Wide Receiver Fallers for Fantasy Football ADPs - Michael Thomas, Kenny Golladay, Robert Woods

June 19, 2022

Antonio Losada examines ADP variation of wide receivers from mid-May to mid-June and assesses their situations to find key fallers at WR in fantasy football drafts.

I am going to start this column by introducing the idea 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 going off draft boards early, and thus you'll need to draft him in the first few 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 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 past 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-May to mid-June using data from FFPC drafts. Today, it's time to look at three wide receiver fallers.

Wide Receivers - ADP Fallers

Michael Thomas, New Orleans Saints

Thomas hasn't done anything wrong in the past few weeks to suffer this 16-pick slump. In fact, it is more due to his teammates showcasing his talents and skill sets at the Saints camp rather than Thomas getting re-injured, suffering a setback in his recovery, or whatever you think might have happened to the barely available-of-late WR. Injured and still recovering from an ankle issue, Thomas saw his competition in the Saints receiving corps go a notch or two up this offseason. New Orleans added a top-tier rookie in WR Chris Olave and then doubled down on loading the unit with veteran WR Jarvis Landry. In other words, this is not a one-man wrecking crew anymore, but a three-headed monster instead.

That is reason enough to have Thomas going down a bit in terms of ADP and appeal for fantasy GMs. On top of that, Chris Olave is reportedly thriving in the Saints camp while Landry is also dominating at training drills. Now, Thomas might miss the Saints' mandatory minicamp and his availability for Week 1--he might be available but most probably still limited or not in perfect condition--as reported by different media members. If this changes to a more positive tone, maybe Thomas recovers a bit in the ADP ladder. If not, he will surely keep going down and down. PFF knows Thomas' nagging injury issues and concerns and that's why they have projected him to a measly WR4 (top-48) finish next season with only 192 PPR points over the year. That'd be Thomas' lowest tally career-wise (not taking 2020 into account, as he only appeared in seven games--five in full capacity) after his prior low of 255 as a rookie in 2016. That projection and the still-high ADP around 90 have Thomas' ROI on the negative for now, but if he keeps dropping positions, he could very well become a league-winning play available for way too cheap an ADP. Keep an eye on him and surely snipe him past the 90th pick if he makes it there.

Kenny Golladay, New York Giants

If you read the section about Michael Thomas above, then you probably don't even need to peep at Golladay's. I could copy-paste everything and it'd be a very similar, fitting narrative. Golladay spent four years in Detroit having a mediocre rookie season, then two superb years in 2018 and 2019 (WR21 and WR9 respectively in PPR leagues), and then proceeded to miss 11 games in 2020 with an injury--though he still averaged 13.2 FPPG. That fantastic per-game production helped him fill his bag in the offseason as he signed with the Giants, though his production absolutely tanked.

Golladay is entering 2022 having missed 14 games in the past two seasons. He is coming off an 89.1 PPR, 6.4 FPPG, WR79 campaign with Big Blue. That's a completely different player from the one Golladay was for a reasonably large span in Detroit. Of course, the ADP he's currently boasting reflects the bad/downside of Golladay's fantasy value. His true talent, though, should command a much more expensive fantasy draft pick. Which version of Golladay will we get this year? Key question, that one. QB Daniel Jones stayed put, RB Saquon Barkley should be back healthy, and although Golladay is the WR1, we should tame our expectations. That said, it's not that you can find proven No.1 receivers on their franchises available at an ADP of 155th OVR or lower, so you gotta pounce while the glitch remains unfixed. Draft Golladay at that price without a single doubt.

Robert Woods, Tennessee Titans

Two moves defined the Titans' offseason: trading A.J. Brown and signing Robert Woods. Yes, you can point to the drafting of future starting-QB Malik Willis. You can point at drafting WR Treylon Burks (having serious issues in the mandatory camps, though) and RB Hassan Haskins (not going to happen with Derrick Henry around). Tennessee also added Dontrell Hilliard and Austin Hooper. All cool, but there is nothing as huge as losing Brown after not getting to an agreement with the stud receiver, and the fix that Robert Woods is supposed to be. Tall task.

Woods, in case you have forgotten, is coming off a nine-game season with Los Angeles that saw him miss almost the entire second half of the season. Woods has not really had injury issues--not that impactful, at least--throughout his career but coming off one and entering his age-30 campaign concerns have been growing all summer long among fantasy GMs. Should we fall for it, though? I doubt it at his current ADP. While Woods only projects to a WR57 (170.6 PPR points) on PFF's latest run of calculations, the "low" ADP of around 110 is approaching the positive-ROI territory. We're still a bit off it and the ADP seems to be well establishing and steady at that draft position, but the minute it goes down a bit more would mark the must-draft threshold for Woods in the fantasy world.

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