The Herd with Colin Cowherd - FantasyPros - Week 9 Fantasy Football Wide Receiver Rankings & Tiers: Studs, Sleepers, and Must-Starts (Ep. 1806)

Episode Date: October 30, 2025

Chris Welsh, Pat Fitzmaurice, and Andrew Erickson are breaking down Week 9’s biggest wide receiver ranking differences, engaging in debates, and highlighting the expert consensus for Week 9 Don't miss our deep-dive into this week's rankings, must-start options, and value plays to dominate your fantasy matchup! Timestamps: (May be off due to ads) Intro - 0:00:00 Week 8 Rankings Recap - 0:03:25 Signed AJ Brown Jersey Giveaway - 0:07:02 WRs 1-12 - 0:07:57 Rashee Rice - 0:08:13 Michael Pittman - 0:11:21 WRs 13-24 - 0:16:28 Marvin Harrison Jr. - 0:16:50 Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter - 0:20:07 Tee Higgins - 0:28:02 Hard Rock Bet - 0:30:34 WRs 25-36 - 0:32:10 Wan’Dale Robinson - 0:32:31 Quentin Johnston - 0:36:01 Jameson Williams - 0:39:37 Outro - 0:42:03 Helpful Links: Hard Rock Bet - All lines provided by Hard Rock Bet. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for Hard Rock Bet and make a $5 bet and you'll get $150 in bonus bets if you win. Head over to Hard Rock Bet, sign up and make your first deposit today. Payable in bonus bet(s). Not a cash offer. Offered by the Seminole Tribe of Florida in FL. Offered by Seminole Hard Rock Digital, LLC, in all other states. Must be 21+ and physically present in AZ, CO, FL, IL, IN, NJ, OH, TN or VA to play. Terms and conditions apply. Concerned about gambling? In FL, call 1-888-ADMIT-IT. In IN, if you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-9-WITH-IT. GAMBLING PROBLEM? CALL 1-800-GAMBLER (AZ, CO, IL, NJ, OH, TN, VA).  My Playbook - Sync your league instantly to My Playbook to get custom advice on how to manage your team throughout the season. See your league’s top available players, power rankings, and more for free! Check the “Are They Playing” tool each week to get the latest game-day availability odds for all injured players. If you’re premium – you unlock all kinds of helpful waiver, trade, lineup and league analysis tools. You can even auto-start your team’s optimal lineup each week with Auto-Pilot. Sync your league and dominate every week of the season with My Playbook at fantasypros.com/myplaybook or on the FantasyPros App Follow us on Twitch - The team here at FantasyPros is taking questions all week, every week on Twitch. Follow us on Twitch at twitch.tv/fantasypros and never miss a stream! Discord – Join our FantasyPros Discord Community! Chat with other fans and get access to exclusive AMAs that wind up on our podcast feed. Come get your questions answered and BE ON THE SHOW at fantasypros.com/chat Leave a Review – If you enjoy our show and find our insight to be valuable, we’d love to hear from you! Your reviews fuel our passion and help us tailor content specifically for YOU. Head to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts and leave an honest review. Let’s make this show the ultimate destination for fantasy football enthusiasts like us. Thank you for watching and for showing your support – https://fantasypros.com/review/ BettingPros Podcast – For advice on the best picks and props across both the NFL and college football each and every week, check out the BettingPros Podcast at bettingpros.com/podcast, our BettingPros YouTube channel at youtube.com/bettingpros, or wherever you listen to podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.

you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. What's up, friends, and welcome into Fantasy Pros. This is the Fantasy Football Podcast. I'm Chris Welsh, and we have got ranks for you. Week 9, wide receivers. We are ready to hit everything, which is most likely going to be your two or three wide receiver sets and even your flexes. We are ranking it. And who are we? We got Pat Fitzmores and Andrew Erickson in the house, too, the best rankers in the land. And that's just not living. service either because it's holding up. These two are holding up well in the season long ranks contest and we're even going to give a shout out here in a second to how week eight ranked and a little

spoiler alert. One of these two is inside the top two for week eight that we're going to talk about here. So very exciting. Erickson, what's up, buddy? Happy Halloween that is coming up this week. Yes, Halloween is on Friday. We're recording this on Wednesday. So getting hyped for that. Well, you're in full Halloween form with the Jack Sealington T-shirt. Gotta love that because that's basically Halloween and Christmas combined, which a lot of people are really teetering, okay, I know we were talking before we started recording, some people are already putting up their Christmas stuff.

What do you guys think in the comments? Like, is it too early to put up Christmas stuff before Halloween starts? When is the actual ideal time? I remember it used to be like after Thanksgiving, but... It's the day after Thanksgiving is what everybody's going to tell you. But now you turn on the TV and you'll see ads for Christmas stuff before Halloween has even arrived. So, uh, buddy, have you been to a Walmart? They had the, like August, they had all the Christmas stuff that was going up.

They've been up for months. They're done. So, yeah, I agree. It's just sooner and sooner. But, you know, it's vibes, man. It's, it's vibes. And get your candy with your candy canes out there for trick or treating. Fitsy, what are you going to be for Halloween this year?

Um, no costume planned Welsh, but before we get to the candy canes, we have to finish with the candy corn. Are you guys, or like, People, it seems like it's a love it or hate it type of candy. I'm, I can do for candy corn, but I think I've got weird taste. I'm also, I mean, this is, if I'm already not disliked. I'm a pineapple on the pizza guy, so I think I can also do like the candy corns. I think I probably sit in a world of the trendy things to hate I tend to actually like. So I'm not actively seeking out candy corn, but I'm a thumbs up on candy corn, Erickson.

