It’s early in the draft season and the data we have now is mostly for best-ball formats that don’t exactly comport with redraft. It’s pretty close though. Like my colleague Scott Pianowski of Yahoo! (also my podcast partner), I think the idea that a guy is good for best ball and not redraft (or vice versa) is a bit of a canard.
So I’m assuming that the ADP I’m citing here from over a 100 drafts at the NFFC is a mostly accurate reflection of even the redraft market. Let’s review some decisions by early drafters that are raising my eyebrows. Just because I’m surprised doesn’t mean the market is wrong. I may be wrong. But at the very least you need to stake out a position on these players.
Let’s start with the ninth overall pick right now and the WR9, Puka Nacua. I don’t really have a problem with Nacua here. But if you make this pick, you’re screening yourself aways from Cooper Kupp, currently at pick 39 (WR21). I think these two are tightly grouped. In his final five games of 2023, Kupp was 32-344-4, which is a 108-1,170-14 pace. That’s just a giveaway at his ADP. I want Kupp at ADP more than Nacua at his price — there are stack opportunities here, even in redraft, with Matthew Stafford added, too. I think there’s a 35-40% chance a healthy Kupp outscores a healthy Nacua.
There’s a grouping of running backs at the back of the first round/early second round. They’re going Jahmyr Gibbs, Jonathan Taylor and Saquon Barkley, in that order. I’m old school. Maybe just old. I know Gibbs is the hot toy flying off the shelves that all the cool kids want. But he’s at best a secondary goal-line back. Without being a primary goal-line back, you can’t be a first-round RB, in my opinion. Sure, some have cashed a near RB1 finish while sharing goal-line carries — Jamaal Charles and Chris Johnson come to mind. But you can’t pay for this kind of outlier scoring. We also have to assume that Barkley is going to lose goal-line to the “tush push.” You can argue that the play ended up giving Jalen Hurts knee issues and that maybe they’ll back off of it. But I have to assume that’s the default option near pay dirt, so Barkley is out for me at his price. That leaves Jonathan Taylor, who also has goal-line questions with a running QB. Plus, the quarterback may not be good (he was so shaky passing in his very limited 2023 opportunities). If I was forced to take a RB, it would be Taylor of the three. But I’m not, so I’m probably taking a WR like Garrett Wilson over all of them.
Similarly, I’m completely out on De’Von Achane at overall pick No. 17 (RB9). You can take a RB here if you see a path to being a top-five scorer. I get his production on a per-touch basis was insane, but regression is almost certainly coming. A back needs easy points near the goal line and Raheem Mostert is going to get most of those high-leverage calls. We play to make bets and if you want to go against this and really believe that Achane can be a league winner, that’s fine. But league-winning upside is implicit with all picks in this range. He’s more likely to be the second-highest scoring running back on his team than a top-five scoring RB.
We have Nico Collins and Stefon Diggs going back-to-back at the end of the second round. They’re WR12 and WR13. I feel these picks are in conflict. By that I mean that the two people making them are betting against the other. You do not want a WR2 at this price — we learned last year. I feel Collins is the ascending player and probably better, but Diggs is the diva who is getting paid to be the No. 1 guy and who probably needs that role unless the Texans want to risk drama and strife. Basically, I see Collins deserving the most targets but Diggs getting them. You have to concede this is possible even if you disagree with me believing it’s probable. I just have to sit both of these WRs out. But if one of them starts to slide significantly, he’s mine.
For the next column, I’m going to look at players I think are too cheap. But one guy who seems very cheap to me is Derrick Henry at No. 33 overall (RB13). You’re probably shocked if you’ve followed me fading Henry the past couple of years. I hate old RBs more than anyone and Henry is not near the player he was in his prime. But the Ravens score a ton and feed goal-line carries and easy points to the running back. So Henry could get 20 touchdowns, and 14 feels like a floor. After all, Gus Edwards had 13. Henry gets an efficiency boost because the fear of the running QB keeping the ball on the option plays is worth historically about 0.4 yards per carry for the RB. So I can see Henry, even though he’s past his prime, going for something like 280-1,200-16. There’s a risk here that RB13 could go more like overall pick 25 in your league than overall 33, where he is going in best-ball on average — and I do not like him early in the third round nearly as much.
Next time, I’ll focus on ADP after pick 100 that seems very curious, starting with Justin Fields being drafted ahead of Russell Wilson.
(Top photo of Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports)