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ADP Analysis - Summary

Last season Drew Brees was the highest scoring player in fantasy football which leads many people to believe that he was the most valuable player in fantasy football. Unfortunately for those managers, there is little truth to that. One of the most important things to know when you draft a fantasy football team is that the total number of points a player earns is not important; the important thing is how many points a player earns compared to others at his position.

It may be a very basic principle but you would be surprised to see how many fantasy football players do not understand it or do not apply it. However, there is another very important part to this. A few websites (including Football Guys in their very famous Value Based Drafting) explain what I just explained but there is one problem with it. Many predict the Steelers to be the best defense this year and in many leagues defenses will score a lot of fantasy points. According to value based drafting you would select them relatively early in your draft if its scoring system is defense-friendly. However, the problem with defenses is that they are very inconsistent from year to year so many will wait until the later rounds to select them no matter the scoring system. If that principle applies for defenses, should it not also apply to other positions?

In this analysis I looked at average draft position (ADP) and fantasy points scored since 2003 at each position. I not only looked at the difference in scoring at each position but also at which position players perform closest to their ADP.

In this analysis I was able to come up with a few groups of players at each position that have much more value than the others:
QB: Top 3; 13 to 17
RB: Top 5; 6 to 14; 20 to 30
WR: Top 8; 13 to 18; 23 to 28
TE: First; 5 to 8
K: 13 to 16
D: 13 to 16

Each one of these groups has good value and your scoring system will generally determine which group you should favor. For example a top three QB is especially valuable in a league with six points per TD pass or in a league with four points per TD pass but no point per reception. Within the next few weeks we will publish articles on strategies to favor for each scoring system.

In general you should avoid players outside of these groups because they simply do not have enough value. However, strategies always have to be flexible and if there is a player you really like, do not hesitate to draft him even if he does not meet those guidelines but be aware that you are in a “danger zone”.

I decided to do this analysis because I think a lot of managers have made assumptions in the past and have forgotten to account for the difficulty to predict statistics. It is true that there is a big difference between the running backs but after the top five or six it becomes very hard to predict which ones will be near the top. These statistics have shown that you can have value with a top WR or even a top QB in the second round and you should not stick to the stud RB theory. In your draft this year, instead of reaching for a RB in the late first round that you might not want or who has question marks all over him, think about going the safer route with a top WR.

See the complete analysis