The Ringer NFL Show - Our Top 10 WRs

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

We break down our top 10 WRs heading into the 2021 fantasy football season, including who should be the no. 1 WR taken, who deserves to be in Tier 1, and which underappreciated WRs should be considered in the top 10. We ask ourselves whether Tyreek Hill is a risky top WR pick, whether Calvin Ridley belongs in Tier 1, whether A.J. Brown will decline this year, who the Seahawks will be this season, and whether Michael Thomas can return to form. Tyreek Hill, Chiefs (2:26) Davante Adams, Packers (7:37) Stefon Diggs, Vikings (8:27) Calvin Ridley, Falcons (9:54) DeAndre Hopkins, Cardinals (14:09) A.J. Brown, Titans (22:19) D.K. Metcalf, Seahawks (26:46) Justin Jefferson, Vikings (31:40) Keenan Allen, Chargers (37:53) Amari Cooper, Cowboys (42:03) Michael Thomas, Saints (45:06) Chris Godwin, Bucs (50:33) Check out our new top 150 half-PPR 2021 fantasy rankings here! Email us: [e-mail] Hosts: Danny Kelly and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if the Len Bias story hosted by Jordan Ritter-Con is the ringer's latest narrative podcast. You can find new episodes every Wednesday on the Book of Basketball 2.0 feed. Here's a quick trailer. You've heard his name, Lynn Bias, 1980s phenom, second pick in the NBA draft. And then, cocaine, tragedy, one of the most shocking deaths in sports history. 35 years later, Bias' legacy is still making an impact. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, this is What If, the Lynn Bias story. I'm Jordan Ritter-Con.

This is The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Kelly, and I am joined today by the one and only, the third string quarterback of the Los Angeles Chargers. Craig, what's up, buddy? We kicked Danny Hyphitz off the show, announcement. He's gone. It's just us now. False. Hyphitz is on vacation, somewhere soaking up some rays, hopefully.

We were a little bit worried because he's in North Carolina. and there's a storm head of that direction, but it sounds like he's going to miss out on that. So it's Craig and me again today. We are going to be talking about receivers. Last week, we talked about the top overall pick and drafts, and basically every player we discussed was a running back. So we wanted to make sure we talk about the elite receivers in fantasy football this year.

Basically, who is going to be fantasy's top receiver this year? It was a question we had in our minds when we went about doing this. So, yeah, let's talk about, I guess, the obvious guys that are going to be in the potential to be the number one. overall receiver and then, you know, a few dark horse players, maybe sleepers that could come in and we could be talking about these guys as the top overall receiver next year. Yeah. Yeah, let's just get into it. Obviously, the tier one guys, I think it starts with Tyra Kill. He's our top rated receiver going into this year. Thoughts? Well, yeah, I mean, he's right there. It's pretty much, I mean,

we're not going to talk too much about him and guys like Devante Adams because Devante obviously has the whole, right. But I personally, I personally, personally would have Devonte over Tyree Kill if Rogers is playing, would you? Okay. I mean, I wouldn't, I would not, I think the slim amount of doubt that we have that Rogers is going to play, at least, you know, the first couple of seasons of the year, that could make things a little bit more, you know, uncertain. And I think that's why he's not the number one guy. Last year he was clearly the number one guy, 21.5, half points, BBR, best in the NFL. But since there is that doubt, I think that's why we have Hill first. And Hill is an interesting one, I think. because, you know, he's not exactly like the most high volume player in the NFL. He's just like he's so reliant on touchdown, so reliant on explosiveness. But it's almost like you can expect those things to happen in this offense where, you know, especially this year, it feels like they're going to be funneling even more targets

to Tiger Kill and Travis Kelsey than last year because they just don't have as many weapons in this offense. In 2020, just to give you a recap, Hill had a 22.6 target share in that offense, which ranked 23rd of my receivers. It wasn't even that high. 135 targets, ranked 9th. 87 catches ranked 14th. His 1,276 yards was 7th, but his 15 touchdowns was second. So the question is, I guess, number one, is he too reliant on touchdowns and can

we expect him to score a bunch of touchdowns? And number two, are we overrating him because of that? So I guess my question is, you know, are we overrating him and expecting him to score 10, 15 touchdowns again? It's really interesting that he was 23rd overall in Target Share. And Target Share is the percentage of targets that go to this person on a particular team. So he was only the 23rd highest guy who saw the majority of his team's targets, essentially. Mm-hmm.

Which, but he's essentially a three-point shooter in the NBA, and he just makes all of his threes. Yeah. And as long as that can sustain, you're going to do fine. But I think I'd have him below somebody like Devonte Adams, and honestly, maybe even digs because... It doesn't feel as reliable, right? No. And we even joked about how, like, you feel like he's injury prone, even, like, even though he's not. But what I wanted to ask you about the chief's offense is, I feel like me personally, like,

I don't think about the offense anymore. I never wonder what they're going to do. It seems like every year they're just the same. Like, there's no innovation, not in like a negative way, but just like, we know what the chiefs are. It's Kelsey. It's, it's Hill. Do you think things are going to get better? Like, do you think things are going to be different?

Is it going to be this exact offense that we've seen the last three years for the next three years? Like, is anything going to change with the way that? the Chiefs play football. That's a really good question. I think this year, and we saw bits and pieces of it last year where they wanted to, like, you know, commit more to the run. Like in week one, I think, against the Texans, didn't they just run the hell out of the ball?

Clyde had like 30 touches. Yeah, and we were like, what the hell? Like, this is so weird. But I do think that, generally speaking, so Andy Reid has never been afraid to tailor, I think, the strategy or the game plan to, you know, take. advantage and maximize what they can do. But overall, he's going to be pass-heavy. Like, the chiefs are not going to change anything. They're not going to turn into a run-heavy team. They're going to be one of the most up-tempo, past-heavy teams in the NFL. You've got Patrick

Holmes. They've done all this and all these investments in the offense. That's just how they're going to be. I think neutral situation, pass rate, they're always going to be very high and they're going to rely on his arm. So I don't think, like, you know, in reality, it's going to change drastically, you know, from a big picture point of view. So, yeah, I do. I do. think they're going to continue to just like feed these two guys, Kelsey and Hill. And I think Hill is one of those guys. It's an interesting number one overall because I think maybe he has a wider range of outcomes than a few of the guys at the very top. But he has that elite elite elite ceiling, if that makes any sense.

Like would it surprise me at all if he caught like 18 touchdowns this year? No. But it also wouldn't surprise me if he caught like seven. You know what I mean? So I think I would put him in. he's the type of guy where if he plays all 16 games he's going to be a top like four wide receiver minimum. The only thing is he's a little streaky. Like the season before last season, he had seven touchdowns receiving.

