What's going on guys, it's Nick here, back in the video, it's Thursday, it's time for the player breakdown video. Your most vote on breakdown last week was actually 5 players, Chris Godwin, Christian Kirk, Terry McClure, Deontae Johnson and Calvin Ridley, it is a huge group of players going in a range that we really want to be targeting wide receivers specifically, so I definitely understand why you guys want those 5 ranks. So we'll look at those 5 today in half BPR scoring. If you want to see my full rankings for every player in all of scoring formats, you can actually see that for free this season, all you have to do is sign up for your first underdog account using promo code FFA, make a minimum $10 deposit. They'll add a 50% deposit bonus, up to $1,000, and you'll get access to my rankings, both underdog and redraft, email to the following morning, you'll be able to enter some fantasy football drafts with your deposit plus the bonus, I recommend personally 3 puppy drafts. I think it's the best payout structure, they're all $5 drafts, enter 3 of those, put 10 bucks in, they'll turn it to 15, enter 3 drafts, win win for everyone, and you get the rankings again including redraft. So without further ado, start with Chris Godwin, so we're basically just going to break down each one of these wide receivers, and then at the end of the breakdown for each one, we're going to like slowly construct the rankings by the fifth one, we'll have all 5, so of course Godwin will be first on the list after his breakdown, but obviously have to break him down first. So he enters his eighth season, the NFL, but he's a very young rookie, so he's only turning or has turned 28 in February, so still in the prime of his career, don't worry about age for any of these receivers, they kind of have varying ages, but all of them are in the prime of their careers, don't worry about an age cliff for anyone. He's coming off his third straight season with at least 80 receptions and over a thousand yards, but it's been the touchdowns that have really held them back in fantasy scoring. Over the last three years, he's had only five, three, and two touchdowns last year, despite playing, right, he wasn't injured, he played 14, 15, and 17 games, so like, I mean, small injuries here and there, but it's not like he hasn't scored touchdowns, he's only been playing six or eight games in a season, two touchdowns in 17 weeks last season. In fact, we want to look at how unlucky he's gone, Godwin has the ninth most red zone targets and the eighth most targets inside the ten yard line among all players over the last three seasons, but he ranks 58th in receiving touchdowns among the 15 players with at least 24 targets inside the ten yard line over the last three years, which again, Godwin ranks eighth with 30, only two of those 15 have scored less than 20 receiving touchdowns, Godwin only has ten, he's been unbelievably unlucky with touchdowns, and that's what's held back as points for the game, which hasn't even been that bad, he's ranked ninth, 20th, and then 38th last season, that's why last season was, you know, he's 30 fifth off boards right now, that's why, because he was 38th last year and not top 25, if he, you know, had decent touchdown luck, been another top 25 performance, he'd be going as a top 25 wide receiver this season, cherry on top of all this, new offensive coordinator, Liam Cohen, like he was the old offensive coordinator for the Rams in 2022, he said that Godwin is going back into the slot and he's going to play the Cooper Cup role. Godwin is being drafted very, very close to his floor this season, I talk about that so often and how you like de-risk a team, we still want league winners, I think Godwin can be a league winner, he's on my must draft list on the website this season, but what's also good is we combine that with someone who's being drafted super close to their worst case outcome, because even if we're wrong Godwin doesn't see touchdown luck, he doesn't have an improved season, getting little increased efficiency from the slot, while also still playing on the outside in two wide receiver sets, even if all of that happens and he doesn't have a great year, he's like barely going to underperform where you're getting him, and drafts, again, he's a phenomenal pick, he makes the must draft list on the website. And he's first, because he's the only wide receiver we talked about so far. Next up, Christian Kirk, entering his seventh season, turning 28 in November, only has one season with over 80 receptions or over a thousand yards, though it would have been two last year had he not gotten injured. Big change this season is going to be the Jaguars losing Calvin Ridley and Zae Jones, replacing them with Brian Thomas Jr. and Gabe Davis. I've made my thoughts on Gabe Davis known, I don't think he's very good. I think people just continually overrate how good he is. Josh Allen is a phenomenal quarterback, a good deep ball quarterback, someone who will get you the football if you are open, and Gabe was still highly inefficient on that team. So I just don't think Gabe is that good. But I do think Brian Thomas Jr. will obviously need time to develop. He's