The Ringer NFL Show - Why Is It So Hard to Rank the League’s Top Receivers?

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

Ben and Steven continue their offseason deep dive into some of the biggest questions around the league. This week, they look at the shifting landscape of the wide receiver position. They discuss whether receivers are now a premium position in the league, with the recent flux of large contracts being signed (03:26). Then, they look at the recent wave of high-impact WRs drafted into the league (15:51) before delving into their own lists of the top 10 wide receivers (31:12). Hosts: Ben Solak and Steven Ruiz Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Follow the show now on Spotify. And do us a favor. Give us five stars. And do us another favor and stay major. Howdy. I'm Ben Solac and this is The Ringer NFL show. I'm joined today by the wonderful Stephen Ruiz. Stephen say hi to the people.

Hi people. And today we're talking about the position that has received. You see that? You see that? Yeah. It's terrible. It has received more. attention than any other over the last NFL offseason cycle. That's wide receiver.

Last offseason, new contracts or extensions were signed for Tyree Kill, Devonte Adams, Cooper Cup, AJ Brown, Stefan Diggs, D.K. Medcaf, Feebo, Samuel, Terry McLoren, and DJ Moore. Those are the top nine wide receiver contracts in the league right now by average value per year, and they were all signed last season. And of course, three of those top four were all traded for big draft capital. So all this movement makes it really tough to riddle out the state of the position. Our DJ Moore and Mike William, really worth 20 million per year. How valuable is T. Hagan's to the Bengals

with a Jamar Chase extension looming? This is a shifting landscape, but we don't shy from a challenge. We are going to talk about why the receiver market is undergoing such a change and try to pin down just who are the best receivers in the league and how a team should view their contracts and trade prices. Today on the ringer NFL show,

why it's so hard to rank the league's top receivers and then also we're going to try to rank the league's top receivers. Stephen, I feel like we've done a ton of offseason position ranking pods together with one another over the years, and we know that they suck and are challenging. With that said, last year, here was your top 10 receivers in the pod that we did

with me, you and Kevin. At 10, you had Calvin Ridley. Okay, this is when we knew he wasn't going to play for a whole season. That was a gimmick pick,

okay? That was a gimmick pick. Nine was the Andre Hopkins, eight was Jamar Chase, seven, AJ Brown, six Mike Evans, five Cooper Cup, four, Sifon Diggs,

three, Tyreek Hill, two Justin Jefferson, one Devante Adams. How do you feel about that? It's pretty good. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling like I know a little ball. I think on that pot,

I said Jefferson had a really good chance of being the number one guy when we did this list the next year. I feel good about that. Tyrick Hill, a little bounce back year after maybe a little down year in Kansas City. He was even better without Mahomes.

I feel good about this list. I do too. I do find it funny that Calvin Ridley is not on your top 10 for later in the pod because I've seen it. Obviously, when you don't play a whole season for gambling suspension, something you knew was going to happen, by the way,

out of the top 10 there a little bit. Yeah, it was a no risk pick because, like, there was no chance of him embarrassing me. Well, I'm honest, it was a high risk pick because me and Stephen, or me and Kevin got on your case about him for a few minutes. So, yeah, the rankings pods

are always really tough, and they're never tougher, I think, than a wide receiver. And there's a lot of reasons for that. Even before this big contract boom, I think that there's such a variety of body types to play wide receiver and such a variety of roles for wide receiver and different guys, different offenses, do different things.

and they get targets funneled to them and production can be empty. It's just a whole mess. But when we go to talk about the position and like the state of it, you have to start with the market bump that happened last year. And it's easy to say,

oh, Ben, like every year, the cap's going up. Like every year, there's a new record setting contract and somebody's making more. And that's all true. But there was a legitimate bump last year at wide receiver.

Adam Harstad, one of my favorite writers at football guys, wrote about how the top wide receiver contracts up until last season were about like 10. 5% of the cap every single year. So as the cap went up, the contracts went up, but they stayed roughly about 10.5% of the cap. Last year, you saw them jump to more than 11.2%, 11.5%.

You now see guys like DJ Moore and Mike Williams making functionally 10% of the cap. So there was a big jump last year, no two ways around it. So we start with the question, Stephen, of why? People now, like, throw around premium position, like wide receivers are premium position. They just kind of say it as if it's assumed. But like two or three years ago, I don't really think we were saying, that with so much confidence. So is wide receiver a premium position? And if so, why did that happen? How did that happen? What's responsible for that bump? I think that it is definitely a

premium position. And it's not us that decides what's a premium position. It's the league. Like they decided by paying them and giving them these contracts. And the league overwhelmingly has said wide receiver is a premium position. Why has it happened? I think it's two things. I think it's directly connected to, I don't even know what to call it, but I feel like the idea of supporting a young quarterback is as strong as it's ever been. Teams get criticized for not putting receivers around quarterbacks, more so now that I believe that they did back in the day.

Like even Tom Brady, you think about Tom Brady when he first started in New England, he was throwing at like David Givens and like Troy Brown. Like these aren't guys that really are known as. stars until he got Jabar Gaffney Jabby? I love the good Javar Gaffney game.

But yeah, and no one complained really. No one was really like, oh yeah, Tom Brady doesn't have enough help around him. That was definitely using arguments against Peyton Manning

when they compared the two, but no one really brought that up or made a stink about it. And you think about other receivers or other quarterbacks around the league at the time. That really wasn't a thing. And now it is.

Now it feels like when a quarterback fails, we put it on the team more than we put it on the player. Like, Jamarcus Russell, for instance, is a good... Like, he gets all the blame for being a bus, being the biggest bust ever, and no one really

blames the Raiders for it. I think that's changed. So I think teams are kind of more aware and they're more intentional about bringing in not only support systems, but support systems that I think fans in media can recognize. Like, we could point to the bills giving Josh Allen, Stefan Diggs,

and be like, oh, yeah, they're trying to help they're trying to help Alan develop. Right. There's so much chicken and egg when we talk about good quarterbacks and then the good wide receivers that are on their teams because it's really hard to be one without being the other. I think that like if we I'm going off the dome here. If you look at the last like five years of quarterbacks, six years of quarterbacks, who's a guy who got good without like the legit top 20 receiver on his team? Marr? Lamar. Yeah. Lamar and like there's the Mark Andrews. conversation, but tight end really conflates this argument.

Like tight ends can accumulate a lot of stats, but I don't necessarily think Mark Andrews impacts an offense, like it impacts a defense the way like, even like Brandon Cooks did for Jared Goff in 2017. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, I. Yeah, only, only 8% of his, his targets, Andrews last year were deep. And like to compare that to the average receiver and it's like 10, 11%. Like that's the difference.

No matter how good you are. Like even, even Travis Kelsey, who I would be, he's the one tight end. I would be willing to kind of include in this exercise and rank them. And if I ranked him, I'd probably put him around eighth or ninth. But even Kelsey, only 5% of his targets were like over 20 air yards. And that changes things for the offense. It changes the geometry for the defense. And they don't really have to concern the third level of the defense doesn't really

have to concern themselves with like the Mark Andrews and the Kelsey's of the world. That's not really what they have to worry about. So you don't really see those adjusted structures of coverage because they're on the field. Whereas, like you said, Brandon Cook's in his heyday, even though he's probably like a fringe top 10 receiver, he was changing what the defense did on third down because of his speed.

Right, and I was saying they had cup there for golf as well, like this was even pre-Cup being being cut. If you look like last year, like I'm looking at just drop back EPA for offenses overall. Best was Kansas City elite quarterback. Bills had an elite quarterback and then like a near elite receiver elite receiver. Third is the Lions.

Ammon Ross St. Brown, like I had to legitimately sit down and make sure I understood my argument for not having them on Ross St. Brown as a top 10 receiver. Because like from a third down perspective, from a first down efficiency, like moving the change perspective, he's one of the best in the league. Regards for outrun, he's French top 10. Like, you go and you start looking at some of these other teams that are top 10 and EPA per dropback. San Francisco at four, no elite quarterback, Miami at eight, no elite quarterback.

Minnesota at 10, no elite quarterback. Dallas and nine, no elite quarterback. What's the thing that all these teams have that's solving the quarterback issue? It's not like great offensive line play. It's not emphatically like great offensive coordinator ring. I think there's a lot of good offensive coordinator ring there, but it's not the one unifying thing. It's the elite receiver, right?

It's the Justin Jefferson and it's the CD Lamb, and it's the Tyree Kill and the Jaylon Bottle that are kind of booing this. I think that, again, like it's an off-the-cuff argument, but I do think that it's hard to be a top 10. It's extremely difficult to be a top-10 team. but you pay for dropback, a top passing offense by that metric, if you don't have one of the two following,

elite quarterback or elite receiver? And obviously, like, if you have elite quarterback and no elite receiver, you probably still have to have a functional group. If you have just elite receiver, you probably still need to have, like, a functional quarterback, Kurt Cousins and Brock Purdy and Dak Prescott and whatever.

But, like, those are the, you got to have one of the two. And obviously, quarterback's more important, but wide receiver's presence in that argument, I think is difficult to ignore relative to like, oh, elite pass protection. I don't think you see that as clearly in like the top offenses. No, not at all. And like teams like the Bengals,

those teams are even hard to kind of like parse out just because of the relationship between those receivers, T. Higgins and Jemar Chase, their style will play how they win. And then Joe Burrow style of play and how he wins. And it's like, this is the perfect matchup. And like at that point, it's kind of hard to put a number on the value of a player.

Like T. Higgins, for instance, where whereas like with the chiefs, Chiefs, the Chiefs are a team that I think could move on from Mathee Higgins and not even think about it. They basically did that with Tyree Kill. I guess soon as the contract became a problem, he was in Miami like a month later. I think with the Bengals, it's a different sort of formula and it's a little more sensitive. The build is a little more sensitive. And I don't think you could just like be taken out pieces of it.