So like that's why I think he's like number two or three to me because I think Adams and Diggs have that like baked in kind of like volume and consistency. I think yeah. And the I guess the way I'm rationalizing my ranking him number one is they think even if he doesn't have 15 touchdowns this year, I can see his target rate and overall target. and catch up, catch volume going up this year because of the way that they basically don't have anyone behind. You know, is it going to be Mikael Hardman? Is it going to be Cornell Powell, DeMarcus Robinson? We've been waiting on Hardman. If it's not this year for Hardman, it's never happened.

Yeah, that's how I feel. All right, so let's talk about Devante Adams. Again, it's not like a lot to stay here. The only question is... Yeah, I feel like we can blow right through this. Yeah, does Rogers play or not? That's the big question. You look at what Adams has done the last three seasons.

It's insane. 2020, the wide receiver won. 2019, he was the wide receiver 6 and per game average. He only played 12 games. And then going back to 2018, the wide receiver 3, he's always going to be in that top 5, top 6 group, really high floor, really high ceiling. The Packers didn't do much to add weaponry in their offense.

They added Amari Rogers rookie, but he's probably not going to make a big enough impact. Thus is the narrative behind the Packers. They did not do much offensively in the offseason. So I think safely Adams If you have him number one I don't have any problem with that I think the only thing is the uncertainty with Rogers

And then number three I think this is the third guy That is clearly in the top tier Stefan Diggs is the last guy I would be okay if somebody ranked number one overall Yeah so tell me about Diggs You know first year with a new team Usually doesn't go too well

But Diggs said fuck that Even though it was a COVID year He led the league in targets Catches and Yards But he only scored eight touchdowns He had the fourth highest target rate, 28.9%. And the bills just went nuts in the air. They just threw the ball so much.

They threw the ball in first down more than anybody. And Diggs is essentially Antonio Brown. Like, he's just like one of the best war runners in the league. I think he's maybe a little bigger than Antonio Brown. But I don't really know what there is to say that's different. I mean, John Brown left. And actually, if you look in the games where Diggs played without John Brown, he was even better. So they replaced John Brown with Emmanuel Sanders.

But I think Diggs is just going to do it again. he's at a great age. I think he just turned 27. Like I just kind of think that's what it is. Josh Allen is in the prime of his career. Like everyone's just in the prime. Yeah, he's apex age. Yeah, I'm absolutely with you on this one, I think.

And the cool thing is, like, he could have more touchdowns this year. Like, he could, based on the amount that they target him and things like that, just variation. He could end up with 10 plus touchdowns and end up being the wide receiver one overall. So that just wouldn't surprise me at all. All right. So those three guys are pretty clear. Like, if you have those as your number one,

any of those three as your number one receiver, I don't think any of us are going to blink. Let's talk about the fringe overall number one. So basically... Fringe guys. Yeah, if you saw a guy in your league take this player as the first receiver off the board, would it be weird if that was Calvin Ridley?

Like, would you look at that and be like, what? Like, what are you doing? Or would it just be like, oh, yeah, that makes sense? I think I'd be like, I respect that. Yeah. That's fine. I think Hopkins, you can. could maybe make the argument as well.

But I think Ridley, you know, it's like the opportunistic drafter is like, I want the young guy who hasn't done it yet who's going to do it. He's like predicting the future. I mean, even just based on, even if Julio was on the Falcons, you could still make the argument that Calvin Ridley could be in this category. I mean, in 2020, he was the overall wide receiver four and Julio played half the games. He led the league in 100-yard receiving games, 20-plus-yard receptions. And now that Julio's gone, the history of him without Julio is well documented.

He's played seven games without him in 2020. In those seven games, he had a 30% target share. He saw 11 targets a game. Jesus. And he had 109 yards a game. And like, Arthur Smith

is now the head coach of the Falcons, who is an offensive guru. And, you know, the one thing the Falcons really struggled in, especially receiving-wise, with their number one in Julio for his entire career,

was Julio didn't score touchdowns. It plagued everybody who had him. He always had like 1,800 yards and six touchdowns, and it limited his ceiling. It was the Falcons red zone problem. Well, Arthur Smith, when he was with the Titans, 2019, they were first in red zone touchdown rate, and in 2020, they were second. And the Falcons were 25th last year. Yeah. So if that can change, and they can turn Ridley, who has already been scoring more touchdowns than Calvin, than Julio Jones, they can turn him into like what we all wanted Julio to be in the red zone. Right. Yeah, I think he could absolutely be a top three guy. It's so far.

Funny looking at Calvin Ridley's career so far, because I remember as a rookie, he scored 10 touchdowns. And everyone was like, oh, that's going to regress terribly. Like, don't expect this in the next couple of years. Like, you know, that was just an anomaly because he had 10 touchdowns on 64 catches. But then he had seven touchdowns on 63 catches in 2019. And then nine touchdowns on 90 catches last year. And so he's just like much more reliable. I guess from the touchdown point of view,

it's like the anti-Hulio type thing. I think a lot of that has to do with just he's an elite route runner. He's able to get open in the red zone. There are some questions I would guess about, you know, if Julio's not out there and he's not drawing the defense and he's not creating these double teams and tilting the defense his way,

what difference does that make? But I think ultimately Ridley's volume, which we've seen without Julio in the game, is just going to be more than enough to make him an elite elite receiver. And the other thing is like Kyle Pitts is going to be there

so that's going to be helpful. You know, it's not like he's just it's not like it's just going to be Ridley and I'm pretty high on Pitts. Well, like, but don't you think though

like the volume thing like, I mean, Stefan Diggs doesn't have any competition. Devante Adams doesn't have any competition. But like, if you are talented enough, it's, yeah, it doesn't matter.

Yeah, absolutely. And the volume, I mean, honestly, just chase volume. Like, don't worry too much about like if you have a good number two or whatever.

Like, he's going to get tons of volume. So yeah, I think the only thing I worry about a little bit is Matt Ryan hasn't been that great when Julio's been out. And like his efficiency goes down, his effectiveness goes down. Like are the Falcons going to score a lot this year, I guess, is the question. And they're not and the other thing is like they're not going to have much of a run game. It doesn't feel like they really invested in the run game at all. You know, they're going into the year with Mike Davis as the, I guess, the starter. Quadra Allison is kind of six.

though. They should just go full bills. Just throw it 48 times the game. It wouldn't surprise me if they did. I mean, that would I guess be different than what Arthur Smith did in Tennessee. But I mean, he's, I think he'll have the, you know, the dexterity to do whatever makes sense with his personnel. So I don't know. It's going to be interesting. But overall, like, I'm with you.

