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Is the WR depth a mirage? (1 Viewer)

dinozoot

Footballguy
I keep hearing that there is all this great depth at WR. Based on my league scoring over the last 4 years the # of WRs scoring over 200 pts has been remarkably consistent: 21,22,22,21. This year the VBD sheet with my league scoring projects 33 which would be a huge jump. Btw, last year's VBD sheet projected 28 so was off by 7. I think there may be a case of overly optimistic projecting going on due to preconceived notions about WR depth. So I ask...is the WR depth a mirage and if so, does that mean waiting on WRs is more risky than previously thought?

 
I keep hearing that there is all this great depth at WR. Based on my league scoring over the last 4 years the # of WRs scoring over 200 pts has been remarkably consistent: 21,22,22,21. This year the VBD sheet with my league scoring projects 33 which would be a huge jump. Btw, last year's VBD sheet projected 28 so was off by 7. I think there may be a case of overly optimistic projecting going on due to preconceived notions about WR depth. So I ask...is the WR depth a mirage and if so, does that mean waiting on WRs is more risky than previously thought?
No, they are pretty deep. What happens is players get hurt and you can check them off the list. The problem is we cannot predict who will get hurt. Andre Johnson last season was predicted to go over 200, got hurt. So there's one down. Kenny Britt was another. That's two down. There is simply no way to predict injuries. I think another reason for the uptick from projected 28 to projected 33 is that seeming era of passing we are entering. Last season might be an anomaly but if it isn't we are going to generally see an uptick in wide receiver scoring to coincide with the quarterback scoring. Just my two cents. I was able to select Reggie Wayne in the 9th round two nights ago in a redraft. I think the chance of Reggie Wayne scoring over 200 fantasy points is pretty high with Andrew Luck, consider he was only 5 points short with Curtis Painter. Just one example.
 
There are a lot more players this season with a decent chance to be good fantasy contributors, because there are a lot of good receivers fighting for spots in their teams' pecking orders, in an increasingly pass-friendly league.

The reality of the situation is that even though you may be able to spot ten such players, probably only half of them are going to end up producing. But that doesn't mean the ones that do weren't available late in your draft. The depth is there. It's just going to be a challenge to find it in the weeds.

Take SEATTLE. They've got a rookie quarterback, a defense they'll be relying on, and a potentially strong running game. But they're going to throw it to someone. Rice, Braylon, Baldwin, Winslow, and Miller are all going to be available in the later rounds of most drafts, and all of them contribute to making this draft "deep" at WR. But that isn't to say all five are going to be producers. In fact, given the nature of SEA's offense, chances are at most one or two of them will pan out and produce. But right now, they're ALL potentially good producers, with talent, in a good situation for someone to produce.

There are similar situations all over. STL. SD. IND. KC. Lots more.

Depth is misleading, but not necessarily illusionary. It doesn't mean that this year is going to produce twelve more really good fantasy receivers than any other year. But it does mean there are at least twelve, and probably more like twenty more guys with legit shots to be part of the group that DOES produce, than there are most years. And the astute owner has a chance to get some real values late in the game...and to see some proven, reliable commodities fall through the cracks while other people are chasing the hopefuls.

 
The depth is no mirage, but the scale might be. At a glance, we probably see 20-25 receivers one could reasonably pencil in for something like 70/1000/8. Realistically, that depth is probably going to crystallize closer to something like 60/850-900/5-6. The depth is there; we're probably just a deviation or so off on the whole scope.

 
Right- from our point of view how things shake out isn't really relevant because we can't predict who amongst these tiers will get hurt or flop or have an offense melt down (although im sure we all have our favorites, on average it really is a crap shoot). So looking over the whole system after the fact, you are right, but looking forward at the unknown (which obviously is how we draft) WRs are 'deep'. Contrast that with running backs where we have a small handful that we feel very strongly about and a whole bunch that have major problems, some of which will succeed and some fail, its the flip side of the same coin. The working difference is that those top 3 running backs become very, very valuable.

 

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