Purple Insider - a Minnesota Vikings and NFL podcast - Fantasy Life's Ian Hartitz explains why fantasy drafters are low on Jordan Addison

Episode Date: July 2, 2024

Matthew Coller and Ian Hartitz of Fantasy Life go in depth on wide receivers, particularly Jordan Addison, who fantasy players seem to be down on. Is that just because of the QB situation? Also, how about some sleepers? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Purple Insider. Matthew Collar here, continuing Fantasy Week with one of my favorite fantasy analysts of all time. Maybe even a fantasy of mine to have him on the show again. Ian Harditz, what is going on? The apple of my heart, it's... No, that didn't work. How's it going, man? How how are you it's going great brother we've been doing this uh you know pretty much every year i still remember when you came on

my fantasy pod and i believe it was year two uh justin jefferson you said it was going to be a julio jones level eruption and i've just been trusting everything every single thing you say ever since man so obviously a lot of change going on with the vikings but yeah man a lot of uh you know as we get in july here probably still a month away from those people getting their fancy drafts going but never too early to uh you know get a better idea of what's going on no you're right it was uh after his rookie season and i came on your show and you asked about jefferson is he going to continue doing this and i said you know he reminds me of is julio Jones because there's no answer to him.

He can go deep. He can go underneath. He can go intermediate, yards after catch, and neither of them catch a ton of touchdowns because there's so much attention on them. The mentions to that tweet, because you guys put it out there in a little clip, I should have gone back and retweeted it

when he signed the biggest contract ever for a wide receiver by about 50 miles, because I think I nailed that one. But when it comes to the Vikings wide receiver, it's a great place to start, Ian, because I think that there's a lot of discussion here about how the quarterbacks are going to impact what is happening with the wide receiver stats for Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson. So what is your opinion on how much the quarterback situation just broadly, just over the entire league has an impact on what type of numbers wide receivers put up? Historically, we have seen the wide receivers with rookie quarterbacks struggle a lot. I mean,

I went ahead and just did this study where offenses with the rookie quarterback starting at least 10 games since 2010. And it's happened 41 times. Only five of those teams actually produced a wide receiver that posted top 12 numbers. So just 12% hit rate. Only 13 actually had top 24 numbers. So just a 32% hit rate. Average finish, wide receiver 33.

Median finish, wide receiver 35. Look, those aren't terrible numbers. And when you do look at offenses like Washington, for example, I mean, Terry McLaurin is basically priced where that is. So I think he's a certainly fine investment, but man, Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison in this offense, man, are going to need to be the elite talents that particularly Jefferson, we know he is an Addison to his credit, you know, looked certainly pretty damn good as a rookie there, but it's just going to be tough, man.

Their back is against the wall. Addison is certainly the more affordable priced one. But with Justin Jefferson, again, it's not that anyone I think in the fantasy community is doubting him. It's just literally like, do you want to rank him fourth or fifth at the position? Because the other guys at the top, CeeDee Lamb, Tyreek Hill, Jamar Chase, and Amon Ross St. Brown, they have a similar volume projection they have a way more secure quarterback you know under center and yes i would probably take justin jefferson over all those guys in terms of a pure talent but we're just always trying to ride that

line in fantasy land where it's like all right the talent the volume how's the quarterback and how's the overall offense i'm in and yeah some of those factors overlap each other but that's the overall offense I'm in. And yeah, some of those factors overlap each other, but that's the issue here for Jefferson and accordingly Addison as well. Right, and you knew when Kirk Cousins was the quarterback that he was going to pump the ball to wide receiver one. I mean, as much as any quarterback in the league, he was going to work his guy and you were going to get these huge numbers

from Justin Jefferson as he put up historic numbers to start off his career. Now, what if I told you, and maybe this doesn't change your mind all that much, but what if I told you that Sam Darnold would start the entire season? Would that change how you think of these two wide receivers? I'm going to give, I would give Kevin O'Connell more of the credit than anything. I think Darnold's going to do. I mean, seeing what he got out of Nick Mullins and some of those guys down the

stretch last year, even the, I mean the Joshua Dobbs game, like just literally communicating before the snap, like that was awesome. But no, I mean, I think that's worse,

honestly, because we have 50 plus starts of evidence that Sam Donald is a mediocre to terrible quarterback. And yes, the Jets teams weren't exactly putting them up in success, but how many times can we just rewatch that one random throwback pass he had against the 49ers, you know, and just say, well, you know, look, the guy's still got some talent over here, maybe some untapped upside going on. So for me, I want to see McCarthy get out there, you know, in a hurry because he's the one that, again, I believe does have the higher overall ceiling. This whole narrative about him just, you know, it's almost like while he was kind of going throughout college in the draft process they almost act like this was a Stetson Bennett walk

on you know sort of talent not a former five-star recruit who finished his high school career winning a freaking natty at IMG Academy so for me it's McCarthy going out there proving that he is the elite recruit and just quarterback that honestly he's been recruited as his entire life and then hopefully making great things happen with uh again, J.J. and Addison. So I will say sucks for the Vikings, but not having T.J. Hawkinson probably on the field for the first month or two of the season, it does squeeze those targets down a little bit. But initial fantasy life projections that we have up on the site

have Justin Jefferson dominating, obviously, 150 targets. Addison just 98. So again, it's trying to balance that having Donald having McCarthy, perhaps a bit more of a run first offense, and then can they make the most out of those opportunities with probable mediocre quarterback play? So it's always interesting for me to ask people about Sam Darnold because the, it only goes one of two ways. The one way is, did you see who was coaching him with the jets? Did you see who was coaching him with Carolina and his end of his Carolina season? Plus what he looked like in San Francisco. And then you're making horrified faces