I think Ridley has a real chance to be, it wouldn't be that surprising if he's the wide receiver one this year. That's like kind of how we were having to look at this. In the same vein, I think D' Andre Hopkins, like, I had him kind of, like circled as a tier two guy but then as I was going through and like looking at his stats from last year and like remembering kind of like he's a clear tier one guy right

100%. He's just old now. He's just been doing it for a while. He's not, I mean he's 29, but it's like we're just bored with DeAndre Hopkins. I mean,

I guess you, I think you should maybe split up tier one into like one A and one B and maybe Ridley and Hopkins are in one B. But if I had to decide whether they're in tier two or tier one, I think I'm picking tier one. If someone picked Hopkins over Adams or if someone picked Hopkins over Hill, would you bat an eye?

Honestly, like, not really? I wouldn't. I don't think I would, especially right now when we don't know about Aaron Rogers. Like, I really wouldn't bat an eye because, so let's look at Hopkins career. First of all, I think one of the worries last year, and it might still be sort of lingering, is like he changed teams, he's going to a new offense. Is he going to be able to get the volume that he got with, you know, Sean Watson throwing a pass? and that mind-meld connection they had,

he didn't waste, he wasted like literally zero time in establishing himself with Kyler and having, and being Kyler's go-to guy. Second in the NFL, you're just talking about Diggs, who was first,

first and first in targets, catches, and yards. Hopkins was second in targets, catches and yards last year, 160 targets, 115 catches, 1,4007 yards. He only scored six touchdown.

So that's like, I think the one thing keeping him from the elite elite tier, because you're expecting Hopkins, or you're expecting, sorry, you're expecting Devante Adams and Tyree Killed to score a bunch of touchdowns.

If Hopkins can do that this year and break back into like that mold, then, you know, again, it's like easy path to being the overall wide receiver one. Going through his career, it's pretty crazy. 2019, he was the wide receiver 5.

2018, the wide receiver 2. 2017, the wide receiver 1. 2016, he was the wide receiver 29, which is really bizarre. I guess it was because Brock Osweiler was quarterback. But then 2015, wide receiver four. So he's essentially more or less a lock

to be a top five receiver, right? And maybe touchdown variance is the only thing keeping him from being a wide receiver one. Like if he scores as much touchdowns, he's wide receiver one, the wide receiver one. That's kind of how I feel,

you know what I mean? It's just like, is this offense going to be better? Sure, it could be. I think it might be. Why would it be? Yeah, they got more guys there. You know, I think it's like

the third year with Cliff. And Kyler. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm just, I'm bull. As I was putting this together, I'm like, there's no reason to not have him as a tier one guy.

I totally agree. I think he's great. I think maybe people think Kyler's worse than Deshaun, like throwing. You know what's weird? That's true, though, I think. He is. DeAndre's stat sheet here. Last year, he tied his career high in catches. He had 115. He did that in 2018 as well. But he did it on three less targets.

I know that's something crazy, but like I feel like I, when looking back to last season and thinking about him with Kyler, would have thought that it was like big plays, a lot of missed passes by Kyler, but he caught 72% of his targets. Like, they had a pretty damn good connection. You know what I mean? He just didn't, you mean, like toss in three more touchdowns

and like he might be like our wide receiver too. I think it's so interesting how touchdowns dictate how we think about the next year. I think Chase Claypool, if we ever talk about him in the future episode, is fascinating because if you flipped his year last year, if he finished the season how he started the season, I think he'd be like the top 18 receivers

be flipping out about him right now. But he faded down the stretch, and now they're like, oh, I don't know. Like, there's so many guys defeating that offense, Rothers, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, absolutely. I would say the one of Hopkins thing that I'm worried about is if you go look at Hopkins' is like route chart on NFL next gen stats, they track basically all the routes that a receiver runs where he's targeted or catches a ball. And it's like all, like not all.

all. I would say like 70% of his routes are just like from one spot on the left side of the field and he runs like either like a vertical route or like a little out route to the sideline. And it's like can they figure out ways to use this hyper elite like the one of the best pass catchers in the game

of his generation? Can they maybe figure out ways to use him in more like diverse ways? Yeah, I don't know. Maybe that was a factor of like the limited off season. I have no idea. Yeah, that could be. And again, like he was coming to a new team. So, you know, that was a big reason we were a little bit off him last year and that turned out to be a dumb choice. But, you know,

like, it could be wheels up this year. It could be, and really, like, again, you want to chase volume. He's second in the NFL last year in targets. Like, chase the volume. Chase the volume because the touchdowns are going to come. He's just boring. He's just a little boring. He's kind of in Marshawn Lynch territory where he just does it every year. You don't really think about it. You're like, all right. Are you a Kyler believer? I'm more in fantasy than in real life, but absolutely in fantasy. Right. But like, do you think he has the ability to like make a big jump as like a passer. Yeah, I mean, I think you have to afford him that, that respect, right?

Like, he's made a good, he made a strong jump from year one to year two, and I think you have to expect that he can do the same under like a third year with his coach. Yeah, yeah. You know, the offense. I think, yeah. I really hope Kingsbury, you know, gets his shit together a little bit this year because the one thing I'll be, I'll be really watching is when they first, when Kingsbury first came to Arizona, I think he, they tried.

to do like this spread, four-wide, you know, essentially air-rate offense that he was running in college. They tried to do a version of that with the Cardinals at the beginning of the first year

that he was here, and then it just didn't really work. Like, he was like, okay, this isn't working. We're not moving the ball. We're not moving the chains. We don't have the guys, essentially, to do this.

And so they switch gears. And credit to Kingsbury for not like, you know, just being stubborn and sticking with this offense that wasn't working. They switched gears, ran more.

11, 12 personnel. They basically ran a more NFL offense, quote NFL offense and did that. But they still are very good at spreading the field and all that stuff. But I wonder if now that they have like Rondell Moore, they signed A.J. Green, they've got Hopkins. They still have Christian Kirk. You know, maybe who knows, Andy Isabella will finally start playing well, blah, blah, blah.

They might have the guys this year to actually start running that really spread four wide, five wide offense that I think Cliff Kingsbury wants to run and showed at the beginning that he did want to run. So that could be like fantasy gold too, I think in that sense. If they really finally get back to running the offense that Kingsbury wants to run, it could be even better than we think. Because this is already the fastest, one of the most high, you know, highest pass rate teams in the NFL. And man, there's like still meat on the bone there.

Totally. And they went eight and eight last year after going five and ten the year before that, you know. And they're in the toughest division in football. So it might be hard for them to make the – they may not make the playoffs again, but I think I could see them improving offensively. Yeah, absolutely. All right. So that was the true tier top five guys,

and now I feel like there's a significant drop-off in my mind. Yes, I agree. The next guy I think on the list that had a lot more buzz and a lot more hype prior to the Julio Jones trade is A.J. Brown. Like, there was a good amount of talk of like A.J. Brown, overall wide receiver won. I get it.

