Top 12 Wide Receiver Rankings for 2020 Fantasy Football (Tier II)

Top 12 Wide Receiver Rankings for 2020 Fantasy Football (Tier II)

 

 

5. Chris Godwin - Tampa Bay Bucs
Current APD: 2.09 - WR6

Flat out, Godwin is just a stud. I just don't see a world in which Brady & Godwin don't mesh. 

All last summer Godwin was propped up as being the breakout WR of the year, not only by the fantasy community but by Bruce Arians. Bruce Arians doesn't mix words. Talked shit about Jameis Winston - he gone. 

Arians says he's going to play the Larry Fitzgerald role, never come off the field and catch 100 passes - so, what happens - he plays on 95% of the snaps on the year, runs from the slot on 63% of his routes, catches 86 passes in 14 games, paced out to a full 16 - that's 98 and one of them was half a game, so realistically it was exactly what Arians says, and now he's talking about how Godwin's extension is the highest priority of the team.

Full season pace is 137 targets, 98 receptions, 1523 yards and 10.3 TDs

The big thing is what happens now that Tom Brady is in TB.

This doesn't concern me at all. For a lot of reasons.

Godwin, 2nd highest PFF receiving grade only behind Michael Thomas last year. Right ahead of Julio. #9 in YPRR. Despite being 49th in aDOT, he was 4th in Y/Tgt, the guys ahead of him mike williams aDOT was 8 yards further then godwin, diggs a full 5 yards further aDOT, AJB, all much further ADOT. YAC/reception, 3rd in the entire NFL. 

Brady, everyone's worried about his deep ball, his arm, etc. He's fine, for what you need for Godwin. 1. Brady played with an embarrassing group of weapons last year, still finished 7th in passing yards, 13th in passing TDs and his deep ball completion % ranked 9th in the NFL. An average QB would make Godwin an elite option in fantasy running from the slot.

We know how much Brady likes to dink and dump now, Godwin is going to be his first read nearly every time. It doesn't matter what you think about Brady's deep ball, cause that's not where Godwin makes his money - only 14.9% of his targets came on deep passes, that's 76th out of 96 WRs last year, Evans is the guy this would hurt who saw nearly 8% more of his targets come via the deep ball  (per PFF).

Sure, they won't throw for 5000 yards like they did with Winston, but the offense will also have the ball more, have more overall plays, and run much more smoothly.

Case in point - draft very good, young players, entering the prime of their career - fantasy doesn't get much more simple and easy than that.

 

 

6. DeAndre Hopkins - Arizona Cardinals
CURRENT ADP: 2.05 - WR4

This is just simple. WRs changing teams, whether by FA or a trade, very rarely succeed in year one on the new team. It seems like common sense, I was going to dive into the numbers deeply, but thankfully Twitter had already done so.

 




Addison Hayes did a thorough project of research on this as well

Rotoviz's

 

This offense is going to be interesting as well. While we look at them, with Kliff as run and gunslingers - that wasn't the case over the 2nd half of the year. After Week 10 (and on), when they acquired Drake, they became very run-heavy. In fact, they ran the ball at the tenth highest rate of all NFL teams. In fact, from the week that Drake got there, Kyler Murray ranked 27th in pass attempts per game.

I'm already back on the Hopkins train in 2021, but not 2020. 

 

 

7. D.J. Moore - Carolina Panthers
Current ADP: 3.11 - WR11

Moore's breakout came in 2019 - but given the context, Moore's 2nd-year 87-1175-4 (+40 rushing yards = > 1200 YFS) came in 14 games (left Week 16 w/ concussion), came with Kyle Allen and Will Grier playing QB. I don't think that can be overstated. Of 38 qualified QBs, Allen ranked 36th and Grier ranked 38th in PFF QB grades.

Moore's catchable target rate ranked 74th among WRs, target accuracy ranked 72nd, both per PlayerProfiler.com.

Lots of changes happening in 2020 for the Carolina Panthers.

1. The bring in the combination of Matt Rhule and Joe Brady. I've been on record about how much I love the hiring of Joe Brady. I think a lot of the explosiveness of LSU's offense last year can be credited to Brady. You look at the top 2 WRs from LSU last year - JaMarr Chase and Justin Jefferson - we all know the latter because he came out for the draft this year - 111-1540-18 ... Chase = 84-1780-20. They had a third WR, Terrance Marshall who caught 13 TDs as well. If there's one thing that's clear to me, it's that Brady knows how to use his passing game weapons, and Moore is inarguably the best one they have on the outside.

2. Teddy Bridgewater coming in - even if you don't think he's a good passer, he provides much-needed stability to this passing game that will be more than just check downs to CMac every time he's pressured. I'm actually excited to see the reigns taken off of Teddy this year, he's been pidgeon-holed into this weak-armed game manager that can only dink-and-dunk. The beauty of this, is that whatever side of the argument Teddy B ends up on, it's a win for Moore. Last year, Teddy's deep ball completion percentage of 46.7%, ranked 4th in the entire NFL. Of course it was only a sample size of 6 starting games, but I'd rather him show that than not. His plat action completion % was #2 in the NFL, as was his overall accuracy rating, his adjusted YPA was top 12.

Last year, Moore saw 21 deep targets (PFF), only 6 were deemed catchable - he caught all 6 for 218 yards.

I'm not suggesting Teddy B needs more credit, but people need to open up to the idea that Teddy is not just Kyle Allen with a little more accuracy. 

On the flip side, if he does just become a game manager, this is where Moore thrives. We saw Teddy B lock onto Michael Thomas, his clear #1 in the offense there during his starts. From Weeks 2-7 when Bridgewater played QB, Thomas led the NFL with a 32% target share, and 5th with a 41% air yard market share. Moore, the clear #1 in this offense should expect similar treatment. Not as voluminous of course, but big time numbers.

If Moore gets the volume, he's going to dominate given his YAC ability. I think people forget that Moore is not only well built, at 6'0-210

But he's also a damn-near elite athlete. Those athletics are what make him so explosive after the catch.

Lastly, and most importantly is just the consistency of Moore was unreal last year, down the stretch I mean....

In the big dogs draft guide, one of the tools we have available is the consistency charts of last year. Shoutout to Mason for the help on those. We have 5 game types:

The games that are really useful to us are the cookin, boomin and faded the public, 12-17, 17-24 ad 24+. Among WRs last year, Michael Thomas was the only player in the NFL that had more games of those three categories. Moore was either cookin, boomin or FTP in 10-of-14 games.... I mean. 

Moore 87 catches in 14 games with horrible QB play. Only 6 of his 21 deep targets were catchable. A full 16 games, he's going to have over 100 receptions with Teddy Bridgewater, and he's going to catch 50%, if not 100% more deep targets, I truly believe that a 100-1550-7 line is very, very attainable for Moore this year, and now that I think about it, I don't see that being the case for Dhop, so he moving byke behind Moore. U love to see it. That's real-time analysis for yall.

 

 

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