at this. Uh, but then the other side is exactly what you said, which is this is just not going to happen because it's Sam Darnold and he's a bust. And I am stuck in the middle here because having seen what Justin Jefferson can do, even as you mentioned for Nick Mullins, I do tend to think that any version of Sam Darnold before has to be better when playing with Jefferson. And he did have a brief run with DJ Moore where he threw him the football a lot. And DJ Moore is good, but he's not just a Jefferson. I also think that Kevin O'Connell is really good at getting wide receivers open. So whatever the best possible version of Sam Darnold that he could be,

he should be here if he wins the job. And from what we saw out of minicamp at least where we ended the spring portion it looks like sam darnold would at least start the beginning of the season which i imagine because we're kind of looking from a receiver perspective here i imagine that throws even more of a monkey wrench into the entire thing but i do think that it's more possible than it would be with almost any other team that the sam darnold he's actually good but has had bad situations the rich gannon the jake plumber i think it's possible that's where i'm going to put it i think it's possible it happens there are exceptions to every rule but

the majority of these quarterbacks again like once you've seen them 50 plus starts man i do tend to again just uh yeah probably give up on them but, I will say what you're talking about with the Jets supporting cast. I mean, also, if you guys haven't been checking out Le'Veon Bell's Twitter recently, absolute treat, some of the slander he's been towing out there against Adam Gase. But I came up with a metric earlier this offseason, supporting cast rating, where I basically took all the PFF offensive grades that aren't passing. So I averaged every team's receiving, rushing, pass blocking, and run blocking over these past five years.

And yeah, the Jets since 2019, 31st, 29th, 17th, 31st, and 31st. So meanwhile, the Vikings, man, over these past two years, were eighth and 10th, you know, overall over these past five years, you know, they're a top 12 offense. So offensive line, I mean, it sucks, man, that Kirk Cousins got. Obviously, just the entire Kirk Cousins injury sucks, period. But, like, finally, they were starting to actually get what could be called an average to above average offensive line around him. And that is, in fact, when he goes down.

So skill position weapons are loaded. And, hey, I mean, if Nick Mullins can get for 400 yards, maybe Darnold can a few times as well. So it does sound like, though, that you're pretty confident it is going to be Darnold for, if I said over under eight starts, where are you going with that? I think that's a good over under. The date that I have targeted is when they come out of the bye week and they play the Detroit Lions. So I think that's at week six.

And that kind of makes sense to me that if they were to go to London and lose to the Jets and maybe they're two and four or something at that point I'm mixing up my schedule off the top of my head but there's a bye week and then they play the Lions coming out of it I know the Lions defense will be better but it's not the most terrifying defense to play for a rookie that's if it's not going well if it is going well then it could easily go over eight games. They could easily ride with him. And I think what we've seen from J.J. McCarthy is that, of course, he needs a lot of work,

but they're going to let him do that. Like there's going to be no pressure from Kevin O'Connell on J.J. McCarthy to get in. I think where it gets uncomfortable is if Sam Darnold is bad off the start of the season. If they lose to the Giants, then they've got the 49ers, the Texans, the Packers. Someone else has the schedule in front of them and like, what is this guy talking about? But they've got a very hard start to the season. So if they struggle there, but I would not be surprised if that went over, if he ended up playing more than eight games. And I don't mean to overvalue what I saw in minicamp, because that might make me sound kind of silly in a few weeks. But he looked very comfortable throwing the ball around. He looked very comfortable with the offense and was way ahead, many, many miles ahead of where J.J. McCarthy was in terms of minicamp.

So that's how they're going to start training camp, and we'll kind of see from there. The arm talent's always been there. You know, they do want number three overall back in the day for a reason, but, I mean, here it is. There's been 76 quarterbacks, at least 300 dropbacks since 2018. EPA per dropback, Donald, 63rd. Completion percentage over expected, 61st.

PFF pass grade, 60th. Passer rating, 67th. Yards per attempt, 56th attempt 56 again like we're just putting a lot of eggs in the maybe he's the exception though you know sucking your entire career and then really turning around so we'll see what happens but hey you know what there are nfl offenses and teams that maybe aren't the best real life squads but still managed to put up some pretty good production in fantasy land so that's the path to success for Jefferson and Addison. And Hey, if his defense, you know, isn't exactly going to be overwhelmingly good,

you know, if they're just going to be completely blitzing and not being able to get to the quarterback at all, what a, you know, tandem that is, could be another situation where we get some fancy friendly shootouts. Right. Yeah. That could happen as well. We'll see on that side, they lost Daniel Hunter. They had Jonathan Grenard. Is it just sort of losing one thing, subbing out another? I think they're

maybe a little deeper than they were last year, but it's still not a complete defense. That's kind of the story of this team is that it's an incomplete picture at this moment. It's incomplete at the quarterback position. It's incomplete on defense. It's really incomplete even on the offensive line where they have two tackles, but the interior is a question mark. And at the quarterback position. It's incomplete on defense. It's really incomplete even on the offensive line where they have two tackles, but the interior is a question mark. And at the wide receiver position, you've got these two great receivers and then not sure after that.

But let's talk a little more about Addison specifically. The year two thing, sophomore slump is a thing, but also when you have a good rookie season, everyone expects you to just do more like yeah oh good rookie the better now uh and i don't think that's totally insane for jordan addison because last year he had to make a massive adjustment from going from college to the nfl and dealing with his height weight which he's not a very big guy and went into the offseason seemed to add a little bit of muscle but talked about taking a better approach to getting off of the

line of scrimmage and creating separation which I think we saw a little of just his improvement there in minicamp but every fantasy projection tends to not like him very much which I guess you could tie back into the quarterback but But I do think with Addison, considering they don't have a clear cut wide receiver three, that we can make a case for better production. Like I have your fantasy life projections up here. And I think his average draft position is 67th and you've got 769 yards. Nice projected.

