The Year of the 1-1A WR? (1 Viewer)

[Lord Fantasy]

In recent mocks (mostly FF Calculator) I've been forced to make tough choices between good receivers on what should be solid passing offenses.

White/Jones, Nicks/Cruz, Bryant/Austin & Maclin/Jackson are all going within the same round and sometimes right next to each other.

Barring injuries do you expect training camp/preseason to provide clarity?

If not, do you take the cheapest one and bank on the offenses being productive enough to support two receivers a la Harrison/Wayne and Fitz/Boldin of yore?

 

[bigmiiiiike]

You really could expand that list to include Thomas/Decker, Jennings/Nelson, Wallace/Brown, and Welker/Lloyd (for non-ppr at least).

Overall, this illustrates how deep the WR class is this year. I will very likely target 2-4 of these guys in rounds 4-9, not planning to pick a WR earlier unless a big value falls into my lap. I happen to prefer guys who are not in the 1/1A mold though, and would love to specifically land guys like Andre Johnson, Marshall, Steve Smith, Percy Harvin, Torrey Smith, and Reggie Wayne. I hope I am not in a position where I feel the need to jump on Calvin in the late first, or Fitz in the 2nd, because IMO the sweetspot for WRs this year is in the middle rounds of the draft.

 

[uwftbl]

Totally agree that there is a lot of value in WR after round 2. I am going to target a couple of RBs in 1 and 2 and be happy with WRs like Maclin, A. Brown, and R. Moss later.

 

[kutta]

I agree too with the premise. The problem is that all these guys can't have great years, but there sure is a lot of WR value in rounds 3-6. I've been doing some mocks and when I look at the WR's drafted in the 5th round, they all look good to me.

 

[Lord Fantasy]

I agree too with the premise. The problem is that all these guys can't have great years, but there sure is a lot of WR value in rounds 3-6. I've been doing some mocks and when I look at the WR's drafted in the 5th round, they all look good to me.

This is exactly what I'm getting at, especially that bit about them all looking good. There's so much value that when I mock I'm rarely unhappy with my receivers. Shouldn't that be a red flag? Or are these mid-round WRs basically interchangeable?

 

[az_prof]

I agree too with the premise. The problem is that all these guys can't have great years, but there sure is a lot of WR value in rounds 3-6. I've been doing some mocks and when I look at the WR's drafted in the 5th round, they all look good to me.

This is exactly what I'm getting at, especially that bit about them all looking good. There's so much value that when I mock I'm rarely unhappy with my receivers. Shouldn't that be a red flag? Or are these mid-round WRs basically interchangeable?

I think the take away isn't that they are all overrated, but rather, that it is hard to predict in most cases which of the pair will have the better season. So, if you like the Atlanta passing attack, the smart move is to wait and take whichever of Jones/White you can get a round later.

 

[tombonneau]

I remember years ago Dodds or one of the other stat gurus posted an analysis of how taking two top WRs from a prolific passing team is arguably better than two similarly ranked/scoring WRs from different teams due to the combined consistency of their point scoring. Basically, if one has a bad day it's almost sure to be bolstered by the others big day. The big risk is if both lay an egg, but given the new pass-happy NFL, the days of goose eggs from the top 2 WRs on a top 5 passing offense are over IMO.

 

[LawFitz]

I think I agree with the poster who said it might work taking two WR from a top 5 offense, but the problem there is that the true top passing offenses spread it around too much:

GB - reasonably safe to start Jennings & Nelson IMO

NE - Welker and TEs, with Lloyd fighting for targets

NO - Graham and Colston, otherwise maybe Moore?

Det - Calvin and ???

After these four, I'm not sure who to put in the next tier of passing Os, but all these teams are in the mix...

NYG - Hicks and Cruz

Phi - DJax and Maclin

Dal - Austin and Dez

Den - DThomas and EDeck if you trust Manning's neck

Pit - Wallace and Brown

Chi - Marshall and ???

Car - Smiff and ???

Atl - Roddy and Julio

All these teams have a shot of being a top ten passing offense, but I'm not sure that I would trust any of the ones after the top four to produce enough passing offense to support two receiving options to the point of being able to start both with confidence.

 

[Sweet Love]

I agree too with the premise. The problem is that all these guys can't have great years, but there sure is a lot of WR value in rounds 3-6. I've been doing some mocks and when I look at the WR's drafted in the 5th round, they all look good to me.

This is exactly what I'm getting at, especially that bit about them all looking good. There's so much value that when I mock I'm rarely unhappy with my receivers. Shouldn't that be a red flag? Or are these mid-round WRs basically interchangeable?

True, but take the AFC east for example. You have your Welker/Lloyd and Stevie Johnson, but then you are staring at Bess, Holmes, Nelson as the next level. I agree there is good value at WR this year, but I almost think the "twins" that are elite (the ones you mentioned) are skewing the thought process some. Take the AFC North. You have Wallace/Brown (great in PPR), Green in Cincy, Torrey Smith in Balt (who could have a sophomore slump) and who in CLE? Again, there are divisions like the NFC North with Calvin, Jennings, Nelson, Marshall and Harvin, but I think we will find there will be 20 really good ones and a pretty steep drop after that. In no PPR or .5 PPR, you may get away with that, but in a PPR with low QB scoring (4pts passing), you may be surprised to find multiple people go 3 wides in the first 4 rounds, and that will dilute the quality remaining in the mid-rounds.