ADP Analysis: Rookie Reactions, Chiefs Moving Up, QBs Falling on Underdog

This article is part of our ADP Analysis series.

Some ADP movement is expected and obvious, especially after important offseason periods like the first week of free agency or the NFL Draft. A recent example is Devon Achane moving up while Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson dropped, after the rookie out of A&M was taken about where most expected (84th overall) and landed in a promising offense.

Other times it's less straightforward, like we've seen with the Chiefs after they drafted WR Rashee Rice in the second round. That one was more complicated, as a lot of mocks had Kansas City taking a WR in Round 1 and Rice going Round 3 or later. It was an obvious win for Rice — landing in an elite, WR-needy offense as an earlier pick than most had expected — but the impact on his teammates was less obvious than in the case mentioned above (where Achane was taken about where expected and fantasy players hadn't necessarily been assuming the draft would bring serious competition for Mostert/Wilson).

We'll take a closer look at both of those situations below, comparing Underdog ADPs from late April to the updated numbers shown May 14. Future iterations of this article will also use ADPs from DraftKings and possibly Drafters, but for now the only pre-draft numbers I have are from Underdog (and BB10s, which hasn't yet completed enough fantasy drafts since the NFL Draft to have reliable numbers).

If you're interested in an article that compares ADPs between sites — rather than changes over time — check out my May 12 article Comparing Post-Draft ADPs from Underdog, DraftKings, Drafters and FFPC. I'll be back in June and July with new versions of both these ADP articles, which then will continue through August and early September at a more frequent rate as Week 1 approaches.

(Chart comparing UD ADPs between April and May is at the bottom of the article)

Rookie Rearrangement

Rice has been the biggest winner in terms of raw ADP movement (up 46.9 spots to ADP 129.3), but fellow second-round WR Jonathan Mingo essentially did the same thing (⬆️40.4, ADP 129.1) and there's arguably more fantasy impact from TE Dalton Kincaid (⬆️31.8, ADP 115.6), QB Anthony Richarson (⬆️30.3, ADP 84.8) and WR Jordan Addison (⬆️19.0, ADP 71.1) making smaller moves at earlier points in drafts. Other big winners include...

ADP Rising ⬆️

• Packers WR Jayden Reed (⬆️27.1, ADP 173.9), who was drafted earlier than expected and by a receiver-needy team.
• Lions TE Sam LaPorta (⬆️26.7, ADP 172.4), another obvious winner, going 35th overall to a team that previously had an argument for worst TE room in the league (despite having a former TE as head coach!)
• Saints RB Kendre Miller (⬆️22.7, ADP 135.7), who was taken Round 3 by a team that's starting RB may be suspended. Granted, the Saints spent a decent chunk of change on Jamaal Williams this offseason, so Miller seems more interesting in dynasty than redraft to me.
• Broncos WR Marvin Mims (⬆️22.2, ADP 173.0), a late second-round pick who appears worthy of the selection but was mocked in the third or fourth more often. Note that Broncos WR Tim Patrick, coming back from an ACL tear, has dropped by almost the exact same amount Mims has risen (🔻22.7,  ADP 207.2)
• Bengals RB Chase Brown (⬆️20.8, ADP 166.5), a fifth-round pick who landed in a backfield without experienced backups for Joe Mixon (⬆️17.2, ADP 63.7).  It's also a win for Mixon, as noted by drafters, with the Bengals only bringing in a fifth-rounder despite his legal situation, middling 2022 performance and non-guaranteed $9.4 million base salary. If you can't tell, I remain skeptical, even after HC Zac Taylor's post-draft comments saying Mixon's "future is here with the team." 
  • The Bengals can still sign Ezekiel Elliott or another veteran, and there's been chatter of Trayveon Williams and Chris Evans competing for offensive snaps after mostly playing special teams the past few years. Brown took on massive workloads his final two collegiate seasons and impressed at the Combine (4.43 40, 40-inch vertical at 209 lbs.), but he's already 23 and dropped to 5.0 YPC his final season at Illinois. Still, some minor disappointment in terms of Brown's draft capital is easily made up for by the favorable locale.
• Vikings WR Jordan Addison (⬆️19.0, ADP 71.1) and Dolphins RB Devon Achane (⬆️17.3, ADP 111.0) both probably should've been going earlier in the first place and ended up in good spots with about the expected draft capital (interestingly, both landed with teams they were commonly mocked to).
  • Ravens WR Zay Flowers (⬆️15.4, ADP 89.6) and Chargers WR Quentin Johnston (⬆️16.0, ADP 86.5) also moved up by more than a round, while Jaxon Smith-Njigba made a much smaller move (⬆️2.4, ADP 60.5) yet easily remains first of the rookie receivers in ADP.
    • Much of the newfound enthusiasm for rookies is rational, e.g., related to a favorable landing spot for fantasy production and/or better-than-expected draft capital. But, I also think there's some upward movement due to recency bias / name repetition / being in the news / whatever you want to call it. Thirteen rookies have risen by a round or more since April, while only four have fallen by a round or more. Which brings us to....

