Underdog Best Ball Fantasy Football: May ADP Trends in Best Ball Mania

Right after the 2026 NFL Draft concluded, I took a crack at predicting ADPs for rookies in Underdog's Best Ball Mania tournament. Now that the contest is well underway, it's time to see where ADPs are settling in and how that compares to data from April 22 (the day before the draft).

My predictions on rookie ADP movement were largely decent, with the one major exception of overestimating interest in Browns WRs KC Concepcion and Denzel Boston and Jets WR Omar Cooper. None of those three cracked the ADP Top 100 for Underdog fantasy best ball, but Concepcion and Boston nonetheless put a dent in new teammate Harold Fannin, who dropped from ADP 81.2 to 89.4 (a nice bargain, no?).

We'll look at other ADP fallout from the NFL Draft below, going two rounds at a time, with color-coding in the left column to show players with significant rises (green) or drops (red).

If you're looking for best-ball rankings or other tools, RotoWire best-ball expert John McKechnie has you covered with his Best Ball Top 250.

Rounds 1-2

• Arizona's Jeremiyah Love pick triggered an ADP tsunami that surged through backfields in Tennessee, New York and Washington. Still, the initial impact did the most damage, with Love and Trey McBride dropping by 5-6 spots from mid-R2 to the 2/3 turn. Derrick Henry, Chase Brown and Rashee Rice rose at Love/McBride's expense, with Brown and Rice also getting a boost from other factors.*
  • Love's presence is a drag on the volume projections for his new teammates, including TE Trey McBride, who was overvalued before. I think the Love addition hurts McBride's floor and median more so than his ceiling scenarios, so the new combo of price and situation is actually better than the old one. He's gone from my 'fade' list to fairly priced.

*Brown is an underrated winner from the 2026 NFL Draft. The Bengals never figured to draft his replacement or anything like that, but some competition for power work / goal-line carries wouldn't have been shocking. Instead, the Bengals stood pat with Samaje Perine and Tahj Brooks as backups (they also have Kendall Minton and Gary Brightwell on the roster, for whatever little that's worth).

Rounds 3-4

• I enjoyed drafting WR DeVonta Smith throughout April (at the old price - ADP 36.8) with the knowledge that A.J. Brown was on his way out of Philadelphia. But apparently some people only realized Brown was leaving after the Eagles drafted Makai Lemon? And, once that had happened, we also knew Smith had decent target competition again. 
  • I'm not saying Smith is a bad pick in Round 3, but now we're paying what the price probably should've been before, only with Lemon on board as a higher-upside alternative to whatever else the Eagles might've done to try to replace Brown (Kayshon Boutte?).
• I'm a big Jordyn Tyson fan, but when Juwan Johnson and Devaughn Vele project for a lot of snaps, it leaves room for the other two pass catchers with regular playing time to both sustain large target rates/shares. (BTW, Johnson isn't actually good... he's just a competent guy who can kind of, sort of (not really) handle a bunch of volume if absolutely needed).
  • Olave, for me, is the opposite of Smith. Pre-draft, I thought Olave was overvalued as a top-30 pick. I don't think the Tyson pick hurts as much as this ADP movement suggests, so the end result is that Olave's new ADP is right around where I'll have him in my new rankings (same result as Smith, but opposite paths).

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Rounds 5-6

• If Arizona's Jeremiyah Love pick was the most impactful from an Underdog ADP standpoint, there's not much doubt the Jadarian Price pick ranks second, based on Price's ADP surge (+47.7) alone, from 105.5 all the way up to 57.8 (Round 5).
  • Price is a tough prospect to figure, because he didn't play that much in college, wasn't a five-star recruit (only four!) and didn't test as an elite athlete (4.49 40 at 203 pounds) before the 2026 NFL Draft. The argument on his behalf largely revolves around his college tape from a sample of fewer than 500 offensive snaps, but, to be fair, he really is one of those guys who stands out the naked eye, garnering praise from scouts and casual fans alike. And now we see a mostly smart franchise using late-R1 capital on Price, right after losing Kenneth Walker to the Chiefs. (Zach Charbonnet, meanwhile, underwent ACL surgery in mid-to-late February).
• Add Cam Skattebo and D'Andre Swift to the list of RBs who dodged competition from an incoming draft pick. In Skattebo's case, there was even concern he might get usurped by Love. Instead, his fate will merely depend on his own health (admittedly a huge question mark after fracturing and dislocating his ankle last season).
• I'm not surprised to see Jags RB Bhayshul Tuten moving down (-3.3 to ADP 59.4) even though the Jaguars didn't draft a running back. That's some buyer's remorse after a too-large ADP rise earlier this offseason.