So I would probably go over with that if he stays healthy. He's going wide receivers 39 right now over underdog fantasy, which my God, look, don't get better by the time the season starts everyone. But right now, like if you look at some of those ESPN or Yahoo ADPs, just do yourself a favor and go look at the best ball streets for people

with actual money are playing with this. So you don't see guys like Drake London going around three or around three or four on espn because i don't know what happens in those mocks but that adp is wild but okay addison wide receiver 39 he's going next to roma dunzey deandre hopkins rashid rice lab mcconkey fellow young receivers and offenses that do have some question marks again we probably only have 10 or so wide receivers in the NFL that are just clear-cut number ones with a good quarterback, and we actually trust their talent. So with Addison, it's just kind of a matter of like, okay, when I'm actually investing at him at this price, am I okay enough with the potential downside at quarterback to go from there? So I thought what we saw out of him was pretty great, man. I mean, the double moves that he can put out

there on tape. As I was watching the quarter man. I mean, the double moves that he can put out there on tape. As I was watching the quarterbacks before the draft, I will say that, you know, just seeing some 2022 Caleb Williams and the difference that Addison made, you know, in that USC offense compared to when they have Brendan Rice as their number one, absolutely wild and a similar sentiment with what Drake May and some of the things that Josh Downs was doing there for the North Carolina Tar Heels back in 2022. Very high on Downs actually going into this year as well. So man, again, it's not that Addison isn't solid, but when it's more like, okay, do I want Addison or do I want DeAndre

Hopkins, who I don't think is washed at all. He had ESPN's fifth best open rating last year. I think Will Levis is going to have the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes, can constantly throw the ball downfield, and probably a more pass-first offense. Looking at Brian Thomas and Lab McConkie, they have clearer pass than number one option in their offense than Addison because of the presence of Justin Jefferson. So for me, Addison, great real-life wide receiver too. If he ends up being a wide receiver four, wide receiver five in Fantasy fantasy land i'm not against that man but i do think you know there's a warranted reason why he's ranked that low just again overall offensive environment and when you have jefferson there it does make it uh that tough

to be that much higher on him so hey again hawkinson's out for a little bit gonna give addison the chance to uh rise up in the beginning but i'd be a little more curious to see exactly who emerges as the number three in Minnesota because this offense, you know, coming from obviously O'Connell, coming from the McVeigh tree, we've seen them utilize 11 personnel more than just about anyone. So I do wonder if it's as simple as Brandon Powell actually being someone that we should be taking a look at in the final round. Perhaps, you know, that can make a little sense in your deeper drafts.

Or maybe, you know, we see Josh Oliver and the league's best number three tight end, Johnny Mutt, you know, getting a little more action in 12 personnel. So thoughts on if it's Powell's job to be that number three? Yeah, I think it is. They keep talking about for two years straight, Jalen Naylor. And so far, we just haven't seen a lot from Jalen Naylor. He played a little bit in his first year made a handful of catches but then last year there was a lot of discussion about him going into

training camp he gets hurt on the first day of training camp we don't see him forever comes back plays in one game gets hurt again and then again you know we don't see him the rest of the season and Kevin O'Connell mentioned that the challenge if if you will, is for him to stay on the field. And some of it is just bad luck and so forth when it comes to injuries. But you've got to be out there. The best ability is availability, I have heard. And with Brandon Powell, just a really reliable player. I mean, last year he came into training camp and we thought Jalen Rager or him will be the punt returner and

nothing more and when Powell went out there and actually started running routes he was getting open all the time in training camp and then the Vikings had these injuries at wide receiver he starts making plays he gets on the same page with Kirk Cousins he catches the game-winning touchdown in the Josh Dobbs game and and showed that he could be a real legitimate wide receiver the issue is a little bit of can you have him outside or does he always have to be in the slot because the other two guys they love to move them around a lot are we going to see actually two tight end personnel and i i love that you mentioned the best the third tight end because that's that is a deep cut comment from either kevin

o'connell or west phillips i can't remember who said it i think it was o'connell just such a i know what he was saying but it still is like a hilarious thing to say to your player let me ask something related to this how deep would a league have to be for you to draft robert tunyon who is on the minnesota vikings and looked phenomenal in minicamp. When we did the winners of minicamp, because I don't think anyone could really lose unless you were hurt, but the winners of minicamp, Justin Jefferson was number one and Sam Darnold number two, and Robert Tunyon was number three. How can I convince people who like fantasy football and are in the deepest leagues to draft Robert Tunyon.

Cause I think he might end up on this team and playing when TJ Hawkinson is still recovering. Dude, I've done probably 110, 115 best ball drafts, you know, so far this off season. And for the first time,

a couple of days ago, I saw someone take Robert Tunyon at the very end of the draft. And I had to literally like stop myself and go like, what team is he even on at this point in his career? So I just remember him last year, you know, dropping what would have been an absolutely gorgeous 75 yard touchdown from Justin Fields against the Browns. So haven't quite forgiven him from that.

Cause that was a tough loss in the DFS streets that day, but Hey man, it's possible. But you know, looking at Hoggson, I just figured Josh Oliver would be the guy to step up. He's got that $22 million or whatever it was contract he signed from last year. But this could be a situation where maybe it is where Josh Oliver's role doesn't really change. Johnny Muntz's role doesn't really change. And Tunyon ends up being more of the pass catcher. So with Tunyon, it's just tough.

