Apex Drafting: Avoiding Low-Upside Profiles (Fantasy Football)
If you’ve kept up with me the past month, first of all, thank you. I am very appreciative; these are wordy articles scrambled together with many numbers and acronyms, and I’m thrilled if I’ve somehow found a way to keep you engaged through all this. If you haven’t and feel inclined, I invite you to catch up by reading the first three articles in what has evolved into a series. These, along with the doctrine of zero RB, essentially define the core tenets of my entire drafting philosophy.
- The Apex Draft Strategy: Draft Sharks, Not Guppies
- Apex Drafting: Finding Upside Round-by-Round
- Apex Drafting: How to Approach Keepers
If you haven’t and you want the Cliff’s Notes version, let me catch you up:
The Apex Drafting Strategy: A Brief Overview
- Fantasy points are not scored linearly. At every position, fantasy points increase exponentially toward the top so the first of a similarly-ranked pair of players near the apex at a position provides a greater advantage than the first of a similarly-ranked pair further down the ledger. Every position group emulates a similar pattern every year.
- Because the advantage is so great near the top of each position, we can create a bigger edge over our league-mates by hoarding players that end the season above the scoring trendline, especially multiple players near their positional apex (a team that had CeeDee Lamb, Christian McCaffrey, and Sam LaPorta in 2023, as my buddy Scott in my league of record did, would have been dominant). The best way to accumulate multiple players at the top of their positional apex is to understand an incoming breakout’s most common predictive indicators and seek upside when we draft.
- If we have a format that allows for it, we should abandon the middle of the player pool in exchange for more shots near the top. If we are in an auction format, we should use a stars and scrubs approach. If we are in a draft that allows pick-trading, we should abandon the middle of the draft and post up at the top and bottom instead. In-season, we should trade two or three pebbles to get one diamond whenever possible. And if we are in a keeper league, we should not keep players based on ADP savings but instead focus on retaining excellent players with bigger upside, even if the ADP savings are not as great.
If all this is true, we should abandon the idea of drafting for a safe floor in almost every case (a floor play that carries a greater contingent upside is okay). We should be comfortable knowing that the typical “floor” plays that fantasy drafters make usually offer little advantage over a replacement off the wire, and most “upside” plays they make offer more floor than we give them credit for, meaning we don’t necessarily have to aim for a stable floor to arrive at one.
The profiles for unexpected impending upside? Rookies and second-year players, 22 and 23-year-olds, players who have begun by stacking (preferably multiple seasons of) high double-digit fantasy points over expected (FPOE), rushing QBs, pass-catching RBs, WRs who excel in yards per route run (YPRR), target market share (reTRGMS), and broken tackle percentage (BTK%) productive veterans that have been left for dead too early, and players who recently had horrible luck in TDs/yards regression.
The Low Upside Profile, and How to Identify It
Obviously, if we are looking for these criteria, we want to fade profiles that lack them (or worse, directly oppose them). Just like anything in fantasy football, context is important. The decisions we make are tied to when we make them. If I tell you that Player X is a bad bet to hit the positional apex at ADP, the boxes he fails to check are substandard compared to what’s around him in the draft. If that player tumbles three rounds, the entire context has changed, and now that player may hit on more of the hallmarks of a breakout than his newer set of cohorts do.
As simply as it can be put, what we want to avoid are players being drafted near the top of their range of outcomes. You’ll hear this phrase repeated in fantasy circles, and it’s pretty self-explanatory. If it doesn’t seem entirely clear, I bet you’ll figure it out pretty quickly as we go. Let’s dive into 10 selections that provide capped upside based on this simple principle. These are a few examples of players who stand out for lacking upside at ADP based on settings for typical single-QB home leagues; studying these examples will give you a better idea of what you’re looking to dodge.
A Six-Pack of Diet Drinks: Players With Very Little Pop at ADP
Joe Burrow (63.8 ADP)
Joe Burrow stands here as an icon for a type: pocket passers. Is it possible for a pocket passer to hit the positional apex? Absolutely. Tom Brady came very close in his final year and he had already done it years before that. Aaron Rodgers and Peyton Manning have done it, and Drew Brees did it twice in a row. There is an argument to be made that Patrick Mahomes is more of a pocket passer than a rushing QB, but he’s always maintained no less than second-tier yardage on the ground.
Regardless, the best bet for a player to reach the apex at QB is a rushing QB. And what goes overlooked is that rushing QBs tend to be more stable while pocket passers fluctuate more wildly; this is because the rushing component also has a high floor built-in, making the presence of rushing QBs near the top of the position not only more common but more predictable.
Do I think Burrow is a good QB? Yes, I do. Do I think Head Coach Zac Taylor runs an effective version of the best offensive system in football? Again, yes. Is Cincinnati still chock-full of talent and among the best offensive rosters in the league? No argument here. Why then am I essentially telling you to take a pass?