not going to be the best version himself as a rookie, but I think he's going to add a really nice deep ball element to this offense that they sort of miscast Ridley into last season. We'll kind of get to Ridley in a second. But that wasn't exactly how they should have used Ridley. They just kind of needed to use him in that area. I think Brian Thomas Jr. actually will fill a very important role in this offense and was for them a very good pick because he's just going to be a consistent deep threat, a boundary receiver that they just kind of needed in how they're running their offense. My worries with Christian Kirk are two-fold. One, I don't know that he's going to play into our super sets or at least all of them, right? I think it's extraordinarily likely that at least to some degree, we see a lot of two wider super sets that are only Gabe and Brian Thomas Jr. on the outside. Second, he's got this calf injury that, you know, they're going to hold them out for what seems like this next week. He's not going to play in the preseason game. It seems minor. It's very likely this turns in absolutely nothing, but it's just a concern. It's something in the back of our minds of like, okay, he's got an injury that is going to hold them out for a week. It is a calf, which is something that, you know, limits explosiveness that can definitely be re-injured. And so it's just a worry in the back of our minds. Again, maybe you're watching this the week after it goes out. Maybe you're watching this the week of like basically the week before the season starts and he's already back in practice is me find the part out. It's just something that right now if we're drafting, it's something to keep in mind. But my main worry is really more of the snaps. Like he's been producing decently because he's out there, you know, 80, 90% of snaps. But if that drops because he's playing mostly an 11 personnel and when they move in the 12 personnel, he's just not on the field as much. Obviously, you can only score so many fantasy points if your snaps go down, right? Like, so even if he's going to have to feel more on run plays, there are still times where they go play action, still times where they don't run the ball in those formations. And he's not on the field. He can't score fantasy points. I also think things are far less condensed than people kind of assume in Jacksonville, Brian Thomas Jr, Kirk, Gabe, Ingram, ETN. It's not the strongest five in the league, but it's a very strong core of five skill players. And as much as you're going to want to throw up when you hear this, Tank Bigsby, Parker Washington, they have objectively made strides forward this off season. They are going to be used more than they were last season. And Parker Washington specifically will get some slot usage. And so they will actually be able to have some 11 personnel, even potentially where Kirk isn't on the field. Now, I still think Kirk's a starter. I don't think he's getting benched or anything. But we're just opening up a few more paths this season to where they don't need to have him out there 90% of the time. He could very easily drop down to having a lot more games at like 65, 70% of snaps. And it's just slightly concerning. Now, to me, he's still a relatively safe pick because I do still think he's the best wide receiver on this team. I just think he's one that kind of lacks ceiling. His best season ever was 18th and points per game. And to be honest, what he did two years ago in that best season is probably the best case scenario outcome for him this season, which is like still a good outcome for him. If you take him in the middle round, you'd still be very pleased with him getting 18th and points per game. But it does feel like his ceiling. And at this point of the draft, I mean, we're about to talk about five wide receivers for others that I love that I think have extraordinarily high ceilings this season, who also just like Christian Kirk does have a pretty decent floor. If your ceiling is at your low end wide receiver to, I don't know. I'm not in love with this. So I at least right now I'm going to rank Christian Kirk behind Chris Godwin. I think my stance on Kirk is probably going to surprise people. I just think there are just a lot of different outcomes to where we can look at a lot of people among these five where they are clearly the number one on their team, or they clearly have a ceiling. Would surprise you at all if Evan Ingram had more exceptions than Chris Kirk? No. Would surprise you at all if Brian Thomas Jr. steps up in his first season, sees a huge downfield role, and he out produces Christian Kirk and fantasy. No, especially if we add in touchdowns, which is probably going to be his area. Would we be shocked if Tank Bigsby plus ETN just allows them to run the ball a little bit more often, utilize the running backs a little bit more heavily because they had to scale back a little bit of an ETN last season because Bigsby was so bad. If Bigsby is not bad anymore, then maybe they can utilize running backs more. And it's like there's just so many things in this offense. And it's not like I think the Jaguars are a top five offense in the NFL. I don't