I think candy corn is good after like seven. pieces and then after that it's going in trash. So everything in moderation, I think, especially with candy. I also approve the pineapple on pizza. The fruitiness, the sweetness, works with the fatiness of the pizza. It's a very good pairing. Although when my wife and I order it, we don't get ham, we get pepperoni instead. So a little bit more of the spice. I just do the I have never been in a room where we cleared house on pineapple pizza. That's incredible. So I mean, clean sweep. Wow, clean sweep. Watch. for us in a room then, Welsh.

That piece is going to be gone. Consensus ranks. Look out Louisiana in a couple months. We are going to get murdered in the YouTube comments. Mered. People are going to be so pissed off. Joey Pee is going to be mad at us. The full-blooded Italian is going to be upset with us about that take.

I mean, he is aggrieved by the pineapple on pizza concept. Okay, we're not putting candy corn on pizza guys, so calm down. But I'm not going to read the comments because I know it'll be hate. All right. Let's talk about some ranks here. We talked about some pineapple pizza. We talked about some candy. Let's talk about who was the most accurate ranker.

And guess what? Week 8 is live. You guys can check all your ranks out on Fantasyprose.com slash rankings. We also have the accuracy tab. Shout out to the number one ranker in the land, the great Dalton Del Don, from the Deep Shot, finished number one in week eight. But it was followed up by the one and only Pat Fitzmorest,

regardless of going Dak Prescott over Bo Nix last week. It didn't matter because Pat, you were simply too good. You finished two overall and another shout out because we always do the top three. Mike Chielela, I call him Mike.

I always screw up Mick's last name and I screwed up the first. Mick Chielella who was on this show a bunch last year finished third. So top three. But Fidsey, flowers. My man, that's an incredible top two finish. I want to say isn't that your second top two finish? Didn't you finish first one of these weeks?

There was D-Bro that finished first. You finished top three though. I think it was D-Bro and I can't remember if I was two or three. That was when we had Ellis Bryn Johnson was also top three. I can't remember how it shook out. I believe D-Row was number one. But yeah, I whiffed the Dach-Prescott over Bow-Nix and I was too low on Arande Gadsden the second as a lot of people have been reminding me. but you know I guess a few things worked out but we were talking about this before the show how you do in the rankings any in any given week really doesn't matter to the people who are leaning on you for that one lineup call so anyone who benched or Ronde Gadsden the second because of where I had them ranked thinks I'm a fool regardless of the fact that I was second the contest

last can't we can't be right about all the stuff we want we want to be we can have rate takes where we want to get guys in and we just can't put them over and they go none We can, Erickson, we can like Dak Prescott over Bo Nix and sometimes it doesn't end up working for me. But, you know, that's how it goes. But Erickson, I want to also give you some flowers here. You finished, I believe it was in the top 25, maybe it was 30. But beside that, you had two top 12 finishes positionally, number 5 in wide receiver and number 11 in quarterback. So some flowers deserved, my friend.

As you are both on the season long ranks, I believe in. inside the top 25, if I remember. I'm not. No, I'm like 40. No, is it top 30? I'm the low man. No. I'm the low man on the fantasy pros team.

Well, I also work here. So thanks about that, but I would be the low man on on that comparatively. Well, no, Joe and those guys would be. I am ahead of Joe Pisapea, which is really my only goal each week. But just want to give you a shout out. You've ranked very well on wide receivers and quarterbacks. I think you've done pretty well on wide receivers all year long. And those are our shoutouts.

So are you going to try to kill it again this? week? Yes, ideally. I mean, I don't know if I have a spicy number one, like I've had the last two weeks. Rice finally delivered, you know, after doing, and ranked them number one, or talked about him as number one last week. He finished number two. So, you know, that was a good call.

And then, I mean, when you talk about, I finished top five in receivers, I can tell it's because I was higher on Rice than consensus and Troy Franklin. Like those two guys alone, because they were the number two scores at the position, I'm just being higher on those guys versus consensus is definitely what helped put me up inside the top five. All right. Well, again, Dalton Del Don, Pat Fitzmaugh and Mick Chielella, shout out to the boys for the top three finishes. Let's talk about some wide receiver ranks. But before we do, I believe this is your last opportunity to take some wide receiver action home with you because you've still got a chance to win the sign AJ Brown Eagles jersey

for free, courtesy of our friends over at pristineauction.com. All you got to do is head over to fantasy pros.com slash contest. Complete the form. Then you've got a couple options. You can download of the Fantasy Pros app, leave a review for the podcast, follow us on on our socials, Instagram, X, and TikTok. It's all at Fantasy Pros. And you can do all of those things, and they all get you entries. We'll be announcing a winner on the podcast, which I'm guessing should be next week since it'll be the start of a new month. So if you're watching on YouTube, make sure you're subscribed, turn on notification so you don't miss anything. And you get your prize, AJ Brown, autographed jersey. Very, very cool. All right, fantasypros.com slash rankings to follow

along. Gentlemen, let's jump into it a little later than usual to get to the ranks, but we are here. Let's look at the big board with our top 12 wide receivers for the week, and it kicks off with none other than Jamar Chase, Pukkah, Jackson, Smith, and Jigba, C.D. Lamb, Monras, St. Brown, and Rishie Rice, that is your top six. Justin Jefferson, Romadunze, Devante Adams, Michael Pittman, D.K. Metcalfe and George Pickens. Let's jump back to Rishie Rice when we're looking at the top 12. Obviously, the top 12. These are all, you know, the starters that you're jumping into. Maybe there's some decisions. You do have four teams on a buy,

so I'm really not sure many people are gifted the, you know, the extra ability to decide between incredible players. But sometimes important to talk about the weight of the, and the value of some of these guys. And you two are both quite a bit higher than consensus on Rishie Rice. Fitz, you got him at four. Erickson, you're back at three.