Imagine the bills moving on from Stefan Diggs. Right. What did Josh Allen say on Monday? What did Josh Allen say on Monday? He said, this doesn't work what we're doing here without Stefan Diggs. You watch them play on offense. And yeah, he's right. Yeah.

And then I think a year ago, we all would have said, like, yo, imagine the chief's offense without Tyree Kill. Like, that's kind of crazy. And then they won the Super Bowl with Cadarius Tony and Juju Smith's Schuster. And it's just like, okay, the cheese are such a bad example or item for comparison because Mahomes is singular. Mahomes is unique. I think probably, okay, if we're talking offenses right now where you could knock the

top receiver out. and they would endure. Packers didn't. I don't think the Eagles could. I think the Eagles would be fine, but I think A.J. Brown getting into that offense was a big deal for that offense. I can actually, I can kind of prove it a little bit.

If we look at 2021 number versus 22 numbers, I don't think you can knock him out of the Dolphins offense and be okay. The Raiders is interesting because, like, Devante's individual performance was amazing, but the offense was just kind of mid. and I think that all previous Derek car offenses were kind of mid. So there is a, there's a conversation to be had about like how much did he elevate.

Dallas, man, good night on Dallas. No chance, right? With the way Gallup was playing last season after they lost to Marty Cooper, like you couldn't have lost CD-LAM. And so it's, I think Chiefs, nonwithstanding, you can't really lose the elite receiver. Like at this point, like they're pretty much lynch pins in the passing game. They are bottlenecks.

You can't do it without one. and that's why you start to, I think, see these things get elevated to a premium position. And then, like, that's just the first tier. We're talking to elite guys. A huge part of this conversation is having a really good second guy. So that way you don't have to deal with gravity issues on the first guy, right? This is the Terry McCoran problem. This is the DJ Moore problem.

This is why Justin Jefferson is so stinking ridiculously good because he's got geriatric Adam Thieland, trade target, Jalen Rager, and KJ Osborne on the team with him and he's still just beating double teams and put up 100 plus yards, right? And so, like, that's the crazy thing I think about receiver that really makes me think it's premium is it's not the fact that Tyree Kills making $30 million

is the fact that Mike Williams is making $20 million. In Christian Kirk. Right, Christian Kirk, Chris Godwin's got a big deal. I'm like, I love Godwin. Godwin's the man. Right, Marquis Brown got traded for a first round pick, man. And it's the trickled down effect of like Adams and Hill and Brown trades and then subsequent extensions kind of resetting the market that like pulls everybody up. But like even then like Kirk got his extension before those guys.

Kenny Galladay got four years, $72 million a season before those guys. And like that second tier was already getting pulled up. And so when we talk about it like wide receivers a premium position, I find it very compelling, not just for the effect that the top guys have, the elite guys, the best six, the best seven. But then that second tier and that third tier, man. I mean, people are paying picks to get DJ Moore on their team. And DJ Moore is good. Don't get me wrong.

But like, holy smokes. Wide receivers taken off like a rocket ship first year, second tier, third tier, all the tiers. Yeah. And I think the reason why I'm not like necessarily worried about the supply question because there are like you, there are a lot of good receivers coming into the league every year. Like five good prospects coming into the league every year. but this is a position where not only do multiple players play at the same time on the field, like with running back, you have one running back on the field usually, like 90% of the time.

And when you have a second running back out there, it's either a fullback or it's like a guy who's like motioning out and like acting as a second or a receiver basically. And then you just look at the evolution of the sport. It's pretty basic. Like there used to be two receivers on the field. And now there are three receivers on the field all the time. And then you go to the college level, there are four receivers on the field all the time, a lot of the times.

So I think like the demand has grown larger and the supply is meeting it. And I don't like I don't necessarily think it's going to be like a bubble where it eventually burst. And then teams are like, oh, we were overvaluing these receivers. Let's go back the other way. I don't think that's going to happen. I think this is just the market kind of correcting itself. And you just kind of push receiver into a premium position just because there are so many of them on the field. Like when they're 30% of your lineup on offense every snap, you should pay a lot for that.

position. Yeah. The incoming talent at wide receiver, why it's so good and how it affects the market is the most interesting part of this conversation to me. We're going to take a break and then we'll get on that when we come back. Okay. So here's this, this is right. This is what I need you to walk me through because this is the thing that confuses me when we talk about wide receivers. You tell me that there's a position that's got enormous second tier, second and second contracts right now, right, enormous extensions. I expect that to be a position at which rookies don't produce. Let's take as an example, defensive tackle, right?

There's been a lot of big defensive tackle extensions recently. And when you look at who got those extensions, you see Dexter Lawrence, who didn't really pop and start producing until year four. Jeffrey Simmons didn't pop until year three. Vita Valle, year four. DeForest Buckner, year three. Dron Paynege's got a big deal. He didn't pop until year five.

I'm a fifth year option. Quinn Williams popped in year four. He's still hunting the extension, right? He's asking the Jets to give him the money. DeVants a tackle is a spot where, like, you draft guys top 10, top 15, and then they don't really start to get the engine going in terms of pro appearances and all pro performances until like year, year four.

And so it makes sense that once you got one of those guys, I extend him, start him, and play him, because we couldn't just draft a rookie 10 overall and stick him in here and be fine on a rookie contract. Like, that doesn't work at this position. When you look at rookie ride receivers, holy smokes, these dudes can play. They can play right away, right?

It's crazy. Like, everybody would tell you passants going up, right? Everybody would tell you, like, passings going up, we're playing more wide receivers, we're throwing the football more. When you go and you look at, like, how many wide receivers in each season had a thousand yards season,

as like a barometer for, okay, like, how easy is it to produce at the position? You see that, like, it's about average now as it was 20 years ago. Since 1995, the average season has 20 receivers in it that had 1,000 yards in that season. In the last few seasons, we've had 21, 23. 16, 25, 18, 13.

It's about average. It's about where it is. But if you winnow that down to just look at receivers in their first three years in the league, we are in an unbelievable age of young receiver production. If you look at seasons

in which there were six receivers who they were in the first three years and they had at least 1,000 yards, nine of the 11 seasons have happened in the last 11 years. Right? It was like 2002, in like 85 or something ridiculous.

Then it's just been like 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2015, 2016, where we have these seasons where a lot of young receivers, six plus, are producing thousand-yard seasons. When I see that, I go, okay, the league is discovering

how to get really young players to produce a wide receiver. And I would then expect them to not be paying adults, right? That's where you do what the Chiefs did, you do what the Packers did, and you do what the Titans did. Titans let AJ Brown go, draft Trayland Berg's.

Packers let Devante Adams go, draft Christian Watson. Chiefs let Tyriek Hill go. Drafts Guy Moore, sure, right? But that only worked for one of the three. And of course, across the league, you see the Bears going and get DJ Moore and the Cardinals go and they get Marquis Brown, and everybody is scrambling to sign and extend these veteran receivers. And so help me riddle this out.

This is a two-pronged question. Firstly, why are younger receivers way more productive entering the league than they've been before. I think you started to answer that before the break. And then if they are that much more productive, why are we paying huge draft capital in trades and huge money and extensions for veteran receivers? Yeah, I think the first question is easy.

It's just the evolution of the sport. I mean, the same things we talk about when we talk about how like quarterbacks are better, like seven-on-seven camps, like specialized training. Wide receivers are getting all that stuff. Like you look on Twitter and you see footwork guru, 7-7, 7, 7, 7, like teaching releases like freaking Devante Adams to eighth graders.

I just think the players are better. And then there is less of a gray area, or I would say more of a gray area between the college game and the pro game, especially like the passing game. I think more of a gray area. You mean like more of an overlap? Like they're closer? I think there's more overlap in what they're not,

oh, that's not a great way to put it. I think NFL teams are getting better at asking receivers that come into the league early to do only the things that they're good at initially. Whereas if I drafted a wide receiver in 2008, I would need him to be able to block because we go under center. It's 2008. We go under center where you run power.

We run all these plays that asked like the perimeter guys to get in on the blocking. We didn't really have a slot back then. Like, you know, Russ Welker was starting to do it, but we didn't have a place where we could put like a slower guy who was just really good at getting open but not maybe putting stress on. the deeper parts of the field.

And now you get the guys going in motion and getting touches from behind the line of scrimmage like Debo Samuel. So now you just have more ways to get those guys involved where you're leaning into their strengths and kind of hiding their weaknesses. And I don't think that was the case in like even 10 years ago. I think it was just harder to hide a wide receiver's weaknesses. A good example is Tavon Austin. Like I think if you drop Taborne Austin into the league now with a creative offensive coordinator and there are more of those going around, now rather than Jeff Fisher and the Rams. Like, I think he has a productive career.

Back then, he had no shot. It's interesting because, like, a lot more Tavon Austens are being drafted early in the sense that, like, smaller players are getting drafted a lot of wide receiver. Like, you just think of your Wondell Robinson's and your two, two at Wales and your tank Dells at Houston, and there was another guy this year whose name I can remember right now. All these small cats are getting drafted. And those are body types that typically got put at corner. in seasons past, right?

Like, when college teams were recruiting, they'd see a guy who can only carry 180, 180 on his frame and go, okay, you're playing defensive back. You're playing running back. You're a gadget player, Tave on Austin, right? But now, like, college offenses have got so good manufacturing space that they can play those guys

at receiver and just force the ball to them, right? Like, watching that Wondell Robinson film when he was at Kentucky two years ago, and Liam Cohen was his OC, the guy who was with the Rams, then he was back to Kentucky and whatever, like they just called the Wondell Robinson play like nine times a game. And the Wondell Robinson play would look different.

