In fantasy football, there are typically two things I’ve found that consistently lead to championships:
- Finding value on the waiver wire when a player breaks out.
- Finding value in the draft.
The first point requires some luck and planning. If you have bench room, keeping a high upside guy or backup running back with a ton of potential if his playing time increases is one way to try to catch value.
The second point can be hit by finding post-hype sleepers, performance rebound candidates, and undervalued players in the draft (likely from the first two items in this sentence).
I am going to try to help you with number 2 by comparing our rankings to the Fantasy Pros Expert Consensus Rankings to come up with a list of players I want to draft.
If you are curious about our ranking for the 2021 season, you can make a free account by clicking this link or view our posts here:
The table below contains players that we feel could be a value at their ADP. To come up with this list, I compared our rank to the Fantasy Pros Expert Consensus rank to find players with a large difference. After considering all the players that have a variance, I looked at players that have been consistent with their performance over the past three seasons (except for Murray and Jacobs) as a way to see consistency.
Here are some definitions for the table below, so we are all on the same page.
- ADP - Average Draft Position
- Our Rank - GridironAI Overall Rank
- FP Rank - Fantasy Pros Expert Consensus Rank (ECR)
- Our Pos Rank - GridironAI Overall Rank At The Position
- FP Pos Rank - Fantasy Pros ECR At The Position
- 3 Yr Avg Pos Rank - Overall Rank At The Position For The Player Over The Past Three Years
Let’s work our way down the list based on ADP.
Kyler Murray - We have Murray as the number 1 rated QB this year. I typically don’t draft a QB early, but the opportunity to get the best QB in the 3rd round of drafts might prove too good of a value to pass up. The other factor I’m taking into account with Murray is the other guys on this list can help make up for not getting a RB or WR with my 3rd pick.
Kareem Hunt - He was the 13th best fantasy player last year. We think there will be a slight regression but for 2021, he will still be a top 25. In the 5th round, if he can live up to the projections, that’s a ton of value.
Tom Brady - Our models love him this year, and he was exceptional last year. There is a chance age finally catches up with him. If it doesn’t, there is a ton of value to be had at his ADP. Over the past three years, he averaged the 5th best QB in fantasy. If you want to sit on a QB, getting Brady in the 6-7th round range seems like a surplus value.
JuJu Smith-Schuster - By only looking at our 2021 projections, you’d have thought his 2020 season wasn’t a bust (he was still good, just not what people expected). If you are drafting Juju, you’re banking on a return to form, and our model has him ranked high. Over the past three years, he’s averaged the 16th best WR, so if you get a WR 2 in the 6-7th round, you’re not really reaching on him while having a ton of upside.
Jarvis Landry - Full disclosure, I’ve always loved him, and his appearance on this list is some combination of him deserving to be here and my bias towards him. He’s basically been averaging top 20 WR performance over the past three years. I’ll take that in rounds 9-12.
Marvin Jones - He was good last year; he’s starting to get older but if can repeat his performance from last year, which was in line with every year he’s played 16 games, you’ll get a ton of surplus-value in the 9-10th round.
Everyone has their own draft strategy and goals. For those of you in leagues with me, this list of players 100% coincides with guys I want to try to get, for everyone else; I hope this helps you get some added value in the draft!
Thanks for reading, and if you want to see our top player projections each week, create a free account by following by clicking this link.