Fitz, let's start with you as the highest ranker from the previous week. Rishi Rice, well over consensus. Is he also comparatively going to be over Xavier Worthy? Is he completely taken over that spot? Yeah, I don't know about that. I think Worthy has still, he still has value. But I was initially with ECR on Rishy Rice. I had him at wide receiver 6.

But then I had a bit of a rethink on this after we got the news about Isaiah Pacheco's MCL sprain. And the way the chiefs use Rishie Rice, it's kind of an extension of their running game with these quick passes, wide receiver screens, just get the ball quickly to Rishi Rice and let him weave through traffic. Isaiah Pacheco's absence could mean an even bigger role for Rice this week. And we're talking about a dude who's already had 16 catches and two rushing attempts in his first two games back from suspension.

Yeah, they've been using him in that weird like goal line package, which has been interesting. But by the way, shout out to Rishie Rice for coming up like a half a yard short for my first, my first Kareem Hunt touchdown being able to cash for last week. But yeah, if you use him two straight weeks in that like weird goal line package, so it creates extra opportunities. Erickson, what do you think? I mean, you've had two big weeks of Rishi Rice ranking really, really high. Your full commitment is there's not a decision to be made.

If you have Rishie Rice, he's over pretty much everybody. Yeah, I think so. And I'm looking at my rank at him in number three. And I think that I could even push him higher. You talk about what he's done over the last two weeks. Have the chiefs been pushed offensively in the last two weeks in any capacity? they've blown out both things that they've faced. I know that the commander's game was tied 7-7 going into the half,

but if you look at that first half, Rashi Rice really didn't do that much in the first half. Again, he didn't score that touchdown. A lot of his production came in the second half. So when the chiefs are blowing out other teams, Rashi Rice is first in fantasy points per game. And now you're facing Buffalo for, okay, now we can get a shootout where it's more back and forth.

So when you're just talking, who has the most upside on this slate at wide receiver, I mean, Rashi Rice looks like he could score, multiple touchdowns every single week because of how much they're using him around the red zone. He is Mahomes guy near the red zone. So in a matchup where you could see it actually go more back and forth, Rice's ceiling is, I think, one of the highest, if not the highest, in week nine. There's a couple wide receivers that, you know, have really incredible matchups.

I'd say Rishu Rice is one of them. Roma Dunsay is also kind of put into this where, you know, maybe there's overall questions, but you've got the bangles that are floating out there. You like George Pickens, who's going up. against the Cardinals. The Colts have kind of typically struggled in their secondary. So like D.K. Metcalf is floating in there. But I think one of the biggest outlier for this week in the week one ranks, or the week nine ranks for wide receiver ones is Michael Pittman. Michael Pittman comes in as wide receiver 10 going up against Pittsburgh. Obviously the matchup kind of, you know,

speaks in a really well spot. Both of you are slightly lower than ECR, but you guys do have a difference between one of you is wide receiver one. The other is top end of wide receiver. 2 and Fitsy, you are the wide receiver 1 on Michael Pitman. So not that Erickson's necessarily going to disagree. The rank isn't like that far off, but your firm stance that Michael Pitman is in a spot where you're starting him over, significant players, you're starting him over Ladd. You're starting him, maybe I actually am not looking at your rank, but ECR has Pitman over Pickens.

Is that something you're doing? You're all in on Pittman this week. Yeah, and I do have Pittman ahead of Pickens. Pittman is wide receiver 7 in half point PPR fantasy scoring and wide receiver 12 in fantasy points per game. And I don't just want to say scoreboard and leave the analysis at that. Pittman has scored six touchdowns in eight games. So that's a career high in touchdowns for him. So it's probably good to be a little cautious with the players scoring touchdowns at an abnormally high rate.

But on the other hand, Pittman has eight or more targets in half of his eight games. And in two of the four games where he had fewer than eight targets, the Colts won by 20 or more points. So the blowout game script might have tamped down his target volume a little bit. I think we can feel pretty confident about Pittman's target load in these competitive games. And I'd like to think Colts Steelers in Pittsburgh will be a competitive game. Plus the Colts offense is just so high functioning right now. It's just that sort of buoys your confidence in Pittman that everything has just worked so well, both in the running game and the passing game.

Erickson, what do you think? You've got him at 13. I'm curious that the wide receiver that jumped over to make him a wide receiver two. It is kind of minuscule, but do you have any thoughts? Is your confidence level a little bit lower? You've got him as the first of the wide receiver twos. I think for me, it's just trying to be a little hesitant with how the target shakeout because we see the Colts passing game.

