NFL Best Ball: Post-Free Agency ADP Risers and Fallers

Free agency is one of those key mile markers in the marathon that is best ball draft season. The terrain shifts and gets a little unpredictable for the next little bit. Maybe your favorite endgame targets are now going two rounds higher, and maybe your usual RB2 target got his value totally paved over by a new signing. Whereas the combine didn't shake things up quite as much as we've seen before, this year's free agency frenzy has definitely done that and then some.

In this article, we'll highlight the biggest Best Ball ADP movers in light of free agency and dig into the overarching impact of the new ADP. We still have over a month to go until the next big mile marker -- the NFL Draft -- so there's still time to make some hay with this current landscape.

Remember to bookmark our Best Ball rankings page for the most up-to-date cheat sheet throughout draft season.

NFL Best Ball ADP Risers and Fallers: Pre vs Post Free Agency

Some of the players in the above chart are inherently going to have bigger swings in their ADP because they were going very late in drafts before free agency. Put another way, a guy who was going in the 20th round who is now going in the 16th will have a 40-50 pick uptick. But they're also still a 16th-rounder. Grain of salt, and so on. 

Guys like Keon Coleman, Devin Neal, J.J. McCarthy, Kaleb Johnson and Alvin Kamara have slipped into the fringe undraftable range in light of the recent free agent movement. I agree with that sentiment for most of those players, though Neal might still have some value if Kamara retires. 

I'm also slightly more willing to take a shot on Trey Benson at 174.4, at least relative to the old ADP of 130.1. He's more likely to be a nothingburger than not, but I'm still open to the (increasingly slim) possibility of him having a role. Old priors die hard, I guess.

Best Ball ADP Changes Since Free Agency on Underdog

Free Agency Risers and Fallers

Kenneth Walker 

Whichever running back Kansas City targeted this offseason, whether it was Walker, Travis Etienne, or rookie Jeremiyah Love, was going to become a major fantasy asset. The Chiefs' run game was stuck in the mud last year, ranking 25th in rushing yards at just 106.6 per game. The time for the Kareem Hunt/Isiah Pacheco duo had ended, and the Chiefs needed to make a serious investment in the backfield, especially with Patrick Mahomes coming off of a late-season ACL injury.

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Enter Walker, who the market had been pretty bullish on through the early parts of best ball season (28.6 ADP). Some rumors about potentially joining Cam Skattebo on the Giants froze his market for a bit, but once the news came down about Walker landing in Kansas City, it was on. 

I drafted about an hour after the legal tampering period just to get a look at how crazy the new ADP would be. Well, Walker went second overall, ahead of Bijan Robinson. That was extreme, but still a sign that the days of Walker going in the 3rd were over.

Here was the draft board from March 11, two days after the legal tampering period opened.

I think we're routinely going to see Walker selected before Chase Brown, and possibly Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley. 

Will Walker be worth that price hike? Probably. Kansas City's offense sputtered out last year, but a bounce-back is a reasonable expectation. The offensive line is rock solid with promising pieces on the left side that are candidates to take a step forward alongside more established guys like Creed Humphrey. That group should pave the way for Walker, who is just such an upgrade from that group a year ago. 

Look at the Chiefs' rushing stats from a year ago. Ick. One running back mustered a running back of 20+ yards. They generated one 100-yard individual rushing game all season. 

Abysmal. 

To play devil's advocate, we don't know what Walker looks like as a true NFL workhorse yet. He shouldered 263 carries in his last college season, which was a while ago. Walker has always had a solid sidekick, whether it was Rashaad Penny when he was a rookie or Zach Charbonnet the last three years. 

The Chiefs need to add a little more to the backfield through the draft, or hope that they can get a little something out of Brashard Smith. Regardless, Walker is ticketed for a huge workload this season. He helps bolster an increasingly strong crop of second-round running back options that you should feel comfortable drafting at-cost.

Travis Etienne

The Jennings, LA native is going back to the Boot as the new leader of the Saints' backfield. I like this move a lot for both sides. 

For Etienne, it's a fresh start with an up-and-coming team that really needed a steadying presence in the backfield. Alvin Kamara seemed to hit the wall last season and may not be on the roster come September, and the combo of Kendre Miller and Devin Neal hasn't done enough to inspire a ton of confidence. Etienne fixes those problems right away. 

As you can see, Etienne is coming off one of his best seasons and is still very much in his prime. He has a three-down skill set and can pick up yards after contact. He also gets a softer schedule this year, moving to the NFC South and playing a fourth-place schedule. 

If you believe in some of the hype that the Saints generated down the stretch last year, Etienne should absolutely register as a good pick at his new ADP.

Bhayshul Tuten

Whew, this is big movement. Tuten's pre-free agency ADP was in the early 7th round, a price tag that seemed to assume Etienne would be gone anyhow. A 20-spot jump seems to mean the market was worried about the Jags backfilling Etienne's spot, and that the Chris Rodriguez signing is not a major threat.

My guy Mario Puig and I discuss that topic at length in this video below. We get started on this at the 27:00 mark.

My sense is the market is getting a little bit over its skis on Tuten right now. Taking him around where Jaylen Warren or Chuba Hubbard were going was one thing. Now you have to make a call on Tuten within the same tier as Cam Skattebo, Quinshon Judkins, RJ Harvey and D'Andre Swift. 

