Transcription
Picking the right early round wide receivers is one of the best ways that you guys can win your fantasy football leagues. On this channel, we talk about drafting wide receivers early and often all the time. But today, I'm going to give you guys a macro game theory kind of road map on how to best pick these wide receivers, archetypes, and all that kind of stuff.
I did this video for running backs. A lot of you guys gave me great feedback for it. If you guys are like me, you probably get after wide receiver 15, round three, round four, and you go, "Okay, round four wide receivers seem the same as round six wide receivers. All these guys blend together." So, today we're going to give you guys some concrete, actionable advice to be able to actually sort through these guys and pick the ones that are the correct answers. I calendar a year from now when we know how the season plays out. We got to make those decisions on the clock. But as I did for the running back position, let's start by outlining why we want to hit so badly on these early round wide receivers.
The concept of value over replacement, Vorp for short. How much more valuable is Jamar Chase who was the wide receiver one in fantasy last year than the wide receiver 20 overall than the wide receiver 30 overall? Or this top five receiver? How much more valuable is he than any random wide receiver 2, three type that people have on their bench or in their flex spots? Legendary value over replacement players. We had one last year. Jamar Chase lapped the field, producing four plus PPR points more than any other wide receiver in fantasy. There's a reason a lot of people won their championships due to Jamar Chase last year. High value over replacement players like Jefferson, St. Brown, Brian Thomas Jr., CD Lamb, Malik Neighbors, JSN, Terry McLaren, certified hits. If you drafted these guys, you probably did pretty well last year. And then we also had solid value over replacement players like Garrett Wilson, Drake London, Jerry Judy, Lad Mcconkey, Mike Evans, Devonte Adams, Courtland Sutton, AJ Brown, and DJ Moore. If these guys were contributing members and you had some of those better wide receivers, they were probably good options for you as well. And then you also have guys with like middling value over replacement. If you drafted them early like Tyreek Hill, Devonte Smith, they probably disappointed you mightily. But if you drafted a middling value overreplacement guy later or you picked him off of waiverss like you know Jawan Jennings or Darnell Mooney or Jacobe Meyers then a middling value over replacement is actually not that bad of a thing.
So again you can see on this chart how value over replacement plays itself out. It's not as steep at the wide receiver position usually as the running back position because usually the top five, six, seven, eight guys at running back are a little bit further ahead. We do see in recent years that there's usually three to five wide receivers that really separate from the pack and then the wide receiver ones in the back end high-end wide receiver twos and then the twos and threes kind of blend together there. So 2024 to give you guys an idea of how down of a season we had at wide receiver last year. It was the lowest value over replacement season since 2020. Only 17 wide receivers last year had above a 100 value over replacement rating and just one above 200 which was Jamar Chase. In 2023, for example, 28 wide receivers, not 17, were above 100. And in 2021, we saw five wide receivers above 200. So imagine if there was five Jamar chases last year. That's basically what we had in the 2021 fantasy landscape.
And this is not the only reason why wide receivers weren't good last year. Injury rates at running back were down. 65% of the top 20 running backs in ADP played 16 or 17 games, aka they stayed healthy. Whereas the injury rates for wide receiver, only 40% of the top 20 wide receivers in ADP played 16 or 17 games. And the average games missed of 2.7 was the highest number in the, you know, sample that I took, which was since 2015, it was the highest amount of games missed from early round wide receivers that we've seen. So, as much as I've warmed up a little bit to this running back renaissance that we've been undergoing, the wide receiver position experienced abnormal lows last year. the lowest value of a replacement since 2020. Highest injury rate in 10 years. Highest serious injury rate since 2021. Eight of the first 20 wide receivers either got injured or busted at ADP. Highest since 2019 in terms of the overall rate there. That's a 40% rate. Not only that, but three of the biggest mid-round values that would have helped the wide receiver position, Chris Godwin, Rasheed Rice, and Stefon Diggs missed a lot of time. Those were going to those were looking like some of the best hits out of the wide receiver 20 to 36 range and a lot of those guys got injured. Godwin, Rice, and Diggs all went down for eight plus games in that range. So truly historical outlier year of a season from the wide receiver position.