Like sometimes it's him down the field. Sometimes it's him on a bubble or whatever. But they're just like, listen, we know the buttons to press to get this guy in space and then get him to football. So why do we care that he's 166 pounds soaking wet? Like it, we don't have to worry about press coverage. We know how to beat it. I think like when you talk about how NFL teams are better at getting young players where they succeed at wide receiver, they're smarter. The first thing that comes to my mind is press.

You do not make NFL offensive coordinator in this day and age if you don't have a variety of ways to hide a receiver from press coverage. And back in the day, it was like, all right, go draft you a player who can beat press. And to do that, you had a limited scope of guys. You had a limited number of players you could draft from. They had to be at least 6-2. They had to be at least 210. They had to have reach.

They had to have foot quickness and whatever. It's just a small group of dudes that have that height-weight speed and have that technique. Now that it's like, hey, like, we can just draft Jahan Dotson at 16 overall and just never line them up with a line of scrimmage, always stick them in the slot, always stick him in bunches, and then just let him be very fast and quick and good. Like, and that's Scott Turner, who's the OC there?

Scott Turner's a good O.C., but nobody's out here writing stories about Scott Turner, right? It's just now it's just, it's run of the mill, right? It's part of the course. You are able to hide receivers from press so much more security. successfully in this NFL with RPO's and with spread formations and with pre-snap motion than you have ever been previously. And accordingly, the number of guys that you can draft and use and get production out of massively widens because you don't have to worry about getting prototypical size dudes who can be press coverage. Yeah. And we don't really see that prototypical

like number one receiver that you always used to be like a thing we talked about. He's like he's a prototypical number one receiver. What does that look like now? Because there's so many different guys. Like Cooper Cup did not fill that role. But you're going to tell me he's not a number one receiver, a true number one receiver, of course he is. Tyrie Kill is the same way. But when I was younger, like the prototypical ex-receiver was always the guy you wanted to draft. You didn't draft those other guys in the first round. Like you drafted Calvin Johnson. You drafted Julio Jones, these big guys that you could line up on the line of scrimmage because like you said, they could survive there. Now, and now I'm just like echoing what you said, we don't have that

problem. We don't have to have a guy that could beat press because we're going to help him beat it anyway. So not only has it increased the talent pool, I think it's changed the talent pool. And it's given teams more options when they are looking for a guy that they can build their receiving core around. It doesn't necessarily have to be that Calvin Johnson build that everyone was looking for. Okay. And so I agree with all this. And the last thing I would say it's worth noting is no position has been drafted more over the last six years in a wide receiver. And the last six drafts, more picks have been spent on wide receiver than any other position. It's just there's so many dudes, right?

I think like that's a huge part of understanding why young wide receiver success has gone up and why there's so much more talent at wide receiver. And it seems like there's so many more good players. There's like 50 guys who are all top 30 and there are 20 guys who are all top 10. And we just did our top tens. And man, there's like seven dudes who are top three. And it really sucks to get them all in there because that's not how numbers work. But I think the number one reason for that is just volume.

There's so many guys and so many more of them get on the field, three receiver sets, four receiver sets, and so many more passes are attempted that there's just so much opportunity and so much volume for these guys to succeed. None of that deals with the second half of the question, which is, okay, if there's so many good rookie wide receivers and you can just draft all these guys and so many different body types, you can get a different dude over there and produce, whatever,

yada, yada, why are we playing $20 million a year for Mike Williams. Why are we trading a first round pick for DJ Moore? Like what? Is it just team timelines? And like, all right, we want to figure out Justin Fields is good. So we need to get DJ Moore the same way the Eagles wanted to figure out if Jalen Hertz was good. So they got AJ Brown. And the dolphins wanted to figure out if if Tua was good. So they got Tyreek Hill. Like, is it is it trying to support the quarterback with veterans as opposed to rookies? Is it we're going to spend money on the passing game anyway? And we just have a ton of wide receiver spot so we can pay a veteran guy and get a highly drafted rookie, like the Chargers paid Mike Williams,

and then De Quentin Johnson in the first round, you know what I'm saying? Like, is, is that what we're looking at? I, I struggle to bridge this. I really, really do. It's not, I don't. I don't. I really don't struggle to Bridget. I apply the same thinking that I apply to quarterback play. Like, we have seen a lot of young guys, especially compared to the past, come in and have success that they were, like, you couldn't even play rookie quarterbacks. Sometimes you couldn't even play second year quarterbacks like 20 years ago. And I think you pay for those, those stars when they come along or even if it's just like based on perception of what they are. Like I would say DJ Moore, especially like Hollywood Brown. That was a, that was a bad trade. But I don't think

anyone at the time was like, holy shit, that's like the worst trade I've ever seen. A first round pick for I was, I was pretty miffed. I'm about as anti-Hollywood Brown as you're going to find. I was like, yeah. But even even then it wasn't like this. It wasn't like the DeAndre Hopkins trade when everyone was laughing at Bill O'Brien. Like, it wasn't that bad. Who was right? Who ended up kind of being right. History, he will hold Bill O'Brien in a true light.

But what separates the top quarterbacks and the quarterbacks who are producing like top quarterbacks, but the ones that we don't want to pay a second contract. It's like, it's third down. It's third down. The coach doesn't get to help you anymore. Go get open. That's the difference.

And I think people are always going to be chasing those guys. Because we've seen how bad. valuable they are to teams. Okay. It's third down. Your guy that you've paid is DJ Moore. You feel good? Hell no.

That's not me saying that every contract given out to receivers are good. Like, do I feel good about paying Brock Osweiler $58 billion upon the Houston Texans? No, I didn't feel good about that either. But he got paid that money. But so like that's, I think that we're talking about two different things here. Like I'm saying like, I can't square it in my head why this makes sense. saying I can square it in my head because I know it doesn't make sense because it's the NFL. Oh, no, I see what you're saying.

But I think you're like not overlooking the fact that bad contracts are given out and that we can't like kind of form our philosophy based on the fact that the Bears thought it was a good idea to trade for DJ Moore and pay of men or like the Cardinals decided it was a good idea to swap the first round pay. I think those are just irrational decisions that kind of mess us up. and they're kind of like red herrings for us that kind of throw us off the case of what it's also it's like young and unsuccessful and reactive teams chasing the decisions made by like generally more stable and successful teams right like oh the eagles did this with a j brown and helped out jaylon

hurts let's go get dj more and how about justin field's kind of yeah but that's a kind of kmart version and walmart version of what the eagles did and i don't know if i don't know if it clears the bar No, you asked Steve Kime, like last year what he thought about like the Hollywood Brown trade and like how it fit into all the wide receiver movement. He would have been like, yeah, like we did the same thing the dolphins did. We traded first round pick for a star receiver. Yeah, it's very fast and it can help us for the field.

Who could stretch the field? A little undersized, but yeah, same thing. Right. So there's a, right, there's a little bit of like a authenticity check here, which actually does very nicely transition us into what we're going to talk about in terms of ranking these guys where there's some bar somewhere. and Lord knows I can't figure out where the frickin bar is,

but there's some bar somewhere that's like, no, this guy's over the threshold, this guy can take you where you want to go, right? You get a T. Higgins on your team, he's going to elevate your quarterback as opposed to a dude is just below that bar where it's like, all right, you know,

if you didn't get T. Higgins, you got like a Brandon Ayuk, and it might feel kind of the same, like, oh, a lot of receiving yards, a lot of receptions, a lot of touchdowns. But it's not going to produce the results, that you want. So there,

there is a, again, like it's like an inflection point. It's a threshold. And it's a completely and totally made up threshold. It'd be lovely if the threshold was like 2.1 yards per route run

over the last three seasons, but it's not. It's why ball watching and ball knowing is still a thing is you have to be able to sit down and kind of look at the players, look out they've been used, look what they've done for their offense, and say,

this is the sort of guy who's going to create the foundational change that I need. He's going to be a linchman. He's going to be a keystone for my offense. And while, this guy might have similar,

this other guy might have similar stats. He doesn't have that talent. He can't fill that role. So we're going to go to break. And we're going to come back from break. And we're going to try to do the thing that Steve and I've been texting each other complaining about the fact that we made ourselves do this.

And we're going to try to rank some receivers after the break. Okay. So here's how we're going to try to do this, Steve. We're not going to do the whole like up from 10 and to one and like in the tiers and everything. I just want to, you will say you're number one. I will say my number one.

if we feel like we have to talk about it, we will. If we feel like we don't have to talk about it, we won't. And then I think the first few will probably bring some confusion, and then the next group will probably bring some confusion. We'll hit that when we get there. We'll get to the bottom, and then we'll start talking about where that bar might be and some of the guys who missed the top 10

and kind of what that means for their offenses. So before we begin, emotions check. How do you feel about your list looking back on it now? I hate it more every time I look at it. And I want to change it. Like I already know what I'm going to get yelled at about. And I agree with what they're going to like the people that are going to be complained.

Like I agree with you. But it's tough, man. It is tough to put together a top 10 and just to leave it to 10. But before I start, I just wanted to throw this out there. Because I think people look for different things in receivers. And like for instance, for my quarterback rankings, I do. I grade the quarterbacks on six categories. Accuracy, armed talent, decision, whatever.

What would be your like categories if you had to make like four, or five for receiver, what do you think they would be? And, like, how do you think you would weight them? Release? I have that. Yeah, that's what I have. Route running is probably also there and separate from release. Yeah, that's tough.

Like, like hand slash contested catch, like catch technique generally, like, just how consistent are you bringing the football in? Yards after catch is absolutely up there in the modern NFL, which I know that we disagreed about that last year. We're probably going to disagree about it again this year. And then like, I mean, like, I want to say like versatility. I want to say like possible usage, right? Just in terms of like there's so many dudes who don't make my top 10.

