Fantasy Football: Wide Receivers

Need help with preparing for your fantasy football league? The Fantasy Guru is here once again to give you a few tips on how to play the crazy game of fantasy football.

Welcome to part 3 of our look at the various offensive positions for fantasy based on my mid-may rankings. Part 1 dealt with the quarterbacks and explained the concept of tiering and then last week part 2 looked at the hodge-podge of running backs. This week it’s the turn of the top 50 wide receivers so I’m going to get right into it with the tiers.

Quick note – there are one or two minor adjustments to my rankings here due to recent news but I’ll point these out as we go along.

Tier 1 for wide receivers this year is unusually large as there are a number of very safe picks – Calvin Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, Mike Wallace. Most years I will have only two players on this year as wide receivers are historically unreliable for fantasy purposes. There are two distinct factors in this – the weakness at running back and the increasing prominence of the passing game in the modern NFL. Whatever the reason, these are the four wide receivers you can rely on 100%. Note that Hakeem Nicks would have been on this list had he not gotten hurt. You can be safe drafting any of these guys from the mid first to early second round.

Tier 2 is made up of players who are still extremely good but just not quite at the elite status of tier 1 – Greg Jennings, Hakeem Nicks, Steve Smith, Wes Welker, Roddy White. I almost dropped Roddy out of this mix due to his recent remarks about having a diminished role but felt it would be wise not to overreact. The players in this tier are those you can draft with confidence and expect good production from but with a little more risk than tier 1. Draft these players from the mid second to mid fourth round.

Tier 3 is where we start to see just how deep the wide receiver position is – Brandon Marshall, A.J. Green, Miles Austin, Jeremy Maclin, Victor Cruz, Julio Jones. You could quite easily go into the 2012 season with any one of these guys as your number 1 wide receiver and do perfectly fine – depending on your strategy that may be your best choice particularly if you start with two running backs and a quarterback. The wideouts here are all expected to produce but the risk is getting up there. With most of these names you’re talking high upside with the exception being Austin who having recovered from injury looks to be a top target in a passing offense. Draft these players in the fourth to early sixth round.

Tier 4 now and we’ve finally reached wide receivers with definite question marks but still a lot of production – Dwayne Bowe, Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson, DeSean Jackson, Marques Colston. Bowe, Jordy and VJax have all been high production players but there are significant doubts as to whether this can continue whereas with DJax and Dez it’s more about whether they can step up to an elite level. Drafting any of these players is risky but it could pay off in a big way as all are capable of being up colossal numbers. Draft in the sixth to early eighth rounds.

When you get to tier 5 this is where the depth at wide receiver goes off a cliff as we now have a significant drop-off in quality – Demaryius Thomas, Percy Harvin, Eric Decker, Kenny Britt, Steve Johnson, Lance Moore, Robert Meachem, Anquan Boldin, Michael Floyd. By this point in the draft most teams have drafted both starting wide receivers and while wideout is deep this year it is recommended that you have your WR2 by this stage as now we’re into the players with the serious question marks. There’s some massive upside here – particularly the Denver duo of Eric Decker and Demaryius Thomas as well as oft-injured Kenny Britt and rookie Michael Floyd – but the floor of these players is as low as their ceiling is high. What you see is what you get – these guys could easily produce but beware the pitfalls of gambling on these guys. Ideally you want them as flex or bench players. Draft from the late eighth to mid eleventh rounds.

Tier 6 is the point where it’s mostly about personal preference – Pierre Garcon, Sidney Rice, Brandon Lloyd, Mario Manningham, Reggie Wayne, Santonio Holmes, Torrey Smith, Mohammed Sanu. When you get to this point you’re filling your mid-level bench spots and most of the time your main concerns are targets, receptions and consistency. These players are the ones who will be your injury cover and your first call if you have concerns about a player not performing or having a bad matchup. For me the breakout candidate of this group is Sanu who I believe could be the best producing rookie this season. Draft from the eleventh to fourteenth rounds.

Tier 7 is the last of the wide receiver group and is made up of players who deserve to be either a late round flier or undrafted – Denarius Moore, Malcom Floyd, Michael Crabtree, Darrius Heywood-Bey, Randy Moss, Laurent Robinson, James Jones, Mike Williams TB, Leonard Hankerson, Nate Washington, Danny Amendola. Justin Blackmon should be on this list but his recent DUI puts him into question and he’s a stay-away for fantasy owners right now. When you’re at the end of the draft if you drafted a defense early – or heaven forbid a kicker – then these are the players who you should consider. Yeah there are others but these should be the first you look at. Draft from the fifteenth to the end or let them go.

Another position is in the books and you’re now one step closer to a successful draft. Next week I’ll take you through the tight end position in the fourth and final part of this series and then in two weeks I will finally be releasing my Top 200 overall rankings for the first time followed by a full sixteen round mock draft that same week.

Until next week this is the Fantasy Guru signing off.

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