Fantasy Football Today - WRs We Love! Breakouts and Must-Haves (08/18 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

Donate to St. Jude as part of our Draft-A-Thon! Bid on pre-draft calls with our experts, a spot in our Podcast League, a guest spot on our show and more! https://ebay.to/3p4Dc3Z Basically, we think you should draft some of these guys: D.J. Moore, Michael Pittman, Courtland Sutton and Mike Williams. But there are so many more! We're joined by Jake Ciely of The Athletic to talk about wide receiver breakouts and other must-have players at the position. When should you draft Chris Godwin? Jake tells us why he likes Juju Smith-Schuster, Allen Lazard, Amari Cooper and a few more (17:40). 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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Now, here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath. Bonanza! Welcome to the Breakouts episode, Wide Receiver Edition. Four episodes today, this is episode three. Adam Azer, Jamie Isenberg, Heath Cummings, and special guest Jake Seeley joining us here on Fantasy Football today. We are talking about our favorite wide receivers to draft. It's Breakout Wide Receivers slash Must Have Wide Receivers.

We'll tell you about their average draft position, and we'll tell you who they are. And you know, before the show started, and I'll introduce Jake in a moment, we were just kind of chit-chatting, oh, who's on Jake's list? And Heath, you said something like, I'm pretty sure we're all going to have

the same wide receivers. So who did you think would be the consensus breakout slash must have wide receivers? CeeDee Lamb, DJ Moore, Cortland Sutton, Michael Pittman, Rashad bateman gabriel davis that's good right yeah i mean jake thumbs up thumbs down uh so four of those are on my potential i graded their level out of a 10 scale of their likelihood to finish top 10 this year four of those are in the article that just dropped today so there you go which ones uh Pittman Sutton Davis and Bateman okay not DJ Moore no because so one of the things the classification I have

for is you couldn't finish there's a wide receiver one on the season or in fancy points per game he hasn't finished wide receiver one but he he's been like 14, 15. So I kind of I left them out because for him to jump into the top 10, it'd be like a five spot jump. So I was looking for a little bit deeper. OK, OK. All right. Fair enough. Jamie, how you doing? Anytime Jake is on the show, I'm doing great. I know he's great. He's a senior writer for the Athletic Fantasy.

You can follow him on Twitter at all in kid at all. I think he's going to change it to at Jakey Jake. Do you remember what it originally was? Wait, wait, way back in the day when Nando thought my middle name was Alan because it was Jake Allen Seeley. Do you remember that? That was my first Twitter handle. Wow.

Why did you think that? So just so our audience knows, Jake works with Nando at The Athletic. So there's a lot of Nando references that we tend to make to each other. Yes, just a few. Yes, just a few. I'm the only person here who's never worked with Nando. You will at the Draft-A-Thon, August 31st. All right, give me – well, I think you just gave us a bunch of names.

CeeDee Lamb, Michael Pittman, DJ Moore. The thing about it, Heath, is if you plan it right, you can draft four or five of them. I mean, looking at some of the names you gave, you would take DJ Moore in round two. Most people wouldn't, but you could take him in round two, Pittman in round three, Mike Williams in round four, Chris Goblin's another guy you like.

You might be able to get him in round five. We'll see if that ADP keeps climbing, but right now, Chris Goblin's around five picks. So, yeah, or you could take CeeDee Lamb in round two and then Michael Pittman and then, or, and then DJ more, right. You could, you could just get all those guys, right. You can. Yeah, absolutely. I don't usually take DJ more in round two because I always take Mark Andrews in round two, but if I didn't take Mark Andrews in round two, I might take CD lamb or DJ more in round two. Um, I, I think like starting with those wide receivers, especially

if you're able to land a running back that you feel really good about in round one, makes you feel pretty fantastic through five rounds. Like you look at your team and you're like, I got four wide receivers who might be top 12 wide receivers this year. Yeah. Uh, Jake, how convinced are you that Michael Pittman is going to live up to that hype? Because now if you want to draft them, it's probably early round three in a 12-team league. So the top 10 likelihood, I gave him an 8 out of 10. So it's pretty strong. I think the likelihood that he reaches wide receiver one status, let alone the top 10,

is extremely high for going from Carson Wentz to Matt Ryan, which I don't think is a massive upgrade that people, some might believe, just like I don't think that Carson Wentz over Heineke is as massive as some people might think. But the truth is, if Matt Ryan brings anything over from the Falcons, it's throwing a little bit more to the wide receivers. I think that only helps Pittman, whether or not Alex Pierce steps up, whether or not Paris Campbell stays healthy. But I'm just looking at the touchdown interception ratio being a little bit better, the target percentage for wide receivers being a little bit better. And then the yards per attempt.

