ADP Analysis: Tracking Best Ball ADP Movement Throughout July

This article is part of our ADP Analysis series.

With training camps kicking off around the league this week it's time to take a look at significant ADP movement since I last did this exercise in mid-June at the conclusion of offseason programs. The past 5-6 weeks represent the quietest portion of the year in terms of significant NFL news, with Jordan Addison's DWI arrest and Brandon Aiyuk's trade request arguably being the central events.

You'll find those two listed below, unsurprisingly, but there are also some players with noteworthy ADP changes that can't be directly connected to football news (or even rumors/tidbits). The data below is based on an average of ADPs from Underdog, DraftKings and Drafters, comparing numbers from July 22-23 to those from June 16-17. 

You'll see a big chart with all that information if you scroll past my analysis of the most interesting developments. The first column after the player names shows updated ADPs (from July 22-23). The third column shows old ADPs (from June 16-17). The column in between shows the difference between those numbers. Sorting the table by the middle, delta column is a quick way to see which players' ADPs moved the most, although it's worth remembering that a three-spot change in the early rounds means more than a six-spot change in the late rounds.

ADP Risers

• WR Deebo Samuel (ADP 24.1 > 20.4)

Samuel rose by 3-5 spots on each of the three platforms surveyed, presumably on account of the possibility Aiyuk is traded or stages a lengthy holdout. That hope might be misguided, even after Aiyuk's formal trade request earlier this month. The 49ers are all-in for a championship in 2024, and they haven't even used a franchise tag on the disgruntled wideout yet (that would come next offseason). Aiyuk is due $14.1 million this season under a fifth-year option, which is far less than he's worth but probably enough to discourage an in-season holdout (he'd be passing up more than $800k for each game he missed). 

It's not yet clear if Aiyuk will actually practice during training camp, but he's at least present, hinting at a "hold-in" rather than a true holdout, if anything. Keep in mind that this is simply a matter of money; it's not that Aiyuk wants to leave San Francisco but rather that he wants the Niners to pay him what he's worth. I still think they will, eventually, although it might not be until next offseason and with a franchise tag lingering over his head. 

Samuel being traded next spring (with one year left on his contract) seems more likely than Aiyuk getting traded this summer, in light of their respective ages, medical records and roles. Samuel may be one of my all-time-favorite players in real life, but he was already an easy 'no' for me at his late-second-round ADP, so it's hard to overstate how much I dislike the value now that he's moved up to mid-R2. His unique role and brutal injury history mean he'd probably absorb fewer of the vacated targets than most people assume in the (unlikely) event of an Aiyuk trade.

• RB De'Von Achane (25.4 > 22.8)
• RB Kyren Williams (29.3 > 26.8)

This is the start of an interesting trend whereby many of the players that rose or fell significantly earlier this offseason had their ADPs rebound during the June/July quiet window. From a personal standpoint, I was lucky to acquire a few shares when Achane was sometimes falling to mid-R3 and Williams toward the 3/4 turn. That doesn't really seem to be happening anymore, and the new prices look rather fair/efficient. 

These guys have been two of the most divisive and oft-discussed players in Fantasy Land all offseason, so there's no question all eyes will be on their usage come September. Just don't expect any substantial, reliable hints before then, even if busybody beat writers try to weigh in on the subject (which they inevitably will, because grabbing the attention of fantasy players is the easiest path to likes, retweets, clicks, views, attention, etc.). 

• RB Derrick Henry (31.3 > 27.1)

Henry previously moved up by about four spots from May to June, and at this point you'll basically never see him last beyond Round 3 (he goes at the 2-3 turn much more often than the 3-4 turn, which is a clear reversal from earlier in the offseason). This is a weird one for me, because I'm a diehard Ravens fan and don't think Henry is drastically overpriced... yet I only have two or three shares through more than 100 best-ball drafts. Part of that is because I keep clicking Breece Hall in Round 1 and/or Jonathan Taylor in Round 2, in a year where it feels tough to build a decent pass-catching corps without getting at least two WRs through the first four rounds. 