And the reason is because I can only really think of using them one way. And just if I'm going to put you up here in the top 10, man, like you've got to be able to use views multiple ways. Or you have to be so good at what you do well that you're cardinal. you're paramount. You are 99th percentile and such that you fundamentally change how defenses by the offenses that you're on. So like I guess versatility is the fifth,

but even then like that's not really a, that's kind of a trait. I don't know. Yeah, that's kind of what I had. I had like explosiveness. I realized like during this exercise that I really lean towards receivers who can threaten defenses down the field.

I think that's like the biggest thing where, whereas like if you're a receiver who's like very reliable, like I'm on Ross St. Brownford. Spoiler alert. He's not in my top 10. I feel like I'm biased against those players. I almost undervalue them just because they're not giving me that big play potential. And it kind of overlaps with how I look at the quarterback position,

like the ability to create those like explosive plays. So that's just where I'm coming from. But I'm going to start with my number one, Justin Jefferson. I honestly think there's a right answer to this one. And I think it's Justin. All three levels of the field, doesn't matter what type of coverage he's seeing. Doesn't matter if it's zone.

Doesn't matter if it's man. doesn't matter if he's being pressed. He's going to get open. I think he's like the perfect body type for a receiver. Just a funky route runner. And I say that as a compliment. There are a lot of, like I said earlier, there are a lot of clips on Twitter of like these young receivers

and they're all practicing like the same releases. It's almost like that like route running style has become the default for guys. And when you see guys try to apply it on the field, it kind of, it looks contrived. Like it doesn't look like they're, reacting naturally. That's not the case with Jefferson. He has like every release in the book and it's just instinctual. Like there was a play against Marcus Latimore where Latimore is kind of like pressing him. And at the snap, Jefferson, you could see him start to do like a little

like basketball crossover type move. And Latimore kind of opens up early. And Jefferson just cuts off the move mid move and just takes off down the field. And I think that's a perfect example of a guy who is using those tools but knows how to deviate from them whenever necessary. And then you just throw in all like the big plays and like the one-handed catches. And he can win at every level. It's a no-brainer for me. Yeah. I have Jefferson one.

And last year I had Jefferson kind of like in tier two. Like I didn't have him in like the Cup Hill, DeVante Adams tier. And I was kind of like Jefferson's very good. I think we might be going a little bit crazy with hype. He's two years into his career. Like he's obviously been insanely productive. But like, you know, I'm not. going to like launch him to the moon just yet.

And that was incorrect. I should have launched him to the moon. I'm here to launch him to the moon. He's one for me. I think the point you made about the way he runs routes is so important. I like, I want everybody if you have a free, you know, 20 minutes, you're chilling at the office. You're not working.

Go Google some Jerry Judy film. And you'll see what it looks like when like an NFL caliber athlete first round pick, Alabama productive player does something at like a good quality level and then watch Justin Jefferson and see how different it is. And that's like that's the best way to explain Jefferson

is like when you watch Judy do his little herky jerky, weird timing, weird footwork, fine separation, break you down, basketball crossover nonsense. You're like, okay, that's sick. But also like it's a little bit weird and it's a little bit mixtapy and it's a little bit uncomfortable and there's like a lot of times.

Like if you watch highlights, it's all going to look good. But if you just watch him play, there's a lot of times, like, it doesn't work. He ends up, like, bumping into corners and doesn't get the separation he needs. And then you watch Jefferson do it. And you're like, oh, right. Like, that's the difference between very good, insanely athletic, great NFL player and truly elite. Right. We throw the word elite around so much, it drives me crazy.

Like, people are like, oh, Jerry Judy's an elite route runner. No, he's not. He's a good route runner. Watch him run a route and then watch Justin Jefferson run around. And you're going to understand the difference in terms of like two guys who, like, similar-ish body types, similar style of movement, but one dude's just a virtuoso. Like one dude's just got it. And the other guy kind of does.

And we had Jefferson on the ringer pod last summer, I think. I think it was like last June. And I had asked him about his releases just because they were so weird. And it was like, how do you make this stuff up in your mind? And he said, like, it's just in the moment. I'm just reacting to like stimuli mostly. So it kind of like goes to that point that he's not like, oh, I'm going to do this. I don't make up a name for, I'm going to do this diamond release.

At the line of scrimmage, he's like pre-planning it. No, he's like basing it on what the cornerback is showing him. Yeah. One thing that I think is just insane about Justin Jefferson that I don't think gets acknowledged enough. If you look at explosive play percentage, that plays which they touch the football, did they rip off an explosive gain? I'm talking about Justin Jefferson, Cooper Cup, A.J. Brown,

Devante Adams, Tyree Kill, Jamar, Chase, and Stefan Diggs. I think the top seven receivers for pretty much everybody. Justin Jefferson leads that group on a three. your average by a mile. He has an explosive play on 23.5% of his touches. The next closest is Tyree Kill at 20.1%. For the target threshold that I had, Jefferson is ninth in the league among receivers. Tyree Kill is 41st over the last three years.

Do you understand how bananas that is? Like Jefferson's explosive play production is up there with like Will Fullers and Brian Edwards is and like guys who are just explosive play threats. and then he's also leading the league in team target percentage and volume that he creates. That's just not even remotely how it's supposed to work. Jefferson is so heads and shoulders above the rest of even the top receivers in terms of explosive play percentage that I agree with you.

I think he's won with a bullet. I think he's got to be number one. I think we can't finish his segment without pointing out the fact that Kirk Cousins is his quarterback. I may or may not have a screenshot DM from Stephen from earlier today that said Kirk is good now. And I cut off the rest of the screen shots, so as to keep context away from it. But I have that. And I will use it as I've seen fit.

Hey, I'm, let me finish that sentence. Kirk is good now, but it's like a senior citizen going back to get their college degree. It's too late for you, buddy. No one cares. I'm over it. All right. I said we'd talk about stuff we disagreed on. And then we just talked about how much you like Justin Jefferson for five minutes.

Okay. Number two for you is Devante Adams. And this is like one year isn't going to turn me off of the Devante ad. I remember 2021. And he was the best receiver in the league then. I still think when he watched the film, the talent is still there. What was around him wasn't as good, but he was still clearly a receiver capable of elevating a wide receiver for.

I have Tyree Kill it too. I'm surprised by that. So I didn't think I would have him there before I started doing the work. I cannot believe what Tyree Kill did for the Dolphins offense and for Tua this year. Like, I legitimately still cannot believe it. And this isn't even like a, like, anti-Tua take in totality. I think I'm certainly lower than the average fan on Tua and certainly lower than the average Dolphins fan.

I have a lot of doubts about him as a quarterback. With that said, like, you take a player from a Patrick Mahomes offense to any offense that is a non-top 10 quarterback. I give him to Tua, give him to Derek Carr, which is where Devonte Adams went. You know what I'm saying? I would expect just a drop off of efficacy. Tyreek Hill led the league in yards per route run at 3.21. Take him from a downfield thrower like Mahomes to a guy who's a poor downfield

thrower. I know, okay, he has a lot of counting stats throwing down the field, but in terms of accuracy to his regularly throwing his receivers off of their lines when he's throwing downfield, and you would expect they drop off an explosive play. Tyreekill was fourth an explosive play last year. Tyreek was second in the league in team target percentage. 30% of the targets. went to Tyree Kill. It's an astounding, astonishing number. Only Devonty Adams was higher.

And yet he was fourth in the league and explosive play rate. That's not how it works. You don't get to lead the league functionally in target density and volume and then also do it in explosive plays. That's not real. Now, there's a massive confounding variable called Mike McDaniel that makes this more challenging. But when, like, I thought that Tyree Kill's explosive was starting to go. I thought that he was hitting 30 and the hamstring was going. to get tight. And I just thought he was going to lack the physical toolkit to achieve what he previously did. And he was astonishing off the line. He was unbelievable producing in the middle of the

field. The stop start acceleration is insane. He never needs to finish a play physically, right? Like, like, that's the big knock on him. It's like he doesn't break any tackles, but he just does not need to to remain ludicrously productive. And then I just like, we're going to talk about Jalen Waddle in a bit. I don't think the offense in Miami can work the way it did. if Tyree Kill's not on it. And that includes if Waddle were there. Like you can pick, I think any speedster. Pick any speedster you want.

I don't think that you get to get away with what Mike McDaniel got away with in terms of past protection. And in terms of calling one concept over and over again, if teams aren't just definitely terrified of 10. So to me, like, I came in with like Jefferson Devante. That was clearly my one, two. And then by the time I finished looking at numbers and looking at film, I was like, all right, I really think I have to put Tyreek in two. I really think I do. See, I'm not going to fight you about that because I am

of the opinion that Tyreek Hill was like the best receiver in the league from like 2018 to like 2020. But here's my argument against Tyreek being that high. I think anything that Tyreek does Devante can do. And I don't mean that. That's a pretty sound argument.

And everything Tyreek Hill does, Devante is better. So that's why he's not better than him. I don't mean like he's better. Like, for instance, the best example is just running a go route. Tyree Kill is going to put more pressure on any defense compared to any player. But Devon DeVante can, if you press Devante and play one-on-one coverage, he's going to kill you on the outside, just like Tyreek will.

Tyreek, though, can't do what Devante does. You can't ask Tyreek to run a dig over the middle and third down into a tight window against press coverage. It's not going to work. Like, that's not how the dolphins use them. That's not how he was used in Kansas City. And part of the reason I think the Chiefs were willing to move on from him is because they wanted to get a little more physical on offense. and you can't really do that when Tyreeks you're number one. Like his last year in Kansas City, he was not on the field when they went under center.

