The Late Round Quarterback staff put together their wide receiver rankings for the 2013 season. The following rankings are based on standard wide receiver scoring in redraft leagues, where each touchdown is worth six points and one point is rewarded for every 10 rushing and receiving yards.

Player Rank JJ Chad Phil Ladd Keith Travis Austan
Calvin Johnson 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
AJ Green 2 2 3 2 2 2 3 3
Brandon Marshall 3 4 4 3 3 5 2 2
Dez Bryant 4 3 2 5 5 4 5 4
Demaryius Thomas 5 5 5 6 4 3 4 5
Julio Jones 6 8 7 4 7 7 6 6
Pery Harvin 7 12 6 7 6 9 11 10
Roddy White 8 6 14 12 9 6 7 8
Larry Fitzgerald 9 9 8 10 11 10 8 9
Vincent Jackson 10 7 16 9 8 14 10 7
Andre Johnson 11 10 9 11 10 8 14 12
Victor Cruz 12 14 11 8 14 11 9 13
Randall Cobb 13 11 10 13 12 12 15 11
Jordy Nelson 14 13 15 17 13 15 12 16
Hakeem Nicks 15 17 18 16 16 13 16 15
Marques Colston 16 15 17 15 19 16 13 17
Dwayne Bowe 17 16 12 20 26 19 17 14
Reggie Wayne 18 19 21 22 17 17 18 19
Wes Welker 19 21 19 14 15 20 28 20
Pierre Garcon 20 23 13 19 25 21 20 22
Mike Wallace 21 25 20 18 18 22 27 27
Eric Decker 22 27 25 25 24 18 19 21
Antonio Brown 23 20 22 26 22 26 21 23
Danny Amendola 24 22 28 21 23 23 23 26
Torrey Smith 25 24 23 23 20 25 24 28
Steve Smith 26 18 37 24 21 28 22 18
Stevie Johnson 27 30 24 30 31 30 26 25
Cecil Shorts 28 31 32 27 29 29 25 24
Greg Jennings 29 33 27 28 28 24 31 36
James Jones 30 32 36 32 27 33 29 30
Josh Gordon 31 28 29 33 33 31 38 29
T.Y. Hilton 32 29 30 29 35 27 34 39
Mike Williams 33 26 33 36 30 32 32 34
Danario Alexander 34 34 34 35 42 35 30 31
Jeremy Maclin 35 48 31 41 32 34 35 37
Kenny Britt 36 36 26 40 46 40 41 32
DeSean Jackson 37 37 41 39 34 41 36 33
Miles Austin 38 40 42 38 37 36 37 38
Tavon Austin 39 35 35 37 36 37 47 41
Alshon Jeffery 40 41 45 48 41 42 42 44
Vincent Brown 41 39 46 43 39 48 44 46
Lance Moore 42 38 N/A 42 38 38 33 35
Denarius Moore 43 45 38 N/A 43 39 39 45
Anquan Boldin 44 43 49 45 40 N/A 43 43
Justin Blackmon 45 49 50 34 47 49 N/A 40
Kendall Wright 46 N/A 43 47 N/A 47 40 42
Michael FLoyd 47 44 39 44 N/A 43 N/A 50
DeAndre Hopkins 48 50 44 46 N/A 50 49 N/A
Emmanuel Sanders 49 42 N/A N/A 48 44 N/A 49
Ryan Broyles 50 46 N/A N/A 50 N/A 46 N/A

Noteworthy Trends

Little known fact about me: before I loved kickers, wide receivers were my one true love.  While we spend a lot of time on here discussing strategy, I think sometimes we get away from the fun of the game. By far, the most fun position to own a stud in is wide receiver – but because they are so volatile drafting a wide receiver and playing a wide receiver has a ton of inherent, built-in risk.