There's no doubting Henry's TD upside in light of what Gus Edwards did last year, but the big fella could be limited to something like 15 carries and 1.3 targets per game in a Lamar Jackson offense. And as much as Henry still looked like a beast last year, we can't totally ignore the possibility of his physical skills falling off a cliff due to age — a factor that partially evens out the downside risk when comparing him to younger backs like Achane and Williams who are more openly discussed as being risky picks. I agree that Henry has a higher floor and lower ceiling than those two, but it's not by as much as the discourse suggests.

• RB Isiah Pacheco (45.4 > 38.2)

This is one of the other reasons I haven't drafted Henry much. Pacheco might not be a living legend, but he's nearly a full round cheaper, has a similar/better volume projection (once receptions are included) and also plays in what should be an excellent offense. If you're expecting me to recommend fading Pacheco now that his price has shot up, well, you're dead wrong. I'm still clicking, and often, though at this point it's mostly at ADP or when he falls to the middle of the fourth round. Earlier this offseason, Pacheco was one of the few early round guys that I'd repeatedly draft well ahead of ADP.

• WR Rashee Rice (73.4 > 61.8)

This is a case where no news is good news. If the NFL were going to place Rice on the commissioner's exempt list it almost certainly would've happened by now. His crimes apparently don't quite warrant that, but they do warrant a serious enough legal investigation that judgment (and thus an NFL suspension) might not come until 2025. 

Part of me says Rice is a screaming value here, given the numbers he put up in the second half of his rookie season. The other part of me says he won't get 3-4 free catches every week on screens and other quick passes now that the Chiefs have Xavier Worthy as an attractive alternative for those targets. And then there's Marquise Brown, whose presence (along with Worthy's) slightly tempers my prior expectation for Rice's growth as a downfield weapon. I do know I want to be invested in this offense, and so far my answer has mostly been to draft Pacheco and TE Travis Kelce on non-Mahomes teams. For Chiefs stacks I'm always taking one or both of the young WRs over Hollywood Brown, who is a good player but definitely not a great one.

• RB James Conner (90.4 > 81.3)

This is basically the same deal as with Pacheco. A month ago, Conner was one of my five favorite picks at ADP. Now he's merely an excellent pick, not quite in my vaunted, imaginary Top 5. He averaged at least 15.5 PPR points per game each of his first three seasons in Arizona, and he's fallen shy of 14.8 ppg just once in the past six years. At this price, Conner can be a good pick even if he misses his usual 3-4 games and cedes 30-40 percent of the backfield work to Trey Benson. A healthier-than-usual season combined with a lesser-than-expected role for Benson likely would make Conner a fantasy RB1.

• WR Joshua Palmer (110.3 > 101.2)

Palmer is one of those guys I've drafted far more than I ever would've guessed a month or two ago, in part because I love Justin Herbert at ADP and want to set up stacks*. Ladd McConkey may be the ideal Herbert pairing, but you can make it work with Palmer plus an endgame pick (preferably WR DJ Chark, but TE Hayden Hurst is also an option). Then there's Quentin Johnston, who I've begrudgingly clicked a couple times when he fell below ADP and I already had Herbert. It didn't feel good, and I've stopped doing it altogether after reading Mario Puig's recent article here on RW.

*The other reason for drafting Palmer is that he's right in the range where I start realizing some of my teams are way too light at WR and I need to make up ground even if I prefer the RBs and QBs in that ADP range. I've also taken more Courtland Sutton and Tyler Lockett than I'd planned on for the same reason(s): glaring need at WR + setting up cheap stacks. A disturbing number of my teams have at least two of Palmer, Sutton, Tyler Lockett, Dontayvion Wicks, Romeo Doubs and Jerry Jeudy... and an awful lot of those same teams also have Gabe Davis. You'll know who to ask for $20 in January if that basket of WRs ends up producing a couple smashes.

• WR Ja'Lynn Polk (148.1 > 141.2)
• WR DeMario Douglas (182.6 > 158.1)

It's kind of validating to see your favorite picks shoot up draft boards as the summer progresses. It's also extremely frustrating, with Douglas joining Conner and Pacheco in an upward march that does me no favors when it comes to roster construction and profit expectation.  If I look back even a few weeks, I might be able to find a team where I got Pacheco in Round 5, Conner in Round 8 and Douglas in Round 15. That's simply not happening anymore, nor should it.