And I understand why. He's an elite player. Like, he's one of the best skill. set, size, all that, players in the NFL. But now volume remains the question. Volume was the question last year. Volume remains the question going into this year, because now he's going to be splitting,

even in an offense where they're funneling a lot of the targets to Julio and A.J. Brown, volume, I believe, is still the question. So I went back and looked. A.J. Brown finished as, let me see here, he finished as the wide receiver 11 and half PBR total. However, he was fifth,

in fantasy points per snap, seventh in fantasy points per touch, and 29th in targets. He's kind of like just giant Tyreek Hill. Yeah. You're relying a lot on him being hyper-efficient, which I think he can continue to be. He scored 11 touchdowns. But it's scarier. Yes, and you're really relying on touchdowns, really reliant on him making the most of all his targets because his target volume is capped essentially in this offense, or at least

we believe it probably will be, especially with, you know, Derek Henry in the backfield, and then Julio next to him. Now, if Derek Henry goes down and they have to switch to like super pass heavy or something like that, which is possible, then all bets are off.

A.J. Brown still, I think, has the chance to be the overall wide receiver one. But I don't think people are probably not going to be taking him as the wide receiver one now. Just because of that fact, just because Julio's there, still don't really know what we're going to expect from the Titans offense and whether they'll be as efficient as they were last year.

But I still think AJ Brown is like an ascending elite receiver target and has a chance to, like if things fall right, he could still be in that conversation as the top receiver. Yeah, like, does it worry you that in an offense where his counterpart on the receiving end was Corey Davis, who was fine, who Arthur Smith, like, basically, like, Corey Davis should like Venmo Arthur Smith some money for his contract that he got into the Jets. just to say thank you. But so essentially we swapped out Corey Davis for Julio Jones and now Arthur Smith has gone

and the O.C. is like Todd Downing, I think. Yeah. Who hasn't really done it too much. But like, are you worried that in a year last year when AJ Brown had 70 catches, I know only only played 14 games? Like now his competition is even harder? Right.

Like, is there a possibility in which he has a worse season? Yeah. So that, I think that's an interesting thought is, and I've heard, I've seen some people talking about this. Like, is Julio Jones going to actually lead this team in targets, is the question. You know what I mean? Because everyone sort of assumes that that A.J. Brown is the number one guy there. And I think, you know, there's a good reason to assume that. Like, Julio's, you know, not over the hill, but he's certainly on, like, the decline in his career.

At this point, he's still an elite player. But, you know, he's not going to be the guy that we saw. in his prime. But then I look at the, so I look at the targets from last year, targets like distribution. Again, there's caveats here because it's not Arthur Smith anymore,

and so the offense could be different. But A.J. Brown had, and this is in the same amount of games, too, because Corey Davis and A.J. Brown both played 14 games. A.J. Brown had 106 targets. Corey Davis had 92. So not a very big difference. It wouldn't be all that surprising,

honestly, if Julio ends up with more targets than A.J. Brown. I wouldn't project that I think AJ Brown will still be the guy but that's enough to make me worry a little bit Yeah I mean Cory Davis had more yards per target than AJ Brown He caught the ball at a higher rate than AJ Brown I guess John Hussmith's gone

So if people are listening being like You haven't said John Hussmith yet He is gone So I guess that could change Open things up But like I don't know I don't think I'd be shocked If AJ Brown had another like 70 to 80 catch season

11, 1, 1,200 yards, 8 touchdowns, which is good, but it's not elite. Right. He's just so amazing physically to watch that I think it's hard not to have them this high. Yeah, I'm with you. So this is a good segue to another guy,

I think, who's in this same conversation, but I would say still, again, slightly lower than A.J. Brown, and certainly I don't think anyone's going to be taking this guy as the wide receiver one. But T.K. Metcalfe, I think he's in a very similar vein as AJ Brown because, number one,

they both are these huge physical athletic freaks who are just super fast, super explosive, all that stuff. But both of them have very concerning volume like deficiencies compared to some of the other guys in this range

compared to some of the other guys that were potentially going to be in this top tier of receivers. D.K. McCaff, remember, through eight weeks last week when everything was kind of going, the Seahawks way and they were doing that let Russ Cook thing, he was the wide receiver two in that stretch.

And he did it in a similar fashion as AJ Brown, which was like highly, highly efficient, scoring a lot of touchdowns last year. And then obviously the Seahawks slumped in the second half of the year. He fell off. He just, you know, obviously couldn't keep up that pace and he finished as

the wide receiver five. Sorry, hold on. He finished as the wide receiver seven. And after obviously that really hot start. And then Yeah. But again, it's like the same story. A.J. Brown, super efficient, but just not having enough targets.

D.K. Metcalfe finished 14th in targets. He had 124 among receivers. 83 catches, which is 17th. And then he had just a ton of yards, 13003 yards, which was sixth, and 10 touchdowns, which was sixth. So this begs the question. I mean, this is just a layup for you. I mean, who are the Seahawks going to be, first half for second half? Not to be a fence sitter, but,

Somewhere in the middle, I think, honestly. And I don't think they're going to be as crazy wide open, throw the ball 40, 50 times a game like we saw in the beginning of the season where Russ was just going off. I don't think that's who Pete Hara wants to be. And I think that's, he's going to make that change. However, even in the second half when the Seahawks fell off and everything went to shit, they still, like we talk, and I've been guilty of this too.

We talk about it like they went back into their shell and completely turned into a run first team. We talk about it like that, but it's not the case. Like, they turned in, they went from a uber, uber, uh, pass heavy team into like a just slightly less pass heavy team.

They're still a pretty like a neutral situation. It's still a relatively high pass rate team in the second half of the year. They just couldn't get the path. Like they just, their offense fell apart. They couldn't do the short intermediate stuff to help move the chains. Teams started playing the more cover two and like taking away the explosive plays. The Seahawks couldn't,

couldn't adjust to that. blah, blah, blah. That's why Schontheimer got fired. It's partly because I think he wanted to do philosophically something different than Pete Carroll wanted to do, but also because he couldn't adjust when teams started like figuring out how to take away explosive plays.

I don't think it's necessarily because he wanted to pass the wall more than Pete Carroll was. I think that's part of it. But I think long story short, Shane Waldron coming in, I don't think he's necessarily going to be like this super duper pass heavy, or sorry, super duper run heavy team. I still think he wants to pass.

He was a passing game coordinator for the Rams. He wasn't the running game. He was three years. So, I don't know. I still think that they'll be efficient offense. I think they're going to be slightly more balanced than they were last year, especially in the first half. But I don't think they're necessarily just going to go back to be in this really slow, run the ball on first and second down, hope to convert on third down type offense that we've seen, generally speaking, in the P. Carroll era. I think they're going to be dynamic.

There's a lot of talk about them up tempo, like playing up tempo in preseason. Sorry, in training camp. That's like been one of the main talking points from Russell Wilson and a few of the receivers. So I don't know. I'm still bullish. I would not take DK McHaff first, though. I just think the volume thing is going to be a problem. You're very much reliant on him scoring a bunch of touchdowns, which could happen.