Simply put, everything that could have gone right for Burrow in 2021 and 2022 went even better than that, yet he still only finished eighth and fourth in half-PPR points/G in consecutive years. Burrow finished with almost 15 more TDs than the league average over those two seasons and almost 100 passing FPOE combined.
I subscribe to the notion that Shanahan systems breed better team efficiency. Furthermore, Burrow is simply a good football player, and we owe him that recognition. It isn’t likely that he will slip into obscurity altogether, it’s simply bad policy to take from the top of the market with pocket passers, especially when there are runners still lying around. With Anthony Richardson, Kyler Murray, and Jayden Daniels still on the board, Burrow represents the dictionary definition of a floor option but a worse bet to reach the pinnacle at QB. If we are looking for the apexes, we’ll do better to stick with one of them in this range.
Zamir White (75.2 ADP)
Zamir White produced decently in a small spurt near the end of the season and even helped you win your league, but he’s a classic dead-zone running back in 2024. White falls well short of what we are looking for, based on a breakout defined as 200 PPR points (much of the foremost research on the anatomy of a breakout defines these in full PPR, but compatibility with other scoring formats is better than we realize). Then again, he was never trusted with an expanded workload until Week 15 last year. From there, he averaged 24.25 opportunities per game over the final four weeks, including Week 18. Over this span, he had two 100-yard rushing efforts, including a 145-yard smash against the vaunted Kansas City defense.
At first blush, White is an intriguing back on a Raiders team that seems programmed to run smashmouth football. However, White’s results in a short sample defy his profile. He’s a late-round NFL pick who failed to find opportunities until deep into his second year and he’s 24, which is older for a back that has yet to break out. He did secure 2.25 receptions per game during that span, which is a decent rate, but he otherwise doesn’t profile as a pass-catcher (and three other RBs on the team seem better at this than White). He lacked efficiency in rushing (-1.4 rushing FPOE) and receiving (-3.4 receiving FPOE) across these four games. Las Vegas slowed down after HC Antonio Pierce took the reins in Week 9, running the fourth-fewest plays per 60 minutes from a neutral script. In the end, we are left with likely a one-dimensional player with a poor profile on a low-volume team, joined by passing-game-specific RBs who mostly weren’t available in Weeks 15-18 and heightened potential to be in negative game scripts.
Hollywood Brown (85.3 ADP)
I was already pretty down on Hollywood Brown at ADP before he suffered a dislocated SC joint in the Chiefs’ first preseason game; if anything, I would expect the injury to course-correct Brown’s potential overvaluation within the fantasy community.
Brown’s efficiency has declined each year since coming into the league, culminating in three straight negative FPOE seasons (despite being on some decent offenses). Brown’s ADP likely remains inflated due to shock and uncertainty surrounding Rashee Rice‘s tumultuous offseason. However, it now appears increasingly likely that Rice will face no discipline at all in 2024. Moreover, Brown has been WR40 on average with a career-best WR23 finish in half-PPR points/G since he came into the league. He’s never been a good tackle-breaker or produced at least 2.0 YPRR; in short, nothing about his profile predicts a meaningful upside.
If Xavier Worthy, a first-round WR with an excellent collegiate profile hits, Brown becomes the fifth-best non-QB skill position player on the Chiefs. While Patrick Mahomes has produced inflated numbers with massive talents like Tyreek Hill or Travis Kelce, he has never really bolstered average WRs, so I’m not sure why we keep doing this to ourselves. Every WR pick in his ADP range provides a better pathway to a significant ceiling.
Zack Moss (91.5 ADP)
I promise I’m not picking on the Bengals. I actually really like Cincinnati’s offense, I simply think we’re looking in the wrong places for high-end fantasy outputs.
Joe Mixon has played relatively poorly from an efficiency standpoint for quite a while, yet he has remained a fixture at or near the overall top 12 for three straight years and five out of the last six. Despite a lack of explosiveness, Mixon has done several of the things coaches look for; with no better options in town, he’s stayed on the field constantly on one of the league’s most effective offenses. Not only so, but one of his best strengths has been passing-game acumen. With that preface, it’s not hard to imagine Zack Moss being able to replicate Mixon’s effortless relevancy now that he’s supposedly taking the wheel.
But it’s important to remember who Moss is. He was expected to be Buffalo’s solution when he was drafted in the third round in 2020, yet he was chased out of town before his rookie contract even reached its final season, losing his job to Devin Singletary, and then being let go in favor of a very mature Latavius Murray last summer. Landing in Indy, he got the benefit of holding down the fort from Weeks 2-5 – the first three of which were without Jonathan Taylor at all, and the last of which, he bullied Taylor out of the way with a 56-yard rush on his third carry of the game, reducing the urgency to commence the transition. Moss ripped off chunk gains all day, recording an impressive 195 combined yards and two TDs when the dust settled.
