In a standard PPR league that starts three wide receivers, how would you feel about your team if you didn't draft a wide receiver in the first four rounds?
Jason Wood: Absolutely fine. There's tremendous value at the WR position in the middle rounds this year. Let me be clear, it's not my plan of attack to come away with zero WRs in that type of league, but it can be done without losing your competitiveness. I think the key to this whole question comes down to how you allocated your first four picks. If you took a QB/TE and 2 RBs, then I would be a bit nervous. Because now you're probably behind the 8-ball in not only WR but also in your RB situation. You're going to be panicking a bit worrying about RB depth while also trying to roster three or four wide receivers in the next five rounds. Now if you took TE/RB/RB/RB or QB/RB/RB/RB, I would think it's much easier to mentally go into "WR mode" and just grab three or four of the BPA pass catchers over the course of the new few rounds.
Matt Waldman: This year? Pretty darn good when you consider the names available after the fourth round:
- Reggie Wayne
- Hakeem Nicks
- Eric Decker
- Antonio Brown
- Steve Smith
- James Jones
- DeSean Jackson
- Tavon Austin
- T.Y. Hilton
- Cecil Shorts
There are 3-4 others worth mentioning that I didn't, but I believe every one of these 10 players has a legitimate shot at top-12 production I wouldn't be shocked of 3-5 of these 10 players are in the top-15 overall in a PPR league. If I can start 1-2 tight ends and landed 2 of the top 4 tight ends on my board and acquired 2 stud backs then I'm happy to roll with even 2 of these 10 receivers. We'll see if the season bears this idea, but I believe the wide receiver position has a concentration of production in the middle rounds and unless you land 2-3 guys by round four who are studs and hit on mid-to-late round RBs, waiting on mid-round receivers isn't a bad thing.
Chad Parsons: I have found myself getting a stud receiver like Dez Bryant, Julio Jones, or Demaryius Thomas a far amount in the second round, but am fine with addressing the position solely in the later rounds. Torrey Smith in the fifth round, maybe slips to the sixth, has been a consistent target of mine. Kenny Britt in the seventh or eighth round flashes in bright lights when the draft is in motion. Even second-year names like Justin Blackmon, Rueben Randle, Michael Floyd, and Josh Gordon are suitable WR4-6 targets after Kenny Britt is on my roster. Even rookies Cordarrelle Patterson and DeAndre Hopkins have found their way onto my rosters this season. This is just a taste of the receiver value outside the first four rounds this season. Getting your running back stable in order or pulling the trigger on Graham or Gronkowski in the early rounds does not hinder a wide receiver group much considering the depth and pure talent available later on.
Adam Harstad: I'll echo the general sentiment that WR is deep this year and there are a lot of quality names still available in the 5th round or later. I'd also like to make the point that, while it's nice to be able to look at our lineup in preseason and imagine that everyone will perform how we expect, that's rarely the case. I'm sure the guy who drafted Harvin in the 2nd a month ago felt pretty good about his receiver position. I'm sure the guy who drafted Larry Fitzgerald last season felt like he had an anchor to build his receiving corps around. It doesn't matter what draft strategy you follow or what position you spend your first four picks on, you're going to wind up having holes on your roster that you need to address. It's important to recognize and acknowledge that rather than assuming that spending a 3rd round pick at receiver will solve any concerns you might have otherwise had at the position.
If anything, the guys who wait at WR will probably have a deeper corps, because they'll recognize that a lot of their picks likely won't amount to anything and they'll build in depth to cover for that. I've seen so many teams draft two or three receivers early and then essentially ignore the position for the rest of the draft because they see those big names atop their depth chart and feel like they're set. When one of those teams is hit by injury or underperformance, they don't have any backup plan in place to deal with it.
Andy Hicks: I would be very uncomfortable skipping the wide receiver position in the first 4 rounds in this format. To me it would be like waging a war without any planes, while the opponent has a strong air force. It's possible to win, but the results are likely to be hampered by opponents being able to dominate you in a key facet of the battle. You can get good receivers in the 5th round onwards, but around 20 guys are off the board and history shows us that half of the WR1's from 2012 will return again, so you've lost half, if not more of the battle already. Most of the potential high reception receivers are also gone so you are going to struggle to catch up at this position no matter who you draft from round 5 onwards.
I would be looking at getting one of the consensus top 6 receivers, which means using a first or 2nd rounder and then building from there. Getting none of the top 20 receivers is for braver men than me.
Jeff Pasquino: I would be less OK than some other staffers here, as I feel that a Top 12 WR in a PPR league is worth more than cobbling together three out of the next 30 guys off of the draft board. In a PPR league, I want someone who is going to see 7-8 targets a week or more, and that means the Top 40-45 guys are right about where the talent cliff drops off. Sure, I would be okay with my WR2, WR3 and WR4 coming to me in Rounds 5-10, but I would be hesitant to put all of my PPR eggs in that basket.
