Keyser's WR Tiers (UPDATED 8-31)

[keysersoze3421]

Designed for PPR:

Tier 1
1	Antonio Brown
2	Odell Beckham
3	Jordy Nelson
4	Julio Jones
5	A.J. Green
6	Mike Evans
Tier 2
7	Michael Thomas
8	Dez Bryant
Tier 3
9	Doug Baldwin
10	Brandin Cooks
11	Terrelle Pryor
12	T.Y. Hilton
13	Amari Cooper
14	Davante Adams
15	Michael Crabtree
16	Demaryius Thomas
17	Tyrell Williams
Tier 4
18	Larry Fitzgerald
19	DeAndre Hopkins
20	Golden Tate
21	Keenan Allen
22	Allen Robinson
Tier 5
23	Jarvis Landry
24	Jamison Crowder
25	Jeremy Maclin
26	Willie Snead
27	Alshon Jeffery
28	Corey Davis
29	Eric Decker
Tier 6
30	Stefon Diggs
31	Tyreek Hill
32	Sammy Watkins
33	Emmanuel Sanders
34	Martavis Bryant
35	Brandon Marshall
36	Pierre Garcon
Tier 7
37	Kelvin Benjamin
38	Kenny Britt
39	Randall Cobb
40	Chris Hogan
41	Donte Moncrief
42	DeSean Jackson
43	Jordan Matthews
44	Robby Anderson
45	Corey Coleman
46	DeVante Parker
47	Marvin Jones
48	John Brown
49	Danny Amendola
50	Adam Thielen

* In three of the last four full seasons Jordy Nelson and Aaron Rodgers have played together, Nelson has been a top 5 WR, including top 3 in both 2014 and 2016.  Nelson only finished one week last season lower than WR31 versus four weeks each for Antonio Brown and Odell Beckham, five for Julio Jones, and six for Mike Evans.  Buying Nelson early may limit upside a little bit, but he gives you a reliable floor.

* The biggest difference you'll see here versus other places is in the WRs 11-22 range.  Simply put, the WRs in tier 4 either play with horrible QBs (Hopkins, Robinson) or are too injury prone for my risk tolerance (Watkins, Allen, Jeffery).  I don't worry about either of those issues with any players in tier 3.

* Since 2008, the number 1 WR in Kyle Shanahan offenses has often been heavily targeted:  Andre Johnson in 2008 and 2009 (171 targets each year), Santana Moss in 2010 (145), Pierre Garcon in 2013 (181), and Julio Jones in 2015 (203) and 2016 (129).  Pierre Garcon, who last had 181 targets under Shanahan, figures to get a high volume of targets each week this year, making him a weekly WR3 play on volume alone.  I would definitely take him ahead of ADP right now, but beware that a poor offense and mediocre QB could cap his value.

* Tyrell Williams is still vastly underrated.  His ADP of WR42 simply does not match up with his WR18 finish last year.  Given his big play ability, another year with Philip Rivers, and the injury to Mike Williams, Tyrell could be one of the most dangerous boundary receivers in the league this season.  The counter is that Keenan Allen is back.  While Allen figures to get a lot of targets per game, it's hard to trust his health.  Plus if Travis Benjamin and Dontrelle Inman are relegated to being bench receivers, it's unlikely that they'll combine for 172 targets again.

* General draft strategy: If I feel like I want to go WR-WR in my draft, I want to pick around 6-12.  If I can grab two of those top 9 receivers, I'd be pretty happy.  The biggest problem for me in mocks is picking at the top of the draft, taking Bell or DJ, then getting stuck at picks 24-25 with a host of choices I don't really want to select from.  At that spot, I'd seriously consider Rodgers or Kelce with one of the receivers like Baldwin or Pryor.  I feel pretty good about using some of the receivers I have ranked in the last 20s and early 30s as WR2s if I can load up at other spots.

[Bianconero]

Awesome

I really do think that Pryor will establish himself as a Tier 1 WR this year. I'm going to draft him as high as 2.5 this year.