But Moss never found that gear again. His 17.5 FPOE in Week 5 was by far the most he’s ever had in a single game throughout his entire career, and the -10.5 FPOE he recorded for the remaining 14 games was nearly enough to zero him out. Last year’s 27 receptions were also a career-high, and he fails to show up near the top of any meaningful metric that can predict upside.
He is joined in Cincinnati by Chase Brown, who has been a steady riser among sophisticates in the best ball circuit this summer. Brown is of similar size to Moss, but he’s blazing fast. He was given no meaningful work in 2023 until Week 13, and even then it was spotty at best. In five of the six games from that point on, Brown had positive FPOE. Despite his limited opportunity, he made an impact, catching 11 passes for 149 yards including this 56-yard scamper in Week 14 where he showed off his jets.
It's Chase scoring TDs in Cincy! Chase Brown, that is.
📺: #INDvsCIN on CBS
📱: Stream on #NFLPlus https://t.co/pWMED8S30C pic.twitter.com/2iiHGyBWOX— NFL (@NFL) December 10, 2023
The beat writers have been adamant that Brown is going to get a big fraction of the work. So, if Moss takes Mixon’s place as a similar archetype but gets half the work, especially in the passing game, there isn’t really a pathway for him to jump to Mixon’s level. As such, there are better bets at hitting the apex at RB, including his own teammate, who I’d argue has a better shot at consolidating the work.
Devin Singletary (98.3 ADP)
Devin Singletary has long been that classic RB ham-and-egger – the try-hard guy with the fundamentals down pat. He’s catnip for coaches, and there is no guarantee he won’t bewitch HC Brian Daboll, for whom he played in Buffalo, and run away with the bulk of the workload in New York. He’s produced usable seasons for fantasy but has never been better than 25th in half-PPR points/G in five seasons. He’s essentially been the ultimate floor play, a durable guy who has been able to consolidate some opportunity.
The key difference for Singletary in 2024 is that for the first time in his career, he likely won’t be on a powerhouse offense, trading in a yeoman’s role on one of the most exciting young offenses in the league in exchange for a possible workhorse role on one that figures to be among the league’s least talented. We should always be careful not to assume we know which offenses will tank (2023 Houston Texans, anyone?), but we have a lot of strong circumstantial evidence on which to build a case in New Jersey.
For starters, Daniel Jones has been one of the worst overall QBs in the league for all but one year – one which earned him a contract that everyone, including the Giants, was uneasy about. In his second year in Daboll’s offense, he was floundering badly before a second significant injury, a season-ender, more or less rescued him from himself (he was outplayed by Tommy DeVito and drastically outplayed by Tyrod Taylor in his absence). The line surrendered the third most pressures and sacks in 2023, and PFF ranked their offensive line 29th heading into the 2024 season.
And there’s Singletary himself, who hovers around zero in total FPOE, meaning he is neither a plus nor a minus. He’s caught passes in the past, but he’s never been able to do much with the work. He’s in an offense that wants to throw with a QB that ranked in the back half of the league in checkdown percentage, and there are rumors that rookie WR convert Tyrone Tracy Jr. has been far more explosive and dynamic in camp. Entering his age-27 season, there are simply no indicators that Singletary will level up, and we want to avoid dull players in lackluster offenses.
Courtland Sutton (115.0 ADP)
These are Courtland Sutton’s half-PPR points/G ranks since he came into the league:
| Season | Ranking |
| 2018 | WR63 |
| 2019 | WR28 |
| 2020 | WR60 |
| 2021 | WR64 |
| 2022 | WR45 |
| 2023 | WR36 |
Sutton will turn 29 in October, he will play on a rebuilding offense with likely a rookie QB, and he has traditionally been net-zero in FPOE until a TD-laden explosion of 44.6 receiving FPOE in 2023. Based on TDs/yards regression, Sutton’s 10 TDs were almost six more than he should have had relative to the league average. He has never demonstrated a unique ability to score TDs throughout his career either, averaging 3.5 TDs/year in four healthy seasons (excluding Sutton’s injury-shortened 2020, in which he played one game and scored zero). In an outlier 2019, he had an excessive 20.8% broken tackle rate, otherwise, he’s never been above 3.5%. Similarly, he had a decent 2.2 YPRR that same year, but he’s never exceeded a very average 1.8 in any other season.
Every receiver going before him within ADP range has a better upside, and after his ADP, it could be argued every WR down to Brandin Cooks at 143.2 ADP has a likelier pathway to a meaningful ceiling.