Is there hope for Davante Adams?

Last week we did the Running Back Shuffle Up, and this week the wideouts go to the car wash. This is how I would rank and sort the wideouts if I were drafting from scratch today. Players on the same salary are considered balanced, and it is important to note where the talent is concentrated and how the players relate to each other.

There will be some disagreements, that’s why we have a game. Catch me on the former Twitter: @scott_pianowski.

The big tickets

$44 Tyreek Hill

$43 AJ Brown

$42 Ja’Marr Chase

$41 Stefon Diggs

$41 CeeDee Lamb

$40 Amon-Ra St. Brown

$36Keenan Allen

$35 *Justin Jefferson

$34 Cooper Kupp

$33 Davante Adams

$32 Jaylen Waddle

• Brown managers can look forward to an easier fantasy playoff schedule: Seahawks, Giants, Cardinals. The challenge for the Eagles is the poor lineup they face after their bye week (Chiefs, Bills, 49ers, Cowboys). Of course, Brown is one of those guys who is always open, even when he doesn’t look open. It’s hard to believe he’s only 6 feet tall; he plays much bigger. A master at spiking the ball and adjusting to it in flight. Brown routinely takes throws that look like YOLO balls and turns them into completions.

• The only downside to Hill and the Dolphins is a fantasy playoff gauntlet: Miami faces the Jets, Cowboys and Ravens in money weeks. But Hill is the type of player who can go 8-150-2 against anyone. And the Commanders (Week 13) and Titans (Week 14) look like blast spots.

• The Jefferson salary is a courtesy estimate, which is why an asterisk is included. There’s no telling how healthy and fit he’ll be when he returns to action, and he’ll have to get used to new quarterback Joshua Dobbs.

• St. Brown has a perfect fantasy setup: enough receiver support that opponents can’t commit too much to him, but not so much that he’s not the clear first player in the passing game. Admire St. Brown’s weekly target totals: 9, 7, 12, 7, 15, 19, 9. There’s a wonderful mix of downside and upside there. Detroit’s last four games are indoors; The Lions’ last possible weather game will be in Chicago in Week 14.

• I was hoping Adams would get more momentum in the first Raiders game of the new regime, but let’s give him some development time. At least Josh McDaniels and Jimmy Garoppolo’s nightmare is over, and at least Adams seemed more engaged and exuberant in the Week 9 win. The Jets are a frustrating draw in Week 10, but I’m still holding on to my long-term Adams stock.

Legitimate building blocks

$27 Puka Nacua

$25 Brandon Aiyuk

$25 Chris Olave

$25 DeVonta Smith

$24 Amari Cooper

$23 DJ Moore

$22 DK Metcalf

$22 Deebo Samuel

$21 Mike Evans

$21 Michael Pittman Jr.

$20 Garrett Wilson

$19 Christian Kirk

$19 Chris Godwin

$18 Adam Thielen

$18 Higgins t-shirt

$18 DeAndre Hopkins

$18 Terry McLaurin

• Smith likely gets a $2-$4 head start with Dallas Goedert’s injury. The key to getting players like him is pairing them with high-floor receivers in the big leagues; He might be a good fit for a St. Brown type. You don’t want all of your wideouts to be heavy on the boom-bust theme, but you can have a few of them. The mix is ​​key.

• Carolina didn’t get the memo about the weekly pinball games in Indianapolis; Maybe no setup can turn the Panthers into a carnival. But Pittman has a solid target base, a head coach we trust and a backup quarterback (Gardner Minshew) who won’t be lost if he has to play for weeks. Pittman’s yards per target are down slightly, but he will surpass his career high in targets. Volume again for the win.

• Just when it looked like Sam Howell would break the NFL record for sacks taken, his pocket awareness was much better against the Eagles and Patriots. That helped stabilize McLaurin’s value; In the last four weeks he has been in the WR26, WR20, WR15 and WR21 charts. Washington throws the ball absurdly 67.9% of the timeis by far the leader in the NFL.

