Fact or Fiction? Looking At ADP Vs. Pre-Draft Rankings Using "Teams In A Vacuum" Concept

August 11, 2023

Glenn analyzes ADP vs. pre-draft rankings using "Teams in a Vacuum" (TIAV) concept. Teams In A Vacuum switches to draft order using Average Draft Position from the past 10 years.

We live in a world of acronyms -- ASAP, GPS, IMHO, LOL, etc. Even in our fantasy football world, we have certain acronyms -- D/ST, FA, IDP, IR, PPR, RZ, ADP, etc.

The other day, a fantasy football buddy said to me: “You’re doing that all wrong. Don’t you know that if you’re drafting, ADP (average draft position) is better to use than PDR (pre-draft rankings)? A cumulative group of people is a more accurate DS (data set) than the so-called experts.”

To add insult to injury, a statistics friend said: “The article about drafting QBs (quarterbacks) is NV (invalid). Using the SD (standard deviation) is correct but base your H-zero (hypothesis) on the f-e (expected frequency) of wins over time, not f-o (observed frequency) each year!” Silly me. In this piece, I'll use the Teams In A Vacuum concept to test whether ADP is greater than pre-draft rankings.

Is ADP > PDR?

The original question was, since QBs score the most points, should you draft them first? The fantasy experts say: “No. Because the top QBs score about the same number of points, you can wait until later rounds to draft a QB.”

The standard deviation calculation mathematically confirms this concept. The smaller the standard deviation, the closer together the values are. In terms of fantasy football, a small standard deviation for a position indicates you can wait on drafting that position because several players will score nearly the same number of points.

Conversely, a large standard deviation means you should draft one of the better players for that position. As you can see from Table 1, running backs (RBs) have the largest standard deviation. Therefore, they should be drafted first. The one exception is that QBs have a larger standard deviation than RBs in 16-team standard leagues.

Table 1 – 2013-2022 Standard Deviation Averages

Teams In A Vacuum (TIAV) is a programming exercise. Changing the input data from draft rankings to the average draft position just entails finding the data. Unfortunately, websites value their draft rankings higher than historical ADP. I was only able to obtain the past 10 years of ADP data.

Table 2 – 2022 Average Draft Position

For this exercise, TIAV will snake draft teams from the yearly ADP lists, correlate the number of points scored to the corresponding players for that season, and add the teams' points together to see which one is the winner. Because the fantasy artifacts are limited to 300 players and will not include enough Defenses and Kickers, TIAV will contain:

• 1 QB
• 2 RBs
• 2 WRs
• 1 TE
• 1 Flex -- best available RB, WR, or TE when the other position is filled

Anyone who has participated in a snake draft knows that QBs are not drafted in the first round. To demonstrate the idea of drafting a QB first, TIAV will draft the best QB from the corresponding year first followed by the rest of the ADP list.

Table 3 – 2022 Teams In A Vacuum 10-Team Leagues – Best QB Drafted First

Similar to using the FantasyPros draft rankings, drafting the best QB first and then using ADP for the rest of the picks produces underwhelming results. The observed results fall very close to the predicted results rather than showing concrete evidence that drafting an elite QB first will always win your league.

As indicated by the standard deviation and the fantasy experts, RBs should be drafted first. If your pick is at the end of the first round and you feel the elite RBs are gone, draft the best tight end or a wide receiver. If you have the last pick, please see the TIAV article on the Zero RB strategy. The one exception is 16-team standard leagues where standard deviation and TIAV show that QBs should be drafted before all other positions.

Table 4 – Teams In A Vacuum Using ADP – Best QB Drafted First Results

Is There A Favorable Draft Position?

In addition to starting with the best QB, TIAV also drafted a “conventional” set of leagues using ADP as the draft order input. The exercise involved 10-team, 12-team, and 16-team leagues in both standard and PPR formats. In other words, 760 teams were drafted for this exercise with 60 winners.

Table 5 – Teams In A Vacuum Historical Data

On top of the simulations used in the articles, there have been thousands of TIAV leagues drafted and none have displayed evidence of a favored draft position. Because players score a random number of fantasy points, predicting the winning draft position proves difficult to impossible. Fantasy football drafts are fluid; therefore, make the best pick with the information you have at draft time.

Graph 1 – Teams In A Vacuum using ADP – All League Winners

So is the average draft position greater than pre-draft rankings? Using ADP as the input for snake drafting, Teams In A Vacuum proves that the results come out the same.

Standard deviation and the fantasy experts tell you to draft running backs first and both have proven correct. TIAV proves that ADP equals PDR. Above all, TIAV has not found a favorable draft position. Football players score a random number of fantasy points so there is no advantageous location in the draft order. Be happy with the spot you’ve drawn and make each pick count!

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