There is no doubt about it: the fantasy football landscape is getting more exciting and competitive every year. I am not The old, but I’m old enough to remember when the term “sleeper” often included players that many of your leaguemates hadn’t even heard of. Now, it feels like the majority of the fantasy football community can name at least two running backs and four wide receivers from all 32 NFL rosters. This has also led to an increase in the amount of detailed (and sometimes even jargon-heavy) information that goes into fantasy football analysis.
One term that’s used a lot is “ADP,” which isn’t necessarily obvious to someone new to fantasy football. At least most of the other jargon we see is usually tied to real NFL stats. If someone mentions “yards per route run,” it’s pretty self-explanatory. And even if you don’t play fantasy football, you can figure out what that means.
The short answer is that ADP stands for Average Draft Position, but even that doesn’t stop there. So let’s take a closer look at what ADP means and, more importantly, how you can use it to dominate your draft.
As mentioned above, ADP stands for “Average Draft Position.” But even this simple term has many different meanings. You’ll see phrases like “his ADP is RB2” and “his ADP is 45.5” as well as things like “his ADP is in the third round.” So let’s look at the different measures of ADP.
Average selection in the entire draft
This is the simplest measure and simply calculates the average overall position a player is selected in the draft. To simplify an example, if Christian McCaffrey goes 1st in one draft and 2nd in another, his ADP between those drafts is 1.5. If a player goes 10th in one draft and 20th in another, his ADP between those drafts is 15.
The number obviously wouldn’t mean much in a sample of just two drafts, but ADP numbers are based on the averages of thousands of drafts. This paints a clear picture of how the fantasy football world values a player. A single instance of a player slipping down the draft list or being taken ridiculously early has no impact on the overall average.
Position ranking
Another helpful way to use ADP, especially when you compare it to player rankings, is to look at a player’s placement within his position. This metric largely ignores a player’s actual average pick number and instead focuses on how his ADP compares to other players at that position.
So if we have Christian McCaffrey with an ADP of 1.0, Breece Hall with an ADP of 5.0, and Bijan Robinson with 5.6, they would be ranked as RB1, RB2, and RB3, respectively.
One downside to this method is that it doesn’t take into account the size of the gap between players. Showing RB1, RB2, and RB3 doesn’t take into account the fact that McCaffrey is selected much earlier than the other two, but Robinson and Hall’s ADP shows that they are often selected interchangeably.
Round after round
This uses a pretty simple view of ADP with 12 picks per round. So someone with an ADP in the top 12 has a “Round 1 ADP,” 13 through 24 has a “Round 2 ADP,” and so on. This comes with its own catch, however.
You can count rounds either by overall player rankings or by actual pick average. An example is Drake London, who ranks 23rd among all players in ADP with an average pick of 25.8. So, based on player rankings, you could say he has a second-round ADP, while his actual average is reached at the start of the third round.
In general, the difference is not that big, but you should keep in mind that if someone refers to a turn-based ADP, either is possible.
Now that you know what ADP is, let’s look at why it’s important and how you can use it to get an edge in your league.
What’s so helpful about ADP is that, as I highlighted above, the entire fantasy football world is getting a lot smarter these days. The “wisdom of the crowd” effect is very powerful and you’ll often find that ADP data is one of the most accurate predictors of a season’s fantasy production. This gives us some very actionable ways to use the data effectively.
Comparing ADP with standard rankings
No matter what platform you use for your fantasy football draft, players will likely be ranked according to the site’s rankings or projections. This means that most of your league mates will have this as their default view in their draft window. Even if they don’t strictly follow these rankings, they’ll likely be influenced.
You can usually find great value by comparing ADP to these rankings. For example, if ESPN ranks Josh Jacobs at RB17 but you see his ADP is RB13, that means you may be able to get him a little earlier than your league mates would be willing to draft him.
These gaps become even more significant later in the draft when the picks aren’t as obvious. It can also help you find players you can ignore. It may be tempting to take the highest-ranked player on the draft list, but if that player’s ADP is much lower than his ranking on your platform, it may be better to steer clear.
Find discrepancies in your rankings (or those of a trusted expert)
Another good approach is to figure out where you think ADP is “wrong,” because that’s where the value will be. Let’s take SI Fantasy Insider Michael Fabiano’s top 200 player rankings as an example.
New York Giants rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers has an ADP of 51.6, according to FantasyPros, which compiles ADP data from multiple websites. That ranks 50th among all players. Fabs has him ranked 36th. That tells you two important things:
First, Fabiano believes Nabers is underrated by the average drafter, so if you trust his rankings (I do), then it could be a great way to target valuable players.
Second, you don’t have to reach too high to find that value with Nabers either. If you see him ranked 36th, you might feel the need to select him in Round 3. But looking at the 51.6 ADP, he’s not in the running until the beginning of the fifth round on average. That means it might be worth taking the risk of waiting until the fourth round, knowing he’s usually still available at that point (especially if you pick early in the round).
Recognize animal drops
ADP can also help identify player tiers, which in turn can help identify “runs” of players going to the same position in drafts. There are great examples this year at both quarterback and tight end.
Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and Jalen Hurts have total ADPs between 22 and 31. After that, there is a 10-pick jump to QB4 Lamar Jackson (41 total). Then there is a 10-pick jump to CJ Stroud (51) and Anthony Richardson (52).
Later in the drafts, it’s even more extreme. In an 11-pick stretch, we have Joe Burrow (68), Kyler Murray (69), Jordan Love (74), and Dak Prescott (78). If you don’t get one of these quarterbacks, you shouldn’t draft your next best player right away because you can probably wait a few more rounds and still get him. After Dak, the next best QB ADP is Brock Purdy at 100 overall. That’s a gap of almost two full rounds.
At tight end, we have TE3 Trey McBride (48 overall), TE4 Mark Andrews (49), and TE5 Dalton Kincaid (50) all together. There’s a drop of almost a full round to George Kittle (61). There’s also a significant drop from TE8 Evan Engram (71 overall) to TE9 Jake Ferguson (85).
As you can see, ADP is a pretty simple concept at its core. It can be a little complicated to understand at first as people use the term with different meanings, but once you know what it means, you have an incredibly powerful tool at your disposal on draft day.
If you’re looking for more tools for your tool belt, the Sports Illustrated 2024 Fantasy Football Draft Kit has everything you could need!