Rounds 7-8

• I liked RB Tony Pollard at his old ADP in Rounds 9-10, figuring he might be traded if the Titans drafted Love. They didn't, so he wasn't, setting up Pollard as the lead runner again in Tennessee. I preferred him a month ago with the lower price and Love-related uncertainty, but Pollard still makes for a solid pick at his new, higher price.
• RJ Harvey took a bigger ADP hit than J.K. Dobbins after the Broncos drafted Jonah Coleman. I think some Harvey drafters were more nervous about Dobbins than they wanted to admit, and were looking to jump ship for any reason. The Coleman pick is a pretty good reason, to be fair, with the rookie potentially good enough to force a three-way committee (or at least be an occasional annoyance).

Rounds 9-10

• The risers and fallers here are all fairly straightforward cases, with the J-Love effect once again popping up — this time in the form of RB Jacory Croskey-Merritt's recent ADP surge (+31.8) up to 111.3. Of course, it wasn't just a matter of the Commanders not getting Love. They also passed on Jonah Coleman, Mike Washington, Emmett Johnson and Nicholas Singleton, before settling for Kaytron Allen in Round 6.
  • Allen is a boring prospect, though not necessarily a bad one for mid-Day 3 of a weak draft. Backhanded compliments aside... if Allen is the only real competition, things look good for JCM and/or Rachaad White.
• I still like Chris Rodriguez over Tuten at their respective ADPs, but the ADP gap has been closing for weeks now and likely will continue to do so. In other words, don't wait to draft Rodriguez if you want him. The only way he's getting cheaper is if the Jags swing a trade to improve their backfield. 

Rounds 11-12

• I was never a huge fan of Panthers RB Jonathon Brooks, and my limited interest faded once he tore the same ACL he'd torn a year earlier. I'd rather pay up for Chuba Hubbard or pull a lottery ticket with Travis Etienne. The new ADP, in particular, is absolutely ridiculous for a player (Brooks) where the argument at this point is 90% just DRAFT CAPITAL*.

*Ok, he did have one excellent collegiate season... three years and two ACL tears ago, which was after he rode pine for two years behind Bijan Robinson (fair) and Roschon Johnson (uhhhh).

Rounds 13-14

• The past two years, RB Isiah Pacheco looked like a practice-squad guy, if that, when the Chiefs reluctantly gave him touches. And now the Lions are paying him like a roster-bubble guy, but I'm supposed to believe he's the clear No. 2 RB because they have "nobody else"? Not buying it. They could still bring someone else in, or Pacheco could be bad enough to lose his job to a so-called nobody (Sione Vaki? Jacob Saylors?).
  • In this ADP range, there are still a few RBs with upside arguments not much different from Pacheco's, and without risk of being released in August. Even if Pacheco were to win the backup job, I doubt he'd handle passing-down work in the event of a Jahmyr Gibbs injury.

Rounds 15-16

• With a promising young QB and a weak depth chart at both RB and WR, the Commanders offer a favorable fantasy outlook for talented rookies. I'm not sure RB Kaytron Allen (sixth round) or WR Antonio Williams (third round) is good enough to capitalize, but Williams at least has a clean-looking path to slot snaps, with Washington's WR room utterly lacking beyond Terry McLaurin.

Rounds 17-18

• Many of the differences at this point are just a matter of UD's ADP accounting practices (BBM ADP only goes up to 216, rather than up to 240 for the pre-draft contests.
• There are also some genuine fallers, however, like WRs Christian Kirk, Dontayvion Wicks and Adonai Mitchell, all of whom saw their teams spend top-40 picks on wide receivers.
• I like Dolphins WR Chris Bell but don't really understand the enthusiasm about his landing spot. His draft capital (mid-late 3rd) wasn't really better than expected, and he landed with a team that has some of the worst projections in the league for everything from overall TDs to passing yards to pass attempts. I get that there's not much competition from snaps, but there's also not going to be much/any incentive to rush a young player back from injury.
  • I'm fine with Bell as an end-game pick, but he shouldn't be going in Rounds 15-16 the way he now does at times.   

Falling Off the Board

• It's hard to conjure 2026 fantasy optimism for TE Mason Taylor after the Jets drafted Kenyon Sadiq. There's also no real positive spin for WR Chris Brazzell's landing spot in Carolina, but I'm not quite as pessimistic about 49ers RB Jordan James or WR Chimere Dike.
  • In part because I don't trust Isaac Guerendo or Calvin Ridley to be healthy/useful. Anyway, James was always looking at a battle for the No. 2 RB job this summer. It's obviously bad for him that the 49ers spent a third-round pick on a RB (Kaelon Black), but at least it was a late-third-rounder, 90th overall, and spent on a player who was widely expected to last until Day 3.
    • Note that Black's ADP (211.5) is barely higher than James' 214.0. And Guerendo might as well not exist for fantasy purposes.