Because of this risk, I think you might see a lot of dissension come draft time about which wide receivers belong where. Where there was no doubt, however, was that Megatron was the #1 wide receiver. Not a single ranker had Calvin Johnson at any spot lower than 1, and with good reason.  His consistency in a wildly inconsistent world, not only with his production, but probably more importantly with his opportunity, makes him easily the number one wide receiver.

The rankers all did agree, to some extent, on how high they have AJ Green. Everyone had Green at 2 or 3 – and for me it all comes back to how consistent Green was. People poo-poo Green’s quarterback situation, but the fact of the matter is this guy was one of the most consistent performers every single week at the wide receiver position.

After Green, however, the dissention begins within the ranks. Perhaps the most interesting point of dissention, something I’ll be interested to see as we move closer to the draft, is where people draft Roddy White versus Julio Jones. JJ and I were the only two rankers who had Roddy ahead of Julio Jones. I understand the allure of Jones, but White has been a consistent performer year-after-year with no major signs of slowing down. Jones had some big games, sure – but he also had some absolute duds. I think we might be splitting hairs at this point, but I’ll take the established, consistent vet over the young upstart, particularly when that vet is Roddy White.

One guy who’s rank I’m surprised at is Dwayne Bowe, but probably not for the reason you think. I had Bowe ranked 19, which I thought would be amongst the highest on Bowe – I’ve always been the guy higher on Bowe than most of my league mates or contemporaries. Turns out, I was actually lower on Bowe than the average. Chad, Austan, JJ, and Travis had Bowe at 12, 14, 16, and 17, respectively – all better than my 19 rank. Meanwhile, Ladd was lowest on Bowe at 26 – which is sort of where I expected everyone else to rank him. Bowe’s got a ton of talent, but his quarterback is ultimately the untrustworthy Alex Smith. Might Bowe win up as the 12th best WR in the league this year? Could be – but I think at that point he will need to hit what I think is his ceiling to meet that draft position. Try and gauge where your league is on Bowe, because if he’s the 26th wide receiver off the board I think that’s very good value. If he’s at 12, let your league-mate reach.

The ranking of Mike Williams similarly surprised me. It’s clear that Williams, when put in a real-life WR1 position, he’s just simply not as good. His 2011 campaign was pretty abysmal, but with Jackson at his side in 2012 Williams was a very good fantasy wide receiver. I knew JJ would be high on him (and he was the highest on Williams, at 26), what I did not expect is that my ranking of 32 would be at the average. I thought 32 would be quite a bit higher than my fellow rankers, but if leagues are trending the way we are, I think that leagues are getting smarter and catching on to how good this guy is.

I also happened to be the highest on Eric Decker, which I did not think was unlikely to happen. I think people are sort of getting a little bit panicky about the number of targets in Denver. I understand people think Welker is just going to drink Decker’s milkshake – and that’s reflected in the rankings above as Travis and I were the only two to rank Welker below Decker – I think Welker is a much different wide receiver than Decker. I believe Decker has much more ability outside the hashmarks, and I think Welker will be eating the targets that previously went to Stokley, Tamme, and Dreesen more than he will eat into Decker’s targets. I think Decker and Welker are closer than most people ranked them, but our aggregate rankings are about right. I’d just flip them around.

One instance in which the rankings broke out as I thought they would was Desean Jackson. I was tied with Chad as the lowest on Jackson at 41, and Austan had him as high as 33. I’ve sort of gone back and forth over time on Jackson. When he had his first breakout season, I was not in on the Desean hype train at all. I felt he was a one trick pony and would fall back to earth like a ton of bricks. The Desean had another great season, doing The Jerk in the endzone and generally making me feel like a total idiot. Then, the year after, Jackson did what I thought he would and was pretty poor from a fantasy and real-life perspective. I just feel as though it’s pretty easy to take Jackson out of the game from a real life perspective. If he catches the ball he’s got a great chance to score six. The problem is getting him the ball – he is not that versatile of a receiver and does not have the best hands. I’ll probably be lowest on Jackson in every league I’m in – and I’m proud of it.

read more