Fantasy News
Moving onto the wide receivers. As with the tight ends, much of the analysis is in the quarterbacks piece I posted on Thursday afternoon. I won’t repeat those ideas here. And on the actual rankings, I’ll stick the tight ends in there, since I’m guessing some leagues will have the two positions combined.
San Francisco
Michael Crabtree is on fire right now. He caught 9 passes for 119 yards and 2 TDs against Green Bay. He’s caught 2 TDs in three of his last four games. He’s also gone over 90 yards in five of his last six. He’s got a really nice rapport with Colin Kaepernick it seems, and Crabtree seems to be finally developing into the difference-making type of receiver they thought he’d be when they took him with a top 10 pick back in 2009.
This isn’t a good matchup for him. Atlanta has good corners and was very tough against wide receivers in the regular season. Not only did Atlanta allowed a league-low 14 TD passes during the regular season, it also allowed only 7 to wide receivers. Including the Seattle game, they’re now at 8 wide receiver touchdowns in 17 games, which is really good. As well as Crabtree is playing, though, he’s in contention to be the top receiver this week anyway. He’s their main target.
Randy Moss will be the other starter, but he’s not a factor. He doesn’t have the speed or hops anymore. Mario Manningham has been out for five games now, and Moss as a full-time player has finished with only 30, 30, 36, 44, 28 and 25 yards in those games. He’s caught 1 TD in the seven games Kaepernick has started. It’s sad to watch.
The reserve receivers, A.J. Jenkins and Ted Ginn, don’t play much.
Atlanta
The Falcons have the great one-two punch of Roddy White and Julio Jones, but it’s a tough matchup for them as well. Atlanta has allowed a league-low 7 TDs to wide receivers. San Francisco is next in line, having allowed only 9 TDs to wide receivers (11 if you include the Green Bay game). So in those games, we’ve tweaked things in favor of the tight ends a little.
Not a lot of different between these two great receivers. White tends to catch a few more passes, while Jones has more big-play potential. White has averaged 11 more receiving yards per game (85-74 thru 17 games), while Jones has outscored him 10-8. White has more experience and veteran savvy, so we’re putting him just a little higher this week.
Atlanta doesn’t use its No. 3 much. Harry Douglas caught 38 passes and a touchdown in the regular season.
Baltimore
The Ravens also have a nice one-two punch of wide receivers. Anquan Boldin and Torrey Smith are really on top of their games right now. Their play is one of the reasons I think the 9-point line in that game is way too much.
Boldin, like Crabtree, is playing lights out right now. He caught 6 passes for 71 yards against Denver. He lit up the Colts the previous week, with 5 catches for 145 yards. He had a pair of really nice catches on deep balls in that game, and simply fought off good coverage to catch a touchdown. In his last game of the regular season, Boldin caught 7 passes for 93 yards against the Giants.
Smith doesn’t catch as many passes, but he’s the knockout punch. They’ll try for him on a few downfield throws, and those have been connecting recently. He outplayed Champ Bailey (who’s been great this year) for a pair of touchdowns at Denver. In Baltimore’s 17 meaningful games, Smith has outscored Boldin 10-5. Boldin has caught 22 more passes and piled up 153 more yards.
According to my numbers (I’m setting aside that Week 17 game), Boldin is averaging 67 yards per game, while Smith is at 58. Not much difference between these two.
They both played well in the playoff game last year against New England. Boldin caught 6 passes for 101 yards. Smith caught 3 for 82, with a big 29-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter. Smith came up big against New England again in Week 3, catching 6 passes for 127 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Boldin wasn’t so hot in that one, catching just 4 for 48. Again, though, I like both of these guys. They’re playing well right now, and I think Baltimore’s passing attack looks pretty similar to Atlanta’s this week.
If you poll folks on the street, I think, they would take the Jones-White pair over the Boldin-Smith tandem. But factor in that Jones-White are going against a San Francisco defense that’s allowed 11 TD passes to wide receivers. New England’s defense has allowed 19 TDs to wide receivers. As a pair, Jones-White has outscored Boldin-Smith by only an 18-15 margin.
Jacoby Jones doesn’t catch many passes, but he came up with a 70-yard game-tying touchdown last week. And maybe he busts a kick return. He scored 3 TDs on kick returns in the regular season, and New England had problems covering them last week.
New England
Not Michael Crabtree but the other Texas Tech receiver, Wes Welker, should lead all players in receptions. He’s playing well right now, and he’s the clear go-to option in this offense. The Patriots don’t have Gronkowski.
Welker caught 8 passes for 131 yards last week, with a rare 47-yarder in there. He caught 118 passes in the regular season. Tough to hold him under 7 receptions. He’s averaging 87 yards per game.
Welker, though, isn’t a great scorer. Brady has thrown 37 TDs, and Welker has caught only 6 of them. Brady threw 47 touchdowns last season, and Welker caught only 10 of those. Gronkowski (who’s a touchdown sucker) is gone, which helps Welker, but it’s hard to say with any confidence that he (Welker) has anything better than a 25 percent chance of catching any touchdown that Brady throws.
We don’t think this is a great matchup for Brady. We talked about that in the quarterbacks deal. It may seem odd to say that Brady has very little chance of throwing more than 2 TDs, but that’s the way it looks. He was red-hot coming into this matchup last year, recall (he had thrown 6 TDs against Denver) and didn’t throw any touchdown passes in that last championship game against the Ravens.
