ADP Arbitrage - Quarterback Draft Bargains

July 8, 2021

Antonio Losada evaluates ADP data related to the quarterback position in 2021 fantasy football, identifying overvalued players getting drafted inside the first three rounds and provides more valuable QBs available later that fantasy owners should target.

Let's finish up this series with a look at the all-important quarterback position. When you're done, you should look back at running back, wide receiver, and tight end ADP comps as well.

While ADP is very informative and can help you be informed about where you should start worrying about potentially missing out on a player, it shouldn't affect your decisions massively. Take Josh Allen's 2020 season: 396.1 fantasy points to lead the whole NFL, and current holder of a 16 ADP that is seeing him drafted inside the first two rounds (!) of drafts these days. Does that mean you should absolutely trust Allen having another monster year that when all is said and done gives you a good return on investment after paying a second-round pick for him? Nope! In fact, the most logical thing to happen is Allen regressing and finishing with more average-ish fantasy numbers in 2021.

In this four-entry series, I'll go through the four offensive positions of fantasy football, highlighting names that are going cheap in early drafts and evaluate how they are expected to produce similar numbers to other much more-hyped players.

Identifying Overpriced QBs

I'm not going to play games in this column and bring middling names to the table, no. Instead of that, I'll be going for the fences and swinging the bat with all of the power to get some fantasy-heavy names here and there. No second-tier players here, that is.

This season, there are only two players getting drafted inside the first four rounds of fantasy drafts, and one is not like the other. Patrick Mahomes is the first QB off the board, already in the middle of the third round. That's not entirely wrong considering what we know about Mahomes and what he could do. Now, for Josh Allen, we better give him some pause and thoughts before going ahead and spending a near third-rounder in him. Sure, he was unstoppable last season, but we'd be banking on a re-do, which is just going to be impossible for him to accomplish.

With so many cheaper options down the board having a similar upside to those two, and with the QB position always giving value to those not betting unconsciously on past performance, you're probably better off waiting for a late-round option rather than drafting any of Mahomes or Allen.

Here is what I'm looking for when trying to identify comps for these two players at lower spots. If we build some sort of "combined profile" of the two, we can land at something close to:

• At least 265 FP on the season
• At least 50 fantasy points rushing

Identifying QB Bargains with RD4+ ADP

After applying those filters and thresholds to the projections data, this is what I was left with.

Not bad, eh? Lamar Jackson carries an insane projection when it comes to rushing the ball (141+ FP on pure rushing stats via PPF 2021 numbers) which isn't even remotely close to second-best Josh Allen (104). But he's getting drafted more than a full round after Allen! That's already a good discount, but there are much better options looking a little bit more down the pecking order.

All of Russell Wilson, Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa, Ryan Tannehill, Daniel Jones, and rookie Justin Fields are getting drafted into the sixth round or later, and project to at least 265 fantasy points with 60+ of those points coming on rushing stats. Jalen Hurts is a little bit off position if you ask me when it comes to his 74.7 ADP, but other than that, the rest of that crop looks like actual bargains waiting for savvy GMs to grab them "late".

Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks (ADP 66.7)

Ninth-year pro, infinite-year undervalued quarterback. We never learn I guess. Wilson has been around since 2012 and not once has he finished a season outside the top-10 at the position. Believe that when you read it, folks. Wilson has finished as QB9, QB8, QB3 (x2), QB10, QB1, QB9, QB3, and lastly QB6 in 2020. Yet, we keep drafting him outside of the first four rounds (and allow me to repeat this sentence structure, please) while he has never finished a season outside the top-25 overall in PPR format leagues.

Wilson is one of the best values yearly, and it looks like he will be so once more entering 2021 as his current ADP of QB6 and 66.7 overall is lower than the one he had last summer (56.2) even though he finished the season as the QB6, averaging 22.5 FPPG and tallying a total 359.8 on the full season. You know Wilson's mojo by now: 513 rushing yards and two touchdowns on the ground, and a massive 40-touchdown year on 384 completions for 4,212 yards. Bonkers numbers for a ridiculous ADP.

Jalen Hurts, Philadelphia Eagles (ADP 74.7)

A second-year QB and the 2021 Eagles commander, Jalen Hurts is the only quarterback being drafted in the seventh-to-ninth-round clip. Not bad, although it may be a little bit rich for my blood considering the names that are still available on lower ADPs. It'd be foolish to look at Hurts' numbers from 2020 and deem him a bad player. He had a super-short opportunity at the end of the season when Philly finally moved on from Carson Wentz, but he excelled when he started.