Everything's just enough better that we just saw Pittman finish top 15, depending on your site, to get to the top 10. I mean, that's an easy jump, in my opinion. And what did you give Sutton? What number did you give Cortland Sutton? If Pittman was an 8 on the likelihood to finish top 10, what was Sutton? I gave Sutton a 7.5, Judy a 6.5. Just to pull him to the conversation.

I actually believe the report, whether you want to call it confirmation bias, but the report that we recently saw talking about how, if things are breaking down for Russell Wilson, he's looking to Sutton first. I think a lot of people, crutch argument wise, went Sutton is Metcalf and Judy is Lockett. They're close, but they're not one for ones

for each other and I think what we're looking for is who is he going to look for when he's the play's breaking down because that's what made Lockett reliable so if Sutton is the bigger a dot and the better all-around wide receiver and he's going to get that Lockett type treatment I think Sutton top 15 if he told me top 15 I probably would would have put it like a 9 out of 10. The top 10 might just be a little aggressive. Okay, Jamie, how do you rank Moore, Pittman, Sutton, Mike Williams? Pittman, Moore. I go back and forth with these two. Right now, Williams, Sutton.

All right. Honestly, we just did the wide receiver preview not too long ago. That was last week. And we spent a lot of time talking about them. So we definitely want you to draft Michael Pittman, DJ Moore, Cortland Sutton, Mike Williams. Within that, we also like Michael Thomas, Chris Godwin, guys. Where are we on Chris Godwin?

And I actually want to know if Jake also likes Michael Thomas. I know we like him here on CBS. Way ahead of his ADP. I mean, Michael Thomas' ADP is, let's see, on Fantasy Pros. It's in the 70s. On NFC in the last week, I'll tell you in just one moment, Michael Thomas of the New Orleans Saints is wide receiver 30. He's going 59th overall.

And on CBS, I'll also give me three seconds. Sorry about that. Should have been prepared. Michael Thomas is going 62nd overall. We're taking him way above that. So let me give you – Jake, where would you take Michael Thomas? I would take him as a top – almost top 20 wide receiver. So I take him ahead of all those ADPs.

I think that people are – got the A.J. Green in their minds, and that really isn't Michael Thomas. Still only 30. Michael Thomas was the number one wide receiver in fantasy. Even if he's 90% of what he used to be, he's still a top 20 wide receiver. So I think Winston, of course, a little bit of downgrade passing wise from Drew Brees, but the good thing about what we saw from Winston last year is that being the smarter quarterback, not throwing as many interceptions was he brought his game down into the intermediate

level more often than throwing it 30 yards downfield. And who one of the best if not the best intermediate wide receivers in the NFL it's Michael Thomas so I think this is actually a really good fit and Jamie Heath where you guys on Chris Godwin when are you okay drafting him right now as of August 17th Wednesday evening starting to be the third round for me you know i i think we're getting you know healthy chris godwin versus injured mike evans right now and you know assuming everything is fine with tom brady which is i i think the expectation uh with gauge banged up you know if godwin's ready for week one no setbacks 100 that's the go-to guy you know he's not going to score as many touchdowns as mike evans and i think you know he think we should probably let Jake also clarify this, classify this.

We're talking PPR. I don't know if he's referencing half PPR or not because clearly there's a lot of different conversations there. But Godwin in full PPR should be the Bucs' best wide receiver and has a chance to be a top-ten guy. Jake, are you more of a half PPR guy? Sorry, Heath. I am default half-point PPR,

but for me it's really negligible outside the outliers. We all know that. If you're a low touchdown, high volume type it's the same thing for running backs. It's the outliers, the Naeem Hines at running backs, the high wide receiver. You see three touchdowns in the season, but you catch 90 balls.

Cole Beasley's. That used to be of the world. So Godwin's saying it, whether I agree with Jamie, by the way, if Godwin's 16 versus 17, it's going to be a very negligible difference. Heath, Chris Godwin for you. Early round three. Yeah, I think you said it a long time ago. It was like two months ago, but it feels like it was six years ago.

Godwin was a second round pick if he was 100% healthy. And he's not quite there yet, but I think he's trending towards it. It might be another situation, like I talked about on the running back breakout show, like J.K. Dobbins. Maybe week one and week two you don't feel like you're getting what you paid for out of Chris Godwin. You're not going to care about that when we get to week 14, and he's the number six wide receiver in fantasy again or something. Yeah, I felt that way before the Julio Jones signing. I don't know, guys.