Despite that, you'd think the market would overreact. You'd think that the wide receiver position would, you know, go down in ADP and the running backs would get pushed up the board, but that's not really what's being uh, you know, taking place in in drafts right now. running backs outperform wide receivers for the first time in 10 years in the top 50 of overall ADP and hit rate. Yet, a whopping 28 wide receivers are going in the first uh 50 picks of underdog ADP, which is the highest in nine years with 23 going this high in home league ADP, which is above the average as well. So, for the most part, we're seeing the wide receiver position still be valued highly. People are still drafting them high despite how bad of a season they had last year. Wide receivers are expensive, but due for a bounceback. So again, one thing that we're looking for right away is is there a discrepancy in what is likely to happen based on the data or are we looking at a situation that the wide receiver position is being undervalued. That is absolutely not the case. Most fantasy players kind of understand that it was an upyear for the running back position and we don't necessarily expect that to continue.
Um but just like I did for the running back position, we are going to break down the types of wide receivers that we want to be targeting in the early rounds. We're going to go back since 2020. We've sampled 180 wide receivers drafted inside the top 36 of ADP. And I labeled them one of four different archetypes. You guys can see them on the screen. Breakout candidates, meaning they're in year three or younger of their career. And they have not finished as a wide receiver one in points per game before. Trusty veterans, meaning they're 29 plus years old. Prime wide receiver ones under the age of 29, but they have a wide receiver one finish already. So even a guy like Malik Neighbors, Brian Thomas, who are only 22 years old because they finished as a wide receiver one, they're in the same bucket as say Justin Jefferson, CD Lamb, who are clearly, you know, in their prime wide receivers in their sixth NFL season. And then prime wide receiver twos. Basically, this is you never broke out in the first three years of your career. You never had that wide receiver one finish. So you're in year four plus of your career. think George Pickkins, Garrett Wilson, um you know, Jameson Williams, Chris, they're in year four plus of their career, but they've never had a wide receiver one finish in points per game, but they're under the age of 29, so they're still in their primes as well.
So, before I do and go through all this data, I do want to remind you guys that our rankings, our draft guide, everything is up to date over on Flock Fantasy. You can get our season pass right now, August to January, site access completely by using the promo code FSE. You'll get that for 30% off for just 35 bucks. You'll get all of our draft guides, rankings, tools, everything on our site from us, from the flock, from uh domain, from land, everything that we have to dominate those buffoon league mates that you guys call friends and family. Link down below for that in the pin comment. Again, make sure to use promo code FSE.
But again, based on these archetypes, we want to look at the top 36 wide receivers from last year and how they finished. So, this can be kind of confusing. I'll quickly explain how it works. The highlighted color over the player's name all the way to the end is what they were going into the season. So yellow like a Garrett Wilson was a breakout candidate. Green like a Nico Collins was a wide receiver one in his prime. Orange like a Michael Pitman Jr. was a prime wide receiver 2. And blue like Mike Evans, Cooper Cup were trusty veterans. So the color on the left as you guys can see there over the number is how they scored. Returned on ADP, got injured, boomed, busted or fine rate. Green on the left there means they returned on ADP. They were finished at or above where they were being drafted or they hit 17 plus PPR points per game like CD Lamb who was drafted wide receiver 1 but still had a pretty good season finished wide receiver 7. Lamb, St. Brown, Chase, Jefferson and so on. Those were the guys that returned on ADP and then further down the board you had T. Higgins, Terry McLaren doing that. The orange number on the left there is injury aka they missed six or more games. Brandon Iayuk, Rasheed Rice, Christian Kirk, Chris Ave, etc. Boom rate is their name is in purple text. So their physical name there is in purple text. 18 plus points per game or they beat ADP by 10 or more spots. So you got Terry and Neighbors and Higgins crushing their ADP by 10 or more spots. But then you also had St. Brown, Chase, Puka, Jefferson beating 18 PPR points per game. Red meaning they busted aka they lost 12 or more spots of ADP. So they were drafted really high, didn't finish that high. Marvin Harrison Jr., Tyreek Hill, Debo Samuel, Michael Pitman Jr., and Jaylen Wadd were guys that busted. And then in yellow, they were kind of just fine. They lost one to 11 spots of ADP.