But it's one of those high variance stats that you can't really rely on. I will say, sorry, DK Metcalfe was sixth in end zone targets last year. And I think, I think Tyler Lockett was second. So Russell Wilson's chucking bombs into the end zone. You know what I mean? Like that's like their deal is like big plays. Give our guys a chance. You know, throw the ball downfield.

Russell Wilson's elite, elite accuracy downfield. So I don't know. I'm still somewhat, I'm definitely still bullish on the kid Matt Kaft, but I'm not overall wide receiver one bullish. I'd still probably take AJ Brown over Metcalf, take all the other guys we've mentioned. And then also, I guess I'll pitch it to you. Is there another guy here that you'd probably take over Metcalf in drafts?

Oh, boy. There's like, there's boring. I think I would think about Keenan Allen and Justin Jefferson. Yeah. Who do you like more of that out of those two? We got to talk about Justin Jefferson. I feel like I haven't. It's so hard when you've only seen one season of a guy.

Right. It's like, it's hard to just induct him into the Fantasy Hall of Fame so quickly. Right. But he might be there. So we have him, let's see, Hopkins. We have Jefferson right after A.J. Brown. and right before D.K. Metcalfe, which maybe those will shuffle as we go throughout this offseason, but like, you have it here in the dock. The big question is like, is he going to do it again?

Is this an outlier? I would probably argue, no. He was amazing to watch. He was pro football focus's number two graded wide receiver, like, as a rookie, which is insane. Yeah, yeah. And Thielen had 14 touchdowns, and he still did it. Only Devontah Adams averaged more yards per outrun than Justin Jefferson. So I went back. Pretty insane. I looked at the 10 best rookie wide receiver fantasy seasons the last 20 years. Let me read them to you.

Odell, Mike Evans, Michael Thomas, Mike Williams on the Bucks, Calvin Benjamin, AJ Green, Marcus Colston, Keenan Allen, Julio Jones, and Amari Cooper. Pretty much one of those guys sucks, and it's Kelvin. Everyone else is good. So I think the odds would tell you, Justin Jefferson's really fucking good. You know what I mean?

None of those guys suck. So maybe he wanted to 1400 yards next season. But you know who else didn't? Everyone but DeAndre Hopkins and Stefan Diggs last year. Yeah, the question to me is not whether he's good. I think it's extremely safe to say he's an elite receiver. And the only question is then, like, can he produce that level of efficiency and a level of yards and touchdowns or whatever? Again, this is like a lower volume run heavy offense.

like they very much focused their offense around Dalvin Cook. I don't think that's changing necessarily. Your Thielen point was interesting because I saw a stat the other day, and I apologize because I forget who I saw this from. I was on Twitter. But points coming from touchdowns. Oh, he's got to be first. Thielen was first last year and first the year before, I believe,

in terms of like his points that came from touchdowns. He's so touchdown reliant. Now, I will say they... clearly trust Thielen in the red zone. He's like one other go-to guys in that area. He's so good at getting open. He's so good at the catch point, blah, blah, blah. I would say, though,

Justin Jefferson is very good at both of those things, too. So, like, would it surprise you at all? If Jefferson ate into some of Theelan's red zone role, end zone role, where he starts getting more touchdowns. How many touchdowns did Jefferson score last year? I can't remember off the top of my head. But it wouldn't surprise me. if he has fewer yards potentially

and maybe a few fewer catches, but just has more touchdowns. He had seven. Yeah, and you said, Thielen had 14. But they have a very similar skill set in terms of the ability to separate elite at the catch point.

Like, that was one of Justin Jefferson's biggest thing is he's like catch point dominator in college. And so, you know, it just would not be too big of a surprise to see him be the guy that scores like 10 plus touchdowns this year rather than Thielen. Yeah, and you have to factor in, like getting started as a rookie.

I mean, like the first two, three, four games, like I'm sure Kirk had a lot more trust in Thielen. Thielen started really hot. Like, Justin Jefferson had 14 red zone targets and Thielen had 23. I could see those meeting in the middle next year and being 17 and 17. Thelan's probably underrated.

Yeah. I think he's just white and 30 years old. Everyone's like, well, he's done. Even though Julio's 32 and no one cares. Right. But, yeah, I think the only thing about Justin Jefferson is like, it's more emotional than it is statistical. It's like, I don't know, he's so young.

He did it once. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. It's so tough. I think it's pretty much the same conversation, though, with like the A.J. Brown, D.K. MacK. McCaff conversation is like, is he going to have the volume? Is he going to get enough targets to really be, to outplay what he did as a rookie?

Are you buying him or whatever drafting him at his peak? And then expecting him to do something even more next year, which is probably, I guess, unlikely. I mean, what's more likely that? he'll have 1,400 yards plus or fewer than that. You know, I think it's more likely he'll have fewer than that. But what's more likely that he'll have seven touchdowns or less or more than seven touchdowns? I know. Well, that's the hard thing is it's very difficult to predict touchdowns.

It's so even with the elite guys, like it's up and down every year. So I don't know. All three of those guys. I mean, it's like D.K., Justin Jefferson, and A.J. Brown. One of them will probably ascend into the top five next year. Which one? They all had these great starts. Yeah, it's like which one?

I think weirdly my bet is, oh, I don't know, actually shit. For some reason, I don't think it's AJ Brown. I think it's Justin Jefferson or DK Metcalf. Interesting. I love, I mean, I don't know. Man. Who would you take in Dynasty among these three? Who would be your number one guy?

You're sitting on the clock, start of draft. These three guys are on the board. Who you take in? I think I'm taking. Wow. Wow, this is really hard. I think the consensus is probably A.J. Brown. I think he's just got that rep.

But I'm thinking hard about Justin Jefferson, probably. Even D.K. MacC., why not D.K.? Yeah, because D.K. is tethered to Russell Wilson. Yeah, he's tethered to Russell Wilson. And I don't know. I think that this is, like, getting into the weeds and dynasty or whatever. But, like, D.K. Metcalfe, to me, seems like he might have the shortest career timeline, based compared to these other two guys.

Because he's so giant? Yeah, he's big, number one. And he's so reliant on his elite explosiveness. He's like dead. I'm just like thinking of Des Bryant. Yeah, essentially. And so like that's my main slight worry. I'm not worried about it because you're going to get

five, six good years at least. But yeah, Jefferson to me is like such a good route runner. He's so, you know, tough of the catch point. He's a type of guy I could play into his 30s. And AJ Brown is kind of a combo of the two. so I don't know. Yeah.