• I had Aiyuk and Samuel ranked slightly higher in my first draft, but we can’t ignore the fact that the Niners throw the ball less than 50% of the time, only one of two teams that low (Baltimore is the other). At least Aiyuk and Samuel can benefit from a relatively narrow roster in San Francisco, although Christian McCaffrey will always be deflecting passes.

Talk them up, talk them down

$17 Zay Flowers

$17 Calvin Ridley

$17 Nico Collins

$17 Tyler Lockett

$15 Diontae Johnson

$15 Jakobi Meyers

$14 George Pickens

$14 Jordan Addison

$13 Christian Watson

$13 Marquise Brown

$13 Courtland Sutton

$12 Tank Dell

$11 Gabe Davis

$11 Jaxon Smith-Njigba

$11 Rashee Rice

$11 Jerry Jeudy

$10 Jahan Dotson

• Other than Zay Flowers, I’m not going anywhere near any of Baltimore’s wideouts.

• If something special is going to happen with Ridley, we’ll likely see signs of it in the reveal game, the first start after the bye. Trevor Lawrence hasn’t managed 19 points in any fantasy starts this year.

• There have been some legitimate calls to trade Sutton, indicating a likely unsustainable touchdown rate. This is a clever flag; Six points from only 46 goals is suspicious. However, Russell Wilson has played much better than expected in his first Sean Payton season, and Sutton has a better red zone profile than Jerry Jeudy. All six of Sutton’s touchdowns came from the red zone, and this is a team with an older quarterback (who runs less often these days) and run-of-the-mill tight ends. Given the call to trade Sutton, I suspect the market could be disappointing anyway. I will keep my shares.

• Now that Johnson’s touchdown drought is over, perhaps the scoring floodgates are opening. Kenny Pickett takes the crown, of course, but goals are earned, not given, and Johnson has a whopping 23 appearances to his name in his last two starts. Somehow the amazing Steelers are 5-3 despite being outmatched every week. Mike Tomlin is a magician. Unfortunately OC Matt Canada is a never-ending problem.

• Davis makes sense as a lower WR3 or higher WR4; that’s the extent of it. Diggs is the obvious alpha here and Josh Allen is still running in touchdowns. The rise of Dalton Kincaid is a problem. Davis has five separate games with a touchdown – we appreciate the margin – but he also averaged 35 yards or less in five starts, including the bagel in Cincinnati. Ideally, a fantasy champion needs a stronger option in that WR3 slot.

Some plausible advantages

$9 Drake London

$9 Rashid Shaheed

$8 Josh Downs

$7 Romeo Doubs

$7 Elijah Moore

$7 Jayden Reed

• Reed still makes some rookie mistakes — he had a procedural call last week that nearly cost Green Bay a field goal — but he leads the Packers in yards per score, and last week’s 21-yard run suggests that that more artificial ball touches will follow. In the second half of the year, newcomers often begin to spread their wings; Perhaps Reed’s growth will be stunted by Jordan Love’s limitations, but I have my eye on him. (Put Jonathan Mingo in that bucket too).

• Shaheed is a funny player, but unfortunately has no words; Even after an outstanding game in Week 8 in Indianapolis, he returned a week later with just three goals. He’s been in the top 11 in half-point PPR three times, and he’s failed to crack the top 50 every two weeks. Sometimes they are air yards, sometimes they are prayer yards. As it stands, the Saints have a knuckleball offense, with Alvin Kamara dominating the scoring and Taysom Hill doing a lot of the work in the red zone in a variety of roles. It’s not the easiest team to project every week.

Bargain Bin

$4 Michael Thomas

$4 Brandin Cooks

$4 Jonathan Mingo

$3 Joshua Palmer

$3 Josh Reynolds

$3 Noah Brown

$2 Marvin Mims Jr.

$2 Tutu Atwell

$2 Curtis Samuel

$2 Tyler Boyd

$2 KJ Osborn

$2 Demario Douglas

$2 Khalil Shakir

$1 Quentin Johnston

$1 Jameson Williams

$1 *Zay Jones

$1 Odell Beckham Jr.

$1 Michael Wilson