Predicting Unexpected Off-Season ADP Changes

Nick Canzanese Posted On February 12, 2018

It’s a challenge to determine the best time to trade players during the off-season. Almost every owner is aware that big value shifts can occur during free agency and the NFL draft. Thus, it’s difficult to gain a competitive advantage in that area. What about the rest of the player field?

Our goal should be to predict non-obvious risers and fallers – players whose value could shift due to non-obvious factors. In doing so, we’d have an advantage over trade partners who believe the value of these players will hold over the off-season.

To accomplish this, I examined changes in ADP for all players from January to August for each of the past two years. Players whose ADP change was due to something predictable like free agency or NFL draft were removed from the study. The same goes for fluky reasons like suspensions and injuries.

[am4show have=’g1;’ guest_error=’sub_message’ user_error=’sub_message’ ]

The Risers

The Fallers

Observation One

A number of risers, especially at QB, are high-producing and on the older side. Players like Tom Brady, Drew Brees, and Larry Fitzgerald all saw ADP climbs after relatively uneventful off-seasons. I’d chalk this up to owners not devaluing age as much as the season approaches and their team takes form. Furthermore, uncertain futures of older players become clearer throughout the off-season.

Possible off-season ADP risers: Brady and Fitzgerald both, once again, fit this profile. I’ll also add Ben Roethlisberger. Even though his production isn’t as high as most on the list, the retirement buzz will soon fade.

Observation Two

Running backs with low draft capital on underwhelming teams saw their ADP rise as their roles solidified. I may be cheating a bit with my defined rules of this study, but Jordan Howard and Isaiah Crowell had little competition added via draft/free agency in 2017 and owners became more confident in not only their roles but also their upside.

Possible off-season ADP risers: With a new coach, a sophomore QB and another year of solid production, Howard should yet again see an ADP increase, along with his partner in crime Tarik Cohen. Kenyan Drake and Alex Collins are other possibilities if the Dolphins and Ravens do not address the position in the draft. Lastly, while the Patriots love to fool everyone with their RB carousel, the dynasty community tends to hype one or two during the off-season who see steady ADP climbs.

Observation Three

Wide receivers coming off generally unexpected high production show up on both lists: Tyreek Hill, Tyrell Williams, etc. While I’m unable to differentiate between rise and fall without further study, it’s clear that their ADP is unstable. This makes sense, as the community is still trying to figure out how to value unknown commodities. Usually, an off-season provides enough time and clarity for owners to solidify their opinions.

Possible off-season ADP risers OR fallers: Marquise Goodwin and Keelan Cole should see some kind of ADP change this off-season. It’s also worth noting Stefon Diggs is the only player to make the same list both of the last two years. His production is less of an unknown at this point, though.

Special mention: JuJu Smith-Schuster. The following is a bit outside the scope of this study but I think it’s important to note. He was WR16 on the season in 0.5 PPR as a 21-year-old rookie. He even had high draft capital coming out of the second round. Yet his ADP is WR21. Most owners put such a premium on youth that his ADP should be even higher than that based on history. To put this into perspective, Corey Davis finished as WR94 but is currently WR15 in ADP! It would make sense if the community course-corrects on JuJu before the 2018 season.

Observation Four

Young receivers coming off supremely disappointing seasons are by far the most frequent type of WR off-season ADP fallers. This is especially true of sophomores. The falls list is littered with players like Laquon Treadwell, Will Fuller, and Corey Coleman.

Possible off-season ADP fallers: Mike Williams and John Ross are prime candidates for ADP falls this off-season. Corey Davis should be too, but I expect Tennessee’s new coaching regime provides enough off-season optimism to cancel it out.

A few final notes

1. Aside from the final observation, I’m having trouble identifying common traits among the “fallers” list. I don’t want to seek patterns that aren’t there, so I won’t force any more faller predictions.

2. It’s easy to make an improper conclusion from this information. Let’s take the first observation as an example. What I am not concluding is that a large number of older, high-producing players see ADP increases during the off-season. We wouldn’t know that unless we looked at all players that fit this profile, which would require further study. What I am observing is that of the pool of players that see off-season ADP rises for non-obvious reasons, a number of them are older and high-producing.

3. I thought about including buy/sell recommendations but I decided to leave that up to the readers. For example, if you feel a potential riser is a buy, buy them now. If you believe they’re a sell, sell them later.

4. In August, I will revisit this article and see how well my predictions fared! Let me know in the comments if you notice anything in the data that I missed, or if you want to share your picks for non-obvious off-season ADP changes.

[/am4show]