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

Antonio Losada takes a look at the ADP variation of multiple running back 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!

Running Backs - ADP Risers

James Conner - Arizona Cardinals

Ooooh-weee! Mr. Poopy Butthole would be shocked to find out about James Conner's (and Leonard Fournette, let's be honest) hyper-boosted ADP of late. Conner went from a top-90 draft pick in super-early fantasy drafts to a top-50 pick in a matter of 20 days. That's shocking considering his value in isolation and the absolute truth of massive regression coming his way in 2022. Yes, just accept it if you're reading this, because it's going to happen whether you or Conner like it or not. I love Conner like I love my son, but that doesn't mean he will score 15 touchdowns for the second season in a row, which is precisely what he did in 202 carries last year to finish the season as the RB5 in PPR formats (and he even missed two games entirely!) Conner was so good he basically ran RB2 Chase Edmonds out of town (signed with Miami) and is now in sole possession of the backfield. The volume will undoubtedly be there, but if Conner both reaches his 2021 FP and scores 15+ rushing TDs once more, he would be the fifth player doing so after Derrick Henry, Tomlinson, Priest Holmes, and Shaun Alexander. Nah, fam, I'm out of here.

Leonard Fournette - Tampa Bay Buccaneers

If I'm out of the Conner Chase, you bet I'm absolutely off this one too. Fournette is great and I have followed him since his recruiting days all the way back in 2013. Just imagine! While not the generational player we expected him to become back then, the truth is that Lucky Lenny has been a good-to-great pro-football player, no matter how you look at it. Injury issues, while still there, are not a huge concern anymore with LF playing 15, 13, and 14 games in the past three seasons to close those years as the RB7, RB35, and most recently RB6. Of course, Fournette is getting the Brady Boost this offseason after the retired GOAT decided to come back and turned a massive ADP drop into a pine-high rise amounting to 40+ draft picks. Fournette's 18.3 FPPG form last year marked a career-high figure for the rusher.  Ronald Jones just went to KC so Lenny will get all carries he can handle and then some in 2022. It's not that Fournette is my favorite fantasy rusher but he should be a lock to return a positive ROI as long as his ADP doesn't cross the 40-pick line. So for now, I have no issues drafting him that high.

Cordarelle Patterson - Atlanta Falcons

Talk about a turn of events, man. Patterson, aka GOAT Returner, turned into a bonafide RB/WR hybrid for the Falcons last season in a very coming-out-of-left-field way. After an eight-year NFL career that saw Patt play for four teams before landing in the ATL, the best CP has done was scoring 161.7 PPR points... as a rookie! After that, nothing. Then, 2021 arrived, and with it Patterson's first 30-year campaign and quite a nice welcome to his third decade on earth! Patterson almost tripled his prior-high in touches with 205 and closed the season as the RB9 and the 45th-best player overall. Nothing surprising in finding his ADP as low as 310 by this time last year considering his putrid past. That won't hold any longer, though, after we saw him doing in Atlanta. I'd advise caution, though, because 1) the Falcons suck, 2) defenses might actually be able to just focus and shut CP down with no threats at any other position (except TE), and 3) the rebuilding is very real in Atlanta so who knows what they'll do next. Even if the usage stays the same, there is a serious risk of a massive flop happening: Patt put up an average of 18.6 FPPG in the first 12 weeks of last season compared to just 7.9 in the last six games. Hmmm...

Running Backs - ADP Fallers

David Montgomery - Chicago Bears

Chicago and Atlanta have done pretty much the same this offseason: losing their WR1 and not much more. Atlanta has turned Matt Ryan into Marcus Mariota, and Chicago has added a couple of middling WRs to their corps, though I don't think any of those things move the needle that much in any direction. That's why I find interesting the fact that Montgomery's and Patterson's ADPs (both the RB1 of their teams) have undergone such opposite changes. Montgomery's drop is a little bit more tamed, but even then we're talking about a full-round drop in ADP that would have Montgomery getting picked outside of the first three rounds as the RB17 off the board. DM has gone from playing 16 games to 15, and finally 13 last year. He's been good for top-24 finishes at the position in all three seasons peaking at RB4 back in 2020. He's sustained 17.7 and 15.1 FPPG marks in the last two years. Nothing is wrong with Mont! Yet the ADP tanks because Chicago lacks pretty much everything on a barren of talent offense that, on top of everything, features a rushing-prone QB. Montgomery averaged the 12th-most FPPG among rushers with 13+ games last season. Honestly, if you can grab this guy at a 40-pick price, you should smash that button without hesitation because you'd be paying half the price his upside carries.

Breece Hall - Undrafted Prospect

Rookie alert! Sound the sirens! Blare the alarms! Breece will be getting drafted by an NFL team with a first-round pick in a matter of weeks. It is what it is, folks. Don't try to find a way to see Hall falling from the top-32 picks of the 2022 NFL draft because you won't just get there in any possible way. Hall is coming off a ridiculous college season (1,472 rushing yards and 20 rushing TD on 253 carries, 302 receiving yards and 3 receiving TD on 36 receptions), went on to post sublime Combine numbers (88th percentile or higher in all drills he participated in) and is still projected as a borderline first-rounder as I'm writing this. That could change, though, as he's trending downwards both in ADP and real-life mock-draft projections. Hall is about to drop from a late-first to an early-second draft proposition. That doesn't necessarily put a red flag on him, but we all know how draft capital affects rushers in their freshman pro-seasons. Most platforms out there have Breece Hall going to Buffalo at the 25th, but the Bills wouldn't be that optimal of a landing spot given they already have the Singletary/Moss/Duke triumvirate in place. We'll see, but the outlook isn't looking good for Hall so I'd fade him for now.

Travis Etienne - Jacksonville Jaguars

Will this be Etienne's year? Sorry, I meant will this be Etienne's (first) year (as a pro)? Sucks, but that's right. After all of the hype about the rookie and his do-it-all prowess with both rushing and pass-catching upside, well, Etienne got injured and didn't even make it to the field for a single snap in 2021 after Jacksonville drafted him with the 25th pick. If we go by what was making the rounds last offseason and believe that to be true, then obviously Etienne should be a must-draft come 2022. His promising future and projections were sky-high, and although Jacksonville sucked hard last season the Jags should be at least a bit better next year. There is still a running-back committee with Etienne and James Robinson around, but Trevor Lawrence should be better, the receiving corps was bolstered, and Etienne is believed to be capable on both the rushing and receiving fronts. That said, and unless that ADP keeps tanking hard, I'd rather draft the likes of Conner, Zeke, CEH, or Edmonds above Etienne. All of those four, and many others, are going at lower ADPs and project to much higher ROI figures than the still-rookie from the Jags.

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