Fantasy Football Wide Receiver ADP Risers: NFL Draft Reaction

May 22, 2022

Antonio looks at 2022 fantasy football wide receiver risers and draft sleepers. He analyzes ADP variation of WRs after the 2022 NFL Draft, assessing their values.

As I've been doing through the course of this series that covers ADP Risers and Fallers. 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 wide receiver risers.

Wide Receiver Fantasy Football ADP Risers

Skyy Moore, Kansas City Chiefs

Ah, that good old Kansas City/Patrick Mahomes boost... *cozy feelings* ...seems to be going on once more. This time, the beneficiary is rookie WR Skyy Moore. Moore had made it to the draft conversation heavily prior to it actually taking place, but he wasn't getting drafted in fantasy above the 150th pick in most drafts, while he projected to a second-round draft position in the NFL-verse. And that's precisely where Kansas City snatched him with the 54th overall pick... after 12 other WRs were already off the board!

Moore, of course, perhaps didn't sleep at all that night knowing what was ahead of him. And judging by his ADP ultra-rise, fantasy GMs might haven't either. Moore's 62-pick boost is the largest among all players post-draft. He's now getting drafted five rounds earlier than he was a month ago and into the 10-to-12th rounds in most fantasy drafts. The rise looks steady so expect it to keep going up and up at least for a few more weeks. Skyy is the WR54 off draft boards and the WR7 among rookies. As long as this doesn't get absolutely crazy (say, a top-100 OVR ADP), Moore should be a legit mid-to-late round target in most 12-team leagues with Mahomes tossing him the rock and Moore playing the WR3 role in KC. Slight boom/bust potential and player profile, though.

Rashod Bateman, Baltimore Ravens

Nothing too deep to uncover here, folks. The Ravens decided to move on from Marquise Brown and sent him to Arizona. Alas: a new WR1 had to arise from the depths of the chart, and it turned out to be Rashod Bateman. The Ravens have not made tons of changes to any skill-position unit through the offseason and, in fact, barring the departures of Brown and veteran Sammy Watkins, there has not been any other impactful move when it comes to removing players from the 2021 roster--nor adding fresher ones to the 2022 squad other than Mike Davis at the RB position.

Bateman getting all the way up to an average draft position of around 100 isn't that crazy given his new context/environment. Judging by Bateman's last season numbers, though, that price might be a little bit high--Bateman was the WR70 in total PPR points but he's getting off the fantasy draft board as the WR39 as I'm writing this column, which I don't really find valuable at all. Marquise Brown finished last year as the WR22 so it's not that he was an absolute must-have of a fantasy player. I'd pass on Bateman for now, even more considering the ADP keeps rising and rising without a ceiling to it for now.

Christian Watson, Green Bay Packers

Aaron Rodgers re-signed with the Pack, and obviously, the consensus opinion was that Davante Adams will stay in the frozen tundra to catch the veteran QB's passes left and right, north and south, come the 2022 campaign. Welp. Green Bay traded Adams to Las Vegas where he signed a mammoth of a deal, and before the draft, all the Packers had in terms of pass-catchers was something resembling a unit made out of second and third-tier playmakers: Allen Lazard, Sammy Watkins, Randall Cobb, Amari Rodgers, and über-volatile TE Robert Tonyan.

The solution? Believe it or not, drafting a wideout! Green Bay finally snatched a young blood receiver in Christian Watson to, all of a sudden, turn him into the WR1/WR2 depending on how Allen Lazard happens to perform next season. Watson's near-four-round rise in ADP has him sitting around the 140th overall pick and WR53 off the draft board. Watson is on his way to playing a very heavy role on the Packers' offense and will have one of the (if not the) best quarterbacks tossing him 10+ passes weekly, while also being labeled an under-the-radar diamond in the rough before the draft. Paying some 10+ round pick for him looks like a steal to me, so pounce on the opportunity.

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