As we lead up to Free Agency and The NFL Draft, now is a great time to start reviewing the current ADP. When determining pre-draft ADP the best site to use is Fantasy Calculator. Fantasy Pros is also a good resource, taking consensus draft rankings from the top experts to provide fair, accurate and unbiased projections.
As draft day approaches it is best to use the ADP of the “Live Draft Results” from the platform you play fantasy football on (ESPN, Yahoo, RTSports, NFL), though keep in mind those will be volatile until the draft approaches. Not too much weight should be put on where players currently stand but gaining an understanding of where players are valued early on, will provide a massive advantage throughout the offseason.
The First Two Rounds Are Stacked!
Stud players such as Jordan Howard, Mike Evans and Tyreek Hill are all currently outside the top 20. The depth in 
the early rounds will provide a safety net for players with early picks. I have been extremely vocal through the years of my hatred for having the first and last pick of the fantasy draft. In expert drafts great value picks rarely fall to you resulting in taking players too early, otherwise known as “reaching.”
The other downside of an early pick is the gap in talent between the first overall player and the 24th. The feeling of elation from taking the “best player in the draft” is quickly forgotten as the strong player pool inside the top 20 dwindles down to nothing. This year is a different case. Theoretically if you took Leveon Bell with the first pick you could have a choice of Tyreek Hill, Adam Theilen, Doug Baldwin, Derrick Henry and Rob Gronkowski. Keep in mind you would be able to draft two of those players.
The QB Position Is Deep…
The QB position is the most overvalued position in all of fantasy football. Sure, a great quarterback gives you a safety net heading into each week but the reality is most of the quarterbacks drafted to be a QB1 won’t perform much better than the QB16. This year the position is even deeper than usual. Dak Prescott is currently the QB17 and Derek Carr is the QB19. Would anyone truly be surprised if either of those quarterbacks finished inside the top 12? They both have accomplished that feat within the past two seasons and the difference between Carson Wentz and Derek Carr is over 80 picks. I’d much prefer to take a chance on Carr and a sleeper player such as Patrick Mahomes.
Running Backs Are In High Demand.
The Running Back position is top heavy in the draft and a wave of RB’s are projected to come off the board early. In fact, per Fantasy Football Calculator 9 of the top 12 projected first round players are running backs. This means if you don’t get a workhorse RB in the first round or two you may have a tough time snagging one in the middle rounds. Some examples of RBs going in rounds 5-8 are TY Montgomery(5th) Tarik Cohen(6th) and Mike Gillislee (7th). Avoiding RB’s in the early stages of the draft could be an intriguing high risk/ high reward scenario come draft day. Pairing players like Julio Jones and Odell Beckham Jr. is going to be a realistic option for some people on draft day.
Lottery Picks Galore!
A lottery pick is a late round pick(10+) that isn’t expected to add immediate value to your starting lineup. This type of pick must also have the potential to completely blow up into a top 20 player at their position. Examples of strong lottery picks from last year are: Nelson Agholor, Robby Anderson, Devin Funchess, Alvin Kamara and Chris Thompson. Lottery picks are not only a key factor in a successful draft, they are also one of the biggest advantages one can gain when doing pre-draft research.
Fantasy owners who do little to no pre-draft research will only have their eyes on the same “Sleepers” that everyone else already knows about. As for the current state of the 2018 draft rankings, there are players like Tyler Eifert, Donte Moncrief and Marquise Goodwin who are all in the double digit rounds and that’s just to name a few. Even without rookies in the rankings, this year’s talent pool is loaded in the double digit rounds which provides a huge opportunity for fantasy owners. Don’t forget that these rankings and projections will change throughout the offseason but the trends you see now are likely to continue up until draft day.
Follow Dare @DareMaybury and at Fantasy Football Advice.