I do wonder if maybe early round three is a little early for the guy coming off the torn ACL. I know Julio Jones is not going to be Antonio Brown. Antonio Brown was exceptional. But Russell Gage is there too. I know Gage banged up. I just took him with the first pick of round five in a best ball. I took him with Mike Evans, who I took at the last pick of round two.

So at the two, three turns, I took Evans. At the four, five turn, I took Godwin. But I don't know that I'm ready to take him that early in the third round. I love Chris Godwin, but I don't know how good he's going to be. He's not back yet. I know he's doing more, but he's not back yet. And I don't know. I mean, Julio Jones does complicate things a little bit for me, guys, a little bit.

Please don't let Julio complicate things for you. Just a little bit. I mean, why? Why? I mean, that's what people were saying about Antonio Brown. Antonio Brown ended up being much, much better. That's what people were saying about Julio Jones with A.J. Brown last year. Julio Jones hopefully will provide some level

of production for the Bucs, but I don't think it's going to be at the expense to a significant degree for Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. It's going to be filling to whatever extent Antonio Brown left. It's going to be filling to whatever extent Rob

Gronkowski left. Julio spent. What is that, Jake? It's a rainbow poop. It's still poop, but it's rainbow to make it look pretty. I bet people were saying that about Antonio Brown. They revived Antonio Brown there. They can revive Julio. Remember when Jake said earlier that people are confused and thinking Michael Thomas is AJ Green?

Julio Jones is probably AJ Green. Yeah, they could be. Okay, let's talk about, so since we love those wide receivers beginning in maybe late round two, going into round four, we love those guys. How about ones that are a little bit less clear? So let's see. Jamie said Gabriel Davis, Darnellnell mooney rashad baitman

uh heath had darnell mooney on the list he gave me jake had gabriel davis so if we talk about those three gabriel davis darnell mooney brandon cook's in that group too is brandon cooks every year is brandon cooks ahead of that group? For me, he is, but I think by ADP, he's right in the middle of it, right? Which is absurd. It depends, because Gabriel Davis on NFC is wide receiver 20-something, and on Fantasy Pros and CBS, he's not even close to that. I think Brandon Cooks, we just say Brandon Cooks should go ahead of Bateman, Davis, and Mooney.

I would, yes. So, Jake, how do you feel about Rashad Bateman, Gabriel Davis, and Darnell Mooney? They are, between wide receivers, basically 29 and 38 in ADP. Yeah, I go Davis, Mooney, Bateman, but they're all super close. They're in the same tier for me.

Davis gets the leg up of being the clear number two. Now that you've actually vacated two wide receivers and you have the conversation of McKenzie being the slot option or Jameson Crowder, if he even stays on this team by week one. But the answer is really what we've already seen is Gabriel Davis. So it comes down to Mooney. The volume is there. We know he's probably going to be top 10 in team target percentage, but it's also coming from a team that's not going to score a lot. And then Justin Fields. And honestly, if you're talking about defenses, I'm not ranking him as such,

but what if they just say, fine, we'll erase him every single week. We'll triple cover him because what are you going to do? Beat us with Byron Pringle and Vilous Jones? Like, really? So that's the concern. That's the downside for Darnold Mooney. And then Bateman, I think everybody loves Bateman. I actually think Bateman's a better fit for Lamar Jackson than Marquise Brown is.

However, you're still talking about an offense that, are they going to throw the ball 600 times again? Or are they going to drop back down to the 550, even potentially the 500 mark that Lamar Jackson wasn't even getting to as they run more? They said they wanted to run more again this year after they passed last year. So Mark Andrews, the clear number one. So he's the number two. And that's really what it comes down to. They're all super close, but those are the ways that I separate them. Do they all belong, Heath?

Do they all belong in the breakout discussion? Or are they all breakout? They belong in the discussion. Are they all going to have their breakout candidates for sure? I come off as the anti-Gabe Davis guy guy but i would like him more if my default was half ppr and i think he is one of those wide receivers in this range who varies the most between non-ppr and full ppr because the case for gabe davis is not that he's going to go catch 80 passes it's that he's going to catch 10 touchdowns and so there's a pretty wide range i I've got him as a really high-end,

number three wide receiver, almost a borderline number two in non-PPR, but I am one of the low guys on him in full. In 16 career games with four or more targets, that's it, four or more targets, Gabriel Davis has caught 11 touchdowns. He is an absolute touchdown magnet. I mean, he's got to be the,

you know, we did the prop bet on HQ. He's got to be an easy target to lead the NFL in receiving touchdowns. Easy. Oh, yes. So who's got the most league winning upside between Bateman, Davis, and Mooney? Oh, Davis. Davis. Davis.