In the running back video, I mentioned that being just fine was a really bad thing at running back because you have that higher injury rate. The running back position is usually overvalued, but it's not as bad at wide receiver. Like for example, if you drafted AJ Brown, if you drafted Garrett Wilson, if you drafted Drake London, Cooper Cup, DK Metaf, DJ Moore, George Pickkins, Z Flowers, Calvin Ridley, they weren't league winners, but if you had better options on your roster around them, they were probably fine and they definitely didn't kill you either. So, um, those guys were definitely more in the just fine territory. That's what I did for the the 2024 ADP, but I did that going back every year since 2020. Um, and you guys can see the hit rates. You can see the breakout candidates, the trusty veterans, the prime wide receiver ones, the prime wide receiver twos, and then the overall averages of the wide receiver position. You can see that among the wide receiver position, there's a larger discrepancy than there was in the running back video. In the running back video, things were a little bit closer together. The prime wide rece or the prime RB1s definitely performed the best, but it wasn't like by far and away ahead of the veterans or ahead of the breakout candidates.
In the wide receiver position, the breakout candidates and the trusty vets were very boomer bust. was, hey, if you love the micro player take case, like for example, last year a breakout candidate I loved was Malik Neighbors. Because of the talent that I scouted, I was really in on the breakout case for him, but breakout candidates generally were pretty boomer bust. Same goes for trusty veterans. Like for example, this year, I love the case for Tyreek Hill. I think he can bounce back, but trusty veterans are a little bit more boomer. Prime wide receiver twos were safer bets than those two and they had higher ceilings. You can see that on returned on ADP, prime wide receiver twos returned 37.9% of the time, whereas breakout candidates trusty veterans only 27% of the time. And then the boom rate, aka they crushed their ADP, they have 18 plus points per game, was 31% for prime wide receiver 2, just 8.3% for trusty veterans and 18.8 uh 18% for breakout candidates. So prime wide receiver 2 is the second best archetype here. And then clearly, ever so clearly, the prime wide receiver ones are the best picks on the board. When you combine the 52% return on ADP rate, which is 15% higher than the next closest prime wide receiver twos, then you factor in that the boom rate was over one out of every three that you were drafting, that you're getting either 18 points per game or crushing ADP by 10 or more spots. That is a huge, huge hit. One in every two prime wide receiver ones that you're drafting is basically a pretty substantial hit for you. And even if you throw in that just fine rate, because again at the wide receiver position, it's more acceptable than it is at running back, we're talking about you're basically hitting on three out of every four wide receivers that you draft as prime wide receiver ones in the early rounds, the top 36 of ADP.
If I simplify this chart even more to give you guys a very clear picture of what archetypes are better than others, prime wide receiver ones crush at the highest rate, miss at the lowest rate, and hit at the highest rate. That is exactly what we want to find out when we're drafting in that clump of wide receivers. we have no idea what to do with. Prime wide receiver twos also crushed at a pretty high rate, hit at the second highest rate, and missed at the second lowest rate there, too. So, those are definitely the two archetypes we want to be targeting the most. Again, you could still target breakout candidates, you can still target trusty veterans, but you want to be thinking micro player take-wise that they have everything that you could possibly want.