But yeah. So rounding this out here, I believe this is our ninth guy. I think Keenan Allen should be in the top 10, even though he's a little boring. He's like pretty much the opposite of those three previous guys because he's old. Ish, he's 20. Old for a football player. He's been around. But dude, if you go back and you look at what he's done last season, he was second only to

Devante Adams in targets per game. That is a big, that's a very important thing to remember. Yeah. especially the fact that it was with a rookie. I'll repeat the staff that I said last, a couple episodes ago. Keenan Allen was just the fifth guy ever to finish as a wide receiver won while playing with a rookie quarterback. Think about the, think about if he makes a big jump this year, Justin Herbert.

Herbert. I know. Like, the ceiling is ridiculous with this. And this is still an offense that didn't, like, again, it didn't add many other guys. Like, they're going to force feed Keenan Allen. He gets a ton of his targets in the slot. In theory, this could be a better offense. We'll see what happens with Joe Lombardi at the OC,

but I feel like it's almost like a given that they're going to be better than what they were last year. I don't know. I just, I wasn't confident in that coaching staff. They'll in, blah, blah, blah. I'm just like much more bullish.

There's a fan to align for like who could lead the league in catches and there's a, you want to make kind of a sleeper pick. Keenan, I think, is a fucking great pick to lead the league catches. So that's, I think, the differentiation between the wide receiver one in fantasy. and the guy who leads the league in catches is, Keenan Allen, I think, has a solid chance to lead the league in targets and catches.

However, the role he plays is just, he's going to have to, like, lead the league in catches by a lot to be the wide receiver one, because last year, he was fifth in catches in 14 games. So he played two fewer games in a lot of guys. He's still fifth and catches 100. He was second, like you said, in targets per game, 10 and a half. So he's averaging double-digit targets a game.

however he was 17th in yards he did not break a thousand yards and he only scored four touchdowns so he's not getting into the end zone as much as you want he was the wide receiver 14 and half ppr we're talking about a guy who's outside the top 10 outside the top 12 last year as potential wide receiver 1 i think this is a stretch so i guess the idea the question is like can he get enough volume to like outpace all these other guys significantly and or just can he get more touchdowns Like, you don't, we don't really know about that second one. Like, that's such an impossible thing to predict. I think there is a chance.

He just has so much volume, though, that he breaks into, like, the top three. He's got to go full Michael Thomas. Exactly, exactly, yeah. You know, who had, like, 190 catches to make himself the wide receiver one in the whole league. Totally. But, you know, they are losing Hunter Henry, but Hunter Henry had four touchdowns. Not crazy. Mike Williams had five touchdowns.

Like, the Chargers, there was no real touchdown, like, Dominator. Echler was hurt a lot. So I'm expecting the Chargers offense to just score more touchdowns and kind of regress. You know what I mean? Positively. Right, right. Yeah. I mean, I think you're chasing the idea that that Herbert has a big second year boom.

And then Keenan Allen is the main beneficiary that, which both things seem like definitely doable. Like both are in the realm of possibility. All right. So we've got, let's just a recap here, obviously, Tyree Kill, Devanti Adams, Stefan Diggs, does the clear top tier. and then you could put Calvin Ridley and Andre Hopkins in there, I think, as well. And then we just talked about AJ Brown,

Justin Jefferson, D.K. McCaff, and Keenan Allen. Who are we missing here as, like, who we underrating, basically, as a potential top guy? So this works out nicely, because that's nine guys, and we're kind of, who's going to be our 10th,

who rounds out the top 10? And I want to make the argument and run it by you for Amari Cooper, who I don't think is being respected, the way he should be. Oh, okay. No one thinks about Amari Cooper. I don't know why.

It's weird. that Oakland stink is still on him, I suppose. Yeah. But I want to just kind of run down who Amari Cooper really is. I was really on him when he was in Oakland. I thought he was great. I remember we talked around the show, and then he went to Dallas and kind of took off.

So he's had three seasons with Dak Prescott. Only one of them was a full season. But if you look at those three seasons in 2018, where he played half the season when he was traded from Oakland, in 2018 he was the wide receiver eight on Dallas. Then the next year, full season. He was the wide receiver 9. And then last year, before Dak got hurt, he was the wide receiver three. Really? So that's it. Eight, nine, and three. And last year was with C.D. Lamb, who was the

wide receiver 14 in that stretch and with Michael Gallup, they were all healthy. And he was the wide receiver three. He averages nearly four more points in PPR per game with Dak Prescott. He's so much better with Dak. Yeah. I attached a little picture that you can see. Those are his four games with Dak before where Dak got hurt. 14 targets, nine targets, 12 targets, 16 targets. Damn. This dude has never been anything worse than a wide receiver 9 with Dak Prescott.

And fantasy pros has him as the wider seeer of 14. And also people, I think, have this notion that he's injury prone. He's not, he's not Joel Embed. He's missed two games in the last four seasons. He's just not injury prone. Maybe we thought he was. He's not.

So we must ask ourselves, D.K., why? Is it just, oh, there's too many targets in Dallas that's not going to go around? Well, he's not going to get enough. Yes, I think the prevailing thought, there's a couple of them. Number one, people are expecting a big jump from CD Lamb. There's a lot of mouths to feed, quote unquote, in this offense, blah, blah, blah. I think the big thing, number two, is I don't think people are going to, people are not expecting the Cowboys to be as insanely pass heavy as they were in those four games.

Like, DAC was averaging like 450 passing yards a game in those. Like, I don't think, like people are saying, and I think it's probably smart to not like expect this, that's not. that's not going to happen over a full season. So you're not going to see Amari Cooper average 13 targets a game for the entire season. If he does, however, clear wide receiver one potential.

Like if he's averaging 13 targets a game, that's like way better than even Devante Adams last year. I mean, it doesn't matter. He's been a wide receiver one every single year of his career. I'm talking about the wide receiver one. Oh, sure, sure, sure. So I don't know, man. I think you have to kind of like expect

the cowboys to not pass that much, obviously. But even if they don't pass that much, like, you're right. I think he still has, like, the upside to be the overall wide receiver one, if not, like, top three. Let me ask you, who do you feel more strongly about? Who do you trust more to round out this top 10, to fit in at number 10? Who you like more than him?

Who do I like more than him? The one guy I'd say that we're really missing here is Michael Thomas. And the problem, obviously, with Michael Thomas is the quarterback situation is totally up in the air in New York. Orleans. We don't know who the starter is going to be. However, whether it's Taysom Hill or James Winston, I think every fantasy person that doesn't have Taysam Hill on their team is hoping it's James Winston because James Winston is fantasy gold, the amount of like his his his, his, his yolo ball like style plus his like his pension to turn the ball over. Like that's great for fantasy.