They spread the ball to a lot of different players. And yes, Pittman ate last week, but you saw downs and top. Tyler Warren kind of eat into each other, right? Tyler Warren was one of the few tight ends, didn't pop off on National Tight Ends Day. It's a good matchup for him against Pittsburgh Ceres. We've been bad against tight ends this season. So I think that Pittman has obviously done enough this year where he's a touchdown machine and this offense is functioning such a high level. And you want to play guys against the Steelers. All the Colts are in play here. But it's a matter of, well, what if it's Alps Pierce that comes down with the touchdown? It's

not Michael Pittman. Or it's Josh Downs that ends up seeing the nine targets and Pittman goes back to four or five. So that's like the only concern, which is like, lock. and loaded, but matchup-wise, you want to play all your receivers against the Pittsburgh Steers, allowing most fantasy points per game to perimeter-wide receivers. And I know they play a lot of man coverage, but for Pittman, his target share has been pretty steady, whether it's zone or man. He's been efficient against both of those types of coverages. So, I mean, you're starting him.

And the only reason I had trouble kind of figure out where to rank him was I got a couple question marks about, like, where am I putting Nico Collins this week? Like, where is Drake London going this week? So those are kind of guys in a similar tier to Pittman. and I just have question marks about like, well, they're both injured last week. Are they going to play this week? So that's kind of caused a shakeup. But you're starting pitman no matter what.

I was just going to ask how you have Pittman ranked vis-a-vis London and Collins. Very good receivers with tough matchups this week. Yeah. So it looks like Sertan's not going to play. So I think that's definitely works in favor for Nico Collins, that you don't have this lockdown corner on the other side. So then again, Collins has also not been good this year. and the defense of the Broncos is still good.

So if C.J. Stroud has no time to throw, then does it really matter who is covering Nico Collins? So I just think from a safety perspective, I mean, Pittman has just been so good. So even if the target floor isn't as high as someone like Drake London, London also has a really tough matchup against Gonzalez. So upside, again, that's what we always want to strive for here is who has the most upside. And if Pittman has touchdown, great matchup, I think he is the move here, even if his target floor isn't as high. Yeah, I don't know if you need Patrick Sertain Jr. or if you've got Nick Benito rushing against the Houston offensive line. By the way, is there a logic going back to the National Tide-in Day?

How do they decide the date? Like any of these things, whether it's like National Second Grandparents Day. Like, it feels like they're like, you know, like buying a star. Like, I don't understand the logic behind the days. Like, is there something special about the National Tide-in Day? Or is that just the only day that wasn't celebrating, you know, pistachio ice cream or sandwiches? Well, they made sure that it's obviously on a Sunday. and they made sure that George Kittle wasn't injured.

So like, when is Kittle going to be back from IR? Make sure he gets the, I mean, guys, that was the clock. So it's a floating holiday. So it's a floating holiday. It's a floating holiday based around George Kittles of illibility. And if he's healthy or not. And I mean, was there a bigger lock than George Kettle scored touchdown last week? Yeah.

I know he's not going to do much else. Jake Tungis stealing touchdowns from George Kittle on national tight ends. Like, what are you doing, Tungis? They're trying to get in. More tight-in scoring. All right. Let's go to the wide receiver two's here. Good conversation on those ones.

This is 13 through 13 through. 24. It's going to kick off with Ladd-McConkey at 13. Drake London, Jalen Waddle, Zayflowers, Nico Collins at 17. Marvin Harrison at 18. That's your top half. We've got Brian Thomas at 19, Tederoa McMillan, T. Higgins, Cortland Sutton and Stefan Diggs. Gentlemen, let's take a stop at Marvin Harrison. He is wide receiver 18. You guys are a little bit flipped on this. Fitsy, you're a little bit lower at 22. Erickson, you are right on consensus. So, Erickson, why don't you kick us off here with your take on Marvin Harrison this week? He's playing the Dallas Cowboys.

That's... End of story. Like, he's playing the Dallas Cowboys, and there's a chance that we still don't get Kyle Murray back. And as weird as it sounds to admit and say, the offense has looked better with Jacoby Percette as the starting quarterback. So Jonathan Gannon said at the beginning this week, and they asked him about Kyla Murray and his chance to play on Monday.

So we're not even going to get reports till Thursday because of the Cardinals playing on Monday night. And Gannon said, that's a hypothetical to me. I don't know. This is after a bye week that he's asked about his starting quarterback's availability. So that sounds very pessimistic about Kyler Murray, who I know some people, and maybe Welsh, you can chime in here being more plugged into the Arizona media. If this has kind of been like a soft benching for Kyler and he's not really like totally injured, they just want to play Peret, but they can't bench him outright.

So they're using the injury as an excuse. So yeah, for all those reasons, you got to play Marvin Harrison Jr. this week. I think it's similar to like the purdyish thing. They're not willing to put him out unless he's 100%. There's already so much public scrutiny locally here on Kyler Murray that they're not going to like, I mean, what are they also playing for? You know, what games are they trying? Were they going to catch up in that division where everybody is like, you know, five and two or five and three or whatever? Like I think it is, it's not quite a soft bench.

It might be dolled up as that. But I do not think they're willing to like, you know, he's like, I'm 85%. They're like, well, you're 100% on the bench then. He's got to be 100%. Fitsy, what do you think about Marvin Harrison, regardless of the quarterback play? You guys want a holiday. How about National go up against the Cowboys Day, which is every Sunday?

That's the one we want to celebrate. So, yeah, it is kind of easy to just be like, it's the Dallas Cowboys because they're the gift that continuously keeps on giving, but can they give to the Cardinals? Yeah, maybe I am underplaying the great matchup against the Cowboys and they're laughably bad past defense. I certainly was guilty of doing that last week. and not ranking Bo Nex or Troy Franklin highly enough.