In Douglas' case, I think it's a mix of favorable reports from June minicamp and people coming to their senses about a guy who looked more like a second-round pick than a sixth-rounder during his rookie season. I can understand why people prefer the actual second-round pick, Polk, but I think that'll end up being wrong. Douglas is much shorter, but he's also faster, more agile and more densely built (five inches shorter, 11 pounds lighter). I don't mind Polk at ADP, partially because I'm a Drake Maye fan, but it still seems weird that someone with Polk's pre-draft profile went Top 40 rather than in Round 3/4. 

• TE Noah Fant (194.7 > 173.5)

Fant's per-route production has always been pretty good, and Seattle's offseason moves suggest he'll run a lot more routes than his 298 last year. On the other hand, his target rate per route plummeted to a career-low 14.4 percent last season, in part because he was sharing the field with DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett and Jaxon Smith-Njigba. All three are still around, as are the Seahawks' pair of second-round picks at running back. Fant thus seems like more of a floor pick than a ceiling play, i.e., the type of TE2 you draft to help with bye weeks and injuries when you have Kelce/LaPorta/McBride/Andrews as your TE1. 

(Confession: I have more Fant-Lockett-Geno stacks than I probably should. That's another one of my mid/late-round pivot plays when things don't quite work out as planned early on.)

• QB Daniel Jones (198.9 > 187.3)

Jones was cleared for the start of training camp, having completed his rehab process faster than most expected. I'm still avoiding him like the plague, as there's not only risk of being benched for performance reasons but also a decent chance he's eventually sat down to avoid the risk of future contract guarantees (like Russell Wilson in Denver last year). Given the importance of late-season production, I'd much rather draft a cheaper rookie QB like Drake Maye, J.J. McCarthy or Bo Nix... or even take a shot on ol' man Wilson himself.

Other ADP Risers

• RB Brian Robinson (113.4 > 106.0)
• RB Nick Chubb (135.4 > 125.7)
• RB Kimani Vidal (161.4 > 150.9)
• RB Chuba Hubbard (167.6 > 157.0)
• RB Jaleel McLaughlin (164.7 > 157.1)
• RB Elijah Mitchell (188.3 > 175.7)
• RB Audric Estime (213.9 > 199.5)

Running backs are probably the most vulnerable to ADP movement based on rumors and training-camp tidbits, even if they're essentially nothing-burgers, e.g., one beat writer's opinion based on what he saw in practices without pads. In Mitchell's case, it may have been something as simple as a gentle reminder that he's still the RB2 in San Francisco (or potentially trade bait if the Niners like what they see from Isaac Guerendo). We know Mitchell can play; the problem is getting on the field and staying there. (I'll discuss the Denver RBs below.)

ADP Fallers

• WR Brandon Aiyuk (19.7 > 25.0)

For most of the offseason I disliked Aiyuk at ADP just as much as Samuel. Now that they've flip-flopped, I've picked up a few Aiyuk shares when he falls to the beginning of the third round. This sets up some nice San Francisco stacks on teams that have Christian McCaffrey; it's a rather obvious combination, but one that might not be too, too common in big tournaments because Aiyuk typically didn't make it back to those McCaffrey drafters until recently. That said, you'll certainly see a ton of people doing it now, e.g.,  McCaffrey at 1.01, Aiyuk and another WR at the 2/3 turn, possibly George Kittle at the 6-7 turn, and then Brock Purdy at the 8-9. (Plug: within the next week or two I'll post an article with tips for building unique teams in huge best-ball tournaments.)

• QB C.J. Stroud (60.4 > 67.2)

Stroud was near the top of my fade list back in May when he was going at the 4/5 turn on Underdog and in the fifth round on Drafters. Now he's lingering around the 6/7 turn on both sites, almost always going later than division rival Anthony Richardson. I understand the premium put on rushing production, but it's not like Stroud is a zero there, and he already put up excellent passing numbers last season with a group of pass catchers that was significantly inferior to what he should have this year (accounting for not only the Stefon Diggs addition but also Tank Dell and Nico Collins missing a bunch of time in 2023). Stroud is now a good pick at ADP, though you're probably only taking him in tournaments if you've already secured at least one of his Big 3 WRs. 