We had just one of the most, I feel like, what's that channel? It's like Bleacher Report or something. I've seen some deep dives, like statistical studies on Secret Base, I think, on YouTube. If they could do Robert Tanyan's 2020 season, where I believe he had seven incomplete targets thrown his way the entire year, and he still managed to catch like 12 touchdowns. I remember looking back to see, because targets started being tracked in 1992, and there had never been an instance of a player

having more touchdowns than incomplete targets with like 50 targets on the season. And again, Tanyan was like plus five as he was going out there doing it. So I think it had far more to do with MVP Aaron Rodgers than necessarily what Tanyan was bringing to the table. But the league we'd have to be in is one I am in, man. I'm in a 32 team fantasy league where we have to start, I believe, seven guys every week. You get a team quarterback and you also have a team defense and special teams. So, you know, no one can have two

quarterbacks and just monopolize the thing going on there. But yeah, man, it would be rough. I was starting guys like, you know, Justin Watson, Jalen Guyton last season, and you're just praying for that one big play. But Robert Tunyon, you know, it's a name to keep an eye on. And I will say he's one of those candidates where, no, for the love of God, guys, please don't draft him right now. But if we see that first Vikings preseason game and with the starters, Tanya is the one getting all the routes. I'll be paying attention then. Well, I really do think that Josh Oliver is going to stay in his role as the blocker and Johnny Munt is just depth. He Munt stepped in at the end of last year, but Tanya actually has this career of catching the ball. And this offense loves to use the tight end as you saw from tj hawkinson hawkinson i don't know when he's going to come back this is a very unclear timeline and

yet i could still see him getting like 90 targets or something in 10 games if that's how much he was going to play so robert tunyon might be the fantasy sleeper of all time or this might be a really funny conversation that we had when he gets cut out of training but i'm intrigued that's all i'm saying is i'm intrigued let's go back to stuff that matters a lot more than people drafting robert tunyon and there are 32 team leagues which is totally nuts by the way uh that you're in 32 to team league i want to know your opinion on the rookie wide receivers because uh your projections here on Fantasy Life have Mr. Marvin Harrison and Malik Neighbors. One-time Viking Malik Neighbors is how we refer to him here because of silly rumors with Justin Jefferson. But both going over 1,000 yards this year.

How challenging is it to predict rookie wide receivers even if they are taken all the way at the top of the draft it is one of those things where the hit rate hasn't been nearly as good as i think you might expect it to be we all kind of remember jamar chase you know coming out and just absolutely killing it but just looking at rookie production from top 10 overall wide receivers since 2010 jamar chase wide receiver 5 and ppr points per game. But other than that, Julio Jones with a wide receiver, 12 finish, actually the only guy to actually post, you know,

what we would consider a wide receiver one finish as a rookie. So plenty of other good ones. Jalen Waddle was a wide receiver, 15, AJ green, 16, Mike Evans, 13,

but yeah, guys like Garrett Wilson, Amari Cooper, a wide receiver, 30 wide receiver, 27, Sammy Watkins, you know,

back before he was viewed as this kind of veteran stopgate. One of the more just impressive prospects coming out of Clemson, I think, of the past decade or so. Again, he couldn't crack the top 30. So Devonta Smith, wide receiver 39. Drake London, wide receiver 45. Justin Blackman, shout out, wide receiver 39, although he did have some booms in year two.

So again, when you look at Marvin Harrison Jr., he's already gone as a top 10 wide receiver, which I think is going to shock people once they actually get into redraft mode here in about a month. But again, I mentioned before where there's only 10 or so wide receivers that are checking all these boxes. And hey, I'm a Columbus, Ohio native. I live here, grew up here and everything. So I should be team Maserati Marvin and everything. But I wanted to be low on him because I just thought, again, everything I just said about how hard it is for rookie wide receivers to ball out.

But look at the offense. Fully healthy Kyla Murray. Paid. I believe he's one of the better quarterbacks in the league. And we have years of evidence of him and DeAndre Hopkins putting up some big time numbers. Obviously, even if, you know, I don't necessarily agree with the generational label on Marv. If he had, you know, a bit more yak juice, maybe I'd be there. But still, fourth overall, we can all agree he's a pretty damn great talent,

even if you don't necessarily think he's Julio. And the projected targets, we're talking about 130-plus easily. Trey McBride, the only other guy in that offense that's really giving us much problem. So, again, there's guys like where you can argue, you know, Chris Alave doesn't have the same quarterback. 130 plus easily Trey McBride, the only other guy in that offense that's really giving us much problem. So again, there's guys like where you can argue, you know, Chris Alave doesn't have the same quarterback. Brandon Ayuk getting more crowded offense. Nico Collins more crowded offense.

Devontae Adams getting older. I think Marv does deserve that top 10, top 12 standing, but I don't blame you guys if you want to go ahead and look at someone like a Jonathan Taylor or Saquon Barkley in round two. Just give me the running back getting 300 touches over the rookie wide receiver. Neighbors is the one that when he slides down the round three, man, I'm drafting him every single time. So just, it was very annoying to me. And we see this all the time, you know, during the off season, we're just so focused on, you know, the same group of prospects for three months, but the audacity of some people before either of these guys

have played a single snap to just be, oh yeah, Marvin Harrison's in another world of them Malik neighbors. Like these dudes have been playing college football next to each other. Marv won the Blitinkoff Award by one single vote. The 247 consensus ranks when they were leaving high school actually had neighbors as the highest rated recruit. And yet people were just aghast about the possibility that neighbors is better so i think they're completely different players i mean just the yak juice that you see from neighbors i think it's gonna be put on display in this

brian dable offense that has absolutely nobody else to get the ball to now big hole under center there's a reason why neighbors is going closer to wide receiver 20 than marv here but honestly man i think neighbors got a very similar rookie season to what we saw out of Jalen Waddell in Miami. That was pre-Tyreek Hill, no one else to get the ball to. And sadly, that version of Tua wasn't very adept at getting it downfield. So what did we see?

