How Fantasy Football ADP Has Evolved In Recent Years

Positional Value Has Overtaken Consistency

In the last three seasons, we have seen a serious fluctuation in the value of different positions for fantasy football, as the wide receiver position, once the gold standard of consistency, has morphed into something of an afterthought due to the oversaturation of productive receivers on the market. The diminished value of a top-flight receiver (save for target hog Michael Thomas, who remains a consistent top-five value) has also been a result of the increased production we have seen from the running back and tight end position. Since 2017, there have been 47 instances of running backs scoring 200+ fantasy points in PPR formats for a single season. In the previous three seasons (2014-2016) there were only 38 such instances. Among those 200+ point-scorers, there were 21 instances of backs scoring 300+ points, 57% of which occurred during the more recent three-year stretch. With a more saturated market of viable running backs, one would assume that the fantasy football economy would in turn devalue the position, when in fact the opposite has happened.

According to Fantasy Football Calculator’s ADP database, 62.25% of players with a first or second-round ADP for this season are running backs, the highest percentage of backs with first-round ADPs since 2013 when 66% of players taken in first two rounds (on average) were running backs, and 11 of the top 12 highest ADPs belonged to running backs. The position saw the lowest saturation of top two round ADPs in 2016 when only 37.5% of players taken in this range were running backs. Coincidence or not, the following season saw an influx of top-flight running back talent enter the league, as future RB1’s Leonard Fournette, Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, Alvin Kamara, James Conner, Aaron Jones, Chris Carson, and Austin Ekeler were all drafted (or signed in Ekeler’s case) in 2017. This mass infusion of talent has pushed the combined ADP of the position back to the top, ending the brief era of “Zero RB” strategists winning fantasy leagues on a consistent basis. Since the peak of the “Only Trust Receivers” era — 2016, when the top three ADPs belonged to Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, and Odell Beckham Jr. — the highest average ADP in a single season has belonged to Brown in 2017 when he was coming off of the board around pick 1.04. 

For the longest time drafting two backs who you could count on for double-digit points on a weekly basis was a luxury reserved for only the luckiest drafters, as the position tended to fall off dramatically after round one (and sometimes in the middle of round one). Due to the consistency of touches and scoring opportunities that has been afforded to backs nowadays, allocating your first two picks on WRs to begin a draft might as well be synonymous with waving a white flag. Since 2017, 40% of the top-ten highest-scoring players (including QBs) have been running backs, while only 16.67% have been receivers. Simply put, the upside of a potential RB1 far outweighs that of a consistent wideout. While there is still a decent percentage of wide receiver loyalists out there, the concept of building one’s fantasy team around the position has become borderline archaic. 

Tight End Scarcity Buoys The Value Of Elite Players

The devaluation of the wide receiver position can be attributed to more aspects than the reestablishment of consistency among running backs. Since 2016, the top twelve tight ends (TE1’s) have scored an average of 181.4 PPR points per season. From 2012-2015, the median scoring for this range of players was 196.81, demonstrating the deteriorating value of drafting an ‘average’ tight end. Since 2012, there has only been one tight end per season with an ADP within the top two rounds, yet as of today, there are currently two tight ends with ADPs in this range for 2020 drafts (Travis Kelce at 2.07 and George Kittle at 2.11). While it’s a bit of a cop-out to say that the percentage of tight ends taken in the top two rounds of drafts has doubled — even if it is true mathematically — the rise in ADP for Kittle and Kelce has pushed the ADPs of similar point total producers from the receiver position down due to the scarcity of the tight end position.

A case could be made, but it’s important to remember that one tight end slot is far easier to fill than three/four wide receiver ones. Positional scarcity matters.

— JJ Zachariason (@LateRoundQB) July 5, 2018

The increased popularity of Tight End Premium PPR leagues has also led to a devaluation of receivers in many drafts, as the added reception bonuses for TEs allows players like Kelce and Kittle relatively similar numbers to guys like Michael Thomas depending on how high the reception premium is. For instance, a league with a 1.0 reception bonus for the position would have made Mark Andrews the WR4 in PPR formats with 271.2 total points, while Travis Kelce would have scored 351.3 points, which would have made him the fourth-highest scoring player in fantasy football. When taking into account the existence of such leagues, it’s easy to understand why the receiver position has become so widely faded.

Record-Setting QB Play 

The ADP of the quarterback position is often a touchy subject on fantasy football forums, as there is a vast majority of enthusiasts who believe that the position should almost always be faded in drafts due to the depth and relatively small margin between “above average” and “average” passers. Those who live by this creed are entirely justified, as the total point differential between last season’s QB6 (Josh Allen) and QB20 (Baker Mayfield) was a mere 59.38 points. For reference, the margin between the RB6 (Dalvin Cook) and RB20 (Devonta Freeman) was almost double that amount (94.8 points), while the margin between the TE6 (Austin Hooper) and TE20 (Jonnu Smith) was 87 points. If we were to assume that based on the current ADPs of quarterbacks for drafts this season, that the same relative margin would hold true, the difference in ADP between the current QB6 (Deshaun Watson with an ADP of 6.08) and the current QB20 (Drew Lock with an ADP of 13.08) would be a full five rounds, making the drop off of 60 points rather inconsequential due to the fact that a sixth-round selection could instead be used on a valuable contributor elsewhere. 

Despite the relative depth of the quarterback position in fantasy football, it’s clear that an elite passer can be the backbone of a championship team, as evidenced by the fact that last year’s QB1 (Lamar Jackson) was on 68.8% of teams that made the fantasy playoffs, while the QB1 from the previous season (Patrick Mahomes) was on 35.5% of championship teams. Although both Jackson (415.68 points) and Mahomes (417.08 points) produced the two highest point totals for any QB in fantasy football from this past decade, their value was tied to their ADPs rather than their actual outputs, as both Jackson (ADP of 9.02 (QB11) in 2019) and Mahomes (ADP of 10.10 (QB15) in 2018) were taken in the latter half of most drafts. Although both players are poised to dominate yet again this season, their current ADPs for one-QB leagues are 2.07 and 2.08, which don’t even crack the top-five highest ADPs for the position in this past decade. As we’ve seen in the past three seasons there will always be a passer drafted as a QB2 who can put up QB1 caliber numbers, as Deshaun Watson was on pace for a similarly dominant fantasy campaign during the 2017 season when he was not even being drafted in most leagues. Simply put, the gamble of chasing that next breakout QB far outweighs the opportunity cost for passing on a surefire QB1 earlier in drafts, as evidenced by the diminished ADPs of the two best fantasy QBs in history. 

In conclusion, it’s clear that we are in the midst of a running back revolution for fantasy football, where having just one elite back simply will not cut it. With the values of running backs continuing to climb in conjunction with the ever-growing scoring disparity between the top tier tight ends and their middle of the pack counterparts, the overall value of the wide receiver position has tanked. However, hitting on a “sleeper” (Terry McLaurin, A.J Brown, D.J Chark) at the position in later rounds can prove to be extremely valuable given the investment some of your league mates may make in drafts to acquire a similar scoring player, despite the overall devaluation of the position.