Also, something that I'm seeing in my mock drafts is that the middle rounds is a great place to load up on WRs.

In rounds 5 - 10, you can get Stefon Diggs, Martavis Bryant, Larry Fitzgerald, Tyrell Williams, Pierre Garcon,  Eric Decker who I think are all going to be great fantasy players this year.

With that said, my early plan is to load up on RBs in rounds 1, 3, and at least 4, with Gronk or a Tier 1 WR in the second round.

[holt_bruce81]

So in a 12-team standard league, you get to choose where you pick...you choose 7-9 over 1-4?

[keysersoze3421]

11 hours ago, holt_bruce81 said:

So in a 12-team standard league, you get to choose where you pick...you choose 7-9 over 1-4?

I want 2 of the top 19 players, so 6th or later:

RB: DJ, Bell, Elliott, Gordon, McCoy, Freeman, Murray, Ajayi, Howard

WR: Julio, ODB, Brown, Evans, Green, Nelson, Dez, TY, Thomas

TE: Gronk

[Cadmus]

I'd love to hear a rational argument for Michael Crabtree at #15. 

[keysersoze3421]

21 minutes ago, Cadmus said:

I'd love to hear a rational argument for Michael Crabtree at #15. 

He finished as WR12 last year, plays on an explosive offense, outperformed Amari Cooper, has a good rapport with his QB, and given his skillset, isn't likely going to be as susceptible to an age-based decline.

[Cadmus]

31 minutes ago, keysersoze3421 said:

He finished as WR12 last year, plays on an explosive offense, outperformed Amari Cooper, has a good rapport with his QB, and given his skillset, isn't likely going to be as susceptible to an age-based decline.

I was going to end my initial comment with.. AND don't start your argument the fact Crabtree finished last season as WR12 in PPR, but I decided against it. 

Guess I should've included that.

Crabtree is clearly in decline and shouldn't be among your top 20. 

1) He finished outside the Top 35 WRs in Full PPR (Finished outside Top 40 WRs in Standard) during the 2nd half of the 2017 season.

2) The majority of his production came in 1 game against the Ravens (who had a train wreck of a secondary) and specifically Shareece Wright... who's a borderline NFL player.

3) His YAC (per reception) has gone down every single year for the last 3+ years... and it finally bottomed out last year. He literally can't create for himself anymore.

4) He was #1 among NFL WRs in offensive penalties (as you know, for every time you get called for a penalty as a WR (or any offensive player)... there's 6-7 times that you get away with it. #2 in penalties among WRs was Anquan Boldin (who also couldn't separate without "veteran savvy").

5) He was #1 in drops among all NFL WRs.

6) He was tied for dead last in yards of separation at the point of reception among WRs with 100+ targets on the outside (again this relates directly to the offensive penalties and the fact he's losing the ability to separate or create for himself after the catch) with Allen Robinson. The difference here is that Robinson was playing with Bortles (who was terrible and played with a separated shoulder for most of the season) and Crabtree played with Carr, who was a legitimate MVP candidate. The other difference between Robinson and Crabtree was that Robinson ran significantly lower percentage routes on average (in terms of depth). He fared slightly better in the slot, but he played less than 20% of his snaps in the slot last season because that's Seth Roberts role.

7) Add Lynch and Cook... what do you get... more targets or more production? No.

 

 

[keysersoze3421]

16 hours ago, Cadmus said:

I was going to end my initial comment with.. AND don't start your argument the fact Crabtree finished last season as WR12 in PPR, but I decided against it. 

Guess I should've included that.

Crabtree is clearly in decline and shouldn't be among your top 20. 

1) He finished outside the Top 35 WRs in Full PPR (Finished outside Top 40 WRs in Standard) during the 2nd half of the 2017 season.

2) The majority of his production came in 1 game against the Ravens (who had a train wreck of a secondary) and specifically Shareece Wright... who's a borderline NFL player.

3) His YAC (per reception) has gone down every single year for the last 3+ years... and it finally bottomed out last year. He literally can't create for himself anymore.