There's an interesting trend that this group is going up against this year. I wrote about this in my running back best ball breakdown, but one of the points was that the fifth round has famously been a dead zone for RBs the last few years. Using data from BBMII-BBMVI, 14 running backs have had 5th-round ADPs since 2021. The results have not been good, with the best 5th-round RB checking in with seven usable weeks out of 14. 

My plan, for now, is to let the Tuten ADP settle. Drafting him right now feels like drafting at the top of his ADP, with little room for projectable profit. 

After talking with Mario, I'm fairly sold on Chris Rodriguez as a priority end-game target when I'm looking to round out my backfield. He complements Tuten's skill set and could work his way into the go-to goal line role. 

Rico Dowdle

Like Tuten, Dowdle's ADP has surged since the dominoes fell this week. Unlike Tuten, though, Dowdle will have to challenge a well-established veteran in Jaylen Warren for his role.

Last year, the market totally biffed its projection for the Pittsburgh backfield. Kaleb Johnson had an ADP of 79 (RB28) while Jaylen Warren was 10 picks later at 89 (RB30). Swing and a miss.

Dowdle is a much more legitimate threat to Warren than Johnson was, but Kenneth Gainwell's presence kept Warren from being a total smash relative to ADP. In fact, Dowdle and Warren finished right next to each other in total fantasy points among RBs last season at RB17 and 18, respectively. 

This is gonna be a doozy of a backfield to solve. I think both are worth drafting at ADP and worth getting a healthy amount of shares of. It's hard to see a true win-win where both pay off relative to their price, given that their price is going to be...pretty much the same. If they do, it'll be marginal. 

It's more likely that one will win out over the other. Dowdle profiles as the back who can take on more rushing volume. To keep things Pittsburgh-focused, he's more capable of a Najee Harris-style workload than Jaylen Warren. New coach Mike McCarthy had no problem giving Dowdle 235 carries in 2024 when they were in Dallas together.

Warren might have been overburdened on the ground last year with 211 rushes when his previous career-high was 149. He has a 60-catch season to his credit from back in 2023, so shifting to a bigger pass-catching role could help Warren's value -- especially in PPR formats -- afloat and allow both Warren and Dowdle to be reliable producers.

Bucky Irving 

Irving seems to be the biggest faller among the upper echelon of running backs right now. Tampa initially cleaned house behind him by letting Rachaad White walk and non-tendering Sean Tucker. That seemed to clear the runway for a huge role for Irving.

However, Tampa basically brought White back in the form of the Kenneth Gainwell signing and then brought Tucker back anyway. Now Irving has slipped behind Travis Etienne and is barely hanging on as a third-rounder. He is RB17. 

I think Irving is still primed to lead this backfield but his path to a ceiling outcome like 2024 is a little tricky now. Gainwell could eat into the pass-catching work and Tucker is arguably the team's best short-yardage back. I don't foresee just rushing touchdown on 173 carries again for Irving but expecting eight might also be rich. 

Rapid Reactions

• Jacoby Brissett (190 ➡️165.1, QB 28): The market was a little worried about Arizona either signing over Brissett or maybe even retaining Kyler Murray. Those who kept the faith and believed Arizona would roll the dice with Brissett were rewarded. He'll be the starter again this year. Now, it may not be the same kind of fever dream offense we were treated to a year ago, and the leash may be shorter than it was, but Brissett is totally fine as your QB3 at this new ADP.
• Chris Rodriguez (234.8 ➡️ 174.9): Rodriguez wasn't even getting taken in every draft before free agency, as evidenced by the ADP in the 230s. Jacksonville signing him after letting Travis Etienne walk has created a lot more demand for Rodriguez. It's notoriously difficult to get usable weeks from running backs this late, but that's more true when the ADP solidifies over the summer. Right now, the market is still soft and still evolving. Rodriguez's new ADP may give you whiplash, but you'll be glad you got shares in the 170s once his ADP creeps up ahead of someone like Woody Marks or Aaron Jones by August.
• Jeremiyah Love (15.5 ➡️16.3 ) I wonder if there's a downstream effect on Jeremiyah Love in all of this. His ADP is down about a full pick, which is significant when you're this high up on draft boards. I think part of Love's ADP was being propped up by the market forecasting him going to either Kansas City or New Orleans. Now that both of those teams made free agent splashes with Walker and Travis Etienne, the list of potential landing spots (TEN, NYG, WAS) suddenly isn't all that appealing. Maybe the spin zone is that a lower draft slot means a better team context, but it also introduces the bigger possibility of a committee role rather than a workhorse role. 
• Emanuel Wilson (219.3 ➡️ 189.8): Wilson was pretty valuable as Josh Jacobs' backup in Green Bay and I thought it would have made sense to retain him. I'd been drafting Wilson at his old ADP at a somewhat ridiculous clip (near 40%)  hoping he'd land somewhere with a more reliable role. I was really hoping he'd be David Montgomery 2.0 in Detroit, but going to Seattle is intriguing too. Walker is gone, obviously, and Zach Charbonnet is coming off an ACL tear suffered in January. George Holani is still on the roster, and Seattle would be within its rights to grab a running back in the draft. I would guess that Wilson is better than whatever Seattle brings in for competition, though, so he should be the No.1 back at least until Charbonnet returns. Ultimately, I see it going one of two ways. 
  • 1) Wilson is a top-36 RB and gives you several usable weeks until Charbonnet gets back, at which point he fades into oblivion. 
  • 2) Wilson does well enough that Charbonnet doesn't completely monopolize the backfield upon his return, thereby making Wilson one of the best late-round RB investments of this year.