They took him off the field a bunch. And it's because he's not a blocker. He's not going to do any of that stuff. He can't really play on the line of scrimmage too much. Like, that's not where he thrives. I agree with you that you can't be as physical of a team of Tyreek Hill on the field as he is off the field. But I don't think that impact measures up nearly to like just how good he is as a player. Like you just let me be clear.

nitpicking and then comparing him to Devante Adams. Right. Let me just put that out there. It's being all like, yeah, you can't run timing stuff with Josh Allen. It's like, yeah, but you can also just be insanely good offense. Right, exactly. I still think Tyreek's my fourth. Spoiler.

He's my fourth guy. But the other thing is like third down. We mentioned the third down thing. Like who you're going to give the ball to? The Dolphins answer wasn't Tyree Hill. It was Jalen Waddle. And Jalen Waddle was the guy playing on the line of scrimmage. Like Jailen Waddle wasn't getting the scheme stuff really, like the pre-snaps

scheme benefits as much as Tyreek. It wasn't even close. One of the things, like, because I looked at third down numbers, and one of the things that you see is the second receiver in an elite one-two tandem really tends to outpace the first on third down and fourth down stuff. Like, Devonte Smith was unbelievable

on third down relative to AJ Brown, Jalen Waddle to Tyree Kill, T. Hagan, St. Jemar Jace. Like, on third down, like, to me, there's a pretty clear gravity effect when you have, like, a great one and then a really, really, really good two, where the offense very happy to be like, all right, like, if you want to take away Tyrakeel, sure.

Like, Jaylon Waldo is going to beat your second best corner in isolation. And we're going to take that match up all day. But when you watch them, like, I know that's like the, the, what you think is happening. But when you watch the Dolphins, did you get that sense on third day? I never really got that sense that teams were like, oh, we're going to stop him and we're going to let Jaylon do his thing. I thought they sold out to stop both, honestly. I think it was less of like a defensive gravity and more of an offensive gravity,

where Mike McDaniel would be like, here is Tyron, kill. Here he goes. He's running. What are you going to do? And Daniel Waddle is just standing on the line of scrimmage being like I'm about to demolish whoever's across from me on a three-step slam. Exactly.

It's been more like an offensive in position. When it comes to McDaniel, other teams, I think it's more of a defensive gravity. The last thing I would say on the Devante Adams, who I have Devante third. And to me, Jefferson Hill and Devante is a clear top three tier. Those three guys are up there without a question. is you said like Tyreek can't run that dig against press coverage. I agree. I think there's more receivers in the league in terms of like top 10, top 20 guys

who I would trust to run that dig against press coverage when I need it, then due to I could put into Tyree Kill's shoes in terms of what he did for the Chief's offense in his prime, right before they kind of changed identity. And then the Dolphins offense, that list of dudes is so short. Like you can't really replace Tyree Kill. No, yeah, you can. Yeah. But here's my question.

Devante Adams, you put Devante Adams out wide. They're playing cover one. And then you compare that to Tyreek in the same situation. Who do you expect, even if you're asking them just to run vertical routes. So like Tyreek strength against one of Devante's strengths, who would you expect to have the higher success rate? I think Tyreek would have like the higher EPA who would like give you more big plays, but like down-to-down consistency.

I think you're moving the chains better with Devante Adams. Yeah. I do think you're moving the changeover with Devante Adams. I think once you widen that scope to 11 players, I think the offense that has Tyreek Hills moving the ball more consistently on that down than the offense of the Devante Adams is. That's fair. Yeah.

And again, it goes back to that bar question, which Devante and Terry could both clearly over it, but like wide receiver impact now. Like I think we have to start to understand it on a larger scale than just like the player in a vacuum. Okay, we're not doing good on time, brother.

Yeah, so my three is Devante Adams. Your three is very interesting to me. It is. Stefan Dick. why? I think Stefan Diggs is as good as Devante Adams. Like everything I said about Devante Adams, I think applies to him. I don't think he's quite as explosive as Justin Jefferson, which is why he's not in that

conversation. But Stefan Diggs is that guy that you could literally put anywhere. And we talked about that versatility or you said that would be one of your things. I think he's the best at that. Like he's the best. Wherever you line him up, he's going to win. It doesn't really matter what he's facing. And I think that's very important for the best.

Bill's in particular because it makes it so hard to double him. Because you don't know where he's going to be. It becomes a lot harder to double team a receiver where you don't know where he's going to be on a given snap. And like, think about when they play the Patriots and think about Bill Belichick's reputation. And think about all the things Bill Belichick has done to take number one receivers out of the game. He does it all the time. And the one guy he can't do it against is Stefan Diggs. He's never, like Stefan Diggs just torches the Patriots. They try to do stuff and they just don't ever have an, they don't ever have an answer. And you could say the same thing for like other defenses that, like for instance, when they played the, when they played the Rams, the Rams have

the ultimate cornerback that they could just put on a guy and he's going to take him out of the game. It never happens with Stefan Diggs against Jalen Ramsey. He torches Jalen Ramsey. He torches everybody. So I think he's like the scheme proof, game proof, role proof, alignment proof receiver. And that's something you could build an offense around, whereas the guys that I have, below him on the list. I don't know how true that is. I think some of that sensation, so I don't disagree with that sensation. I do think some of that is a result of who the bills have behind Stefan Diggs. The bills do not have the option on any week to build a passing game around any idea that is not Stefan Diggs save us. That is not, okay, we got it like

that was last year. That was one year. Okay, but two years ago, Stefan Diggs had not an amazing season, right? Like, when, when, when, when, when like, okay, like, you know, they were like, they were working well with Cole Beasley and Josh Allen was really popping off. Like, Stefan Dix 2021. He was 22nd in the league in yards per rat run. He was 81st in the league and explosive play rate, 10.9%. He was 38th in the league in terms of the percent of his, uh, plays, his receptions, the end of the first down or a touchdown. Those numbers, if you look at individual seasons from any of, to me, the top seven receivers, Jefferson Cup, AJ Brown, Devont, Adam, Adam, Tyree, Kiljamar Chase, Stefan Diggs. that's the worst season any one of them has had over the last three years. Like the, and, and it's not fair to say like Diggs isn't as good as A.J. Brown because in 20, 21, when the bills went in the divisional round, it would almost be the Chiefs. He just didn't have

as great of numbers. Like, that's not the whole argument. It is to say that I think Diggs massively benefits from being the only legitimate, down-to-down consistent receiving threat on the bills. Whereas, like, yeah, Tyreek Hill doesn't have that like game to game consistent production because his team has the option to be like, eh, Jalen Waddle. Like the Eagles just can be like,

DeVonte Smith to Dallas got her. Like, they have all the choices. What did the Vikings say? What did the Vikings say? And Justin Jefferson's number one and they went in the same way. Yeah, and Justin Jefferson is emphatically won. But if you look like, if you compare the two of them, Jefferson is clearly a step better than Stefan Diggs is. Yeah, of course. And so like, to me, Diggs is a tier below that group.

I'm not comfortable putting Diggs in the same tier as Jefferson because he's, to me, clearly, it's like a lesser Jefferson, like a 90, 95% Jefferson. But now he's getting punished because he has an all-around skill set, whereas Tyree Kill is just really good at this kind of one thing. And I'm fine with that. I'm short-selling Tyree, by the way. This is the exact thing that we argued about last year with Debo, which I'm sure we're going to get to Debo at some point.

But I love a guy who's got one exact skill set. I know how to use him and I can set my watch to him, right? Like my number four, right, because you're three. is Diggs. My number four is A.J. Brown. And he was my four last year coming off the Tennessee performances. And then he walked into Philadelphia, had his target share go through the roof and just continued to dominate. And then he did it in an area of the field, middle of the field where they desperately needed him to. And then also did it downfield on verticals, 20 plus yards down the field outside the numbers where he was unbelievably efficient. Like, Brown is the sort of guy where

you give me Brown versus Diggs. It's like, okay, like, sure, Diggs is more well-rounded, but I can build a more dangerous offense out of A.J. Brown. So I know. know where to butter, I know where to butter my bread. I don't know if I agree with that. I really don't. Like, Diggs does all of these things that we're giving credit other receivers. Like, it's almost like he's getting dinged because he's so good at so many things. Like, he wins the one-on-one routes on, on the outside.

If you leave him 101, he wins just as frequently as Tyree Kill. It doesn't look the same when Tyree Kill wins because he's the fastest man on Earth. It doesn't look the same when Justin Jefferson does his, like, one-handed catch because Kirk can't throw. Like, I feel like he. is, and not only that, I really think he's the victim of having an elite quarterback who's just goddamn weird. Like, he has the court, like, Jamar Chase doesn't worry, have to worry about getting the ball on time. Joe Burroughs going to throw it on time every time. Patrick Mahon's

going to throw it on time. Justin Herbert's going to throw it on time. Stefan Diggs could get open and Josh Allen's doing a pirouet in the pocket just because he can't. He's probably going to get away with it. And then the only other point I'll make, I know Stefan Diggs was the only target, but like we're still getting Cole Beasley fourth down targets in the playoffs man like can someone send that memo to Josh Allen I mean like

okay by target density over the last three seasons Diggs has been 7th seventh and third Josh Allen's got the he's got the memo he's throwing to Stefan Diggs an unbelievable level by your reasoning he should be first first or second like he should

he's the only option I think that was the argument so I mean it's over the last three seasons he has seen a greater percentage of the bills targets and like Cooper Cup did when he was with the Rams. Then AJ Brown did Titans plus the Eagles, right? Like he's he's about at the Tyree Kill level. Again, we're looking at average over the last three seasons.

Like Diggs is unquestionably one of the most consistently targeted receivers in the NFL, and he's done it all on the same team, all with Josh Allen. Like I just think that Diggs is a 92, 93 everywhere who gets more volume than he would if you dropped who's the 24th best receiver in the NFL right now DeVonte Smith Deante, if you dropped Christian Kirk on that Bill's Smith.