But man, Harrison is tied for wide receiver 40 in half-point PPR fantasy points per game. He has scored fewer than seven half-point PPR points in four of his seven games, averaging just 5.7 targets a game. And I am making this ranking with the projection that Kyler Murray is going to play, and I probably would have had Harrison a couple spots higher had they already ruled out Murray and so the Brissette is going to make the start. Only two touchdowns for Marvin Harrison Jr. so far. I just, I still worry about the lack of chemistry between Kyler Murray and Marvin Harrison, Jr.

And it just feels like a stretch to rank Harrison as a top 20 receiver, even with a great matchup and even with four teams I'd buy. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it.

We're the first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special. So how did we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was...

This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. and finding ways to win no matter what.

He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup,

he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's first, friends stop by like Quentin Richardson, we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash will get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He run up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball like, after you go through a training camp with that

Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, I'm Jared Adano. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Somebody, please! But there's so much more to me than me. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian, and recently I've become quite the helper myself.

And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Sike! I'm a comedian! I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice.

One ring is too scary. Oh, cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream, cream a chicken suit. This is Help from a Hypocrat, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrat as part of the Mike Cultura Podcast Network available on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I, yeah, yeah, I would not have put on my bingo card that we would be. waiting on Marvin Harrison's rank to make sure Kyler is not starting and Jacoby Brissette is starting. That would not have been the thing that would make him potentially move up or down if

Kyler is not playing. Funny one. All right. Another guy, we actually had the, um, the player on this guy's other side in the next range, but let's talk about them both together. There's kind of a growing sense that this might end up being a Travis Hunter over Brian Thomas situation going on in Jacksonville. There seems to be some debate about it. We talked about this on Out of Bounds, the Twitch show we do with Pisa Pia and Bogman and myself. And, you know, this question has continuously come up. The ranks do not indicate that this week. Brian Thomas is wide receiver 19.

You both are lower on Brian Thomas, but it is not in respect of Travis Hunter jumping over him. So again, he was our first guy we were going to talk about in the next section, but let's just do it here too. Travis Hunter is 27. But you guys are just both lower. on consensus than both of these guys. More significantly about Brian Thomas, Fitsy, you're at 24, Erickson, you're at 26. Travis Hunter is ECR 27, Fancy, you're at 30, and Erickson, you're at 29. So just lower overall fits, why don't we start with you?

Clearly, you do not think that it is going to be Travis Hunter over Brian Thomas, but the confidence is being lost in both of these wide receivers, and you have got him barely holding on as a wide receiver, too. That is Brian Thomas. Yeah, so I don't think, like, ECR having both of these guys as top 27 receivers with Trevor Lawrence playing quarterback when the matchup is not against the Dallas Cowboys just feels off to me. Like, someone's too high here. And I definitely think Brian Thomas is a little too high in ECR. Like, he hurt his shoulder in the Jaguars last game.

The Jaguars were on by last week, so maybe the shoulder. or won't be an issue, but we've already seen Brian Thomas Jr. try to play through a wrist injury this season, and obviously hasn't been a good season for BTJ to this point. So health is one concern, and then the other is obviously that we saw a big surge in Travis Hunter's usage right before the buy. So I'm not sure BTJ is still the clear number one receiver for the Jaguars anymore, and that wouldn't necessarily be a big problem if BTJ were playing in a prolific passing attack, but, you know, not really the case with Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars. As for Hunter, it's important not to get too dug in with your stances on players if you play fantasy football.

And I think Travis Hunter is kind of a good test case for that. Like I was not very into Travis Hunter before the season, either for redraft or dynasty. And I know the dynasty podcast consumers know that. And my biggest concern was the two-way thing. The Jaguars said they wanted Hunter to be primarily a wide receiver, but I figured that wasn't etched in stone, and I worried that things could change over the course of the season. Maybe the Jaguars decide they need Hunter to play more snaps at corner and fewer wide receiver. And I also kind of worried about, well, the presence of Brian Thomas Jr., who was so good last year,

I figured he might be sort of an impediment for Travis Hunter's growth. And at first it seemed like the cautious approach with Hunter was the right call. He was playing between half and two-thirds of the same. snaps in most of his early season games. And it's just hard to be fantasy relevant if you're not a full-time receiver. Plus his usage was kind of quirky. It was all like low A-dot close to the line of scrimmage stuff, get him the ball and see if he can do something after the catch. But over his last two games, Hunter's Snap shares have been 78% and 87%. He didn't do much in the first of those games, four catches for 15 yards on seven targets against the Seahawks. But then, right before the

that big game in London against the Rams. Eight catch is 101 yards and a touchdown on 14 targets. So maybe the genie is out of the bottle here with Travis Hunter on offense. And I am worried that wide receiver 30 might not be high enough a ranking for him. But I do, you know, I do think there's kind of a drop off in the overall wide receiver rankings once we get past wide receiver three range this week. And Hunter is comfortably inside that range. Erickson, do you feel more confident that Brian Thomas is fading and these two ranks are more about Thomas?