truly believe in Trevor Lawrence being, you know, a really, a real game changer, I guess the quarterback position. I don't know. I have worries with Christian Kirk. And so definitely behind Chris Godwin for me. And as you can tell, he's probably going to be towards the bottom of our list. Next up, Terry McLaurin. I'm going to save a little bit of suspense here. I do think McLaurin's first on this list. Now, I think it's close for everyone. And I genuinely believe you get to the end of this entire breakdown and you want to jump things around. Do it, right? I'm just giving my take my opinion. If you think differently and you're like, no, Nick, I truly believe Chris Godwin should be first. I truly believe that McLaurin is capped. Go forth, right? To me, though, I think he deserves to be first four straight seasons with at least 77 receptions and a thousand yards. Like with Chris Godwin, though, struggled a little bit with touchdowns. Unlike Godwin, though, he's actually done really well overall with his usage. So Godwin's has has extreme usage hasn't done amazing in the red zone. McLaurin's done great in the red zone with his usage. It's just that he hasn't had a lot of usage in the red zone because they're obviously not that great of a team. Historically, main thing holding McLaurin back in recent seasons has just been quarterback play. Alex Smith, Dwayne Haskins, Kyle Allen, Taylor Heineke, Garrett Gilbert, Carson Wentz, Sam Howell, and Jacobi Bursett. Those are the quarterbacks he's been playing with. That's a pile of absolute garbage. I know that Jane Daniels is a rookie, but there's for sure a chance that while he needs time to develop, and he's not going to be the best version of himself in this first season. I'm assuming all these rookies, they're not going to max out in year one. Probably still going to be the best quarterback even this season that McLaurin has played with. McLaurin has basically said as much in camp that even in camp, he was already basically the best targets McLaurin has been receiving. Main appeal with McLaurin is the potential target share. He is far and away the best wide receiver that they have. Johan Dotson had a lot of hype coming into the league, had a decent rookie season, but a terrible year or two, has not been separating from Diami Brown, who we know Diami Brown is capped. He's not that good of a player. We look at last season, and it still is a little bit shocking how low the target share was from McLaurin, but that could just be a Sam Howell thing, that could be a quarterback thing, a coaching thing. That doesn't mean that Terry McLaurin is not clearly the best wide receiver in the team. He is clearly their best wide receiver. I absolutely think there's a chance that Jane Daniels, who's, yeah, probably the best quarterback he's played with, recognizes that a little bit more, and kind of hyperfocuses on McLaurin to where we look back at this and we're like, "Oh, yeah." With like, you know, erts, a rookie tight end, with kind of trash wider series behind him. Yeah, McLaurin clearly had the upside to have a 25% target share. Last season, you know, somewhat disappointed because the target share again was lower, but then also, he weirdly saw both his yard's perception and his catch rate drop. Like usually those are inversely correlated, so when you have consistent career, you know, those numbers kind of stabilize. Maybe you have a year where your yard's perception increases, but that's because you're getting more deep looks, so catch rate drops. Other flip side, maybe catch rate increases, but it's because everything's coming close to line of scrimmage. The yard's perception drops. Usually they kind of go like that. They don't usually both drop to pretty poor numbers. That's what happened last season again because they had really bad quarterback play. He only had a 30% catch rate on his deep targets because the target's stunk, right? Like, again, I truly believe Daniel's is going to be much more accurate than the quarterbacks McLaurin has been playing with. So when you combine that with a Cliff Kingsbury offense and a bad defense, we're going to run into a lot of games where we get into really high volume. As per ETR, the commanders have been 20th, 22nd, and then 31st last season in situation neutral pace of play. They were 18th last season for a perspective in plays per game. As an NFL head coach, Cliff Kingsbury's offenses are the fastest paced in the NFL. No team in the NFL is going to run no huddle at a higher rate. Then you look at the preseason, no team played faster than the commander. So again, you combine that all with the poor defense leading to trailing game scripts, elevated passing rates. It's pretty easy to see a lot of games this season where play volume is going to skyrocket. And so if McLaurin is clearly their top wide receiver on potentially the fastest paced team in the league with probably the best quarterback plays had in his career, he's set up for a really, really strong season. He's an exceptional wide receiver that is always underrated because of quarterback play. Again, I just think he deserves to be first on this list. So McLaurin, then Godwin, then Christian