About a month ago, at the time fantasy football crazy people started jonesing for best ball drafts, I created my first of four ADP-driven draft articles. Now that we have moved a month plus into draft season and are headed quickly toward kickoff of the 2023 season, I want to share how ADP has changed over that time. Below, I will provide the original names landed from the 4th slot and the names that now appear. You will see some names rising and falling…some curious and some obvious. The original article used ADP data from July 17th, 2023. What you see below is almost one full month into draft season using August 13th, 2023 data.
Scoring for this mock will be relatively standard with a 12-team league consisting of 1QB, 2 RB, 2WR, 1TE, 1 FLEX (plus five bench players) and I will do the smart thing and avoid K and DST as none of you really care about those during this exercise and we will certainly cover those two positions during our Sunday morning Start or Sit podcast which will be back during the season.
I will assume four points per TD pass and six points for all other TDs. One point per 20 points passing and one point per 10 yards rushing/receiving. I will also use full PPR for this draft. I will ignore bye weeks for this draft. During our Sunday morning podcast, we will address questions for all kinds of leagues scoring systems to include dynasty, Superflex, etc., so tune in and fire off some questions. Alas, that is still a couple of months away, but we are all getting excited about getting the band back together as @BobbyLaMarco, @SkyGuasco, @Derek_Favret and myself, @Stiles08 will do our best to help you win each week.
Round 1, Pick 1.04 – Austin Ekeler, RB, LAC (original pick = Cooper Kupp, WR, LAR): It is not a shock to see Ekeler up at 1.04 as he should have been there from the jump. The part of this equation that intrigues me more is Kupp moved down three slots. Some of this undoubtedly has to do with the tweak Kupp experienced in camp. For me, I happily take Ekeler at 4 or Kupp at 7. In fact, I just received my draft order for one of my home leagues and at the 1.08 spot I would love to see Kupp slip down to me. The days of Ekeler being available in the middle of Round 1 seem unlikely to repeat, but I am happy to grab him there as well. He is not a steal at 4 but certainly is at 7+. Two other names jumping Kupp in the update are Travis Kelce and Tyreek Hill.
Round 2, Pick 2.09 – Jaylen Waddle, WR, MIA (original pick = Derrick Henry, RB, TEN): With Derek Henry moving from 21 overall to 17 overall, we are now able to land Jaylen Waddle in the second round. There have been questions about Henry’s age and ability to continue to be a true RB1 alpha. In fact, our own Bobby LaMarco has posed this question in a separate article. I would love to see Henry fall to #21, but with him shimmying up the board, I am happy to land Waddle. I see Waddle as the best WR2 in the league and am ecstatic to place him as my team’s fantasy WR1 especially after landing Ekeler in the first round. After two rounds, I love the balance just as I did with our original draft.
Round 3, Pick 3.04 – Mark Andrews, TE, BAL (original pick = D.K. Metcalf, WR, SEA): This is my first pivot, and it certainly did not take long. The pick, if using ADP alone, should be Rhamondre Stevenson, RB, NE, just as it was in the first draft, but after watching the topflight TE’s fly off the board, I prefer to select Andrews here. Andrews is an absolute steal in Round 3 and walking away with RB1, WR1, and TE1 after three rounds is ideal. Also, I think I can get a similar back to Stevenson later and am confident I can make up ground at the WR position even though I am allowing my original selection of D.K. Metcalf to slip here. Since I have been paying attention to middle round WR names, this is a good opportunity for me to test that strategy. Full transparency here…when I did my initial draft I looked ahead and sa...