ADP Falling 🔻

• Texans QB C.J. Stroud (🔻26.6, ADP 183.9), Titans RB Tyjae Spears (🔻26.4, ADP 185.2), Raiders TE Michael Mayer (🔻15.9, ADP 178.6), Panthers QB Bryce Young (🔻15.3, ADP 159.9)
  • These are the only four rookies to drop by more than a half-round since April. I'm not sure I understand what's going on with Young, who was mostly expected to go first overall to Carolina, but in each of the other cases it seems obvious, even if I don't necessarily agree. Stroud was a surefire top-10 pick who landed with a bad team/organization; Spears shares a depth chart with Derrick Henry; and Mayer fell to Round 2 and TE3 after typically being mocked in Round 1 as TE1.
    • The new pessimism on Stroud seems harsh. I guess people were hoping a better team would trade up for him? I'm also not sure the Titans/Spears pessimism makes sense, given that Henry himself is going nearly two rounds later than at this time last year after piling up the second most total yards (1,936) of his career in 2022.
• The biggest veteran ADP fallers are mostly obvious: Tyler Allgeier, Dawson Knox, Joshua Palmer and Kenneth Gainwell have all dropped by 32-38 picks.
  • Notable fallers in the late rounds include Cowboys TE Jake Ferguson (24.7), Falcons RB Cordarrelle Patterson (20.5), Dolphins RB Jeff Wilson (20.4) and Jets RB Michael Carter (16.9).
• Among top-100 picks, the most impacted were Lions RB David Montgomery (🔻16.4, ADP 86.9), Seahawks RB Kenneth Walker (🔻14.8, ADP 46.5), Vikings RB Dalvin Cook (🔻8.5, ADP 66.2) and Eagles RB D'Andre Swift (🔻7.3, ADP 70.1).
  • All of whom are good picks at these ADPs, except maybe Montgomery.

Team/Positional Trends

Chiefs WRs Move Up, Kelce Drops

Rice's ascent hasn't come at the expense of Kadarius Toney (⬆️8.2, ADP 71.6), Skyy Moore (⬆️2.1, ADP 124.1) or Marquez Valdes-Scantling (⬆️1.3, ADP 156.3). That kind of makes sense if people were expecting the Chiefs to draft a better WR (or at least use an earlier pick on one), but I also think there's too much optimism here on both Toney and Valdes-Scantling. 

In Toney's case, it's been two seasons already and apart from one big garbage-time outing Year 1 in Dallas, we haven't see much besides occasional success on screens, trick plays and returns. With MVS, we've seen too much — four full, healthy seasons with either Aaron Rodgers or Patrick Mahomes at QB all year and he's still never reached 700 yards.

In other Chiefs news, RB Jerick McKinnon (⬆️77.3, ADP 131.9) is the biggest ADP mover among all players after re-signing May 2, even though his return to K.C. had been expected all along. He instantly went from being one of the better bargains to one of the most overvalued players. 

Meanwhile, Isiah Pacheco dropped a tiny bit (1.9 spots to ADP 71.0), making him one of three Chiefs who have dropped rather than risen since late April. The other two? Patrick Mahomes (🔻1.5, ADP 18.4) and Travis Kelce (🔻1.1, ADP 4.9), whose decline seems related to general ADP trends between positions. 

QBs and TEs Falling

Lamar Jackson (⬆️8.2, ADP 38.6) and Anthony Richardson (⬆️30.0, ADP 85.1) are the only QBs that have risen by more than two ADP spots since April, while eight have fallen by a round or more and 15 by at least a half-round. My recent article comparing ADP between sites noted that QBs are relatively cheaper on UD and more expensive on DK; it now appears much of that is due to recent downward adjustments to QB ADPs on Underdog Fantasy.

It's less extreme but still obvious at TE, where Irv Smith (⬆️36.6, ADP 156.0), Dalton Kincaid (⬆️31.5, ADP 115.9) and Sam LaPorta (⬆️26.7, ADP 172.5) are the only guys to move up five or more spots since April (though all three moved up a ton). Fourteen tight ends have dropped by five-plus spots, including five by more than a round. The list includes guys seemingly unimpacted by the draft, e.g., David Njoku🔻8.7, Darren Waller🔻7.0 and George Kittle🔻6.1, and if we extended it to TEs that fell by 3-4 picks we'd add Kyle Pitts, Evan Engram, Dalton Schultz, Greg Dulcich, Hayden Hurst, and Gerald Everett.

WRs Gaining Steam Early and Late

Wide receivers have been moving up at the expense of QBs and TEs — a trend that holds through the early, middle and late rounds. Only five WRs have dropped by a half-round or more since April, while 26 have risen by that much (including 11 by a round or more).

Big gainers among non-rookies include Van Jefferson (⬆️26.4, ADP 175.3), Nico Collins (⬆️20.1, ADP 144.2), Michael Gallup (⬆️19.1, ADP 147.5), Allen Lazard (⬆️12.3, ADP 112.8), Alec Pierce (⬆️9.4, ADP 141.7) and Tyler Boyd (⬆️9.2, ADP 117.4). I suppose Collins, Lazard and Pierce can be chalked up to excitement about QBs their respective teams added, but the jumps by Jefferson, Gallup and especially Boyd are harder to explain. 

Side note: I wonder if this May 6 puff piece on Jefferson from the Rams' team website had an impact on his ADP? A bunch of fantasy sites picked it up, and I wrote a player note for RotoWire. It does seem he's the favorite for the No. 2 WR role in Los Angeles, especially after the Rams waited until Round 5 to draft a wideout (Puka Nacua). Some gain for Jefferson makes sense, but two and a half rounds seems like a lot, no?

ADP Comparison Chart

Comparing Underdog ADP (Mid-May vs. Late April)