Kirk. What about the final two? Dante is up next. And what do you know? He's also entering an improved situation might not seem like that. Join the Panthers. You're like, no, Nick, the Panthers were worse than the Steelers last season. Sure. But he steps in as the clear X wide receiver and Dave Canales offense, which is something that we love. And we just know Diante is good. Another wide receiver that is just always underrated by the community. He ranks top four in ESPN's open score. Four of the last five years, Matt Harmon over reception perception. He charted him with an all green route tree last season, cleared the eighth percentile versus man zone, press coverage, elite versus double teams. Diante is an incredible wide receiver, one of the best in the league, especially against separation. And he really doesn't have any tournament competition. He's got a 34 year old Adam Thielen. Mingo has been out playing like get in camp and Mingo was awful last season. People have said Mingo has been better. And maybe that's true, but he hasn't looked very good in the preseason. And if he is also out playing legette, how good is legette going to be? Diante, what? 27 28% target shares in his range of outcomes this season. Like do I think it's going to be that high an average? Probably not. But we're looking at a player who has a very strong chance of clearing a 25% target share. Even last season with a much worse offensive coordinator at 33 years old, Adam Thielen was the wide receiver 11 through week 11. And then he kind of fell off because he's 33 years old in the second half of the season. Of course, he's going to fall off. Again, that was with a worse offense coordinator that was with Bryce Young doing horrible as a rookie. That was with the Panthers scoring 13.9 points per game. They still supported their number one wide receiver being the wide receiver 11 overall a low end wide receiver number one through week 11. Dave Canals is a great coach who's behind, you know, Smith's breakout in 2022, Baker Mayfield's breakout in 2023, two seasons where we can look back right now and be like, Oh yeah, Baker's fine. You know, it's fine. That not no seasons, right? We were looking in 2022 be like, is Drew lock going to beat out? You know, Smith is, you know, Smith even competent. Then he had a great year. Baker Mayfield last season was like, well, can he really support Godwin and Evans? He's not very good. He had a really strong year. The best season of his career as well. So I'm really excited to see what Canals can do with Bryce Young, who was again the number one overall pick last season. He's a very high end prospect that I don't think people should completely write off play volume touchdowns. Those are going to be a much larger concern still for the Panthers than, you know, these teams we've kind of talked about so far. And that's why I don't think I can rank Deontay first. But I do think he deserves to sit like right above Chris Godwin in our ranking so far as second on the list. He is very clearly their number one target, very clearly their best player in the passing game. And so even on a lower volume offense, a slower paced offense, a lower scoring offense, I genuinely think he's capable of racking up 110 115 receptions this season. That is not something anyone else on this list can say. I can't put him over Terry McLaurin because the commanders are going to destroy the Panthers in play volume. Like it's not even going to be remotely close. And so if their target shares are anything even close to similar, McLaurin is going to have more value. And I do think he's the number one on this list. But I think it is McLaurin, then Deontay, then Godwin, then Christian Kerr. So that leaves us with only our fifth wide receiver, Calvin Ridley enters his sixth season NFL. But because he was an old rookie and he got suspended for a season, he's actually turning 30 in December. Again, I don't think he has a concern for anyone on this list. But if you were to assign it to anyone, you would assign it to Calvin Ridley. In his return last season though, 76 receptions, over 1000 yards, eight touchdowns. Jaguars really just misused him. They used him as a boundary ex receiver. They didn't scheme him any layup routes. They forced him to earn every single yard that he got. And he did a good job. But it's just difficult to post high on numbers as a boundary ex receiver deep down field. Everything you get is not schemed. It is all earned. This year, you've got the Titans giving him a four year, 92 million dollar deal, $50 million fully guaranteed. As a comparison, it's a very similar deal. The the year is a little bit different. But if you just look at the overall structure of the deals, very similar to Nico Collins, Michael Pittman Jr. and Devonta Smith. The deals that those three got are extraordinarily similar when you look at guaranteed money, you look at per year money, you look at what they can do in terms of like outs in the contracts, all very, very similar. So the Titans are heavily invested in Calvin Ridley. This is also going to be a way different offense and we're used to seeing for Tennessee, um, the Titans ranked 31st in situation neutral