NFL fantasy diamonds: Why Calvin Ridley, Anthony Richardson need a double take in 2023

NFL fantasy diamond wide receivers: Calvin Ridley

Average draft position: WR18, 42nd overall

My rankings: WR11, 26th overall

Jaguars wide receiver Calvin Ridley

First and foremost, I just don’t believe people realize how freaking good Calvin Ridley was when last happy and part of a functioning NFL offense. I know it’s been a while, because he only played five games in 2021 before stepping away from football due to his mental health and then was suspended all of last season for violating the league’s gambling policy during his time off.

If you go back to 2020, he caught 90 passes for nearly 1,400 yards and 9 touchdowns across 15 games. With Julio Jones being in and out of the lineup that year, Ridley actually stepped up as the number one option and delivered in so many spots for a Falcons team that otherwise had very little going for it.

He finished as the WR4 in half-PPR that year and turned himself into one of the toughest covers, due to his pristine route-running. In fact, his 2.7 yards per route run ranked third league-wide – so it wasn’t just a product of getting a bunch of opportunities, yet he was able to make those count.

I was big on Christian Kirk last year because I saw the opportunity to be the top target in a much more well-coached offense and that we should follow the money. That worked out and so did taking Evan Engram at the end of drafts. That being said, Ridley is substantially better than both of those guys.

I think there’s a great balance between having the surrounding weapons to keep defenses from bracketing or just giving extra attention to Ridley, but at the same time, him being clearly the best of the bunch and able to get open regularly as the primary read.

Along with finishing last season 7th in total pass attempts, Trevor Lawrence had 55 completions of 20+ yards (third-most in the NFL) and he was tied for a league-low checkdown percentage at 3.4%. So there’ll be plenty of chances for his top weapon in the intermediate-to-deep range.

Doug Pederson and general manager Trent Baalke knew what they could get from this guy, which is why they traded a couple of draft picks last offseason, even though they would need to wait for a full year to take him off the shelf.

Ridley could make this offense even better, after they already finished top-10 in yards, points, DVOA and EPA per play. The areas Ridley could really take elevate them is in the red zone (as they only finished 20th in RZ touchdown range) and on third downs, as Trevor Lawrence was down at 23rd in conversion percentage on 3rd & medium (so three to seven yards short of the sticks).

Ridley may not look like what most people imagine in a great red-zone receiver, but his ability to win quickly and find room inside that condensed space helped him catch 26 TDs through his first three years. Unfortunately, there are no third down numbers for WRs available for 2020, but 74 of his 90 catches that year resulted in either a first down or a touchdown.

Just listening to him talk about how happy he is being back on an NFL field and his mentality going into 2023 has me very excited. Because I thought of him much higher than most people, understanding how pure a route-runner he is, being able to manipulate defenders one-on-one and his tremendous football IQ.

We’ve already seen some clips of him looking great during OTAs, he’s got a quarterback capable of delivering the ball to him at any spot on the field and all the arrows are pointing towards him potentially being a fantasy star this season.

I mean Zay Jones was a top-30 fantasy WR last year and Christian Kirk was top-15. Now Ridley is supposed to finish somewhere between those two names? No freaking way.

NFL fantasy diamond wide receivers: Jordan Addison

Average draft position: WR39, 87th overall

My rankings: WR27, 64th overall

Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison

I had Addison as my WR3 in this most recent draft class, but I believe he has the clearest path to being very productive right off the bat, thanks to the situation he is in and how pro-ready he is entering the league.

While he’s not as fast or dynamic as some other guys in the class, I really liked the fact that after being the Biletnikoff winner for Pitt in 2021, catching passes from Kenny Pickett. With a lot of his production coming as a designated touch guy, he was able to make key plays more as a piece of the offense for USC and helped Caleb Williams actually win the Heisman trophy, rather than needing to be featured.

I get why the devy owners may not go crazy for a 175-pound receiver running right around 4.5 flat, but I believe after Bijan Robinson and the quarterbacks, he’s next up in terms of Offensive Rookie of the Year rankings and he’s right up there among my favorite number two receivers to target, in terms of a role for his team.

There’s a difference between looking fast on track and if you actually make defenders look slow on the field when you run routes against them. Addison doesn’t lose any time getting up to speed off the line and he routinely makes DBs overrun the break point.

His ability to make every route look the same during straight stems, then give them false information and create separation when he is actually ready to commit should translate fairly quickly. That’s how over his final two seasons and 25 games across them, Addison averaged just under 100 yards and just over one TD per game. He fixed his early drop issues, with just two all of last season, and while the contested catch rate took a significant hit last season, he was way above average in 2021.