However, I do, so I think there's a chance that it's going to be Taysom Hill. In any case, Like, if it is Taysome Hill, let's say it is Taysam Hill. His, Michael Thomas's targets with Taysam Hill as a starter were 12, 6, 11, and 8. So really good numbers. Like, really good target rate. Like, Taysam Hill is definitely still making Thomas, like, a viable, like, maybe not the overall wide receiver one, but a wide receiver one. His target, sorry, he averaged Thomas did in that stretch. 7.5 catches, 85 yards per game.

that would be a 120 catch, 1,372-yard pace over 16 games. Again, I'm just going to use 16 games for the most part because people know the context of that. Like, adding a... You know what I mean? So whatever. Regardless, the point is he has like a pretty damn high ceiling, I think even if Taysam Hills ends up being the starter,

like 150 target, you know, 120 catch ceiling, even if Taysam Hills is a start. And that goes up probably. in all likelihood if James is the starter. So I don't know, like, when we were putting together this doc, I was looking at where we have Michael Thomas, and I think we have him way too low, you know, in our rankings. Like, in our current early, early rankings,

we've got him as the wide receiver 12, which doesn't sound crazy, but it does feel to me like he's too low. I think this is a smart call. I think he's somebody that a lot of people aren't going to be interested in in drafts, people who just kind of show up on draft day, and be like, who should I take? And they're like, oh, Michael Thomas.

Oh, he sucked last year, and now Drew Breeze is gone. Yeah, he was always hurt, whatever, yeah. So I think this is a smart fantasy drafters pick. It's not particularly exciting because what's exciting about the Saints this year? But I was even surprised. When you listed out his targets at Tassam Hill, I was like, okay, 12, 6, 11, and 8. But, like, how many those are good targets?

How many of those did he catch? And then you were like, oh, he averaged seven for 85. And I was like, oh, that's pretty good. Zero touchdowns. The one thing I didn't mention, zero touchdowns in that stretch, which, again, to say it, like, for the fifth time in the show, it's very difficult to, like, predict. Touchdowns are not, like, a sticky stat where, like, if you score 10 touchdowns, you're expected to score 10 touchdowns again the next year.

Like, it's just there are a random, you know, highly volatile stat in football. Touchdowns, you have, like, four or five a game. Like, for both teams. You know what I mean? Like, on a good day, you have four touchdowns on your own team. It's more like two or three. So just remember that. It's tough to predict touchdowns.

However, like, you just want to chase volume. Yeah, I guess the worry is that the Saints turn into, like, Army in the red zone and just start running like Taseham Hill. That is the problem. Yeah. And that's why I like Taysam Hill as a sleeper, by the way, going back to our last episode. But, yeah, I mean, I think Michael Thomas, again, like, dude, you just mentioned it a few minutes ago. Like, he had, like, 100 and whatever targets in that, in that just freaky crazy season. I'm not saying he's going to do that again.

but he's the guy in this offense. You know what I mean? Like, are we expecting Traquan Smith to get 100 targets? Are we expecting Adam Troutman? Yeah, there's no one else. It's him and Camara. It's Michael Thomas and Camara, really.

And then a few other guys that could, like, steal, they could siphon off some targets, but they're not going to be big target guys. Do you think Thomas is a top five talent at wide receiver? I mean, that's, off the top of my head, that's tough. There's just so many good receivers in this league right now. I think he's... But you would have said that after 2019, right?

Yeah, and I know, yes. And I would have said he's a top five route runner. Yeah. Overall receiver, I don't know. It's tough. Like, it's really tough to put him over guys like AJ Brown, Justin Jefferson, like now. You know, this year we're going to see, I think, breakouts from guys like C.D. Lamb, blah, blah, blah. Like, you know what I mean?

It's just like there's so many good receivers and so many arguments for like why guys are better. But, I mean, just look like Tyree Kiel, Devante Adams, Stefan Diggs, Calvin Diggs, Calvin Rigg's. Calvin Ridley, Hopkins, AJ Brown, Jefferson, Metcalf, Keenan Allen. Top five receiver is like, that's a big deal. I don't know if I put him there.

I don't know. What do you think? It's tough because I feel like it's recency bias, like you're just going to say. I mean, his 2018 and 2019 need 125 catches and then 149 and nine touchdowns each.

I think we would have said absolutely. But you're at, recent C bias is really hard, and new young guys keep coming to league and playing really well, and it's just really tough. And we didn't even mention like Alan Robinson, Mike Evans, Julio Jones, you know, Terry McLaren. I'm not putting Terry McLaren above Michael Thomas.

But like there's just so many good young receivers in the NFL. And you still have Julio. Right. And it sucks because I think if Alan Robinson was on the Packers, I think we'd call him like a top two. Totally, totally. Yeah. All right. There's one other guy that I think could, I don't think he should be ranked in the top 10,

but I think we're undervaluing him and he could easily be in the top 10. come the end of the year, and I think it's Chris Godwin on the bucks. Okay. So let me give you my little spiel. Yeah. Mike Evans didn't miss a game last year.

He played all 16. He finished with five more catches than Chris Godwin, who played 12. And Chris Godwin wasn't even healthy. Evans' Evans' target rate was, like, concerning. Did you know that he had,

I think I saw this, Mike Evans had like a 17% target rate, which is like really low. He was basically relying. He was the goal line receiver. You remember that? Like, he was very reliant on touchdown. The first wide receiver fullback.

So, yeah. Okay, keep going. So, yeah, and in those 12 games, Godwin placed, he got a concussion week one. He hurt his hamstring, and I think he broke his finger. Yeah, he was banged up all year. The year before last, year before last 2019, he was the overall wide receiver two, overall while playing only 14 games with James. He was number two behind Michael Thomas.

Yeah. And I think people would say they would lean to like, Well, James is a guy who takes risks. They threw more. It's a different offense. They threw the ball. James threw the ball four more times than the Bucks did in 2020. So it's essentially the same amount of passes.

Oh, wow. That's a surprise. And Godwin's yards per target in 2019 was 11 yards per target. In 2020, it was 10 yards per target. So nothing crazy. And also, I think we think Tom Brady, you know, he's very old. So I think you would kind of assume that means you don't throw the ball far. Brady was tied for first with Drew Locke for average target depth last year.

They fucking slang the ball. Brady had such a fucking good season. He was so good, especially down the stretch, man. He was just lighting it up. And down the stretch, he learned to trust Godwin. I mean, in the season, Godwin had six targets in 10 of 12 games. And he kind of blossomed in the playoffs before the Super Bowl, where they had that really weird game plan.

Godwin averaged five catches for 74 yards in those three playoff games. You know, I know the argument would be he has a lot of target competition with Mike Evans with Antonio Brown and Gronk. But I'm a fan. I think this is going to be where one of the tent polls of my off season is talking about teams like Dallas, like Cincinnati, where I like these guys on offenses that are going to throw a lot and have a lot of good players because their floor is already really high and their ceiling is insane where somebody to go down. I mean, last year the Bucks were six in passing attempts, fourth in passing yards, and second in passing touchdowns. And that was in a COVID year where the Bucks, I mean, they did not practice together. And they had a really like, yeah, he's starting a new offense, new teammates, all that stuff, new, new co.