Or I guess I mean, your rake doesn't really dictate it, but like, do you think on the other side, Travis Hunter is surging and can overpass Brian Thomas? Like, what are you more staunchy about right now? Hmm. That's a good question because I think that Fitz hit it at the top where, this isn't even a conversation about the receivers. It's, can Trevor Lawrence get these guys to the Thomas land? Right, that's like a big concern. So in my mind, I'm trying to figure, okay, I got to, should I put Hunter ahead of Thomas?

But if they both are bad, then what's the difference? Like, do I want to start either Jaguars receiver this week? Because even Hunter in that game against London, a lot of that came when the Jaguars were getting blown off the field. So is that. Which they'll be doing all the time, by the way, which is not a bad thing. But this week, you see the match against the Raiders and you think, okay, another dysfunctional team. Maybe the Jaguars can get something done here, but the Raiders are also coming off a by week too. So maybe they throw something different. And you just look at the matchup. This is just

about the quarterback. So the Raiders run the third highest amount of zone coverage this year. Trevor Lawrence versus zone has been terrible. 1,200 yards, three touchdowns, four picks, 60% completion rate against zone is the lowest in the NFL. Passer rating, 73.7 is fifth lowest in the NFL. So I think that Fitz and I are on the ball here with just being lower on both guys in general because I don't think that this is just, oh, smash spot for this Jags offense to come out of the gates firing. I don't necessarily think that's the case. When you look at the receiver conversation, I do think that the matchup favors Travis Hunter a little bit more than Thomas does.

Again, Thomas has struggled this year anyway to be consistent, and we have not seen the chemistry with him as much as have been there with Trevor Lawrence and Travis Hunter. The breadcrumbs are leading us to, hey, we're going to get more Travis Hunter specifically on offense. And if the Raiders are deploying a lot of zone coverage, what does that mean? Who do we see dominant against zone coverage? It's these slot guys that are operating underneath, like Travis Hunter. Hunter leads the Jaguars and catches this season, despite 11 fewer targets than Brian Thomas Jr. And the Raiders, second worst defense against slot receivers because they run so much zone coverage.

So I feel like I want to put Travis Hunter ahead of Brian Thomas, but I want, yeah, but that I want to be below consensus on both guys at the same time. You can still do that. Well, I guess you can't do that because he's. the rankings become kind of complex because I did this with AJ Brown and Devante Smith where I wanted to rank Smith over AJ Brown. He ended up having more yards, but AJ Brown caught more touchdowns. So moving Brown down didn't actually benefit anybody because you wanted to start both players. But in this case, I don't think that we should be super aggressive starting either guy, although the matchup when I'm kind of looking at things seems like it's going to get more favorable

for Hunter in just terms of raw volume. But if it's low A dot stuff again, what is 4 for 40 really going to do for you. So maybe these guys really don't have high ceilings this week is really the conversation and they're more like wide receiver three plays. Okay. You get one word response. Fact or fiction. Travis Hunter is the number one wide receiver in Jacksonville over Brian Thomas rest of season. Erickson. Jack.

Fidsey. Fiction. We should have, we needed that like, what was that music? or that game show music, that tension that was building up there. All right. So we have a fact and a fiction of Travis Hunter. That's it. We'll continue to talk about it.

And maybe this week will tell us a little bit more of a story that we can continue on the next episode. One more in this wide receiver range, T. Higgins, T. Higgins, wide receiver 22, going up against the Chicago Bears. Fitsy, you are, you're a high man here. You've got him at 18. Erickson's right on consensus fits. Let's jump to you here. T. Higgins. Flacco, I think was a little banged up.

as well. What do you think about T. Higgins this week? He might be banged up, but not as banged up as the Chicago Bears secondary. The Bears were without their three best cornerbacks last week. Jalen Johnson, Kyler Gordon, Tyreek Stevenson, all out in week eight. Johnson and Gordon, they're going to be out again. They're both on IR, I believe. I'm not sure about

Stevenson who was a shoulder issue, but, you know, by no means is Tyreek Stevenson, a shutdown cornerback anyway. I just think Bengals' receivers versus Bears cornerbacks is an epic mismatch this week. So I think both Jamar Chase and T. Higgins are going to eat hard. As long as there's no Jake Browning, though, like Browning, what can Browning do for you? Absolutely nothing. That's what we found out. So like we can't do Browning whatsoever. What do you think, Erickson? You're on consensus for T. Higgins. He's definitely moved into just a spot. We just feel a lot better. Yeah, I think with me, the only thing I have

hesitant about pushing Higgins up higher is the volume because this offense is Jemar Chase 1, Jamar Chase 2, Jamar Jase 3. Jammar Chase has a 46% target chair for the Bengals in the last three games. So I know I talked about Rice as the highest ceiling. If you're going to see 20 targets in a game, then clearly Jamar Chase obviously has an extremely high ceiling to be the wide receiver one on the week. And he also benefits from all those Bears, cornerbacks, which is such a banged-up secondary. So I think that last week it was a little scary seeing Higgins' targets dip so dramatically,

now he did score a 44-yard touchdown because he's a good player and he can do that even on limited volumes. So I think you can still find a way to be a wide receiver too, even if he doesn't see a ton of volume. But it was kind of the concern I had that matchup anyway because it was the Jets. The Bengals were able to run the ball a little bit more effectively and Flacco attempted 12 fewer pass attempts than the week before. So when we take out 10 to 12 pass attempts, it's not coming out of Chase's targets. It's coming out of T. Higgins and the tight ends as the ancillary pieces in the Spangles passing attack. So the Bears, again, terrible against the pass, also terrible against the run. So if Lacko is banged up, they want to protect him, how do they

do that? Establish the run game. Get Chase Brown going. Samachap, Rine. So that's my only concern with Higgins if he doesn't see enough targets. But as we saw last week, he can get it done in one big play. So he's still going to be in your lineup as a wide receiver two. All right, wide receiver three is coming up. But first, today's show is brought to you by our new presenting, sponsor Hard Rock Bet. The Hard Rock Bet Sportsbook app is top rated, my friends, probably because there are so many promos and so much to bet. Week 9 doesn't kick off until tomorrow, but on Hard Rock Bet, if you're doing some fantasy research for this week, don't forget that you can go and check out some player odds to score on the Hard Rock Bet app. You're going to get a profit boost for