Hurts put up three QB1 performances of 21+ FP (including a 37.8 FP explosion) in Weeks 14 to 16 and closed the season with a QB2 performance in Week 17. Among starting quarterbacks last season, Hurt's 0.52 FP/Snap would have ranked a plenty great 11th above the likes of Justin Herbert, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Baker Mayfield, Matthew Stafford, or Matt Ryan. Not bad for a rook. Obviously, you want Hurts because of his legs and his Konami-code profile. Hurts projects to almost 600 yards rushing (via PFF) with six touchdowns to go with that yardage. He should have a tougher time connecting on passes because the Eagles are not precisely stacked, but he should be good for some 20 touchdowns through the air and 3,500+ passing yards. Watch out for those interceptions, though.

Ryan Tannehill, Tennessee Titans (ADP 103.3)

After finishing 2019 with a monster run for the Titans, Tannehill was able to keep his level of play up in 2020--if not actually improving it. Tannehill was drafted as the QB21 in most leagues, though he was able to close the season as the QB7 with 344.4 FP and an average of 21.5 FPPG. Even on a Titans squad that was definitely inclined toward rushing the ball and lacked top-tier receivers when not accounting for those not named A.J. Brown, Tannehill thrived.

Another interesting thing about Tannehill is his good rushing numbers. Tannehill was able to rack up the second-most yards on the ground in his career as a pro with 266 on 43 carries for a sound seven rushing scores. Pair that with his 33 touchdowns on pass plays, and you get to a pretty nicely rounded 40 touchdowns total on the year.

If you've been living under a rock, check this out: Julio Jones is a Titan! Brown and Jones can't look scarier than they already do, and we have yet to see them sharing the field for a single snap. Tannehill is a bargain as a mid/late-round pick given the upside of this offense, his low ADP, and what he's shown to be capable of. Fantastic QB on a sweet discount.

Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins (ADP 121.8)

Tua is not a rookie anymore, but he could very well be to your eyes if you don't think his first season in the NFL afforded him many chances to prove his worth. It'd be too sweet of us to give him that "second" chance, but it's actually part-true considering he had to battle a stubborn Ryan Fitzpatrick for most of the season and barely outplayed him with 10 games to Fitz's nine over the full season.

Tagovailoa is the one-and-only QB of the Fins going forward, though, so no timeshare will be affecting his upside anymore. Fantasy GMs knew about the potential issues he would have to go through in his rookie year (competition and injuries) and acted properly drafting him as the QB30 a year ago, something he pretty much compensated equally, finishing QB32 in 2020. That should change next season with Tua playing every single snap and (we expect) playing at a much more respectable level.

Tagovailoa projects (PFF numbers) to a top-10 finish in rushing attempts with four rushing touchdowns on the year. He has the ability and it will be up to him to put those wheels to work. The receiving corps has been bolstered and should help him in pass plays too. PFF sees Tua as a true gunslinger capable of reaching 4,500+ passing yards on the season and given his Catchable Pass Rate in 2020, that seems to be at reach for him in his second year as a pro. Tagovailoa was also one of only 10 QBs to rush the ball inside the red zone on more than 10% of all plays in that part of the field while on the gridiron.

Daniel Jones (ADP 127.5)

After debuting with a QB24 season and raising hopes among fantasy GMs entering 2020, all Jones did as a sophomore was... finish as the QB24 for the second consecutive season. Ugh. He went from being drafted as the QB32 in 2019 to an ADP of QB15 last summer, which bugged a ton of GMs when all was said and done and they had paid twice what they did two years ago for the exact same production--actually, it was worse, as Jones finished with 180 FP compared to 217 in 2019.

As it was to be expected, the ADP has not risen just one bit this offseason. But it hasn't dropped, either! Jones' ADP has just fallen three spots compared to last season's 124.5 overall mark, which is rather surprising. Jones will have a bunch of fresh weapons to use on the passing game, and RB Saquon Barkley is back in a way that should keep defenses a bit more honest while trying to smash Jones to the ground.

Jones will need to put on much better numbers than those he achieved in 2020 if he wants to return any value at all. He dropped his stats all across the board with fewer completions, passing yards, and passing touchdowns than he reached as a rookie, although his rushing numbers improved a ton going from 45/279/2 to 65/423/1. It's yet to be seen if the return of Barkley and the addition of new receivers will take away from those rushing numbers, though, so I'm not fully confident about paying an 11th-round pick for Jones at this point.

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