Fantasy Football Wide Receiver ADP Fallers: NFL Draft Aftermath

I am going to start this column by introducing the concept of ADP, which I'm pretty sure you are already familiar with. Just in case you're not, 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.

By now, with free agency and the draft finalized and just a few players left to be signed, it makes sense to look at how ADPs are varying during the last few days as we start to gear up for our fantasy draft season. In this series, 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. Today, it's time to look at some wide receiver fallers.

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Wide Receivers - ADP Fallers

DeAndre Hopkins, Arizona Cardinals

That chart above is hella crazy. It's just split into two very different parts around the top-30 overall pick first and then all the way back to a top-80 where it has finally stabilized after such a staggering drop. Hopkins now is the same Hopkins he was three weeks ago. The problem, of course, is that the NFL tagged him with a six-game suspension because of the use of performance-enhancing drugs (the suspension was announced on May 2) so you know you'll be drafting two-thirds of Hopkins at best.

That, simply put, sucks. Hopkins is an extraordinary player and although his 2021 campaign marked a career-worst year for the WR, that was mostly because he missed nearly half of the season--yes, he reappeared on Weeks 13 and 14 but wasn't available in eight of the last 10 weeks. If Hopkins replicates his 2021 level of play (14.7 PPR per game), he'd finish 2022 with nearly 162 total PPR points on an 11-game basis. That would have ranked WR36 last year.

The mean ADP is at 59 these days but Hopkins' ADP days in the 30s are long gone. Expect the ADP to stay around 80-or-lower OVR going forward as he will get limited to 11 games at most. That's the WR22 off the board, which makes no sense at all. Let Nuk slide to the 100th+ pick and then we might get talking. Until then, I want no shares of Hopkins.

Garrett Wilson, New York Jets

This is very funny or very sad, depending on how you look at it. Wilson was drafted with a top-10 pick and became the second WR off the NFL draft board when the Jets selected him after Atlanta picked Drake London just two spots earlier. Wilson is a machine. He was considered a top-three receiver in the 2022 class easily. He is probably going to have a monster NFL career. But of course, he also landed in New York to play for the New York Jets. The Jets, which just in case you don't know, have a mediocre QB fighting for his future entering his second year as a pro, and some very very crowded offense.

NY is going to feature a crop of eerily-balanced playmakers at the WR position (Elijah Moore, Corey Davis, Braxton Berrios, and Wilson) where no one really stands out, so expect a shared target share. They also drafted the RB1 off the board this past draft in Breece Hall, so you know touches are inevitably going his way. Oh, and they added a couple of free-agent TEs and drafted another one.

Wilson's ADP has dropped one full round in the past two weeks. It makes sense because of the situation, but it makes no sense at all because of Wilson's out-of-context talent. The price still looks a bit high to me all things considered, but if Wilson's ADP keeps going down, he could turn into a super-bargain of a WR entering the 2022 fantasy season.

DeVonta Smith, Philadelphia Eagles

More than because of his own fault, Smith's ADP fall is due to the addition of legit WR1 A.J. Brown to the roster of the Eagles. That's just entirely reasonable, honestly, because AJB is a tremendous pass-catcher bound to a bounceback next year. Smith, mind you, was a very legit player as a rookie last season already so he might end up flying a bit under the radar this offseason in fantasy drafts, turning into a legit steal in most leagues available for savvy GMs out there (be one of them!)

Smith is getting drafted as the WR33 as I'm writing this with an OVR ADP of around 85th. Smith finished last year (again, his first one as a pro) as the WR29 with a tally of 185.6 PPR points to go with an average of 10.9 FPPG. Yes, Brown is now in Philly, but also yes, Smith should keep growing into his talents and improving his skill set going forward. The ADP drop isn't anything truly remarkable--not even a full round. I have Smith as a lock to finish in the WR2 realm next season so these are all fantastic news. His ADP was already below that WR24 threshold before the draft, and Smith is now even more affordable. In other words: smash that DRAFT button before it's too late.

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