So, yesterday in yesterday's video, I went over predicting the next league winning wide receiver. I went over all the micro player takes for all of the top 45 wide receivers in ADP. But specifically, we're going to go through the top 36 wide receivers and we're going to archetype them. We're going to label them. Are they prime wide receiver ones? Are they prime wide receiver twos? Are they breakout candidates? Or are they trusty veterans? You guys can see the first 10 names off the board are prime wide receiver ones. This is why people including us are talking about hero wide receiver being potentially a really good strategy this year or maybe even doubling up on wide receivers to start your draft. Let's say you could start your draft with CD Lamb and AJ Brown or at the turn you go Amanra St. Brown, Brian Thomas. This is why people are talking about this strategy because the first 10 names off the board are the best archetype of wide receiver you can be. The highest hit rate, the highest crush rate, the lowest miss rate, all that kind of stuff. The league winner matrix since 2017 that we keep bringing up from Ryan Heath. The highest win rate at wide receiver is round one and two where all of these guys are going. Every single one of these top 10 guys is a second round picker higher. If you can secure two of these wide receivers at the top and still feel comfortable, this is the key part of it. Still feel comfortable that you're going to get good running backs rounds three, round four, round five, then double wide receiver to start your draft is absolutely a viable strategy knowing that you're walking right into historically the best hit rate by position. You're going to get your wide receivers where they hit the highest. Running back still hit pretty high in the third and fourth round. You could even deviate for a quarterback, for a tight end. You should not sec you should not shy away from securing two of these top 10 league winning wide receivers because there's a very good chance that if we have five or six really good wide receiver hits this year, they're probably from this top 10 in ADP.
So, we've established that the first and the second round wide receivers have high ceilings. But, as you guys might be saying right now, Bush, Danny, you guys always talk about hammering mid-round wide receivers all the time. Rounds three, round seven, uh, in that territory, you want to be drafting a couple wide receivers. And as I made mentioned to you at the beginning of the video, wide receivers 13 through 36 and ADP can sometimes cluster together and it doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of separation. So removing 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024s, wide receiver ones and ADP. So no top 12 receivers, no Ste Lambs, no Justin Jeffersons, no Puka Nuas to skew the data. We're just talking about basically third through seventh round wide receivers here. Wide receiver 13 through wide receiver 36 in ADP. I conducted this exercise again because I wanted to see if the prime wide receiver ones were being carried by the early round guys and that was not in fact the case. You guys can see the hit rate is still three out of every four in the prime wide receiver 1's bucket. The prime wide receiver 2's bucket still hitting at the second highest rate and actually crushing a little bit more than the prime wide receiver ones. Like I said again, I want to remind you guys that this removes those top 12 studs. the prime wide receiver one types, the Lambs, the Jeffersons, they're not included in this. This is wide receiver 13 through wide receiver 36. The moral of the story here is yes, breakout candidates in this territory of the draft are going to hit a little bit more. Worthy, Rice, T-Mac, Z Flowers, Travis Hunter, Romo Dunay are the breakout candidates in this territory of drafts this year. those guys would have a pretty high chance of crushing, but the crush rate of breakouts prime wide receiver ones and prime wide receiver twos is about the same in this territory of the draft. So, while the crush rate was a lot higher for wide receiver ones and wide receiver twos in the first part of the video, that was likely being carried by the early round guys. So, the breakout candidates, the prime wide receiver ones and the prime wide receiver twos in the rounds three through seven range are going to crush at about the same rate.
But my goal in rounds three, four, five, six, seven is usually to hit on my wide receivers. I just want guys that return on ADP. I don't need my sixth round wide receiver to finish as wide receiver six in points per game to win my league. Obviously, that would be great. But I have round one, round two, and round three picks who I probably grabbed high upside anchor running backs and wide receivers who I'm hoping I get that league winning ceiling from those guys. I'm cool taking Zay Flowers in the fifth, sixth round where all I need is him to return on ADP. I'm cool taking Devonte Smith in the fifth sixth round. Jaylen Wadd in the fifth sixth round, Romo Dun in the seventh round where all I need is for them to be better than where I drafted them. Last year, seven wide receivers in this clump, wide receiver 13 through 36 fit the bill as prime wide receiver ones. Five of them were hits minus Chris Godwin who technically four of them were hits, but Godwin before his injury was absolutely crushing and he was wide receiver two in points per game before his injury. But you see among Debo and Wadd who were the only two misses of this territory, Collins was a hit at ADP. DK Metaf was just fine. DJ Moore was just fine at ADP. T. Higgins was a big-time hit at ADP. Chris Godwin, um, if he didn't get injured, was a big time hit. So, knowing this, prime wide receiver ones are the best guys to go after in this wide receiver clump. Wide receiver 13 through wide receiver 36. The guys that fit the bill this year, T. Higgins, DK Metaf, DJ Moore, Devonte Smith, and Jaylen Waddle. These guys pop as top tier fantasy picks in the mid rounds because they have finished as wide receiver ones before and they're under the age of 29. Pass fantasy production is the most predictive metric bar none that we have in this league. Yards for outr run, reception perception, it's all fun. Pass fantasy production and being under the age of 29 crushes it. It is a better hit rate when you talk about um you know hitting on your mid round picks.