It's an absurd number to say that, like, let's just, because this is always a mistake that people make is they just project out what, you know, doubling up. So let's say double up Gabriel Davis, 63 and 62 targets. Don't do that and give him 125 and say he's going to keep the same rate going. But if he did, we're talking 1150 yards and 13 touchdowns. Like, so again, it's an absurd number and i don't recommend anybody doing that but that's why jamie said and we both immediately said because what if he did what if it was 1100 yards and 12 touchdowns that's league winning i'm also i mean no disrespect to lamar jackson josh allen's the best passer of the group and what about fields yeah just just kidding you know so you're taking a chance on on that and and

to jake's point you know you never like to see somebody go if stefan digs gets hurt and and those targets have to go somewhere i don't think it's all going to isaiah mckenzie and dawson knox i would imagine that you know they're they keep raving about gabriel davis and his development you know i mean sean mcdermott at the Combine talked about, you know how much I like year three guys. He said, year one, he was our backup. Year two, he took a step forward. This is his year.

He basically laid it out for you. This is his year. You're hearing his route tree is developing and how he's matured as a player and is stepping into this role and having a chance to flourish in it. And Heath is right. Look, it's not an easy thing. As Jake said, it's not an easy thing. Just all of a sudden, assume that he's doubling his targets and assume that, as Heath will say, assume that he's just taking all of the work that he got last year and the Emmanuel Sanders targets and saying that's all his now with McKenzie taking the Cole Beasley targets. I've said this a lot that with the James

Cook addition, with a second tight end, we haven't heard anything real about OJ Howard, but you know, the idea was to get another playmaking tight end on the field. They're going to be different. They're going to be more diverse in how they attack teams because they're trying to evolve and they have a new coordinator as well. So i think we're going to see just a different offense to a certain extent it's still going to go through stefan digs but gabriel davis i think does have a shot for between 100 and 120 targets and that's going to be pretty impressive to see what you can do with it i i'm i'll go the other direction on the most upside just because darnell mooney already has the most important part like all he needs is just to be better.

Justin Fields makes an improvement in his second year as a passer, and Darnell Mooney's efficiency jumps by 15%. He's got 150 targets, and all of a sudden, he's not one of the least efficient wide receivers in the NFL. So I think PPR-wise, you could see Darnell Mooney turn into a 90, 95 catch guy. All right. Last question. I'm going to ask about this group of three Rashad Bateman,

Gabriel Davis and Darnell Mooney or last questions. Just real quick guys. Would you take any of them ahead of DK Metcalf? No. Yes. Who? Davis. All three.

Oh, I've got Mooney. I think I want to say all three oh heath i've got mooney i think i want to say all three there's not a time where i want to draft dk metcalf okay but i've got metcalf ahead of bateman and davis right now okay let's talk about some deeper guys that jake provided slight not that not that much deeper but alan lazard amari cooper juju smith schuster uh with the cat yes with the caveat that we only have Jake provided. Not that much deeper, but Alan Lazard, Amari Cooper, Juju Smith-Schuster. Lazard, yes! With the caveat that we only have... You know what? Actually, it's like a group of five.

It's Lazard, Cooper, Juju, Elijah Moore, Robert Woods. Lazard, Cooper, Juju, Elijah Moore, Robert Woods. These are all names that Jake gave me just before the show started. We only have a couple minutes left, Jake. We got plenty of time. What do you think of these guys? Are these number three wide receivers? Should they be bench players?

Should they be flexes? Alan Lazard, Amari Cooper, Juju Smith-Schuster, Elijah Moore, Robert Woods, and who's your favorite? Of those, my favorite is Juju Smith-Schuster. I love all of them. He's the headline of the article I have next week, which is last year's trash. He's the headline of the article I have next week, which is last year's trash. He is the headline player in that article.