4) He was #1 among NFL WRs in offensive penalties (as you know, for every time you get called for a penalty as a WR (or any offensive player)... there's 6-7 times that you get away with it. #2 in penalties among WRs was Anquan Boldin (who also couldn't separate without "veteran savvy").

5) He was #1 in drops among all NFL WRs.

6) He was tied for dead last in yards of separation at the point of reception among WRs with 100+ targets on the outside (again this relates directly to the offensive penalties and the fact he's losing the ability to separate or create for himself after the catch) with Allen Robinson. The difference here is that Robinson was playing with Bortles (who was terrible and played with a separated shoulder for most of the season) and Crabtree played with Carr, who was a legitimate MVP candidate. The other difference between Robinson and Crabtree was that Robinson ran significantly lower percentage routes on average (in terms of depth). He fared slightly better in the slot, but he played less than 20% of his snaps in the slot last season because that's Seth Roberts role.

7) Add Lynch and Cook... what do you get... more targets or more production? No.

 

 

1. Not too worried about that.  In Weeks 9-16, he had 4 top 24 finishes and 3 bad games.  Certainly inconsistent, but his performance led to a second-half median weekly finish of WR21 in the second half, better than Mike Evans's WR26, Doug Baldwin's WR25, and Amari Cooper's WR43.

2. My weekly finish stats account for outliers, so his big game against the Ravens was factored in as an outlier.  He still had a season-long weekly median finish of WR21.

3. In PPR, that's not too worrisome.  His YPC has gone up while his YAC has gone down.

4. Don't care.

5. Again, we don't get penalized for drops so...don't care.

6. Again, don't care unless it starts showing up in his fantasy products.  This is the epitome of picking and choosing random statistics to downplay a receiver's value.  All the data you have presented may lead to the conclusion that Crabtree's skillset as a real-life NFL receiver will decline, but fortunately for us, real-life football and fantasy football are not the same.  In PPR leagues, older or declining receivers can get by on volume and red-zone targets.

7. Yeah, don't care again.  Lynch will catch, what, maybe 30 balls?  That's a little less than Latavis Murray.  Let's just call them a wash.  I don't give much credence to the thought of Jared Cook actually eating into Crabtree's production.  Rivera and Walford had 77 combined targets last year, which seems reasonable to pencil in for Cook himself.  Overall, Crabtree's value should remain relatively steady this season.

[Rockice_8]

My issue with the OAK WR's is that Carr is wildly overrated in fantasy and with the addition of Lynch I think that hurts him some.

He is up and down week to week to much for my liking with half of his games having 1 or less TD's.  He's a really good QB but not a fantasy stud and that limits the WR's some in my eyes.  Unless he steps up in the redzone this year I think each week you will see more of the same from Cooper and Crabtree, inconsistency. 

[keysersoze3421]

3 hours ago, Rockice_8 said:

My issue with the OAK WR's is that Carr is wildly overrated in fantasy and with the addition of Lynch I think that hurts him some.

He is up and down week to week to much for my liking with half of his games having 1 or less TD's.  He's a really good QB but not a fantasy stud and that limits the WR's some in my eyes.  Unless he steps up in the redzone this year I think each week you will see more of the same from Cooper and Crabtree, inconsistency. 

Agreed, but that's why I like both as WR2s, not as 1s.  You're going to get inconsistency from most of the guys outside of the top 10.

[bigjohnson2009]

I love these topics - are you planning on doing TE and QB as well?

[keysersoze3421]

26 minutes ago, bigjohnson2009 said:

I love these topics - are you planning on doing TE and QB as well?

I am!  I will probably put up one of the two today.

[holt_bruce81]

Is DeAndre Hopkins so low because you don't trust his QB? 

[drd23]

Does Sammy Watkins rank change any for you now that he is in LA @keysersoze3421?

[drd23]

3 hours ago, holt_bruce81 said:

Is DeAndre Hopkins so low because you don't trust his QB? 

Someone didn't read the second dot point after the list

He lists Hopkins specifically as being marked down because of his QB