower. So I was a little worried that maybe he would ignore that and the offense would change. But I don't, there's no like strong, compelling reason to think that it would change. Cool. See you guys. Thank you very much. And we'll talk to you. Well, actually Heath and I are going to there's no like strong, compelling reason to think that it would change. Cool. See you guys.

Thank you very much. And we'll talk to you. Uh, well actually Heath and I are going to do FFT in five now. And then we'll, uh, we'll talk to you on Thursday, Thursday,

Thursday. Yeah. No show officially on Wednesday, uh, for the YouTube audience, but, uh, to Jacob,

we appreciate you coming on Heath. Thank you very much. And all of you for watching and listening. But to Jacob, we appreciate you coming on. Heath, thank you very much. And all of you for watching and listening. Talk to you on Thursday on Kansas Football Today.