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Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia. Wide receiver 3s, kicking off with Kenan Allen at 25. Travis Hunter is at 26, who we were just talking about, Xavier Worthy, Jordan Addison, Khalil Shakir, and Debo Samuel going up to 30. 31 to 36 is Wondell Robinson, Quentin Johnston, Romeo Dobbs, DJ Moore, Jameson Williams, and Joanne Jennings. Let's talk about Wondell. I think this is actually a fantastic matchup.

In the quarterback episode, I want to talk about Jackson Dart because the four. 49ers defense is garbage. They're hurt. They got a bunch of nothing here. And, you know, there's not a ton of pass catchers, but I think, like Wondell is in a pretty dang good spot

where I think Jackson Dart is going to be able to move around and get the ball to him. He's only at 31. Fitsy, you've got him at 27. Erickson, you are in consensus. So let's jump back to Fitsy again. You're a little bit more of the high man. I think this is a decent spot against a 49ers defense

that is just ravaged by injuries. And Dart has continued. look good. And the loss of Cam Scataboo is, I would assume, it's probably going to get the ball in the air just a tiny bit more. But what say you, Fidsey? You are a little bit higher on Wondell this week. Yeah, good matchup. You said O'Lish. We saw Jalen Nol sort of gash the 49ers last week on real limited snaps. And Wondale is clearly the go-to guy for Jackson Dart in the passing game. He's averaging 7.1 targets a game. And maybe we get the same sort of dynamic with Wondale that I was talking about earlier with Rishol. Ryshe Rice potentially benefiting from the absence of Isaiah Pacheco. Like Rishie Rice, Wondell Robinson is this short area catch and run receiver and kind of an extension of the Giants running game. And now maybe there's an even greater need for Wondale in this offense. Now the Camp Scadaboo is out for the season. Erickson, you're right at consensus.

No big strong feelings. We were talking about tiers earlier. Do you think Wondale is in a tier where the drop off has like really happened at wide receiver or he's near the end right before the drop off? I think he's pointing here at the end. I think that you feel pretty comfortable playing him. I don't think that anyone is, oh, man, I got to play Wondell Robinson this week. I'm totally screwed. I don't think that's the case because you guys pointed out.

It is a good matchup against a pretty banged up. 49ers defense. I was actually higher on Wondell Robinson when Fitz pulled the names here. I had met wide receiver 23. I actually pulled him back because he was quiet last week. He had zero catches in the first half. He just finished with three catches for 48 yards on four targets. And I was like, well, why did this happen?

What happened to his targets? and actually, like, his targets have dropped dramatically when Darius Slateon has actually been playing in the lineup. And we saw last with Gary Slateon had a long touchdown catch that came back on a penalty. So I actually think that Slate may be a sneaky play here as well because when you look at the target share for Robinson in games with Slayton over the last couple of weeks with Jackson Dart as the quarterback. So he is a 29% target share when Slayton is not playing in those games. That drops to 19% when Slayton is available. And it's actually just kind of flat between Theo Johnson. Darius Slate and Wandae Robinson.

So I think those three guys are all going to kind of see their fair share of targets. We talked about this last week with the 49ers, although Dulton Schultz, of course he lets me down. What do you know? But that's what happens when you bet on a catch and fall down tight end to deliver is they lay an egg, even in a prime matchup. But I still think that, again, Theo Johnson is not that type of player. Like he can actually create yards after the catch and make big plays against the 49ers defense that doesn't have Fred Warner. You still want to target it with opposing tight ends. So I think that maybe I wanted to give more credit to Theo and Slate.

And just because when those guys have also been on the field, it has been more of a flat target here. And it really hasn't been Wondale dominating the target. So that's why I have them closer to the mid-range wide receiver three. Deep play stuff. The Hordeaux safetys are just garbos. Just Mustafa doesn't know what he's doing out there. They're not good in coverage.

But Wondell has been the target monster. It's an interesting matchup. What do we do, what I can kind of tell, with Quentin Johnson anymore? We have completely fallen off from all the excitement. We're just donuts after donuts. ECR 32, Fitsy, you've got him at 32. Erickson, you're even lower. He is almost not a wide receiver three.