No, DeVoree's about that. If you dropped Christian Kirk on that Bill's offense, Diggs's volume would go down and his efficiency would remain great, but his volume would go down. I think it would be clear that he's not at the place of a guy like in Asia Brown is. I think that's fair,

but I honestly think Diggs is like a 95 and everything and that the fact that he is that well-rounded makes it seem like he's a 92 at everything. That would be my argument. But I like, like we said, I don't even know why we're arguing about this because it's an impossible task and like we're both wrong.

Anyway, we're both right at the same time. With that impossible task continued, like I said, my four is A.J. Brown. Your four is Tyree Kill. We've talked about Tyree Kill quite a bit. AJ Brown is the guy who we did this last year.

And I was like, dude, AJ Brown is way better than I thought it was. Like, this is crazy, man. And then he played for the Eagles. And like I said, the target share went way up. And explosiveness jumped. Yards per route run jumped somehow.

Over the last three seasons, AJ Brown is third in the league in yards per out run. It's one, Devante Adams, two Justin Jefferson, three, AJ Brown. By like, our best one-off metric for like wide receiver performance, Asia Brown is just the third best receiver in the league.

And I feel like everybody's like, yeah, yeah, he's just big and then he gets hit and that's it. Like, that's just what, he's a big guy and he's running at this slant. Like, this is as, like, he has, he definitely has a simpler route than Devante Adams and Justin Jefferson and Cooper Cup and Stefan Diggs and Jamar Chase and like everybody. There's no question he does. But buddy, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I mean,

big fella moving fast. And he's now been big fella moving fast for three seasons and everybody knows the book on him and they know where he's running his routes and they know he's going to get there and it just simply doesn't matter. Like when we talk about physically dominant players of the wide receiver position, like Tyree Kill obviously like with Exploree, both of this with speeding with acceleration is physically dominant. But in terms of like size, strength, power, speed, like the whole gamut, I don't think there's a more physically dominant receiver in the league than AJ Brown. And the impact that he had on Jalen Hertz cannot be overstated. Jalen Hertz went from one of the worst, one of the worst intermediate middle of the

field passes in the league to one of the best. And there was one reason why. And it was A.J. Brown and how successful he is working that area of the field, which is the honeyhole of the modern NFL. It's where you get yards after the catch, while all. also still having a high depth of target. Being good in that area is critical. And AJ Brown is arguably the best receiver in that area. Like, it doesn't feel nice. I'd love to have, like, Cooper Cup over him for, like, the love of the game, like,

the details and the route, the fire zone and the adjustments. But in reality, like, AJ Brown is just good at this. He is just consistently year-over-year insanely good at this. And I struggled to get him any lower than fourth. Yeah, he was the one that I had the hardest time, like, reconciling my ranking. because it feels in my heart that he's like a top third receiver. And like to your point about the simplicity of his route tree, it's kind of like when like people criticize LeBron James

because he doesn't have handles or something. It's like yeah, he's a 6-8, 250 pound guy that can just run to the basket. He doesn't need handle. He doesn't need to cross you up. He doesn't need to do a sham god to get past you. No, like that's what A.J. Brown is. And like the Super Bowl, I know like everyone was crazy about Jalen Hertz's performance, but I thought AJ Brown was the best player on that team.

And like the Chief's game plan was, hey, AJ Brown has to dunk on us five times in this game for us for them to move the ball. And you know what AJ Brown did? He went out there and he dunked on them five times. Like it was amazing. And that's what he did all year for them. We talked about, you talked about the middle of the field. I thought those vertical routes, Jalen Hertz was, he wasn't the worst in the league

at throwing those verticals before last year. He was very good. It was one of his biggest strengths. But we actually got to see it highlighted and we got to see it become a strength for the Eagles offense because AJ Brown was so damn good at coming down with those balls. Even when he was covered, it didn't matter. He was going to catch the ball. He is very valuable to the setup of that offense. And it kind of makes me want to push him up this list, but I just can't put him ahead of Cooper Cup. I mean, Cooper Cup may have had the greatest receiver year we've ever seen two years ago

when he last played a full year. And I just think he's that guy that you can rely on third down, no matter what. Yeah, Cooper Cup was an item of great, debate and challenge for you and I last year in terms of our rankings. I had them like two and you had them fifth. I have them fifth now because somebody's got to be fifth and you missed games. And so I just makes it easier. I can just kind of toss you down there and solve us a problem. Matt Saffert was hurt all season. Sucks. You don't have an offensive line. No Robert Woods. Too bad. You're fifth now. Blame Sean McBay for keeping you in that game. Yeah. And he got hurt. So yeah, so Cooper Cup played 10 games this year. his target density in those games, 31%.

He would have been second only to Devante Adams who'd have been over, Tyree Killough, he kept it up through the rest of the season. By yards per route, run, he was ninth. He was still having an unbelievable season in terms of volume and in terms of efficiency. Obviously, not super high on explosives, but that's never been his game,

ludicrously talented player, ludicrously polished player, who just didn't play in December. And so it's so much easier to put him below AJ Brown who's playing in January. Right. Yeah, Cup is like when he was to have the triple crown of receiving, it was tough to argue that he couldn't be in the first tier. And now that he doesn't, he's very easy to slot in the second tier because he just isn't the explosive threat that you have from Jefferson and Hill and Devonte and AJ Brown. That's just the big difference. Yeah, I do think he could like kind of replicate it with what he does after the catch, just the way he runs. And I always think he gets underrated just because he's a white slot receiver. And like you just tend to think that. that's his body type, but that dude is, he's big, he's athletic and he's strong and he can

create after the cat. He's a really good player that I think it's hard to value him in addition to all the receiving stuff and the fact that he plays slot, the blocking is just impossible to quantify when you're comparing him to like Tyree kill. It's like there's no point of comparison. Something real quick on Cup that was interesting. Again, if you're looking at three-year average of what percent of their touches became first downs or touchdowns. I think a lot of people would think Cup is super high because he had a ton of touchdowns in that 2021 season and then he's used as a stick mover for them. But again, in terms of percent of touches, he is below Justin Jefferson, below AJ Brown, below Devonte Adams, Tyree Kill. All those guys are around 44 percent. Cooper Cups

turned 42 and a half percent, which is a nominal difference, but it does knock you down rankings-wise. Like most of those guys are in the teens and Cooper Cups like 38 among receivers over the last three years. Now, a lot of that has to do with the 2020 season where he just wasn't very productive. That number's probably going to jump up. But Cup costs you something in terms of explosiveness and doesn't actually add too much for you in terms of first downs and touchdowns relative to where I think like the public consensus is on him. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, no, that's a good point.

And like I think slot receivers just inherently for me at least get knocked down spot or two. Yeah. at six you have AJ Brown, whom we have discussed. At six, I have the player who I thought was the most challenging to rank in this entire thing. And that's Jamar Chase. Yeah. If you took every number in the world out of my mind, I just had no idea who had receiving yards and when they were drafted and like all the data. And you just made me watch players and try to figure out who the best receiver was.

I might just watch Jamar Chase, you'd like, oh, that's one. Like just in terms of talent, in terms of like tackles that he breaks and angles that he defeats and catches that he makes outside of his frame and the downfield acrobatics and the toughness like just again just pure athletic talent i'd be like oh it's like jr j brown like like tary kill when you look at numbers he's only been a league for two seasons and and all together has just not produced efficiency wise or explosives wise the same way that these other guys have right like only 12% of jemar chase's touches this year were explosive touches about like league average a little bit above league average

for starting wide receivers. It is not, like that was a huge part of his game in 2021, but we all kind of looked at that and said, okay, this is going to regress, and then it did. And so you just, you look at them and you go,

okay, numbers-wise, you're not on the same tier as these guys, talent-wise and vibes-wise, and Jemar Chase, plays like the best receiver in the league and produces like the best receiver in the league. I won't be surprised at all. Because I watch them play,

and I'm like, yeah, 100%, dude, this guy's unbelievable. It's just, I don't think that, Like, I think that the numbers in his rookie season belied just how productive of a player he could be in that offense, right? Sharing time with T. Higgins. And so it's very hard to get him above like an A.G. Brown, get him above a Cooper Cup and like how well those guys have produced consistently over the last few years. I just kind of want to from a vibe's perspective. Yeah, yeah. No, I feel the same exact way.

I was kind of surprised that he landed as low as he did on my list. I have him at seventh right behind A.J. Brown. but then you look at the numbers and it's it's they're not like t higgins has way better numbers across the board last year than him and i know a lot of that might be the fact that chase got injured he had that one stretch where he didn't really play in the middle of the year but higgins has been hurt too and i don't know when i watched them play i kind of feel like higgins is the better receiver and to your point like jemar chase is like the better the better athlete i don't know the better football player i think like if you asked that one question if you made a team full of

of like you had, you cloned a guy 11 times who would have the best team. I think Jumar Chase is the answer that question for the receiver position. I think if you asked the defense of the Bengals face every game, who you're more scared of,

Jamar Chase or T. Higgins. They're all saying Jemar Chase. But then I think when you actually watch them play, like who's the harder player to deal with schematically? I think the answer is T. Higgins. Like I think the places he threatens you on the field are not only more like viable.

Joe Burrow can hit those windows more consistently. Yeah. So, spoiler. So you have Jamar Chase 7. You have T. Higgins. 8, which I thought was astonishing. I was not ready for this at all. And so for you, like, functionally Chase and Higgins,

like these guys, like, this is not an AJ Brown, Devante Adams, where it's, or excuse me, Devante Smith, where it's 1A, 1B. This is not a Terry Kill Jalen Water where it's 1A1B. This is a 1A, 1A. Yeah. These dudes are basically equivalent, even though like body types are super different.

