Quarterback ADP Risers and Fallers for Fantasy Football - NFL Free Agency Check

April 3, 2022

Antonio Losada takes a look at the ADP variation of multiple quarterbacks following the first weeks of 2022 Free Agency action and their fantasy football value heading into draft season.

I am going to start this column by reviewing the concept of ADP, which you are likely familiar with. Average Draft Position (ADP) indicates the average position where a player is drafted over more than one fantasy football draft. You can consider it as the price you have to pay to draft and get a player on your team. A high ADP (that is, actually, a low-numbered ADP) means that a player is going off draft boards early, and thus you'll need to draft him in the first rounds if you truly want him.

Low or high ADP values, though, are not gospel. Each of us fantasy GMs have our strategies and value players differently depending on what we think is the most important for them to have in terms of abilities. No matter what, though, ADPs are good to know the average value of the "average GM" you'll be drafting against.

It's been a few weeks since the free agency opened its doors and we're still a few weeks away from the NFL draft, so I figured it'd make sense to look at how ADPs have varied during the last few days as we start to gear up for the real-life draft and our very own fantasy draft season. In this series and throughout all of the offseason, I’ll highlight players at each skill position seeing significant fluctuation from just before the past NFL draft to right after it finished, using data from FFPC drafts that have taken place in that period. Let's get it going!

Quarterbacks - ADP Risers

Mitchell Trubisky - Pittsburgh Steelers

Obviously, nothing impacts a quarterback's ADP more than going from the bench to a starting role. Not even adding the likes of Davante Adams or Tyreek Hill trump that. To wit, Mitchell Trubisky and his fresh 67-pick (!!!) ADP boost throughout the last three weeks of March. Mitch has gone from playing semi-backup in Chicago (2020) and full-backup in Buffalo (2021) to QB1 in Pittsburgh after Ben Roethlisberger finally retired for good a few months ago. And hey, Trubisky has still not cracked the 150th-overall barrier but he's truly getting there slowly but surely. Betting on a quarterback like Trubisky in one-QB leagues is asking a lot, but doing so in Superflex and 2QB formats might not be that crazy. You're not drafting him to be your QB1 even if you punt the position because Trubisky has just one top-15 finish at the position--or a season finishing better than the 26th-best quarterback, for that matter--but he should be good enough for a QB2 and top-24 finish if he can get and retaining the starting role for the full 17-game season in Pittsburgh.

Jameis Winston - New Orleans Saints

Jameis' case is just the same as Trubisky's--going from the bench to a starting role--only Winston will do so for the same franchise he's been with for the past two seasons. Of course, that's real but also a little bit of fake news: Winston has only played 11 games in those couple of years in New Orleans while starting seven games, all of them in 2021 before getting injured and done for the remainder the season. Winston is still 28 years old, which is young for the position. There is nothing telling us he'll decline mightily any time soon, and in fact, when healthy, Winston has always produced as a top-24 QB at the very least with five straight finishes in the QB2 real, a borderline QB1 campaign as a rookie, and a top-5 season at the position as recently as in 2019 when still in Tampa. With no realistic 1B to Winston's 1A in NO, though, Winston will get as many reps as he can manage next year so that's the main reason for the ADP boost for you. The receiving corps, though, suck too bad, so watch out for what could be a very very low weekly floor. I'd rather get Trubisky at 150 ADP than Winston at something approaching 100 with the roster as it looks today.

Carson Wentz - Washington Commanders

Ah shit, here we go again -- CJ. And that's true. Fantasy GMs seem to be convinced Carson Wentz still has some mojo inside of him, judging by that ADP rise in the past three weeks even though he's going from a bad offense to a worse (?) one. I don't really know about that last thing, but it could very well be the case. The Colts skill-position players racked up 1191 PPR points compared to the Commanders' 1096, so there's that. Oh, and in the wake of such a situation, the Commies have done... nothing this offseason to fix their troubling offense. The 30+ ADP rise, all things considered, is a little bit confounding given where Wentz comes from and where he's landed. We're talking about a 2.5-round bump up, which doesn't quite make sense to me. Yes, Terry McLaurin and Curtis Samuel are probably better than Pittman/Hilton/Parris/Pascal were in Indy last year, but still... I'm definitely not falling for this or panicking about missing on Wentz at all.

Quarterbacks - ADP Fallers

Kirk Cousins - Minnesota Vikings

One-round-fall galore for these three, led by Cousins' 17+ ADP drop in the past three weeks of fantasy drafts around the nation. Cousins' offseason, such as Minnesota's as a whole, has been rather soft, tamed, and of little impact on the short-term future of the franchise. Of course, Cousins being Cousins, he got another guaranteed deal and extended his current contract for one more year making it two starting this next September. Jesus Christ, the Vikings. Cousins' ADP is about to hit the 100s, and you know what? That's not even remotely bad. If Cousins keeps falling down the draft board pecking order, he will become a very valuable late-round QB pick to consider. As criticized as Kirk has always been, he's put together seven consecutive seasons as a top-15 QB with six of those seven inside the QB1 realm. The Vikings are a known commodity, have retained all skill-position players this offseason, and Cousins should be good to score himself another low-end-QB1/high-end-QB2 customary campaign. I wouldn't be mad picking him at any 8th-Rd-plus ADP.

Kenny Pickett - Undrafted Prospect

Rookie alert! Rookie alert! Pickett is one of maybe two/three quarterbacks tops projected to get drafted inside the first round of the upcoming draft--and that is only if teams such as the Panthers, Steelers, or Lions enter panic mode and pick a passer on Day 1. Things are turning in Liberty's QB Malik Willis direction when it comes to the bona fide best quarterbacking option available in this class, with Detroit moderately projected to draft the soon-to-be pro as early as with the second pick. Reasonably, Pickett is falling down the ADP boards as doubts keep creeping around him and his role/upside next season. The most probable and best-case scenario these days, still more than three weeks from draft day, is that Pickett gets to a team to play the backup/learner role for a year and then take the reins next season--at the soonest. That's no bueno, and even if Pickett finds a way toward a starting gig somehow somewhere, he's not even remotely close to a legit option to roster in redraft leagues this year. In the past five years, only two rookies (Kyler Murray and Justin Herbert) finished in the QB1 realm, and just three more made it to the top-20 players at their position. If Trevor Lawrence and his huge hype train couldn't do it, I'm afraid I'm fading the hell out of Pickett for the time being.

Baker Mayfield - Cleveland Browns

Nightmarish situation for Baker, who went from QB1 of the (possibility contending, definitely postseason-bound) Browns to QB2 in Cleveland or wherever the hell he ends taking a roster spot. Watson is expected to get a suspension from the NFL and miss some games, but not even that will fix Mayfield's backup role as Cleveland has already brought Watson's minion to town after signing Jacoby Brissett. It's probably down to the Panthers (not expecting it with Sam Darnold in the same situation in Carolina when it comes to owed money) or... Seattle? Philadelphia? Houston? I don't know, and I don't think nobody actually knows how this will end. One thing is clear, though: I'm not getting shares of Mayfield whether he gets to a new team or not, not even if I can find him available for free in my league's WW. Ugh.

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