A ton of design, short PPR-friendly targets for Waddell. I think neighbor gets that, and I think he's going to do a hell of a lot with it. Yeah, I think the same way that when you look at the other receivers for either one of these teams, who are they, where are they going to go with the football? And with all due respect to Greg Dorch though,

let's be clear. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big fan. Big. Don't ask any follow-ups, but you mentioned Brian Dables offense there with the New York giants. And when you look at when he was with Buffalo and how they got the football to

Stefan Diggs over and over and over again, it was a lot of short passes with Josh Allen. When Stefan Diggs first got there with Dable and you could see them look into the same thing because you're not really going downfield a ton with Daniel Jones as your quarterback. And, or I should, I say maybe Drew Locke? I know that that's that's your guy, Drew Locke. But it's probably going to be Daniel Jones as the starting quarterback.

And when they did have some success in 2022, Daniel Jones was throwing quick passes. They were doing a lot of running. And neighbors seems like a good candidate for that i i want to so i thought i was all savvy and like i i've got a i've got a sleeper to ask you about your projections are going to totally overlook this guy no but the fantasy world never sleeps on guys uh deontay johnson and carolina is an interesting one for me because i started going through and i was like i'm gonna throw some random guys at you that I think are really interesting to talk about Carolina in general is interesting to talk about because we assume that they are going to be horrendous and that Bryce Young is going to fall down every time he snaps the football but I think that the addition

of Deontay Johnson is one of the biggest offseason ads for any team to help Bryce Young have someone to throw to who can get open and of course he is ranked quite highly uh in terms of his production on fantasy life projections but that that's that's my hey you might want to pay attention to this guy pick for the wide receiver position yeah I think he think he qualifies as, you know, pretty much a bona fide sleeper. I mean, wide receiver 44 right now in ADP. So, you know, and outside the top 36, you know, no one's going too far out of their way to get you. But I'm with you, man.

Long time Deontay Truther here. And just people have a tendency, I think, sometimes to hold one play against these guys too much. We just remember Deontay not looking at the football, the live ball on the ground, you know, rolling around his feet. Didn't look like he gave great effort. Literally the play before that, he caught a touchdown that they end up overruling, even though Gene Steratore, whoever like said it should have been a touchdown.

I always love when they can't even figure out on the broadcast, you know, what is and isn't a touchdown catch in the year 2024, but story for another day. But with Deontay, it's like he's the only wide receiver that we seem to hold drops against. Like, guess what? Puka Nakua led the NFL in drops last year by like four. And no one cares because it's just an aspect and a stat that happens when you get open a lot.

And you, guess what? Pretty hard to get open enough to drop a football in the NFL. Tyreek Hill has more drops than Deontay Johnson over the last five years. Same amount as DK Metcalf Debo Samuel again much more of a result of getting open enough which Deontay has done better than just about anyone else love this new stat out of ESPN analytics you know free stuff you can go to the page and everything but it's an open rating because sometimes you look at the separation stuff and you'll see these random tight ends like leading the league in it because

they're only measuring the distance from a defender when they catch the football ESPN's open rating actually looks at all their routes whether they got the football or not to try to quantify the separation and 2019 Deontay second among all wide receivers 2020 third fourth first and then 11th last year so I believe overall since entering the league, he actually is the number one separator in this metric. And look who he's been doing it with. Late career noodle arm Big Ben, Mitch Trubisky, Kenny Pickett, and Mason Rudolph. Hey, yeah, Bryce Young.

Based on what we saw as a rookie, maybe he does fit into that group of guys as well. But, you know, has hardly been surrounded by all this great talent. He's had target competition with, you know, I guess just missed AB, but not completely washed Juju just yet, and George Pickens, you know, in more recent years. So I'm with you, man. I think, I mean, Deontay Johnson, Xavier Leggett is someone I've been

drafting a lot because he goes a lot later. And this Carolina Panthers stack, like if there is an offense where, I'm not going to say they're going to be this year's Houston Texans and just really take the league by storm. But just an offense that could go from being horrific to average or so. I think the Panthers make some sense, man. They didn't make a ton of flashy free agency moves. The Deontay trade was nice, but they did throw like over $100 million

at their interior offensive line, which should help Bryce out a ton. And Dave Canales, man, that dude has fixed Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield in back-to-back seasons. So if you can add Bryce to that list, goodness gracious, my dude is really being the new age quarterback whisperer king. I'm glad that it qualifies as a sleeper for me. Good job, me. Because I saw projected over 900 yards. I thought, okay, maybe.

He is one of the, I believe, I love looking at the projections and trying to see who are the cheapest wide receivers with the highest target projections, and Deontay is just top in that list right now. So you're spot on. Okay. Maybe I'm just natural at this. Maybe I should work for Fantasy Life. No, I'm just kidding.

