What ADP Means in Fantasy Football (and How To Use It To Your Advantage)

• Fab's favorite scoring system | Why you should play in a PPR league

These days, fantasy football managers have a lot of tools at their disposal in their effort to win a league championship. From player rankings, positional tiers and cheat sheets to lists of sleepers, breakouts and busts, and a litany of useful advanced stats and metrics, there is no shortage of data to help you build a successful team.

Another valuable tool to utilize is what’s called average draft position (ADP).

ADP is a list of players ranked by where they’re being drafted and by their offensive position. So how is this list valuable to you, the fantasy football fan, you might ask? Let’s discuss the key talking points …

Pinpoint Player Markets

ADP data will tell you how people in the fantasy football world value a player, on average. This can help managers avoid reaching or over-drafting for a player they might be targeting. For example, say you’re really high on Jaguars wide receiver Parker Washington. If you look at ADP data (I’ll use FootballGuys consensus), he’s the WR39, coming off the board at pick No. 85.

So, say you are in the middle of the sixth round and you don’t have another pick until after 85, you probably want to grab Washington or risk losing him. Without ADP data, it would be difficult to gauge his draft position, which could cause you to draft him too high or miss him altogether.

Identify Sleepers and Bargains

Finding sleepers who exceed expectations is a big part of having a solid draft. It’s also a good idea to identify where these sleepers might be going in the draft so you don’t lose him. Let’s say you’re high on Browns running back Quinshon Judkins (one of my must-have players). Checking ADP data, you can see he’s coming off the board, on average, as the RB22 at No. 50. So once you get into the third round of your draft, you should try and get him.

The same sort of thing goes for potential bargains in drafts.

Let’s say you like to wait on quarterbacks—a smart move, by the way—so the ability to determine where the position starts to thin out is valuable. By looking at the data, we find that borderline fantasy starters begin to come off the board in the 110-120 range. Once you get to that part of your draft (Rounds 9 and 10), you should keep tabs on how many quarterbacks are still on the board who you could confidently use as a starter, whether on a regular or matchup-based level.

Help Avoid Overdrafting

There are always players you really want to land in a fantasy draft, but that doesn’t mean you should commit the fantasy sin of “overdrafting.” Basically, that’s the act of taking a player way before he otherwise would have been taken. Let’s say you’re a big Kansas City Chiefs fan, you love Taylor Swift or both … well, you probably want to draft tight end Travis Kelce.

But that doesn’t mean you should draft him in the first five rounds. He used to be worth that sort of draft capital, but no longer. In fact, he’s now more of an eighth- or ninth-round pick. So as bad as you might want him, you shouldn’t stray too far from his ADP because you’d likely miss out on a more valuable player than Kelce. Chances are, based on his average draft position, you could have waited another round or so and still been able to land him.

Build a Draft Strategy

Every draft is going to be different, so you can’t take average draft position as a be-all, end-all tool. Here's an example … in most of the drafts I’m in with fellow analysts, there are always plenty of good quarterbacks on the board in Round 8 and even well beyond. That might not be the case in a “home” or casual league. Maybe some folks see more value in the position and draft quarterbacks earlier, so you wouldn’t be able to wait as long to fill it or risk missing out.

That’s why it’s important to know your league rules, scoring system and your opponents.

Still, you can use ADP data to help build a draft strategy. On FootballGuys, you’ll find that most of the top 36 picks are running backs and wide receivers with a few scattered field generals (QBs) and tight ends mixed in. That should tell you that grabbing backs and wideouts early is important.

You can also find out that good tight ends are still on the board outside the top 100 picks, and some are even still available beyond those points in drafts. So if you miss out on a tight end you wanted, ADP suggests you can wait a few rounds and grab some decent options.

The same sort of situation occurs at quarterback, as I’ve mentioned above, so you can wait on the position in most leagues. Finally, and perhaps most obviously, don’t draft a kicker or defense until the last two to three rounds (unless it’s Brandon Aubrey or Ka’imi Fairbairn). It also makes sense to wait on a defensive unit, as values change from year to year and streaming the position has become popular. In that case, you might just draft a defense with a solid Week 1 matchup.

Average draft position data can be found on most reputable fantasy sports platforms, including FootballGuys and FantasyPros. If you’re looking for ADP data from high-stakes leagues (where people spend a ton of money to enter), you can also look at the NFFC ADP database.

Conclusion

As you can clearly see from the research above, average draft position data is a simple yet powerful tool in helping fantasy managers successfully draft a competitive team. In fact, it’s almost a cheat code of sorts in determining player values on a per-round basis. Be sure to use this information when you’re doing your research in preparing for the big (draft) day!

More Fantasy Football from Sports Illustrated

Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollowPublished just now | Modified just nowMICHAEL FABIANO

Michael Fabiano is a fantasy football analyst for Sports Illustrated. His weekly rankings and Start 'Em, Sit 'Em articles are must-reads for fantasy players. He is also the co-host of the Fantasy Dirt Podcast on SI. Before joining SI in August 2020, he worked for CBS Sports, NFL Network and SiriusXM. He also contributes to Westwood One Radio. Fabiano was the first fantasy analyst to appear on one of the four major TV networks and is a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.

Share on XFollow Michael_FabianoShare on FacebookShare on XHome/FantasyOriginal Article