NFL Draft Reaction - TE ADP Risers

May 5, 2021

Antonio Losada takes a look at the ADP variation of multiple tight ends in the weeks before and after the last NFL Draft and assesses their situations and the reasons behind those moves.

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 tight end risers.

Tight End - ADP Risers

Hunter Henry, New England Patriots

I think there is a really big mixture of narratives making Hunter Herry the biggest ADP riser at the tight end position. The jump isn't that big, with a small 7-pick improvement in the span of days sandwiching the draft, but that goes for something. If you have been paying attention to the past few weeks of moves, you know the Pats got rid of their no. 1 TE last season in Ryan Izzo and ultra-boosted the position with the additions of two top-16 TEs in Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith, both signed in free agency.

Now, that's some improvement. Is that good for Hunter Henry (or Jonnu Smith, for that matter) though? The ADP rise in the past few days, most of all after the draft, speaks more about the fact that New England passed on adding impactful wideouts in through the draft and their pick of QB Mac Jones than on anything else. But if I'm honest, I don't really see how Henry is the biggest riser here.

Henry will have to battle for snaps--let alone targets--with fellow TE Jonnu Smith. Smith's 2020 season (140.2 PPR points) would rank below Henry's best two years, which took place in 2019 and 2020. On paper, Henry should be the no. 1 TE of the Pats. But if you know your history, New England already had two studs at the position sharing the field in Aaron Hernandez and Rob Gronkowski not long ago. On top of that, Mac Jones is now a Pat... but he will start the season on the sidelines backing up QB1 Cam Newton, who just re-inked his deal with New England. Oh, and he targeted his tight ends a league-low 32 times last season. Fantastic.

Kyle Pitts, Atlanta Falcons

Pitts' rise in ADP is much more understandable than that of Hunter Henry. Pitts, first of all, is a WR masquerading as a tight end. This kid can do it all, he's the highest-drafted TE in the history of the game, and he well merits that accolade. The team to snatch Pitts this past draft was Atlanta, and all the Falcons had done prior to that was adding a couple of rushers to their squad and then a low-tier WR (Frank Darby) through the draft.

It's an old tale in Atlanta, with Pitts the lone addition to a receiving corps that will feature Julio Jones (assuming he doesn't get traded), Calvin Ridley, Russell Gage, and fellow tight end Hayden Hurst here and there. And Matt Ryan, for the 30th year in a row, will be the man tasked with making things work from the pocket.

I wouldn't be concerned with the presence of Hurst in the team just one bit. He will be a free agent next season and Atlanta is clearly moving on by 1) drafting Pitts and 2) not extending Hurst for the fifth year of his rookie deal. Matt Ryan is still a great QB, Jones and Ridley have done enough to get most of the opposing defense's attention, and Kyle Pitts should have a ton of opportunities to thrive. Expect his ADP to rise even more as the offseason grows and fantasy GMs keep catching up to this grown-man's upside.

Noah Fant, Denver Broncos

The Broncos are one of the least changed teams through this offseason. They have only relinquished RB Phillip Lindsay while keeping all of their top-5 WRs from last season in place along with their top-2 TEs and will run with QB Drew Lock at the helm once more. The only "addition" is WR Courtland Sutton, who only played one game and 31 snaps in 2020 before getting shut down for the year.

Fant's main competition at the position will be sophomore Albert Okwuegbunam. While Albert-O wasn't bad in the few snaps he was out there on the field from W6 to w9, he only topped 8 PPR points once and he needed to go a perfect 7-for-7 on receptions and targets against the Chiefs for 60 yards. Hardly repeatable, if you ask me. Noah Fant made quite a leap in his second season as a pro, going from 111 PPR points in 2019 to 149.3 last year and finishing as the TE8 in total points with a 10 FPG average.

Sutton will command a ton of targets as the WR1 of the team, sure, but Fant finished with the second-most targets among Broncos last season with 93 and only 20 behind rookie Jerry Jeudy while outproducing the latter on a per-game basis. Don't look now, but even though the Broncos traded for Teddy Bridgewater earlier this offseason, they are still making the rumor mill daily as a strong Aaron Rodgers suitor. Not saying it will happen, but if that's the case keep an eye on that potentially sky-rocketing Fant ADP.

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