• WR Keon Coleman (68.6 > 77.3)

Coleman is one of the few WRs that tends to go much earlier on DraftKings than the other two sites, which already suggests he's generally a bad pick given the softer competition and not-as-sharp ADP on DK. His ADP shot upward by even more than it should've after the Bills drafted him in late April, and he then bumped up another half round or so between May and June. 

The backward rebound is enough that I'll now consider him as part of Josh Allen stacks, but this still feels slightly too expensive otherwise for a rookie whose pre-draft profile said 'Round 3' more so than '33rd overall pick'. Some drafters will completely ignore that and treat him as a typical 33rd overall pick that landed in a great situation; my preference is to account for those factors while also accounting for a reasonably high likelihood that Coleman won't be good enough for it to matter. Polk is kind of the same deal: the draft capital certainly helps his projection, but he still shouldn't be viewed quite as favorably as someone like Ladd McConkey who wasn't a reach in the early second round.

• WR Jordan Addison (72.9 > 87.6)

Addison's DWI arrest happened late enough in the year that he might end up avoiding a suspension until 2025, even though those tend to be pretty straightforward situations from a legal standpoint (unlike Rice's car-related disaster this spring). I think part of the concern here is about a suspension and part is about Addison's general judgment/commitment, considering he was cited last summer for driving 140 mph. Go figure that he'd been one of my most frequently drafted players all this summer — a bet on talent and skill winning out over QB uncertainty in Minnesota. Anyway, it's a bit frustrating that I've drafted him so much in the sixth/seventh round and he's now frequently available in the eighth. 

• RB Javonte Williams (109.4 > 115.8)

I've highlighted both Williams and McLaughlin as 2024 breakout candidates in separate articles this summer, noting that 60.3 percent of Denver's plays last season were either carries or targets for the running backs. McLaughlin was the better player in 2023, but he also was handling a lighter workload and more favorable touches/situations, whereas Williams was in his first year back from a severe injury and getting a lot of grinding work up the middle. 

So far, I've been drafting some of both and also mixing in a little end-game Audric Estime. The Denver backfield got a ton of attention from the fantasy community over the past six weeks, with two Broncos beat reporters suggesting Williams may have to compete with Perine for a single roster spot. That's plausible, sure, but it isn't likely. Perine is due a non-guaranteed $3 million, whereas Williams is on a rookie contract that leaves minimal financial incentive to release him. On top of that, Estime is a fifth-round pick, not a top prospect by any means, even if he looked great in unpadded spring practices... or whatever.

Williams' pre-July ADP already accounted for the admittedly ample downside risk, and at this point dropping him further sort of feels like double-counting even if it's backed by beat-writer reports. Of all the Denver running backs, Williams is still the most likely to approach a 300-touch workload. And if he's ousted, it'll likely be in favor of a three-man committee, not because McLaughlin or Estime is set to dominate.

Other ADP Fallers

• WR Tyler Lockett (100.4 > 108.0)
• WR Khalil Shakir (105.9 > 111.5)
• RB Trey Benson (108.7 > 116.6)
• WR Adonai Mitchell (124.3 > 131.9)
• WR Mike Williams (117.9 > 134.7)
• WR Roman Wilson (161.5 > 178.4)
• WR Malachi Corley (170.3 > 185.4)
• TE Ben Sinnott (173.1 > 190.0)
• WR Zay Jones (189.9 > 204.2)
• WR Javon Baker (197.3 > 207.7)
• TE Juwan Johnson (197.8 > 208.2)

As we've seen throughout this article, a lot of the big ADP movers are either guys coming back from major surgery or rookies. It makes sense that markets are still trying to settle when dealing with higher-risk assets, and we'll likely see continued movement for most of these guys throughout training camp and the preseason. The rookies are especially interesting to me, as it seems like some of the early hype has faded and people are now more worried about guys like Benson/Mitchell/Wilson/Corley/Sinnott getting stuck behind vets like James Conner, Alec Pierce, Van Jefferson, Xavier Gipson and Zach Ertz.

The ADP Chart

ADP Movement Between Mid-June and Late July