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Antonio Losada looks at ADP variation of quarterbacks to assess their situations for fantasy football. Which QBs are falling in ADP and is now the time to pounce?
Ah, our old friend, ADP. Average Draft Position indicates the mean 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, though, are not gospel. Each of us fantasy GMs has our strategies and values 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 every few days that are seeing significant fluctuation from where they were the last time we check to where they are getting drafted now using data from FFPC drafts.
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Fantasy Football Quarterbacks - ADP Fallers
Geno Smith, Seattle Seahawks
Although the drop in Geno's ADP isn't incredible, it's the only one in this column larger than a full round in 12-team leagues and that's more than enough to consider it something serious. That said, it's not that anything has impacted Smith's ADP directly when it comes to news potentially hurting his upside.
The most probable reason for the steady decrease in Smith's price and his ADP fall is the fact that GMs might be starting to get a bit scared of Geno putting on an encore of his outlier 2022 season next year. Remember that Smith is coming off a campaign that surprised everybody and eased the transition from the Russell Wilson era to the short/mid-term future in Seattle.
Smith went from a subpar/reserve quarterback to a top-5 producer in 2022 passing for 4,282 yards and adding 366 more yards on the ground, completing a 31-TD season all things considered. No wonder he finished the year as the QB5 in fantasy leagues.
The Seahawks have retained all of their offensive weapons while adding another capable wideout in rookie Jaxon Smith-Njigba to their fold. The pass-catching unit looks hella strong, probably even more than last season, but the concerns are related to whether or not Geno can keep it up next year.
Even if Smith regresses a bit (something you should expect), the ADP should make for a good bet and yield some ROI already, let alone if it keeps falling.
Russell Wilson, Denver Broncos
Interestingly enough, Wilson found himself going in the opposite way to that of his former teammate Geno Smith but equally in the ADP-trend charts with a drop of nearly a full round in the past few weeks.
Wilson left Seattle to play ball for the first time away from the only team he had ever known and tanked his first season in Denver finishing as just the QB16 of 2022. It was Wilson's worst season when playing at least 15 games in terms of passing yards since 2018, and his worst-ever in fantasy football with a mediocre 15.1 FPPG average.
It's fair to assume that fantasy GMs, even though they have not faded Wilson in any sort of crazy way (a 10-pick drop isn't that big, mind you), are fearing another down season by Wilson in 2023. On top of everything, news popped up at the end of May regarding Jerry Jeudy suffering a left thigh injury while HC Sean Payton has been giving flowers to... Greg Dulcich of all men. Not the most inspiring situation out there.
Wilson will probably bounce back at least a bit next year (improving on a QB16 finish shouldn't be hard for him) so having the chance of drafting a potential top-10 quarterback with an ADP lower than 150th-OVR might actually turn Wilson into one of the better, under-the-radar values at the position this summer and heading into next season.
Justin Herbert, Los Angeles Chargers
Starting with the latest news breaking out of the Chargers OTAs, Herbert recently said that he planned to practice with the rest of the team in seven-man activities entering mid-June. Herbert is expected to be fully fit by the time the training camps arrive in July, and the shoulder injury he's nurturing is on his non-throwing arm so it shouldn't be overly concerning.
Herbert is entering his fourth season as a pro and he's yet to drop below QB1 levels of play having finished as the ninth, second, and 11th-best quarterback in fantasy leagues in the past three seasons respectively. The ADP in those summers sat at 169th-OVR, then 52nd, then 30th.
Of course, Herbert went from the second-best FP figure in 2021 to the 11th-best last year, but that's still more than great production for someone getting drafted with an ADP below 60th OVR right now and dropping by the day.
The Chargers won't have many changes in their personnel when the ball gets rolling with all receivers ready to go, the running back stable intact after Austin Ekeler was confirmed to return, and the addition of rookie WR Quentin Johnston adding some wood to the wideout-room fire.
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