Roles are super different. And this is why this is so hard to do is because, like, you could say Chase is 7 and T. Higgins is 8, but, like, they exist in totally different worlds in terms of how they play. And here's my argument for, even though I have Chase ahead of Higgins, I really wanted to put Higgins ahead of me. But even though I have-

You've already caused enough problems with Bengals fans. You were on Mina show, Ranking Joe Burrell, like the ninth best quarterback in the league or something. How are you going to get mad and putting another bangle over him? Anyway, my argument would be when Jemar Chase hits on like a big play, you don't really know when it's coming. Like, it's like, oh, he caught this slant and he just took it 80 yards. Oh, oh, I can't believe he did that.

Or, oh, he just out of nowhere, he just caught a 60-yard bomb. downfield. I feel like Higgins, you can kind of set your clock to him more so than you can, Jamar Chase. I feel like you're like, oh, we're going to run like Jamar Chase on a sail route to the left side. We're going to have digs coming on that dig, that backside dig to the right. You know, you know Higgins is going to get open. I don't know if you know Jamar Chase is going to get open. And I think that's something the Bengals can rely on. And you watch them on third down, if it's not like a short underneath kind of thing, like a schemy thing,

a Roger Severe screen type set up for Chase, it's a target over the middle to T. Higgins every time. You rolled in here with the big old, like I love explosives and that's how much I love football and that's what I watch a quarterback's and yada, whatever. And then you've been big on Stefan Diggs for being extremely steady across the board, and now you're talking T. Higgins over Jemar Chase

for being extremely steady across the board. Because they still do the explosive stuff. Like T. Higgins was a better downfield receiver last year by statistics than Jemar Chase was. Yeah. T last year by explosive play percentage, 16th in the league, 22%. Jamar Chase was below Tyler Boyd? No, that can't be right. Where's Tomar Chase? No, yeah, he was. Tyler Boyd put up better stats than Jamar Chase. Jamar Chase was 68th in the league and explosive play percentage. And so, yeah, big difference. But they changed how they used Jamar Chase. Right, they did. And that was partly because of how

defenses were playing them. But like, you watched the Bengals in on third day. both guys are getting bracketed. That happens. Like, I don't know. I really think Higgins is just a fascinating player that doesn't get enough credit. A guy that big should not be able to move the way he moves. You watch them route for route. I think T. Higgins is a better receiver.

I still think Jemar Chase is a better football player. Yeah. Last season, one of the things that was astonishing about Jemar Chase was hit, or excuse me, not last season, two seasons ago. One of the things that was astonishing about Jemar Chase was his yards after catch over expectation. In terms of where he caught the football and the defenders that were around him, this is a next-gen stats stat.

Jamar Chase was basically second only to Debo Samuel and arguably better than Debo Samuel in terms of his ability to create yards after the catch where he should not have been able to do it. This season, that number kind of came back down to earth a little bit. He was like eighth in the league. And I think that's where some of that explosive play goes. And I think that his 2022 season is probably more indicative of. of the sort of player he is in his 21 season where it's like, okay, this guy can break

an insane amount of tackles, but 21 was just unbelievable. It was so ridiculous in terms of what he was pulling off. And I don't know if, I think his 2022 performance is much more likely to kind of signal the player he is to come, which is like, again, like, so Deepo Samuel was third in that, Jaylon Waddle was second,

AJ Brown was fifth, so he's with those guys, he's just a step below those guys. And I still think he was a better player last year than he wasn't 2021, even if the numbers don't say the same. Like I thought he became a more reliable target for Joe Burrow,

even though he already was. So, okay, now if you're putting Jamar Chase at 7 and T. Higgins at 8, and I can say with some confidence, yeah, you're already grinning at me, you know what question's coming. I can say with great confidence

that Jamar Chase is going to cost more to extend than T. Higgins would have cost the Bengals to extend. If you had to pick one, like T. Higgins at 22 per year, Jamar Chase at 28 per year. What are you picking? I'm still, I think I'm picking Chase. Higher upside. I said he was a better football player. No chess behind his take. Just no,

no, can't hold his water. I rate Chase ahead of Higgins. Barely, seven and eight. I'm saving you six million per year. Go get you a Haydenhurst. All right. Screw it. I don't care. There's no stakes. I'll take Higgins. That's what we like to hear. Those are the taste I'll make it even spicier. I'll take like Amari Cooper over. Jamar Chase. No, you won't. I'm joking. No, I'm joking. All right. I had, you had

Jamar Chase at 7, T. Higgins at 8. I had Stefan Diggs at 7. That's where he landed for me. He's at the bottom of my second tier. Having talked through, having heard you talk about Diggs and having talked through Chase, I think probably I should have Diggs at 6 and Chase at 7. I think it'd be comfortable making that flip.

I don't want to put him above cup. I certainly don't want to put him above AJ Brown. So to me, like, digs is somewhere in that in that second tier. And it's still like a tier of functionally elite players. But the biggest disagreement we have for sure, I think, is our ranking of digs. Eight for me is the player who, if anybody listened to the ranking show last year,

they know we got into it. The fact that Stephen continues to refuse to rank Devo Samuels, the top 10 wide receiver is just astonishing. It's just a ludicrous. And it's flat out erroneous. It's demonstrably erroneous. No, it's not. No, it's not.

8.8 yards after cash per reception this year from Devo Samuel, more than two more than the next receiver, Rondale Moore at 6.85. Now, yes, he's catching a lot of his passes behind the land of scrimmage, but this continues to be... Understatement. A lot. I said a lot.

Wasn't a lot. The most in the NFL is another way to put it. Yes. But I'm not going to knock him for usage when he's got a unique usage. He's got a unique body type, and he landed with an offensive designer who's exactly correct for him in Kyle Shanhan.

That does not change the fact that he is ridiculously good at what he has asked to do. What he is asked to do is foundational to the success of the offense, which has been one of the most successful offense over the last few seasons. You could not take Debo Samuel out of this offense and have it worked the same way. It absolutely would not. And he's doing it with Jimmy Groplo and Brock Purdy at quarterback. Like, you can't, you can't. Okay.

Okay, you can't get, you don't get both. You don't get to say, yeah, he's part. That's just the A dot is the part of the offense. and then you get to say he's propping up those two, like they're not just throwing them chest passes. Okay, but still, like, let's, let's, like Patrick Mahomes' chess passes aren't going to be any better than Brock Purdy.

Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Let's clone Brock Purdy 301 times. Let's put him on every single NFL team, and let's have him throw chess passes, which Brockper doesn't have a good example, because Brock is trying to push it down the field. It's clone Jimmy 31 times. And let's put 32 jimmies on 32 NFL teams

and leave all their wide receiver cores intact and just have him throw chess passes, which offense in the league is going to be the best. The 49ers, but who cares? What do you mean who cares? The chess pass the offense? Debo makes the offense work. Like, I think this is...

Okay, let's do the same thing with Debo Samuels. Let's drop him on any other team with any other coach. Let's put him in Houston. What does his stat line look like? I mean, Houston, the current Houston OC is his ex-office coordinator. Okay, bad, bad example. Let's put him in... Salas, it's going to look great, buddy.

Let's put him in Carolina. I think a sound line would look excellent. I think they're still going to be able to use Debo Samuel well. It's also like it is incorrect to typify Debo Samuel as somebody who exclusively produces that. Oh, yeah. Debo's an unbelievable contested catch player. He's a great adjust down the field player. The emergence of Brandon Ayuk has allowed the Niners to use IUC more in the intermediate area of the field and use Debo less in that area.

but when IUC wasn't get hit in, Debo is the one running the 15-yard digs making catches in front of safety, breaking tackles and turning the wall up down the field. Like, Debo, in that intermediate middle of the field a couple years ago, it was him and AJ Brown, that was it, man. Like, those two guys working that area.

Debo stepped away from that area a little bit for help, like trying to keep them healthy. And then because they have Ayuk now who works that area well enough that they can take Debo out of it. But it's not like Debo ceases to exist, five plus yards amount of scrimmage. Yeah. No, you're making it be like now.

I look like a Debo hater. Like, I actually think Debo is a really good player. I just don't think he's a top 10 receiver. He's not better than T. Higgins. You have C.D. Lamb on here. Cedie Lamb is a better player,

a better receiver than him. No. Cot boy. Cidie Lamb, little, just seam bender merchant. I'd rather be slot boy than backfield boy.

Okay, that's kind of fair in terms of like where you line up. But there's only one backfield. boy. He's a unique backfield boy. There's a lot of slot boys. There are a lot of jet sweep boys too. That's a big part of his game.

But no, I like Debo. I think he's a good play. Like, I would take him over Iyuk, even though I use the more traditional receiver. I just like, yes, on one hand, you can't fault him for his role in the offense. On the other hand, if he was able to do Tyree kill things, wouldn't they be doing Tyree kill things with him? Sure. But like, if he was able to do Travis Kelsey things, wouldn't he do Travis Kelsey things? when he do Travis Kelsey things with him. Like, I agree.

Like, he's not Terry Kilp. Nobody else on this list is Tyree Kill. No, I know. Just like, I feel like it's more valuable for him to be like a Stefan Diggs type of receiver than it is to be the wideback or whatever they call them two years ago. If he had to play on a random offense somewhere, like, yes, certainly, but he doesn't. And like that, like, you can say like, we have to take them in a vacuum, but you can only take that to a point. Like, Debo does what he's asked to do. and he does it unbelievably well.

And like, and like the same is true of T. Higgins and the same is true of C.D. Lamb and the same is true of Jalen Waddle and of all these guys that are in this area. You have to parse them somehow. In terms of what they're asked to do, nobody does what they're asked to do better than Debo Sainbo does. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, Debo's not an elite receiver.