At around 2.8 yards per route run each of the past two seasons in two different Power-5 conferences and as part of different offensive systems, I feel very good about his game translating to the pro level either way. Yet, if you consider the Vikings already have the best wide receiver in football in Justin Jefferson, I feel great about this guy being able to take advantage of those isolated situations when coverage is rolled toward the superstar (since his metrics were even better against man).

With 200 vacated targets available for the taking and no other WR additions outside of undrafted FAs, there’s plenty of opportunity to produce without cutting into the workload of Jefferson. Looking at Adam Thielen’s 2022 season (even with the worst marks of his career since 2016 with 6.7 yards per target, just a 22% contested catch rate and a measly 1.08 yards per route run), he still somehow ended up finishing as the WR31 in half-PPR. And the year before, he was a top-15 WR in points per game.

Minnesota saw a definite shift in play-calling philosophy under Kevin O’Connell, finishing third in pass-play rate at 64.4%, despite lacking a reliable number two up until they traded for tight-end T.J. Hockenson.

Addison is a definite upgrade over Thielen and anybody else on that roster, with K.J. Osborn as the only viable target outside of that. So if the rookie receiver just takes on the 107 targets Thielen left on the table and performs like an average number two, he easily beats that ADP.

If he’s any better, you might have a low-end WR2 in fantasy or at least a flex at your hands – and you’re getting him in the eighth or ninth round!

NFL fantasy diamond wide receivers: Nico Collins

Average draft position: WR53, 122nd overall

My rankings: WR38, 100th overall

Texans wide receiver Nico Collins

I think in Nico Collins we have somebody who casual NFL fans don’t actually know and don’t fully understand the role he will be in this season. New OC Bobby Slowik will be a first-time play-caller this season after DeMeco Ryans brought him along from San Francisco and having a rookie quarterback always comes with some questions.

However, just looking at Nico’s time in the NFL so far, 927 yards and three TDs across his first two years may not stand out a whole lot. But I’d think not a lot of people would know he averaged 48 yards per game last season, when he still had Brandin Cooks along with him in the lineup and was catching passes from Davis Mills.

Play-calling, quarterback play, target share and offensive success overall are pointing up and I could see Collins be in store for a pretty big season.

Going through the Next Gen Stats database, Collins was basically right in line with Davante Adams and Stefon Diggs (arguably the top two route-runners in the league) averaging 2.9 yards of separation and in terms of his 11.9-yard average depth of target. And with eight catches of 20+ yards in each of his first two seasons across 70 total, he’s been able to produce down the field quite a bit in relation to the opportunities he’s received.

Meanwhile, he also only dropped one pass in each of those years so far. This guy is 6’4”, 215 pounds with 4.43 speed, much better initial quickness off the line than you’d expect for his size. However, if he needs to release against the leverage of his defender, he can throw him the other way, has phenomenal body-control down the field to lean into and box out guys and what’s underrated about him is how efficient he is with instantly getting up the field once the catch is secured.

So understanding that he’s going to be the designated X receiver in Slowik’s offense, you have to love how well he projects for that. Not only has he been lined up there quite a bit already, but in Kyle Shanahan’s offense, that position is the primary read on the majority of dropbacks and is regularly set up with RAC opportunities.

Meanwhile, with QB C.J. Stroud coming in with the second overall pick, you feel pretty good about the fact that he ran quite a few West Coast staples already, even if fundamentally it was a more spread-out approach. But he also gives you much more in terms of dropping balls into the bucket down the field than most quarterbacks typically operating in those types of offenses may provide, to take advantage of Collins in more of a vertical sense.

On top of all that, the Texans have 99 more vacated targets than any other team in the league at a massive 357 total. And they do have several more options this season, signing FA Robert Woods, drafting Houston’s Tank Dell early in the third round and another top-50 pick from last year in John Metchie III thankfully getting back onto the football field, after beating leukemia.

So there may be a more fierce competition overall for targets, but none of those guys are suited for the role I expect Nico to assume.

The only guy in a similar mold on the roster is actually a sixth-rounder I like quite a bit in Xavier Hutchinson, but they already have a guy they invested a top-100 pick in and played 71% of offensive snaps when available in Collins. If he’s just part of your flex rotation, that’s a win based on ADP, and I think he could be somebody who delivers 8 to 12 points per week, to not make you upset on Monday (like some big-play receiver who didn’t get you that one long touchdown you were hoping for).

Honorable mentions: George Pickens (WR36), Terrace Marshall (WR89) & Khalil Shakir (WR92)