RADIO
I am going to start this column by introducing the concept of ADP, which I'm pretty sure you know what it is about. 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 getting 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 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, ADPs are good to know how the "average value" of the "average GM" you'll be drafting against is for each asset (in this case, the players). By now, with free agency and the draft well finalized and just a few players left to be signed, it makes sense to go look at how ADPs are varying during the last month as we get closer to peak draft season.
In this series, I’ll highlight players at each skill position seeing significant fluctuation from mid-June to mid-July using data from FFPC drafts. Today, it's time to look at three wide-receiver risers.
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Wide Receivers - ADP Risers
Marvin Jones Jr., Jacksonville Jaguars
Of course, Christian Kirk signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars to kick off the wideout-offseason, got a deal barely understandable, and fooled fantasy GMs into believing he was going to be--and more worryingly, perform--as a bona fide WR1.
Color me shocked if that happens, because I don't trust it one single bit. I'm buying Trevor Lawrence's bounceback season in 2022 after struggling in his first year among men and that will undoubtedly help everybody in the offense, but that's pretty much it. One thing is that little T-Law Boost, another (very different) one is to all of a sudden have a legit WR1 in popping out of left field.
Jones Jr. is in the same line as Kirk in that he's a good-not-great wide receiver and though I expect him to get better numbers, that's mostly where you should set your expectations. Fantasy GMs seem to be of the same thinking, with MJJ's ADP steady rising and sitting at nearly 200th-overall and WR76 these days.
Of course, that's nothing to call home about, but that's almost already a draftable ADP for those in 12-team drafts (it translates to an early 17th-round pick) so watch out if you don't want to make Jones one of your last targets come draft day.
The slightest bump up in production would have Jones as a massive value play as he's projected (via PFF) to hit 185+ PPR points and reach the WR43 in what would be a disappointing season to my eyes. I expect more, and if he reaches 200+, he'd already be entering the WR3 realm and becoming an extraordinary set-it-and-forget-it option at the FLEX spot.
Nico Collins, Houston Texans
The latest news on the sophomore beat spoke of the second-year receiver of the Texans having "a good grasp of the offense" and "talent off the charts" as said by his very own QB, Davis Mills.
He added that the Texans need "to find ways to get the ball to Collins," which is zero percent surprising to find Mills saying considering that 1) Collins is his teammate and 2) Collins is probably the best wideout in the Texans' depth chart right now other than Brandin Cooks. The conundrum for fantasy GMs regarding Collins and Cooks is very simple: expensive floor or cheap ceiling?
Obviously, Cooks is going to deliver the goodies no matter what. Cooks has been a top-20 wide receiver in all but two years (his rookie season with 10 games played and 2019 with 14). Even last year, already playing under Davis Mills, Cooks found a way to 231.8 PPR points and a WR20 finish with an average of 14.5 FPPG, only one (15.5) fantasy points per game down from his average in 2020 already in Houston.
Collins kicked his career off with a forgettable WR87 finish in 14 games, only eight of them "starts." Easier to understand: 66-33-446-1 was his line and 54.1% was his catch rate. Of course, Cooks is getting drafted with the 59th pick on average compared to Collins' ADP of 220+. Any player drafted past the 180th-overall point is more probably than not going to return some value.
A WR2 in his team playing under a developing quarterback in a team barren of talent, if only because of the number of opportunities he could get, should be on that group all day. Don't overspend/overdraft on Collins, but definitely make him one of your early-WW targets.
Robbie Anderson, Carolina Panthers
It's been a minute now, but we have to thank Robbie for giving us the glory sauce of the offseason this spring into the summer. When Anderson got word of Baker possibly arriving in Carolina via trade, he said "hell no" and then, in early June, we came to know that he was even thinking about retiring because of that situation. LOL.
Take it for whatever you want (he has recently clarified that it's not that he didn't want Baker, but that he would prefer the Panthers trusting Sam Darnold as a long-time/future/franchise QB), but one thing is clear and that is that Anderson isn't remotely pleased with what is going on in Carolina of late.
Nobody fell for the retirement thing because we all troll the internet on Twitter, and so do famous athletes. Fantasy GMs, in fact, stayed put and their feelings didn't change at all. That, of course, and unexpectedly, changed when the Panthers acquired... Baker Mayfield (!) to have him (we assume) as the QB1 of the team next season and all of a sudden Robbie started to see a steady bump up the drafting boards in his ADP.
Anderson was an afterthought not long ago--while still a WR1 in the Panthers offense, mind you--but he's now breaking the 200th-ADP barrier and going higher by the day. Yes, the WR has had some dubious seasons of late, but the talent has always been inside of him. We don't know how the whole Mayfield/Robbie pairing might work.
The Panthers have DJ Moore and Robbie Anderson as their main targets with no real threat anywhere else on the WR/TE corps that could end up eating from their opportunities. Please, draft Robbie whether it takes a 250th, 200th, or 150-OVR pick. He might not be a WR1 anymore, but I'm convinced he won't fall from the WR3/FLEX-viable realm anytime soon.
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