So with the deals Diggs, Adams, and Hill have signed, you are seeing Deebo, McLaurin, and AJ Brown now looking to cash in or hold out, so how does this shake out over time? RBs have become devalued bc They are somewhat interchangeable but WRs seem to be true "specialists";
Now some teams obviously see this position as "plug and play" as Green Bay and KC figure their QB will elevate or dictate the WR success. Also, New England has never seemed to value the position (outside of the slot or Randy Moss). Will systems evolve and simplify to make wrs as superfluous as RBs or the fact that all these talented guys coming out of college the past few years create a real dichotomy at the position?
Finally, how do we think this will affect Fantasy football? (I'm not sure I will draft Davante or Hill but Waddle and Renfrow maybe values due to the "stars at the top")...
Greetings Gatorman, interesting topic, I'll approach it mostly from the pure money angle.
-In an era of $40M+ starting QB salary, that's the going rate for a Top 20 QB in the NFL, Playoff wins are of little matter these days, purely driven on stats.
-Not everyone has that on their roster but they all get the same amount of money to spend and therefore you see a lot of other Non-QB positions that get a little bit overblown and overpaid. I love my OL/DL on both sides but they tend to make too much money based on stats you can't really measure. Did the RB gain 1,200 yds because he has great vision and speed or did the OL blow holes open so wide you and I could truck thru them? But let's pay those players $15M+ a season because we gotta use all this money for Cap purposes. Teams are required to spend a certain amount of their $212M or whatever the cap is, you can't get away with only paying out $100M, some owner would try and do that if they could get away with it.
-So the next flashy position up to bat is Wide Receivers. Many only catch 2-3-4 balls a game, that's 65-70 catches over a 17 game season, typically only 1 or maybe 2 WRs on a team keep pace to catch 80+ balls over a season. Compare that to a RB who has to touch the ball maybe 15-20x a game rush/rec and they might be lucky to make North of $5M a season right now, teams are not paying guys a lot of money at the position unless they are the focus of the Offense.
I think some of it is due to the new pass happy era and teams not being committed to running the ball as much any more or having a true bell cow at the RB position.
Until teams are loaded at the position to the point they don't need to overpay the Top20 at WR then things will continue in this direction.
-Fantasy Football? My goal at WR in the last few years is to have a WR1 level or type in at least 2 of the starting WR slots. If that means going WR/WR on the 1/2 turn and then grabbing another strong WR1 upside guy on the 3/4 turn then I do so until I feel the drop off to many of the value types you are discussing in the later rounds but I'm not stepping over Adams so I can get to Renfroe later. Nothing against Hunter but Adams is going to see a lot of targets.
To further the thought Gator, you don't want a bunch of guys starting at WR on your roster from later rounds because I would ask what did you burn the early round selections on, RB/TE/QB? If I am drafting in the middle of the 1st or later, WR/WR, RB/WR, TE/RB, WR/QB...that's just a rough sketch of 8 rounds and I could be talked into flipping a RB into the 1st and pushing a WR back another round or two.
Thanks for putting this in motion, good discussion.