He's outside of my quote unquote elite tier. I think he's like a great wide receiver one. But he's not elite because he's not like scheme versatile. With that said, when we start to move into the tier of guys where it's just like, okay, what do you bring? me and how do I build around this with my other receivers, nobody has a more unique skill set and fills it better than Debo Samuel does, in my opinion. Okay. I mean, yes, it's very unique that we can argue about the value of that uniqueness. I do like Debo. Like, I think he's a good player. Like, only,

I would like to see him produce more against man coverage. I do think that's one area where we could see him improve as a receiver's like separation. I think he's a smart route runner. I think he knows how to like use his body. I think he can make tough catches above his his shoulders. I don't I don't think he's necessarily good at going down low and getting the ball. I just, for me, he's not a guy that I know on third and seven that he's going to get open. That is just the part for me that kind of makes it hard for me to put him in my top ten. But yes, he's a very good receiver. He's a very good football player and any team is lucky to have him.

I'm not a Devo Samuel Hayter. Third and seven fetishist, Stephen Ruiz, man. Every time we do this pot every year, it's like, what about on third and 19? Okay, whatever. Get Freddie Mitchell in there. I'm very interested to hear why you have CD Lamb at 9 because you have Higgins at 8 and CD lamb at 9 and like I certainly have CD on like my like first five out

and like he's quite good but at no point that I feel like like I gotta get CD Lamb on this list. So what am I missing with CD? I think he's a player who like he kind of like when you look at his stats he kind of fits into that like slot role like you call him slot boy earlier. Slot boy. But I think he's slot boy plus like I think he is what people thought Michael Thomas was. Not only is he that possession guy that Dak can really rely on,

especially over the middle of the field and against zone coverage. I really think he has a knack. There were some mental lapses last year on interceptions where there is a miscommunication. But I think CD has a good sense for finding space in his own and how to like tempo his routes, especially when he's going up against zone. So he's hitting the window right when Dak sees him. I think that's like a very valuable skill set with a quarterback like Dak Prescott. And then I think he has the ability to win in man cover.

It's like you can win early in a route at the line of scrimmage or he can win late in the route at the break, like at the top of the route. And that versatility for me outweighs what you're not getting from him. And what you're not getting from him is he's not going to be that outside prototypical receiver. He's not going to be that not necessarily be that down the field stretch kind of guy. But I also at the same time think he has parts of the, you know, that style of play in his game. And it kind of comes out when you really watch.

him down to down. There are times when he lines up outside against a top cornerback and he beats him down the field and he just doesn't get a target. So I think he has it in his game to be a little more well-rounded. That's just not what he's being asked to do in this offense. This is your for the love of the game pick. This is just like C, I love the CD plays. Yes, it is. Yeah. That's, I have Mike Evans at 10. Mike Evans is my love of the game pick, man. You don't get to have eight, 1,000 yard receiving seasons and like have your role significantly change as you have like multiple quarterbacks of different styles and different OCs come in and out and Tom Brady's arm is falling off and you're still producing like it's just Mike is just Mike so good and what I haven't at 11 yeah

Mike's my love of the game pick yeah CD to me like I love CD coming out and I and I thought that CD would be better winning on the outside than he has been in Dallas and I think a lot of that is because of what they allow him to do and when they put him outside and the fact that they kind of run him from the slot so much and they they limit him and they don't need to. But you're kind of at the proof of the putins and the eating stage with him where it's like, all right, like you're one of the best slots in the league. It's really tough for me to knock you above Mike Evans, who can just line up on the outside and beat Markle on Lattimore and does it more consistently than you do.

Yeah. On the outside. Yeah. Our, my ninth, your 10th is a player that I was so ready to go to bat for if you didn't have him and I was loki disappointed you did have him because it means I couldn't go to town. on Jalen Wattle. Oh, that's year for the library,

man. Holy smokes. This, this, like, when I go back and I think about this, this Dolphins' offensive year, I think everyone will define it

as the Mike McDaniel year and the Tewitang of our little year and the Tyreek Hill year. And I'll just be sitting here to myself going, buddy, it's the Jalen Waddle year, baby. Holy smokes, that cat can play. What a player, man. Was top five in the league in Target share,

was top five in league in yards per route run, was top five in league in explosives, was top five in league in yak after, yak for reception. Just a freaking Corvette out there, man. I mean, just speed, speed, speed, a little bit of quickness and some more speed. Holy smokes. What a fun, dynamic player who I think there's a Debo argument here where like he kind of

gets put in a role that is catered for him and other offensive ones have it. And like because Tyree kills on the field, he doesn't give the amount of attention that he would. Like if he drop him on the Panthers right now and I think life is definitely a lot harder for Jamel Waddle. He's got to deal with more press, deal with more bracket, deal with more physicality, right? Both from a gravity perspective, nobody's pulling attention from him. And then from a design perspective where McDaniels are so good to get in these guys in space. But with all that said, young man can move a little bit. Young man can scoot.

He is such a delight to watch. He is so physically gifted. He's got unbelievable hands. He's got great adjustment, awesome contested catch. Like, I would not be surprised if I have Waddle over Debo on this list next year. and the reason is because he does have that third and seven ability, the Debo lacks a little bit in terms of how they play the offense that you're alluding to, right?

He is such a valuable target for them in terms of moving the sticks. If Waddle has another season next year, like the one he had this year, which is, by the way, a high volume season. He got a ton of targets and super high efficiency. It's going to be impossible to keep him out of the second tier. Like he's going to be doing the AJ Brown thing where it's like, okay, are you pretty much winning every single down only one way? Yes, but are you so good at it that you just can't ignore it? Yeah, that's the case. And so Waddle at 9, do not be surprised if we're

back on these mics in June 24 going Waddle at 6, Wattel at 5, man. He is a delight to watch. Yeah, and he's one of those players where you watch them in college and you were like, if this works at the NFL level, like not only is going to be a great player, but it's going to be fun as hell to watch. And I don't know what it's going to look like. And then he became that player. Like he became everything you wanted him to be when you watched him at Alabama. And I was really high on him coming out. And I didn't even expect this. Like I didn't expect him. Like you talked about how if he went to another team, like it might be harder just because the role he's in. But really when you look at that offense, like he's the one that Mike McDaniels kind of had to adjust the

least like his role. Like Tyreek had a totally different role than he had in Kansas City. Tua obviously had to make a lot of schematic changes to get the best out of Tua. But I thought Jalen Waddle was the guy that got the least amount of help out of those three at least. And like you said, he had one of the better years. Like even statistically, he was better than Tyree Kill. And then- Jalen Waddle had 117 targets last year and he had 60 first downs. He had a target on over, he had a first down on over 50% of his targets last year.

That's very dumb. That's the dumbest stat of them. It's very irritating. And like you look at his stats against like man coverage. He kills man coverage. You can't cover him. And like I said earlier, he was playing on the line of scrimmage a fair amount in that offense. And like in that offense, you're not getting a lot of slot opportunities really, like pure slot opportunities just because what they do with their backfield, the formations, it's usually two wides.

And he didn't require any of that help. Like, he, he carved out a role as like a deep threat in spots that you don't typically see deep threats line up in. Yeah. It's just an amazing player. Yards per route run against zone coverage, 2.88 second in the league. You know who was first? Terry Gill. 3.49.

This is not a Mike McDaniel podcast, but baby, all podcasts when it's been in. Stephen on the mics, all podcasts are Mike McDaniel podcast. That's right. Anybody who is outside of your top 10 that you were really trying to get in emotionally, spiritually, temptationally. Devante Smith would have been my love of the game. I just love him. I love everything.

I love watching him play. He's, yeah, I think he's everything that I thought he would be coming into the league. And he's kind of just overshadowed by the fact that Andrew Brown is a monster, like a literal football-touching monster. But if he wasn't, I think we would. he would be in the top 10 of both of our lists. Yeah, I brought it up a little bit when I was referring to like wide receiver 1 and wide receiver two, gravity.

But when you go and you look at third down performance in the league last season, Devante Smith was a unbelievable stick mover for the Eagles. He was 17th in the league in first down slash touchdowns on third down attempts. Like this, he was the guy for them. For me, man, like, I have a very strict, hard and fast rule about rookies. and I got to see things multiple years before I put all my chips in. Buddy, does Chris Olavé show up on a lot of these lists?

Man, oh, man, is Chris Alave? When you start talking efficiency and you start talking explosives at high volume, you find yourself a lot of Christopher Olame. No caveats either. No, like, rookie caveats. Like, he's like at the top of everything. Exactly.

And with questionable quarterback play and with questionable, with no gravity adjusters, right? There's no Michael Thomas. He's out there line of opposite Rashid, buddy. Chris Alame, I'm looking forward to this list next year and getting an opportunity to get him on the list. But as it stands, these are our top 10 wide receiver rankings and exercise almost entirely in futility,

but hopefully still interesting. If you want to get mad at us, feel free to. I'm on Twitter at Benjamin Solax. Stephen's on Twitter at the Stephen Ruiz. We won't care or react. Because the entire premise of this show is that it is, hard to do. And so you can get mad at us all you like.

If you were mad to. Yeah. We're mad at ourselves too. Nobody here feels good. If you would like to, please rate review and subscribe. If you've enjoyed the show, we're obviously kicking this thing off this summer. And we would love to hear from you in terms of what you like. And we would also love for our bosses to hear that you like it.

And so if you like it, you click the review button and you tell us that you do. And that makes us happy. We will be back next Friday as we will be back every single Friday this summer. Thank you to our producer, Eduardo Ocampo, for hanging out with us. on this marathon of a show, as well as the additional production supervision from Arjuna, Ramgapol and Connor Nevins. Thank you to Stephen for hopping on with me. And next week, we will be talking about the ultimate cheat code of quarterbacking.

That is quarterback mobility. Talk to you then.