Erickson, let's go with you. Quentin Johnson looks like with Gadsden coming up in the offense, it is completely taken away from Johnson. And he's in a spot where it's not startable. That tier you guys just talked about, where it's like, where does it fall off? Johnson might be the start of the fall off here. You feel like you want to say he's the very,

very end, like, we'll take a shot. I don't think so. I think he might be the beginning of the fall off because it's like, where the hell is he going to get targets, Erickson? Yeah, I think that, well, I want to give a shout out to Debrough in the primer. I thought he did a great job of summarizing Quinn Johnson's matchup last week and how this just wasn't the spot for him. With Johnson, like, it's very matchup dependent. And it's not even, is this defense good or bad against wide receivers? It's, well, what kind of defense are they running? Single high, like, is it zone? Is it man? Because Johnson has a very specific role in this Chargers offense. And with the emergence of all of these, of more of the underneath targets between Gadsden and

Keenan Allen and Lamaconki kind of doing what we expected him to do after what he did as a rookie, well, that's kind of leaving Johnson as the left out, essentially. It's obviously a good matchup when you look at the Titans. The Titans just traded away half their secondary, right? Ligerius Sneed is on injured reserve. So the Chargers, if they decide, hey, yeah, let's make it a Quentin Johnson game. However, if a team just traded away all of its personnel, what does that mean? they're probably just going to run a lot of basic zone coverage and just let's not get beat over the top.

And unfortunately, that's kind of what Johnson's role has become. So as the guy with the longest A dot, more deep vertical routes, and that just doesn't bode well for him in this specific matchup. So I would definitely recommend whatever Debo writes up pertaining to this specific game, it's probably going to be spot on. So that might be an additional layer of analysis. But just based on like what I've done, the Titans already use a lot of zone coverage, I would assume that this is not another Johnson week. And you really need to wait. I mean, when you look at the schedule, it might be, hey, you might need to bench this guy to week 16 when they play the Dallas Cowboys.

And then you just play him that week and he just goes like absolutely nuclear. But besides that, I'm going to guess that this matchup is probably not going to be favorable. If you look at QJ versus just zone coverage, he's just a 14% target share, which is lower than the other two wide receivers and Gadsden. Fidsey is Quinn Johnston going to be Liam Neeson for Halloween, that he has a very specific set of skills that are never in play here? What do you think? Pretty much, yeah. I mean, in addition to everything Erickson said about QJ versus Zone, and I agree, check DeBrow's primer for the good stuff on that. I was already feeling pretty uneasy about having to rank Quentin Johnston as a wide

receiver two every week early in the season when he was putting up these great numbers. And it seemed like we had to rank him that highly and make sure he was in our lineups every week. But the presence of Ladd McConkey and Keenan Allen always made Johnston's fantasy outlawful. And he was, look seems sort of fragile. And now we've got a Rondea Gadsden the second stepping up and giving the chargers a fourth big-time weapon for Justin Herbert. So I just, I don't want to overreact to the zero target game against the Vikings in week eight in a game where Justin Herbert didn't need to throw very much because the Chargers were in total command. But I do think, I just think the vol, uh, the production for QJ is going to be really volatile the rest of the way. Like,

we're going to get some splash games where he makes a big player. or two. And then we're going to have some real quiet games where Herbert throws to the other guys in QJ just gets left out in the cold. One last one that we're going to hit. We'll do kind of a quick hitter on this one because is it Jameson Williams week? Is that what is officially been activated? He comes in as wider receiver 35 and both of you guys say, no, no, you are like five or six spots higher. Fidsey, you've got him at 29. Erickson, you've got him at 30. Fitsy, is it James Williams week. I think it is. It's a national holiday. I'm going to save

the line about Ford Field for Erickson. But I'm just sticking to my priors here. Jameson Williams is good. His usage has been disappointing so far, but I would imagine that it was a focal point of the Lions by week to try to scheme up ways to get

James and Williams more involved in the offense. And you know, the big plays are coming. I think they're going to come soon. And I'm not that word about the matchup with the Vikings after how we saw the Vikings look against the Chargers in Week 8. Erickson,

would you like to anoint this coming weekend officially James' week? You can just take a holiday because you can just make them up. You can just make up a national holiday. So would you like it to be officially Jameson Williams Sunday? I don't know what that entails necessarily. I don't know if we're going to get 103 touchdowns from Jameson Williams. It's because we know that the clients like to establish the run whenever they get the opportunity to do so, and the Vikings also have faced the league's highest run rate this season.

But if James and Williams can get done on limited volume, I think it can. You look at the Vikings this year just a couple weeks ago, Jalen Hertz could do no wrong, passing deep on this defense. I mean, Devontes, Smith, AJ Brown, we're just cooking downfield. We know Jameson Williams can have a big role as a downfield threat. Vikings are 31st and deep passing EPA allowed this season. So I think this is a pretty obvious spot to get him going. I know it feels weird to chase a guy after he basically did nothing, but the week before,

James William's had a really good game and was really productive against the Kansas City Chiefs. So, yes, it's very ping pongy, but you've got to play the matchups every single week with some of these receivers that are more volatile that don't see the consistent targets. And I think that the planets are at least aligning for this week to be a good JMO week versus the bad JMO week that we got before the buy week. Wait, Ford Field, say the line, Bart. Yes. Ford Field, course, field of the NFL, you always bet the overs. Although the overs have not been hitting at nearly as high as the rate as I and my bankroll, would like to see.

All that means is we're due, obviously. Do, always do. All right, that is going to do it for the wider super ranks. If we did not end up, like, answering a question you might have had, guess what? We've got you covered on our YouTube. We've got to start and sit live stream where you can come and bring any question you want. Thursday, 3 p.m. Eastern.

You're on the podcast. Go to YouTube.com slash Fantasy Pros. Make sure you're subscribed. Don't miss it. That's it. For Fidzi and Erickson, I'm Welsh. Good luck this week. We'll talk to you next time right here on Finney.

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