With drafting season upon us, it’s time, in true cynical Shot
Caller fashion, to start throwing out caution flags. Repeatable
stellar performance seems to elude even the best and the brightest
the league has to offer and this year, if history holds, will be
no exception to that role. It will. It always does. Put another
way, the guys everyone’s talking about this August will be
the same guys we’ll be talking about next August in this column
as we autopsy what went wrong. Let’s just save a step and
future grief by talking about them now, shall we?
Note: All rankings are based on FFToday’s default standard
scoring.
I challenged you last year in this space to come up with seven obvious
relegation candidates amongst the stellar cast of 2015 Top 10 receivers.
I’m guessing that wasn’t very easy (even with the freebie,
sudden NFL retiree Calvin Johnson), but here we sit a year later
and, sure enough, 6 of those 10 studs ended up tumbling down the
rankings. The task looks no less daunting this summer (Antonio!
Odell! Julio!), but I’d wager a fairly sizable sum that no
fewer than 5 and probably closer to 6 or 7 of last year’s
Top 10 wideouts will end up on the outside looking in by the time
we chat again in August 2018.
Injuries are usually a consistent underlying factor for dropouts,
but this group stayed relatively healthy, with the exception of
A.J. Green. What “hurt” them, so to speak, more than
anything, was downright agonizing quarterback play. Brandon Marshall
played catch with Fitzmagic most of the year, who had precious little
of that to offer, and then the very un-magical Bryce Petty. DeAndre Hopkins, meanwhile, got stuck with Brock Osweiler as his Texans’
battery mate, a terribly unfortunate, not to mention expensive,
free agent addition. (In fact, if anyone pulled off a magic trick
this past year, it was the Houston brass, who somehow wiggled out
of Osweiler’s albatross-like contract.) Allen Robinson spent
all year misconnecting with, and probably privately fuming about,
Blake Bortles, the guy who can’t seem to shoot straight in
Jacksonville. Finally, Larry Fitzgerald seemed to cede leading man
status in Arizona to David Johnson at the exact same time his quarterback
was suffering a moderate decline of his own.
There’s no sure thing in this league, but even less so at
the receiver position, where the calculus involves more than just
health and talent.
Most Likely Candidates to Fall from
the Top 10 This Year:
T.Y. Hilton is coming off his best season
as a pro but has never scored more than 7 TDs in a season.
T.Y.
Hilton, IND: I’m more willing to bet against Andrew
Luck than most, having followed his career since way back when
he was a can’t miss prospect down on the The Farm. There’s no charitable
way to say this, so I’ll just be blunt: I think he’s overrated.
His eye-popping physical gifts (great arm, great size, great legs),
don’t always translate into eye-popping results on the field and
certainly not enough Ws. I think back to a game I watched him play
in person way back in 2010 against my Ducks. It was, like many in
the Chip Kelly era, a huge game and the Cardinal literally blitzed
the boys in whatever color they were wearing that day right out
of the gate, holding a 21-3 lead almost before we’d settled into
our seats. Three quarters, two Luck interceptions, and zero second
half Stanford points later, Oregon emerged victorious.
OK, so that’s a tiny sample size of his career, but it left
an impression. The stage didn’t get much bigger in Luck’s
college career than against Chipper’s troops and he rarely
rose to the occasion. Not that day and not the other times he faced
them either. Why, it’s fair to ask? More importantly, what
does that have to do with T.Y. Hilton?
I’m not being very coherent here, I realize (maybe it’s
the altitude), but I guess I’m not convinced an overrated
Luck recovering from injury is going to be able to fashion T.Y.
into a Top 10 target two years in a row. I’m additionally
skeptical because Donte Moncrief is now healthy and will almost
certainly steal plenty of Luck’s looks away from the speed
demon, Hilton. He may not drop that far, but I’m bearish on
the Colts’ WR1 heading into 2017. You should be too.
Davante
Adams, GB: I’m going against my Packer-loving loving
instincts here, for sure, but I think there are legitimate reasons
to be wary of a regression after Adams’ breakout 2016 season.
Like the previously discussed LeGarrette Blount, an inordinate
percentage of Adams’ fantasy production was attributable
to six-pointers (12 of them, to be exact), a statistic that, year
over year, is quite variable. Actually, make that extremely variable
when Aaron Rodgers is the one dishing out red-zone looks. The
best at the position (Rodgers, Brady, Brees, etc.) are almost
what you could call “target-agnostic,” meaning they’ll
throw it to whomever they feel gives them the best chance of scoring
on any given play. Talent, experience, past results…none
of these things matter to the great ones. All that matters are
getting open and hauling in the pigskin.
That last part had proven difficult for Adams prior to last season
and most QBs, especially the future HOF’er types, have elephantine
memories when it comes to dodgy hands. Will the Fresno State product
continue to be trusted if he reverts to 2015 form and starts routinely
ham-handing A-Rodge lasers again? The only receiver No.12 always
seems to trust is Jordy Nelson, the No.1 overall wide receiver
in 2016, but Nelson has earned that trust by reliably delivering
results for many seasons. Adams hasn’t done that yet.
One other reason to be concerned about Adams is that the Packers
won’t be as anemic on the ground this year and, accordingly,
won’t be as explosive via the airwaves. Ted Thompson grabbed
three running backs in April’s draft and only needs one
to pan out (psst…Jamaal Williams) for the Pack to have a
more robust and reliable rushing attack. I think that happens,
the offense is a lot more balanced, and Davante’s overall
production ticks downward.
Brandin
Cooks, NE: I’m sitting in the terminal at Austin-Bergstrom
International Airport as I polish off this first column of the
season and the only thing standing between me and a pre-draft
weekend brewski at Earl Campbell’s Sports Bar is a quick bit about
Mr. Cooks. Can’t think of too many better ways to inspire a strong
finish, can you? I’m thirsty so let’s do it.
Long-time readers know I’ve been bullish on Cooks since
he entered the league in 2014, mostly because I spent many Saturdays
watching him devastate Pac-12 defenses just down the Willamette
Valley a stretch. If only the Saints had been as into him as I
was, huh? It’s hard to tell what spoiled a potentially beautiful
friendship in the Big Easy, but something sure did. Maybe he never
got over that inexplicable zero-target outing in the Week 11 pantsing
of the Rams? Maybe the Saints’ shot callers figured a too-short
QB and a too-short WR would never orchestrate enough beautiful
music in a city famous for it? Or maybe the addition of Michael Thomas simply made the former Beaver expendable? It could have
been a straight-up “bidniss” decision, in other words.
It doesn’t really matter because Cooks has moved on to Foxboro,
where Patriots fans have to be giddy at the thought of him joining
an already explosive offense. Therein lies the rub, however: New
England didn’t necessarily need Cooks. They just wanted
him and had the wherewithal to make it so. The rich often get
richer in this league and nobody’s richer/savvier with talent
than Bob Kraft’s franchise. I love what Cooks can do in
this offense and could eat my words, but…I just don’t
see him earning enough opportunities with so many other options
available to stay a Top 10 performer in 2017.