If you love the breakout candidates of some of the guys I mentioned, um Worthy, Rice, T-Mac, Z Hunter, and Odun. There's definitely some guys there that I love. If you love them, go nuts. They have definitely a very high ceiling. If you love the prime wide receiver twos, like Jameson Williams, like George Pickkins, like Garrett Wilson, like Jerry Judy, like Chris Ave. If you love the micro cases for them, go nuts. Like for example, I really like the micro cases for for Garrett Wilson, JMO, and George Pickins. I think that target volume and offensive stability is in the in favor of a couple of those guys. So, I like targeting them as well. Trusty veterans like Mike Evans, Terry Mccclure, and Devonte Adams, Courtland Sutton, Calvin Ridley, and Debo Samuel. There's a good chance there's six guys here. there's a good chance four or five of them miss. So if you don't love a guy, let's say for example, I don't love Terry McLaren this year. I don't love Courtland Sutton this year. I don't love Devonte Adams this year. I don't love Ridley or Debo this year. You probably should fade those guys in favor of younger receivers who are either prime wide receiver ones, prime wide receiver twos, or even breakout candidates you really believe in. I'm personally going to be fading Terry Mccclure and Devonte Adams since this Matthew Stafford news. Courtland Sutton, Calvin Ridley, and Debo Samuel. I love Mike Evans. I think the micro case for him is still very strong in the offense he plays in going to get out to a hot start. But other than him, the trusty veterans in this territory I'm very very wary of. And Tyreek technically uh is the wide receiver 12 in ADP. So he just misses this territory. But he's also a guy I'm semi-wary of as well.
In this new landscape of wide receivers, fellas, since underdog has been a staple of the community, wide receivers go higher than ever. It's leeched into home leagues. It's in sharper leagues. Of course, we're going to have to start being picky with these profiles. the way that we had to start getting picky with running back profiles a couple years ago and the way that we still need to be picky with running back profiles. My wide receiver strategy this year is to secure one, maybe even two in the first three rounds, ideally in the first round or in the second round where the hit rates are at the highest, maybe bypassing that round three, round four range where they start to be um, you know, halfway in no man's land between the top end guys and then the mid-round guys. Grab an elite quarterback in the round three if you don't love the wide receiver profiles there. Grab a running back like Bree Hall or James Cook or Amarian Hampton or Kenneth Walker in that territory. If you don't love the wide receiver profiles, grab an elite tight end. If McBride's there at the early third, if George KD's there at the 34 turn, if I can get through my first four rounds with two wide receivers, I feel really good about a running back, maybe an elite quarterback, maybe two running backs. That is a great way to start your draft. And then rounds five to seven, hammer out the good profiles. The wide receiver ones in their prime, the wide receiver twos in their prime, maybe a great breakout candidate that you believe in. Ideally, if they check the boxes, prime wide receiver ones first and foremost, those are the highest hit rates. If you love their micro cases, like I do for Devonte Smith, for example, major targets of mine in the mid rounds, prime wide receiver twos and breakout candidates, whose micro cases I love. For example, love the micro case for Travis Hunter, who's a breakout candidate. Love the micro case for George Pickkins, who's a prime wide receiver, too. Then target those guys as well.
