May Dynasty ADP: Buy Lows and Sell Highs
The first post-NFL Draft ADP data has been aggregated and posted.
In this article, I will highlight one undervalued and one overvalued player at each stage of a startup draft (or price point as indicated by ADP).
High-Value Players (Rounds 1-3/ADP 1-36)
Buy: Leonard Fournette, RB JAC
ADP 32, RB14
#DynastyTwitter found its moral high ground in April when Leonard Fournette was arrested for driving with a suspended license. Legal troubles involving a certain high-profile receiver on another team have since recalibrated those settings.
Rumors of Jacksonville’s unhappiness with Fournette were not manifested during the NFL Draft, as the team waited until the fifth round to draft another running back (Ryquell Armstead).
Still just 24 years old, Fournette is healthy heading into the summer. The three factors (character, competition, health) negatively affecting his value all appear favorable.
His ADP looks to have bottomed and stabilized after spending a good year near round one. Few others in this area offer this pedigree and visibility of climbing to round one.
Fournette gets criticized for being one dimensional, but he has been surprisingly effective in the passing game. He produced 36-302-1 in his first year and was efficient both in 2017 and 2018. Fournette turned 66 total Air Yards in two seasons into 466 receiving yards. Put another way, he averaged a 1.0 yard average depth of target and 7.4 yards after the catch per reception.
For reference, this is roughly in line with Ezekiel Elliott’s receiving efficiency over the same timeframe. Plus, it is reasonable to expect better quarterback – and overall offensive – play in 2019 as Nick Foles steps in for Blake Bortles.
Table from Airyards.com.
Sell: George Kittle, TE SF
ADP 26, TE2
Kittle finished as a top-three fantasy tight end in 2018. However, he is a top sell candidate due to concerns regarding both volume and efficiency.
He led San Francisco with 136 targets (26% share) last season, doubling the next best, Kendrick Bourne.
Table from Pro Football Reference.
The Niners drafted wide receiver Deebo Samuel in round two, WR/TE/RB Jalen Hurd in round three, and signed running back Tevin Coleman (and his 92 career catches) to a two year, $8.5m deal. Kittle will have more competition for targets in 2019.
But efficiency is the more concerning area. Kittle’s 2018 efficiency was an outlier. His target (26%) and receptions (27%) shares led the team, but his yards share (32%) was disproportionately large, as was his efficiency compared to the top five fantasy TEs.
Table from Pro Football Reference.
More broadly, this table lists all NFL tight ends to average at least 8.0 yards per target with at least 136 targets (Kittle’s number) since the 1970 merger.
Table from Pro Football Reference.
In these terms, Kittle’s 2018 is literally the best performance of all time.
While the team may see an upgrade at QB with the return of Jimmy Garoppolo, he and Nick Mullens actually produced similar efficiency (measured by Adjusted Yards per Attempt) last year, albeit with small sample sizes. For their careers, Jimmy G averages 8.2 AY/A and Mullens 7.6 AY/A.
Table from Pro Football Reference.
Medium Value Players (Rounds 4-5/ADP 37-60)
Buy: Devonta Freeman, RB ATL
ADP 59, RB23
Freeman was a top 24 overall dynasty asset from roughly November 2015 to last September, when a foot sprain forced him to miss ten games. From 2015 to 2017. he finished as the RB1, RB6, and RB13.
He is now healthy and the unquestioned leader of a backfield consisting only of former fourth-rounder Ito Smith and fifth-round rookie Qadree Ollison.
The Falcons used two of the NFL Draft’s top 31 picks on offensive linemen and Freeman projects to be the main beneficiary.
Dynasty owners are currently finishing their rookie drafts and looking to youth. Veterans are out of favor this time of year. As Freeman’s value appears to have stabilized, savvy owners should exploit this seasonality and target him before his ADP starts to climb in August or September.
Sell: Allen Robinson, WR CHI
ADP 52, WR24
Long gone are the 151-target seasons for Allen Robinson. However, the 58% catch rate seasons remain; only now it’s on two-thirds of the targets.
Robinson led the Chicago Bears in 2018 targets, but he, Taylor Gabriel and Tarik Cohen were closely grouped (though projecting to 16 games puts Robinson at 116 from 94).
Table from Pro Football Reference.
Robinson finds himself in an offense that evenly distributes its targets and does not possess heavy passing volume. The Bears ranked 25th in the NFL in 2018 in pass attempts.
Meanwhile, Robinson’s average depth of target continues to decline and his production at nearly every depth of target falls below the NFL average for WRs.
Table from Airyards.com.
Robinson is a sell at this range while people still associate his name with his 2015 production and situation.
Quick Hits (Through Round 10/ADP 120)
Buy: Christian Kirk, WR ARI
ADP 75, WR36
After producing a respectable 43-590-3 line as a rookie, why has Kirk’s ADP declined by 17 spots since January? At 75, he sits just nine spots ahead of new teammate Hakeem Butler. I like that value.
The new Arizona Cardinals figure to be a high volume, up-tempo offense. These are Texas Tech’s annual ranks in plays per game under Kliff Kingsbury since 2015: third, second, ninth and fourth (2018; out of 130 teams).
Kirk checks all the boxes even going back as a prospect: very good athleticism, top quartile college market share and 93rd percentile breakout age. He now has a successful year of NFL production under his belt and the inside track to lead in targets what projects to be a high volume passing offense with game scripts promoting even more passing.
Did you forget that he and Kyler Murray were teammates once before?
Sell: Phillip Lindsay, RB DEN
ADP 62, RB25
The dynasty community seems to have come around on Lindsay, as evidenced by the steady decline in his ADP since February.
Undrafted free agent running backs generally do not sustain success in the unlikely event they post an RB1 season. And at 5-8, 190 lbs, it is even less probable for Lindsay, as noted by Curtis Patrick at Dynasty Command Center.
Regarding 2018 rookie UDFA RB Phillip Lindsay:
Only 5 RBs in NFL history have posted multiple seasons of 1,000 or more rushing yards at a league-official reported weight of 190 pounds or less. All five of those players were drafted in the first or second round of the NFL Draft.
— Curtis Patrick (@CPatrickNFL) May 15, 2019
Do not forget that Denver’s backfield includes former third-round pick Royce Freeman, who presents a traditionally successful prospect profile of size, athleticism, college production, and draft equity.
Do you agree or disagree with these? What other players are top Buy/Sell candidates? Let me know what you think. I can be found on Twitter at @threedownhack. Thanks for reading.
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