But give me one of yours. I mean, wide receiver. I think wide receiver, because there are so many good ones, is one of the hardest things to decide on when you're talking about fantasy it's like running back wide receiver there's 4700 guys here that you can pick from how do you make that decision so who's uh who's the guy that you're pumping up other than cordero patterson which i'm sure you're still uh telling people to draft him at some point but no seriously uh who do you got for me? Only thing I'll say on CPAT, I'm so happy they changed the kickoff rules

because now he's the GOAT. He has the most kick return touchdowns ever. They changed the rules. Nothing else matters in the history of football. So I already talked about several of the guys I've drafted a ton. I'm looking at my exposure right now. Xavier Leggett, again, a first-round wide receiver who a lot of people are off because he didn't boom

until his final year at South Carolina. But just, you know, God only makes so many humans that are 220 pounds and can run a sub 4-4. He's one of them. The Panthers love him. And as much as we just said good things about Deontay Johnson, I mean, could Xavier end up leading that offense and targets? It is possible, and he's going wide receiver 65 right now. So, again, sometimes we see these first, second-round wide receivers because us sickos are drafting all year round. Someone like Leggett, who wasn't expected to go in round one, almost still gets held back by his March and April pre-draft ADP. I think that's an instance there.

Love Josh Downs taking a leap forward this year with Anthony Richardson and Indy. Michael Pittman should get his, but Downs is not someone who I believe is solely this, you know, underneath slot receiver. He can win downfield. And if Richardson is going to impress like a lot of us think he will this year, Downs should be a big reason why. Talked about neighbors, but my deep sleeper, my most drafted wide receiver of the offseason right now, Rams wide receiver three, Demarcus Robinson. You actually look at what he did last year. Final five, four regular season games. And this was with Cooper Cup and

Puka out there and everything. He finished as the wide receiver 20, 23, 25, 15, and 25 again. Right now, guys, he is going as the wide receiver 79 in drafts. So, before free agency even started, the Rams doing another $5 million to cement him as their third wide receiver.

Didn't make any other meaningful additions to the position throughout the offseason. And what we talked about earlier with Kevin O'Connell coming from the Rams and always topping the league or being close to an 11 personnel, that still is McVay's baby. Each of the past three years, Rams have ranked first each and every time in terms of 11 personnel. So with Demarcus Robinson, I mean, he's got Matthew Stafford, who has made more. I don't want to put down the wide receivers that have put up numbers.

I think Calvin Johnson would have been fine with anyone throwing him the football. But also, I think we can agree that Stafford's made a lot of maybe more average wide receivers, some good money, helped them put up some good numbers. And Sean McVay, too, over the years. We have a full-time starter and a passing game that was among the league's most efficient last year when guys were healthy with massive contingency value, if God forbid Puka or Krupa Cup happened to miss time.

So again, for me, no, don't leave your drafts with Demarcus Robinson as your wide receiver two or wide receiver three. But when you get to those late rounds and you need someone else, there's a lot of guys sitting there that can honestly get cut or not even be in their team starting three wide receiver rotation. The Marcus Robinson, kind of the anti-DJ Moore, Terry McLaurin,

where he's gotten to play with Mahomes, Lamar, and now Stafford over the years. I think he arguably puts up his best production to date and a Rams offense that should be as good as anyone when they are healthy. And I wonder how many years more Stafford's going to play. This might be a Matt Stafford just airs it out. I mean, just everything he can, right.

Last dance kind of thing. If maybe we'll do a sleeper rap battle here. How about Jay? How about Jaden Reed? I'd be all I hear out of green bay and this is preposterous by the way is oh it's actually better to have a bunch of decent receivers than one great one no it's not that you know who doesn't think that anyone who watches the vikings because all you have is number one receivers who make every quarterback amazing so no one thinks that the

nfl doesn't think that that's why they pay true number ones, $35 million a year. Uh, but anyway, put that aside. It's a silly narrative that it's better to have a bunch of okay guys than Justin Jefferson, please. But I think Jaden Reed is their best player. Uh, from what I saw of him in the second half of last season. And I think he's going to surpass the other guys and become the person that jordan love trusts the most and he's going to pump the football to him right now the projection has him at something like let me do that 70 catches i think it's 100 targets i think it's going to be more i think he's going to push 100 the fun thing about jayden

reed too is you almost get that like like Robert Woods when he was with the Rams, that extra 15 to 20 rush attempts per season because of the way they like to use him in the offense. So I'm with you, man. He is the most expensive Packers wide receiver right now. But because they have those four guys, Watson, Dobbs, and Dontavion, Wicks, Hive also as well stand up, they're all kind of depressed in price a bit despite Jordan Love still being expected to put up some pretty big-time numbers. So, hey, man, he looked fantastic as a rookie. I mean, especially second half and the way he was able to come on.

And the dude's a pretty freaky talent. I mean, I took all the next-gen stats, fastest ball carrier times, and the only wide receivers to post a faster speed than Jaden Reed last year were DK Metcalf, Tyree Kill, Jamar Chase, and George Pickens. That's it. So, I mean, Reed can seriously fly out there. He's shifty, and he's kind of got that fantasy-friendly role in the slot where we can expect them to pepper him, you know,

with a lot more of those underneath easy PPR-friendly targets. Still not sure why, you know, just a simple screen completion counts the same as, you know, hauling one in over the shoulder 40 yards downfield, but that's the game we play. So, only thing I would say is just in these situations where we have multiple three, four guys are probably going to, you know, fit into the rotation going on in green Bay. I think sometimes we can be a bit overconfident how we expect that,

you know, projected pecking order to play out. So I'll say Reed is a favorite, but man, Christian Watson has been healthy over the years. That dude has doubled, not double digit, multi-touchdown upside any game he's healthy enough to be out there. And don't sleep on Romeo Dobbs either, guys. I mentioned the Dontavion Wicks hive, and yes, I've watched him as well. He's a fun route runner, did some good things, good yards per outrun and everything. But last year, the Packers in their two playoff games, Romeo Dobbs had 234 receiving yards.