And they had a really rough middle of the season. They like really went into a funk and put it all together towards the end of the year. And it's like they didn't add, they didn't draft Najee Harris or trade for Zeke Elliott. Like there's not, I don't think they're running game. I mean, they still just have Ronald Jones. I don't think they're going to be anything too different offensively. So my question would be is. I don't think Bruce Ariens wants to be.

I think he wants to be aggressive and pass the ball over the field, go deep, all that stuff. Couldn't they be better? I guess is my question. And when Godwin's healthy and I think he's better than Mike Evans. I really like the, yeah. So like my first concern was when you were talking and you addressed it was

well, they're going to like basically evenly distribute passes between Mike Evans, A.J. Brown. Or sorry, not A.J. Brown, but Antonio Brown. And then you still have to deal with like they have a couple good tight ends and Gronk and O.J. Howard. It's just like the volume

and the target share thing worries me. but I do like what you're saying about how he's got a really good solid floor and a good elite ceiling. And that's the kind of guys you want to chase in fantasy. Like solid floor, elite ceiling. And so I like that. And I mean, for all we know,

Chris Godwin is just the best receiver on this offense right now. Like Antonio Brown's older. Mike Evans, you know, kind of plays a different role. At least he did last year in this offense. And we could see Chris Godwin end up being the volume guy. I mean, it wouldn't be terribly surprising. Mike Evans is so weird.

I feel like if he didn't have that 1,000 yard every season thing, people wouldn't think he's as good. Like, he had one year where he had 1,001 yards. And if he had 999 that year, I'm not sure we don't. Yeah, I really think so. No one could mention that stat anymore. And it'd be like, oh, he's good. He's just like a deep threat, glorified Mike Williams.

No, I mean, Mike Evans is really good. He's really good. He's really good. He's better. Yeah. So that's my only guy, I think, come like week five, we're like, Jesus Christ, Godwin's got nine catches a game and Brady's peppering him. I can see it.

Yeah. I'm just looking down the list. So I mentioned them before. Alan Robinson, Mike Evans, Julio Jones, Chris Godwin. Sorry, you just talked about Chris Godwin. Terry McLaurin, C.D. Lamb making a big second year jump. Robert Woods, Tyler Lockett, Adam Thielen, DJ, Mark Cooper Cup. I think all these guys are solid, like, you know, whatever tier that is, but not pretty solidly not in the top tier, right?

Maybe Alan Robinson? Just the only thing is that wide receivers with rookie quarterbacks have a terrible track record. There you go. There you go. So that's the only thing. I think he's physically in the top 10, but I'm just a little worried that. I think last year is like best case scenario. I can't wait to see McLaurin with Fitzpatrick. I think that's going to be fun. They're going to be like a such defensive strong, strong defensive team.

I doubt they'll have the volume to make him an elite guy, but that's going to be a lot of fun to watch. and then CD Lamb, honestly, it wouldn't surprise me that much if he was the number one over Amari Cooper this year, although I still would say odds are Amari Cooper's the guy. I could see them both being top 10 guys.

Yeah. Even Michael Gallup post-type sleeper this year. I'm excited for that episode. Ooh, I like that one. I really like Michael Gallup. I think he's so much fun. Plus, and this is a point that I've been hearing a lot on podcast lately.

Like, if either Amari Cooper or CD Lamb got hurt, like Gallup could be a top 10 receiver, legitimately. And it's like how many guys can you draft 40th who have the chance

to be a top 10 guys? That's why I love just draft a bangle and draft a fucking cowboy because if one ankle twists they're a top 15 wide receiver and they're playing football. Yeah, I love that.

Anyways, I think that's it. What else do we got? Nothing. I wanted to shout out a new fan of the show. I don't actually, he's not a new fan of the show but I've recently been introduced

to him through a friend, my friend Connor McMillan. Trenton, What's up, Trenton? If you're listening, hell yeah. Nice. Nice. All right. So we'll be back with you next week. High Fitz will be back. So you want to have to listen to my weird, strange-sounding introduction that I'm still working on. Thank you for bearing with me on that. High-Fitz is the bring-the-energy guy, so we'll get him back in starting the show. Yeah, what are we going to be? So we're going to be, again, to reiterate, we're going to have a fantasy football draft guy dropping at some point in July.

So look out for that. We're going to go to three shows a week once. that drops. However, next couple weeks as we finish out June, we're going to go two a week. We're still sticking with two a week. And then, yeah, man, it's already ramping up. I'm really excited about the season. I can't wait to start digging into, like you said, the sleepers and all that stuff. Yeah, I've already tinkered. Last night, I was literally thinking about my top 10, and I was tinkering with it. Yeah. I've already moving stuff around. I already don't like what I did. I think it's going to be, I'm going to drive myself insane with trying to make my top 10 by the end of the year.

Yeah. I mean, I'm just making this list right now. I'm already like, I need to move guys around. So we'll be updating our top 150. You can find the current version up at the ringer.com. You can find my dynasty rookie rankings up, the top 60 dynasty rookie rankings at the ringer. com. What else?

Do you want to plug anything else? What's going on with Flying Coach this week? First episode of the two-part Troy Aikman series came out today. Troy Aitman was fucking incredible. Ooh. I mean, I will admit, I was slightly skeptical because when you think of these, like, big media personalities, you're like, what is this guy going to say? They'll just go through the motions, but yeah, yeah.

McVeigh and Shreger are so good. And Aikman was just amazing. We went for two hours, and we're like, we got to make this two parts. So the first part is out now. It's awesome. The second part will come next week. And then our episode eight, we have a very, very highly requested big name guest that we have already recorded.

Man. I got to say, and I'm not just saying this because you're the producer, if you guys like fantasy football, there's a lot of nuggets in these in these episodes because they're talking to head coaches, you know what I mean? They're talking to guys that are in the know. Sean McVeigh is the freaking host. So, or I get co-hosts or whatever. So, I mean, there's a lot of really interesting nuggets from a fantasy point of view. Obviously, from a football point of view, it's like gold. I mean, listening to some of the, I love the stories that they share, like, of the background stuff, like how they prepare, how they prepare, how they. coach during games and things that could go wrong. Like all that stuff is great, but like there's also tons of fantasy tidbits. So definitely go listen to Flying Coach. Subscribe to that. Thank you guys for listening. Well, again, we'll have Hyfitts back next week and it'll be back to the three of us.

Thank you, Lorne. Thank you, Mariah Carey. There we go. All right, we'll see you guys next week. Which is great because she has a great song called Fantasy, which is my favorite song of Mariah Carey. Great song. Damn, maybe that should be, I'm going to see if, I'm going to talk some Spotify people. get that as our new intro music. That'd be really good.

I would love that. All right. See you guys next week.