Taking a quick look at the current PPR ADP, Round 5 wide receivers read like this: Pierre Garcon, Jordy Nelson, Antonio Brown and Eric Decker. I would be fine with my WR2 coming from this group, but not my WR1 in a PPR league. I will likely be gunning for at least one Top 10 WR in the first three rounds to go along with 2-3 RBs and maybe a TE in the first four rounds. That would leave me Round 5 for my WR2 and then I would be grabbing at least two more before the end of Round 10. While the depth at wide receiver is strong in the WR20-WR45 range, I would rather have that be my WR2-WR5 on my fantasy team, not the entire group of weekly starters.
Will Grant: Given my drafting style of avoiding the top tier QB and TE unless there is solid value, the only way I could see myself getting into the 4th round without at least 1 WR would be if I landed three solid running backs and a top tier QB or TE in the 4th for value. Given that situation, I'd be pretty happy landing some of the guys listed here at my #1 wide receiver. While I'd certainly be giving up points every week at the WR1 spot, the fact that I'd be scoring well at the other skills positions would hopefully make up for it. The more serious situation would be if you stuck to your guns and went with the value at RB, QB and TE while other guys in your league wildly over-drafted the WR position. As Matt pointed out, if I'm looking at Wayne or Decker or Nicks as my WR1, I'm feeling pretty solid. However, if 25 or more WR have gone off the board because of a crazy run and I'm looking at guys like Stevie Johnson or Greg Jennings or Kenny Britt as my top wide out, I'm starting to panic a bit and will probably hit that position hard for the next round or two.
The key here is that you have to trust the value that you landed at RB, QB or TE. If you really nailed one or two of those positions to where you are the #1 team by quite a margin, then you can probably make up for a weaker WR corps by drafting guys with a higher ceiling that might outperform their draft position - even if it's only for a couple weeks. The fact that they give you a boost while the rest of your team keeps your floor really high can lead to a solid chain of victories. Trust your valuations.
Mark Wimer: I'm with Andy here - I'd much rather go two wide receivers to open the draft in the PPR paradigm and then address running back/quarterback/tight end rather than do some combination of RB/TE/QB to open up the first four rounds in a PPR league. I'd be very, very unhappy to have no wide receivers after four rounds in a PPR league draft.
First of all, as Andy rightly points out, there is a limited number of wide receivers likely to approach/go over 100 receptions in a year. In a PPR league, someone like Calvin Johnson - who averaged over seven receptions a week last year (before we even start talking about yardage and TD points) - provides the equivalent of one TD+ per week to your fantasy team. In contrast, Adrian Peterson caught the second-most receptions in his career last season, 40, averaging 2.5 receptions per week. Johnson had a five-point-per-week edge on Peterson in PPR leagues last season solely based on receptions. Doug Martin had 49 receptions, just a tad over three per week on average, ceding four+ fantasy points per week to Johnson based on the PPR paradigm. All of the potential 100+ reception players will be long gone in the fifth round of most fantasy drafts.
Secondly, wide receivers absorb a lot less contact from week to week than running backs do in the modern NFL - 220 pound defensive backs are limited as to when to apply contact (not after five yards from the line of scrimmage or the DB is flagged for illegal contact, which has been vigorously enforced by the NFL officials in recent seasons) and DBs are also officially discouraged from leveling "defenseless" wide receivers, both by penalties in-game and expensive fines after the fact.
Running backs, on the other hand, are hammered by 330+ pound behemoths populating the DL at the line of scrimmage and/or spammed by 240+ pound linebackers once a running back advances past the defensive line to the second level of the defense. Also, running backs are asked to block blitzing linebackers/safties on a regular basis, something that wide receivers rarely have to do. Starting running backs simply have more attrition due to soaking up punishment during the course of a regular season, and they get hit (and thus have more instances in which an injury may occur) much more than starting wide receivers do in any given game.
In short, elite wide receivers have more potential for accumulating reception points in PPR leagues, and less likelihood of being seriously injured due to contact in any given week compared to elite running backs. Stack the deck in your favor in PPR leagues and amass elite wide receivers in the early rounds of the draft.
Stephen Holloway: I also agree with Andy that I do not want to avoid the position early on, even though the wide receiver position is very deep. The farther down the chain you go, the less consistency you have in the production. Having one top tier wide receiver and waiting on depth is a different proposition, but even then I much prefer having options all throughout the draft. In best ball formats, that same wide receiver depth makes waiting on the position much more viable.