No other Packers wide receiver had more than 35. So really is a situation where I think we almost just get tired of Dobbs going out there and just being the stellar guy. Wouldn't count out him actually being the most productive of the group. And he is being priced outside the top 50 right now. Okay. I have one more question for you and then I got a fun game for you. So I want to stick with the division here

and ask you about the Bears receivers. Keenan Allen is on the Bears. That should be very concerning to the Minnesota Vikings because Keenan Allen annihilates the Vikings, as he did especially last year. DJ Moore, they draft Roma Dunze. There's a lot of people here to get the football, and there's a rookie quarterback.

How do we expect this to be distributed with all of these receivers for Caleb Williams? Pretty, you know, even target shares right now, our overall target projections have more getting 117, Keenan getting 106, you know, Doomsday down there at 97. But that said, Shane Waldron coming over from Seattle, obviously saw Jackson Smith in the jig butt, even Lockett fall off in that offense. You would like to think that Bears, hopefully better offensive line, Caleb being a better overall talent than Geno, although Geno's played some good ball over these past few years,

not trying to put him down or anything. So it really is just the issue where there's only one football to go around. And accordingly, our projected ranks of these guys, more wide receiver 22, Keenan wide receiver 33, a Doomsday wide receiver 49. So we just don't have too many instances of singular offenses enabling more than one or, best case, two high-end fantasy wide receivers. In fact, let's see, there's only been three since 2013

that actually had three top 24 wide receivers at once. The 2013 Broncos, Demarius Thomas, RIP, Eric Decker, Wes Welker, 2018 Rams, Cooper Cup, Bobby Trees, and Brandon Cooks, and the 2020 Buccaneers with Goblin, Evans, and AB. And that one's even a bit skewed because Antonio Brown didn't even play that whole season. So again, very rare. And on top of that, we have a rookie quarterback to deal with. Look, I still drafted a good amount of DJ Moore. He's, hey, coming off a wide receiver one season. Now he's kind of on that wide receiver two borderline. Of those three, I think he has the

biggest, you know, one week boom upside just because of his explosive big play ability. So Morris is the one I'm most in on. But otherwise, man, unless I'm really trying to build up this Bears stack for a specific best ball contest, haven't been taking too much Keenan or Adunze. I just don't think there's going to be quite enough targets to go around. So I just hope Caleb can actually break this Bears tradition. I understand you guys don't want him to break the Bears tradition of just having one shitty quarterback after another. But it's just one of these things, man, where when we look at Chicago, we look at Cleveland, we look at Washington, these teams that haven't had a good

quarterback in literally 30 plus years. Like how many more times can we keep pointing at, you know, the numerator and say, oh yeah, just every single quarterback sucked. Maybe at some point we got to start, you know, pointing that finger at the, you know, team in the mirror that keeps on trying to develop these guys. Like for Cleveland, especially, man, Baker to then go do what he's doing in Tampa Bay. Like if we see Justin Fields start balling out in Pittsburgh, man, ooh, buddy, would not want to be a Bears fan in that.

I'm not holding my breath for that one, but maybe I feel about that the way you feel about sam darnold potentially uh with the vikings and i have never believed in just by being the bears they have to continue being the bears at quarterback but for whatever reason and i can't remember why i looked up for something in an article every team's quarterback rating since fran tarkington retired and the chicago bears were dead last dead last because the vikings were still up uh in the top 10 uh despite the fact that they've never had a brett farve or they've never had a patrick mahomes and yet the bears all the way at the bottom uh since fran tarkington retired so here's the game there's a bunch of receivers i

went all the way on fantasylife.com which is an incredible website. I went all the way to the bottom and I looked at receivers who are expected to get five or fewer targets. And I want you to tell me they're projected. These receivers are projected to get less five, let's just say five or fewer receptions. So I want, I'm going to run through these and i want you to tell me over or under for these guys that their projection okay we're gonna start with trent surefield for the vikings projected to catch four passes this year will he catch more or less than four passes i'm gonna take over man i sure filled that's another guy where if you can grind some of these next-gen stats leaderboards, when he gets going, man, he gets going.

I thought he was going to be a bigger factor on Buffalo last year because they were looking for kind of a yak guy to help replace Isaiah McKenzie and didn't really get too much going. I think he had a nice touchdown against the Dolphins in Week 18. But if he's better than Brandon Powell, would that be the most surprising thing ever? I don't think so. Give me over. Okay. Love it. Uh, how about former Minnesota gopher and somebody that the gopher fans absolutely loved and were outraged when the Vikings did not draft Tyler Johnson,

who is a member of the Los Angeles Rams. His projection is one catch on one target. Will he have for five yards? So it's a check down. Will he have more than one check down for this year? Shout to my guy, Dwayne McFarlane, for grinding these projections. I can only imagine, you know, just slamming your head on the desk when you get to someone like Tyler Johnson.

I'm going to take the under there. I mean, is he even going to make the team? Like this dude was in such a good opportunity in Tampa Bay. And Tom Brady just hated this dude. Like the amount, it was almost like Rodgers MVS level disgust on someone like the misses you would see going out there. So now he needs, you know, multiple wide receiver injuries to get on the field. And even then, I mean, he could be a cut candidate.

So sorry, Tyler, give me zero. And saying that I'm sure like week one, now he's probably going to catch a screen, you know, in the second quarter. So remember this moment. I mean, if you get a couple of people banged up, you only need two catches to go over. This should be a game. Does someone have this as a fantasy game? So this should be a game. These are the props we need out there. Like screw Justin Jefferson props. Give us Tyler Johnson reception props.