People just ignoring the fact that he came over a big slot. Tyreek Hill just spent 50% of the time in the slot. And your answer for the number one is him. Why are we chasing the rookie and Marquez Valdez-Stantling? And then even before me, Cole Hardman got like the answer is there and everybody's ignoring it, which I will also tie in. The answer is there with Alan Lazard why are we chasing the two rookies and the corpse of Sammy Watkins and the corpse of Randall Cobb and like the number one is Alan Lazard who was already by the way more end zone targets not red zone but more end zone targets to Devonta Adams last year it's not like Aaron

Rodgers doesn't know he exists when they get in the red zone which is one of the things Aaron Rodgers does well is throw touchdowns. But Cooper just has to do with volume. I actually put him, even if Brissette's starting the entire year, he's kind of in the conversation like a Darnold Mooney. Like it might not be great, but 140 targets, that's the volume Y. Elijah Moore, we just saw it doesn't matter who the quarterback was that second half that he went through after seeing all those targets where he struggled at the beginning of the year.

But then he was, for people that don't remember, in that stretch when he caught 6 of 6 and then Tilly got hurt, he was the wide receiver 2 in fantasy and number 5 in points per game. I don't think that's happening. But to say, oh, they drafted Garrett Wilson, and now Elijah Moore's going to struggle, I'm all over it. And now I forgot, who was the fifth one that he mentioned? Robert Woods.

Robert Woods. Oh, that just has to do with the fact that Robert Woods is the number one for that team. And I think Traylon Burks is more of an answer for 2023 than he is for 2022. And I think between Lazard, Cooper, Juju, Elijah Moore, and Robert Woods, who's dog? Who let the dogs out? That's Barkley. She's getting fired up for these wide receivers too. Lazard, Cooper, Juju, Elijah Moore, Robert Woods.

You may not like all of them, but they're all going to be available for you as a fourth wide receiver in some cases, as a third wide receiver if you went heavy at other positions. And you can find it. I mean, for me, there's three that I'd love to take. Heath, how many in this group would you love to take, you know, with a mid-round pick?

Lazard, Cooper, Juju, Elijah Moore, Robert Woods? I would say Juju for sure and Robert Woods. I draft Robert Woods a lot. And Elijah Moore, kind of too. Okay, so like 2.75. He hates Lazard. Hates him. And he hates Cooper even more.

You know, I've only had to argue with two people. I've tried not to argue during these. But the answer was the same to both people. Why do you not like this person that I like? And the answer was Jacoby Brissett. Fair enough, Jamie. Here's the good thing. Jacoby Brissett can't throw 30 yards downfield.

So he's just going to pepper the living hell out of Cooper and Njoku because Donovan Peoples-Jones is going to be too far downfield by the time he throws. Jamie, Lazard, Cooper, Juju, Elijah Moore, Robert Woods. How many of them do you get excited about drafting with a mid-round pick? Juju and Lazard for sure. The other three, not so much in terms of excitement.

Woods has, you know, especially with Burks' struggles continuing, has been a riser for me. Cooper, I'm just basically out on because I also don't want to trust Jacoby Brissett. And Elijah Moore is kind of, if he's available in the right spot, again, not somebody I want to reach for.

But now I know why Jake likes my flex team so much, because it has not only my first two picks were somehow Cooper Cup and Najee Harris. Ridiculous. But then it was Michael Pittman in the third round, Gabriel Davis in the fifth round, and I think Alan Lazard in the seventh round. So I know why Jake and I think Alan Lazard in the seventh round. So I know why Jake and I are friends.

I texted Jamie during the draft and I said, you're drafting the article version of, if this could be my perfect draft. And it was so frustrating. And then Trey Lance in round 12. Yes! And Cole Komet. And Cole Komet. And then, you know what my last two picks were?

Without a defense? I was so ticked off and then you know my last two picks were without a defense I was so ticked off by that point my last two picks were George Pickens and Brian Robinson oh sick love it Heath you want to get

the last word I just want to say that on several sites I am ahead of ADP on Alan Lazard this is one of those situations like Michael Thomas

where I hate him because I'm on this podcast yeah but if I was on other people's podcasts I would be the Alan Lazard. This is one of those situations like Michael Thomas where I hate him because I'm on this podcast. Yeah. But if I was on other people's podcasts, I would be the Alan Lazard guy. I do just want to see the last thing.

Let's check where Lazard is going over the last week in NFC. He's still wide receiver 40. He's going after Renfro, Hopkins, Iyuk, Devante Smith, Drake London. I love Alan Lazard.

There you go. Where do you have him, Pete? There you go. Wide receiver 36. Like 10% higher than his ADP. All right. Jake Seeley, thank you very much. Appreciate your time, man.

Always love it. Thank you for having me. And you can follow him at AllInKid and read his stuff over at The Athletic. And that is it for the wide receiver breakouts and must-haves. We'll finish up with tight ends with Dave and Jamie for the last part of the breakouts bonanza. Talk to you soon.