Here's two eight round mock drafts to show you guys how this might play out in a real draft. You can see that I started this one from the 104. grab myself an anchor running back in Jir Gibbs who I think has legendary upside this year. One anchor wide receiver in AJ Brown in that first 10 of ADP. He definitely has a very high chance to be a smash for me. My wide receivers two through four, T. Higgins, George Pickkins and Romo Dunay. I got one prime wide receiver one with T. Higgins who's finished as a wide receiver one before. I have Pickkins who's been a wide receiver two finisher but still in his prime. So a wide receiver two in his prime. And then I have um Romo Dun and Jaden Reed at the end of this draft who are both great breakout candidates that I believe in. and uh Jaden Reed actually finishes a wide receiver too as a rookie. And then Jaylen Herz, an elite quarterback, DeAndre Swift, my volume play at running back.
Another example of a mock here. You guys can see at the end of the board, I double up at wide receiver, two guys that I feel great about. Nico Collins, Brian Thomas Jr., both elite wide receiver ones in their prime. I grab two anchor running backs with Bree Hall and Amarian Hampton. I also um grab another prime wide receiver one profile and Jaylen Wadd. again, past wide receiver one production, but definitely falling down the board for other reasons. Zay Flowers, pass wide receiver 2 production, but still technically a breakout candidate entering year three. And then I grabbed B- Rob in a short order to help out with the running back uh, you know, touches at the beginning of the year because Hampton's a rookie. And then I grabbed Kyler to lock down a rushing quarterback. And then with both of these drafts, I would probably fill out tight end later, grab some more running backs and wide receivers later on in the draft.
Again, I am more likely to to go into these drafts hoping that I can pick out the right archetypes, hoping that I can make the right selections because as much as it's easy for me to say and sit here and go, "Yeah, draft wide receivers rounds four to seven, doesn't really matter who." It's going to matter at the end of the year, there's going to be guys that are hits, there's going to be guys that are misses. The goal is that we can narrow down which guys are the better picks. And if we don't love their um you know micro player take, offense, quarterback play, pass volume, all those kind of things that we talk about all the time, that's when we fade them. If they're the wrong archetype and we don't like that stuff, that's when we target them heavily if they're the right archetype and we like that stuff. I know this video was really valuable for you guys cuz it was super valuable for me to do this research. And just like you, I'm trying to beat my leaguemates this year. I did not have a good showing in my home league last year. Of course, you guys know what happened in the Flock League. So, I am doing my darnest to try and break down as much as I possibly can before the season starts.
If you guys want everything you guys could need to dominate your league mates this year, hit the link in the pin comment. Our brand new season pass been very popular so far. $35 for our draft guide, all the draft guides of your other favorite creators on the site, the land guys, the domain guys, Mason of course at the fantasy flock. All of our rankings, all of our tools, everything that you can use our site for. You have site access from August, like right now if you were to sign up today, August to January. At the end of the fantasy football season, you'll lose your site access. But if you guys are seasonl long reddraft players only, that is when you guys need it the most. It makes the perfect amount of sense. Why wait until your home league draft, too? Make sure you guys can put this advice right into action. Head on over to Underdog Fantasy, sign up, start drafting. There's no inseason management, no waiverss, no trades. All you do is draft. You compete for big prizes, like for example, Bess Mania 6. $25 to enter, 15 million in total prizes, $2 million to first place. You come back, you collect your winnings in January. You have some nice sweats at the end of the fantasy football season. Sign up right now. Use the promo code FSE. Get a 50% deposit match up to $1,000. Both of those are going to be linked down below in the pin comment. And again, best way to get ready for your draft, use our mock draft simulator on the site. You get that with the season pass. Do some underdog drafts. You get that when you sign up using promo code FSE. That is the best way to get yourselves ready to beat your league mates because ultimately that's probably why you guys are all here. You want to win your home leagues. You want to win against your reddraft buddies, against your family members, against your co-workers, your college friends, whoever you play redraft with. That is probably why you clicked on this video. And both of those things will get you extremely extremely ready.
Again, leave a like if you enjoyed. Subscribe if you guys are new around here. Let me know down below what you thought of this video, what was, you know, great about it, what was bad about it. Give us our feedback uh down below. But with that being said, peace out. I'll talk to you soon.