That's what I'm saying is all receivers who are projected to have five or fewer catches. Okay. A couple more. Equinemius St. Brown, who I saw a lot of for the Green Bay Packers. He is expected to have five receptions for 61 yards. So he caught a couple of balls that were pushed down the field a little bit. And he, if you're wondering plays for the saints now,

will he equanimous St. Brown catch more than five passes? I'm going to give him a crap. It's he could easily not make the team. I'm going to go over though. This saints wide receiver room is wide open. We got Chris Alave and then our one true King Rashid Shahid, who is we'll talk about sleepers, man. He is the sleep think shaheed's gonna have like no joke here like a great year

he has made the most out of every opportunity no more michael thomas there like it is alave and shaheed in an offense where no i don't think derrick car is particularly good but you give him a clean pocket he actually can't sling it a little bit better than maybe he gets credit for so after those two though it could be at perry it could be A.T. Perry. It could be, you know, fifth rounder Bub Means, who I took in a dynasty draft once upon a time. Cedric Wilson, former Cowboys and Dolphins players in there. So maybe Equinemius gets it done, man. I'm surprised he didn't just go try to sign Detroit and, you know,

just him and Amon Rock could get the podcast going a bit more, you know, regularly together. But yeah, man, New Orleans Saints, give me me the over okay two two more i got for you uh one of them is where did it go uh hold on i'm scrolling jerry rice's son is somewhere here and i was on the chargers it's like it's definitely that's the i gotta find i gotta find where it was i just saw it and i was like oh we got to bring up jerry rice's son oh yeah here is the chargers expected to catch five passes for 65 yards on nine targets brendan rice who is not jerry rice when you see him uh not quite mentioned before again just the stark difference in watching uh some of caleb's tape in 22 versus 23 yeah rice not uh not quite getting it done i'm taking the under on that

honestly like i even wonder if you know cornelius johnson hardball's uh you know dude coming out of michigan the seventh rounder could just straight up beat out rice you know for that final roster spot so they signed dj charke uh with the chargers this year to give him some extra depth it's a wide open wide receiver room i mean lab mcconkey qu, Quentin Johnston, Josh Palmer, you know, being the top three. So maybe those, you know, genes get going. But this was the funny part about people saying like Marvin Harrison Jr. is only hype because he's Marvin Harrison's kid, because we had Brendan Rice and we had Frank Gore Jr. also in this draft, just getting absolutely no love from anyone.

So I do wonder if Brendan had been, you know, Jerry Rice Jr. Maybe he goes, you know, a couple of picks earlier, but probably not. I'll take the under. People were upset at Bronny James being drafted. I just want to present you Brendan Rice and the many other players who have been related to someone who's really good at football that were drafted just because of that okay last one i did not know it's always my favorite when i go through fantasy projections and i go oh yeah that guy plays for that team which is i i think that's an entire off-season podcast at some point that guy plays for that team um alan robinson is apparently oh yeah you know he's on the giants

right i saw the giants yeahants. I actually wonder. This is what we should have done. If I could fool you, if I could come up with a receiver that you didn't know was on a team, more or less than five catches for 38 yards for New York Giant Allen Robinson. Dude, and A-Rob later in his career has become this slot guy. How many slot receivers do the Giants need out here? We got Wandale. Malik neighbors can be way more than that,

but you'd like to get him some looks in the slot. Isaiah McKenzie is still on this team. Gunnar Olswenski, always struggled to say his name, but pretty solid kick returner, certainly going out there. But give me under. Man, it's so funny to me hearing the people like, oh, you would have known Puka Nakuma's year was coming if you were just paying attention.

Like this Rams beat didn't absolutely glaze Allen Robinson for the entire month of August, just a few short years ago about the impact he was going to have, and then he's off the team a year later. So shout out Puka. Shout out to anyone that drafted Puka you know you guys got that one right but you know for every puka there's a lot more justin ross and elijah moore's who's always seen the dominate when there's uh you know no pads on and then come september we are very disappointed so maybe i'm just sitting here still a little

pissed about the amount of times i drafted elijah moore last year but we'll not be drafting alan robinson in the year 2024 I can tell you that much. Fair enough. Fair enough. I think it's over. Do you know who Chase Claypool plays for? Oh yeah. He's on the bills.

He's been getting some, some hype, man. Yeah. Keep going. Do you know who Ray, Ray McLeod plays for now? Oh,

he changed teams. Oh, you're going to stump me. He was on the 49ers last year. Where did Ray Ray go? I'm going to feel good about this. I thought he was the perfect guy. Just a part returner. Perfect guy to stump you.

The Panthers? It's a good guess. Right division. It is the Atlanta Falcons. Oh, that's right. Fox McCloud's human son. There you go go i don't know what that means is that who is fox you never played star fox back in the day oh yeah yeah of course i did yeah okay i i mean i didn't make the connection but that's all good it shows your age there uh how about this uh home is where the heart it's so you should go to yeah i tried earlier and i completely bungled a

uh a joke there with your name but uh ian hart it's fantasy life you're crushing over there and somehow you have 170 000 people that follow you on twitter it's one of the strangest twitters that you're ever going to find but uh you're a tremendous follow and always a great guest so thanks so much for coming on, man. Great to get together with you again. And we'll do it again soon. Thank you, brother. You always get chopping up.

Yeah, man, let me know. I understand, again, people aren't exactly, you know, hitting the drafts just yet. But yeah, Fantasy Life, you know, we got the rankings. Again, just finished my entire team preview series. And right now, Dwayne McFarland and myself are going through team by team on the podcast. So always appreciate you, man.