pace of play under Mike Rebel last six years, compared that to Brian Callahan, who they now have obviously he was the, uh, bangles offensive coordinator. The bangles right second in situation neutral pace of play. So they're going from a bottom three team in situation neutral pace. So on average, they play slow, very slow to a team that's probably going to be top three. The Titans were also a very run heavy team under Rebel. That's going to shift. They're going to be a very past heavy team. Now, so what you expect to see from the Titans is going to look completely different from what they actually look like this season. The one big hurdle is the unknown with Will Levis. Will Levis ranked 24th in EPA per drop back as a rookie. He was dead last in completion rate over expectation. We simply just don't know if Will Levis can be a good quarterback. Our current evidence is that he is not a good quarterback. If Will Levis does step up, it could be a big year for really, and he could end up being a steal. But again, we know that there's definitely a chance that Levis really just isn't that good at all and just kind of caps everyone's ceiling on this offense. Now I get that here you could say the exact same thing about Bryce Young. Bryce Young was terrible as a rookie last season, but Levis was also like, we didn't expect him to be good, right? He was a much worse prospect. So it's like, he comes in being like, yeah, like maybe he's good, but probably not, then he wasn't. And it's like, yeah, that kind of makes sense. We didn't think he was going to be amazing. We thought Bryce Young, you know, definitely there was some variance to how much people liked him, but he was still a really high end prospect. I don't think anyone expected him to be as bad as he was last year. So I think the overall expectations that he's going to get better. I don't know what the expectation is that Will Levis is going to get better. I also just have more faith in Canales fixing young than I do. Callahan fixing Levis. I mean, Callahan's been working with Joe Barrow. You don't have to fix Joe Barrow. He's Joe Barrow, right? Dave Canales has actually fixed quarterbacks that no one thought was any good that had just been kind of like working their way as backups around the league and then became really competent starters. I just think there's just a little bit more upside in Bryce Young. And I think most people can agree with that. I do want to say though that like Ridley's good, right? But so is DeAndre Hopkins when healthy. And while Hopkins isn't fully healthy right now, he probably will be either by week one or week two. And we just know that like Hopkins is a target earner that maybe he's at the tail end of his career, but he's a great wide receiver. He's going to command a solid target share. And so some people on this list have the upside to clearly be the number one target on their team. I mean, we don't we don't actually know if Ridley's even going to be the most valuable wide receiver on the Titans. And we don't even know if the Titans can elevate to what we think that they can be because of Will Levis. So ultimately, I can't definitely rank Ridley over Mick Lauren and Deontay Johnson. I just think the ceiling of those two is a little bit too high. And just the fact that they are clearly the number one passcatchers on their offense. It's too much upside there. And then I also just think the ceiling of Chris Godwin moving back into the slot in this Cooper Cup role in this offense. I think that's also a little bit too high to ignore. So I think I'm going to rank Ridley right after him. So final rankings are going to be Terry McLaurin, Deontay Johnson, Chris Godwin, Calvin Ridley and Christian Kirk. But I will say if we are looking at like hyper focusing considering ADP as well on specific wide receivers in the middle rounds, Deontay Johnson, Chris Godwin and Calvin Ridley. Those are amazing targets. I truly believe that if you're heavily focusing on those three, they're great values by ADP. You will be able to land one or two of them in most drafts. And I think you should be targeting wide receiver in that range and especially those three. So that is how I would break down these five and half PPR scoring. Again, if you want to see my exact rankings in all scoring formats among all players plus my detailed projections as well, see that my website, thefantasyfootballadvice.com and remember the underdog deal. You can get my rankings for free this season. All you have to do is sign up for promo code FFA, make a minimum $10 deposit. That's it. They'll give you a 50% deposit bonus up to $1,000 and then my rankings will be emailed to you the following morning as a log in to my website and then you can check out the rankings for free. Again, join the puppy. If you want to do the minimum, just put 10 bucks in, it'll turn it into 15 with that $5 bonus. Join three puppy drafts. I think that's the best thing you can do with that 15. So if you watch this far, be sure to leave a like, really helps me out and make sure to subscribe to the channel as well so you don't miss out on any more free content. Now my friends, easy on this one and thanks for watching.