We’re going a little higher than usual on Brandon Lloyd this week. He’s been used as a decoy a lot. He’s caught only 5 TDs, which hardly seems possible for a starting wide receiver in that offense. How is it even possible that Welker and Lloyd, the starting wide receivers, could catch only 11 TDs out of the 37 Brady has thrown? But that’s the way it’s gone down.
But Lloyd also potentially could benefit from Gronk being out. And note that Lloyd’s busiest and best game came in Week 3 at Baltimore. He caught 9 passes for 108 yards in that game.
Deion Branch is the No. 3, but he hardly plays. He’s caught 3 passes for 28 yards in the last three weeks. He hasn’t caught a touchdown all year.
So on to the rankings. The first list shows how we’d rank the pass catchers in a standard fantasy league, with 6 points for touchdowns (including kick returns) and 1 for every 10 receiving yards. The second list ranks the guys by just receiving yards. Then we show them just by projected touchdowns.
I’ll post the running back and defense info tomorrow.
On these receiver rankings, feel free to chime in and let me know where you think I’m going wrong.
RECEIVERS RANKINGS -- FANTASY POINTS
Points
10.7 WR N.E. Wes Welker
10.3 WR S.F. Michael Crabtree
9.7 WR Atl. Roddy White
9.3 TE N.E. Aaron Hernandez
9.2 WR Atl. Julio Jones
9.0 WR Blt. Anquan Boldin
8.7 WR Blt. Torrey Smith
8.1 WR N.E. Brandon Lloyd
8.0 TE Atl. Tony Gonzalez
6.6 TE Blt. Dennis Pitta
5.1 TE S.F. Vernon Davis
4.8 WR S.F. Randy Moss
4.8 TE S.F. Delanie Walker
4.0 WR Blt. Jacoby Jones
2.7 WR Atl. Harry Douglas
2.4 TE Blt. Ed Dickson
2.1 TE N.E. Michael Hoomanawanui
1.5 WR N.E. Deion Branch
0.8 WR S.F. Ted Ginn
0.7 WR Blt. Tandon Doss
0.5 WR S.F. A.J. Jenkins
0.5 TE S.F. Garrett Celek
0.4 WR Atl. Drew Davis
0.4 TE Atl. Chase Coffman
0.4 TE Atl. Michael Palmer
0.3 WR Blt. Deonte Thompson
0.3 WR Blt. David Reed
0.2 TE N.E. Daniel Fells
0.1 WR N.E. Matthew Slater
0.1 TE Blt. Billy Bajema
0.0 WR Atl. Tim Toone
RECEIVERS RANKINGS -- YARDS
Yards
81 WR N.E. Wes Welker
74 WR S.F. Michael Crabtree
73 WR Atl. Roddy White
70 WR Blt. Anquan Boldin
70 TE N.E. Aaron Hernandez
68 WR Atl. Julio Jones
62 WR Blt. Torrey Smith
59 WR N.E. Brandon Lloyd
53 TE Atl. Tony Gonzalez
44 TE Blt. Dennis Pitta
36 WR S.F. Randy Moss
36 TE S.F. Vernon Davis
34 TE S.F. Delanie Walker
26 WR Blt. Jacoby Jones
21 WR Atl. Harry Douglas
18 TE Blt. Ed Dickson
14 TE N.E. Michael Hoomanawanui
11 WR N.E. Deion Branch
5 WR Blt. Tandon Doss
5 WR S.F. Ted Ginn
5 WR S.F. A.J. Jenkins
4 WR Atl. Drew Davis
3 TE S.F. Garrett Celek
3 TE Atl. Chase Coffman
2 TE Atl. Michael Palmer
2 WR Blt. David Reed
1 TE N.E. Daniel Fells
1 WR Blt. Deonte Thompson
1 WR N.E. Matthew Slater
1 TE Blt. Billy Bajema
0 WR Atl. Tim Toone
RECEIVERS RANKINGS -- TOUCHDOWNS
TD
.47 WR S.F. Michael Crabtree
.45 TE Atl. Tony Gonzalez
.43 WR N.E. Wes Welker
.41 WR Atl. Roddy White
.40 WR Atl. Julio Jones
.40 WR Blt. Torrey Smith
.39 TE N.E. Aaron Hernandez
.37 WR N.E. Brandon Lloyd
.36 TE Blt. Dennis Pitta
.34 WR Blt. Anquan Boldin
.26 TE S.F. Vernon Davis
.24 WR Blt. Jacoby Jones
.23 TE S.F. Delanie Walker
.20 WR S.F. Randy Moss
.12 TE N.E. Michael Hoomanawanui
.10 WR Atl. Harry Douglas
.09 TE Blt. Ed Dickson
.07 WR N.E. Deion Branch
.05 WR S.F. Ted Ginn
.03 TE Atl. Michael Palmer
.03 WR Blt. Tandon Doss
.03 TE S.F. Garrett Celek
.03 WR Blt. Deonte Thompson
.02 TE N.E. Daniel Fells
.02 WR Blt. David Reed
.02 TE Atl. Chase Coffman
.01 WR S.F. A.J. Jenkins
.01 WR Atl. Drew Davis
.00 WR N.E. Matthew Slater
.00 TE Blt. Billy Bajema
.00 WR Atl. Tim Toone
—Ian Allan
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