Players Who POP: Finding Early Round Draft Values (Fantasy Football)
Welcome back to Players Who POP. In this multi-part series, I used machine learning to predict season-long fantasy scoring with a major emphasis on team strength. We can use this expected scoring metric, nicknamed POP (previous opportunity-based projection), to identify players that stand out in each tier of current fantasy drafts. The model is used to predict running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends, however, quarterbacks are omitted from the analysis. This article focuses on the early rounds of drafts.
Players Who POP – Round One
As the old saying goes, you can’t win your fantasy football league with your first picks, but you can certainly lose it. These players are where a bulk of your team’s weekly scoring is expected to come from, so it’s imperative to identify any player who is inappropriately valued by the field via average draft position.
Improved Team Scenarios
Some players have enough changing this season (or enough that went wrong last season) where we can pretty clearly “explain away” the poor POP metrics. This is always up for debate, of course, but based on my interpretation of the model’s output, these players seem to be just fine at their current draft position.
Ja’Marr Chase (FLEX ADP: 4th | POP Rank 44th)
Given that Chase barely had any time last season with a healthy Joe Burrow, it’s impressive that he sneaks into the top 45 based on last year’s numbers with Jake Browning at the helm for the second half of the year. We know Chase’s weekly upside is to finish as the top wide receiver, which explains his top-tier ADP.
Bijan Robinson (FLEX ADP: 7th | POP Rank 19th)
Anyone with eyes saw Arthur Smith’s misutilization of top talent, including Robinson, who ranked fifth in yards created but just 19th in the NFL in total carries. The Falcons’ new offensive staff has already referred to Robinson as a “Christian McCaffrey-type” which is music to the ears of drafters spending a first-round fantasy pick on him in 2024, something I’m doing with confidence any chance I get. Robinson was outside the top 30 in red zone touches, a number that will increase significantly with new quarterback Kirk Cousins at the helm.
Misvalued Players
If you’re drafting a player in the first round, there’s really only one way they can be “misvalued” – they’re worse than a first-round pick. The back end of round one is pretty darn tough this season, and while the players who are typically selected there are from poor picks, it’s going to take some parsing of the data to find the diamonds in the rough.
Amon-Ra St. Brown (FLEX ADP: 6th | POP Rank 12th)
St. Brown was a target hog on an elite offense, ranking fifth among wideouts in 2023 with 164 total targets (10.3 per game) and earning a 30.2% target share, also fifth. More importantly, St. Brown was incredibly efficient at 2.7 yards per route run. However, the Lions may have a “mouths to feed” problem, as they remain committed to giving their two-headed backfield of David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs plenty of work. St. Brown will also compete for targets with standout tight end Sam LaPorta and former first-round pick Jameson Williams. In short: St. Brown the player is excellent, but his team situation isn’t as stable as it seems at first glance. He’s a volatile but high-upside late first-round pick.
Jahmyr Gibbs (FLEX ADP: 12th | POP Rank 19th)
Gibbs likely suffers in the model for many of the same reasons that his teammate does. Despite the team scoring plenty of fantasy points without him in 2023, it also seems that the model sees Gibbs as closer to a mid-second rounder rather than the late-first rounder, where he typically goes. Gibbs, a 2023 first-round pick, remains a tremendous talent with a strong receiving profile and excellent efficiency metrics. However, in a committee backfield on a team with multiple big-time fantasy scorers, the path to an RB1 overall season in half-PPR leagues remains slim. I’m only taking Gibbs when he slides past his ADP.
A.J. Brown (FLEX ADP: 9th | POP Rank: 31st)
I wrestled with whether to put Brown in the “misvalued” category or the “explain away” category above, as the introduction of Offensive Coordinator Kellen Moore likely means that the Eagles’ offense is going to open up significantly this season in terms of personnel, motion, and formations. This could help Brown – a player who faltered down the stretch in 2023 after a seven-game stretch of top-15 fantasy scoring weeks – become a much more consistent producer than his POP score indicates.
Players Who POP – Rounds Two and Three
Improved Team Scenarios
Drake London (FLEX ADP: 14th | POP Rank 77th)
Quarterback Kirk Cousins is the primary reason behind our confidence in the model being incorrect about the Falcons. Simply put: Cousins will give Atlanta significantly more weekly opportunities to score. That will be the “tide that lifts all boats” for the team’s primary skill players. Especially if Cousins distributes his opportunities in a similar fashion to his time in Minnesota, the Falcons’ top options could be in line for some of the most consistently high opportunity shares in the NFL. London earned double-digit targets just three times in 2023. Expect that number to skyrocket this year.
D.J. Moore (FLEX ADP: 31st | POP Rank 57th)
Moore is one of the toughest players to project in the early rounds of drafts. He signed a long-term extension with the Bears, and when questioned about whether his decision had anything to do with his belief in the team’s new starting quarterback, number one overall pick Caleb Williams, Moore didn’t hesitate to say that, yes, Williams’ obvious talent, even at this point in his young career, was a significant motivator behind the signing. This is great news for those investing in the Bears’ offense in 2024 because fantasy gamers continue to push the average draft positions of all Chicago receiving options.
It’s always nerve-racking to project rookie quarterback production, and equally tough to project their top options for elite fantasy seasons. This makes spending elite fantasy draft capital on Moore a risky proposition, especially because he shares the field with strong elite receiving talent (former pro-Bowler Keenan Allen and 2024 first-round pick Rome Odunze), but I’m willing to spend a top pick on Moore in best ball, as the Bears will undoubtedly be in a more pass-heavy, receiver-friendly offense with Williams under center. In redraft, I’m not opposed to Moore, but I’ll admit I’m nervous about his weekly floor.
Misvalued Players
Chris Olave (Overvalued)
There’s no indication that we’re going to see any significant changes in the 2024 New Orleans Saints offense. If that’s the case, Olave is a very risky pick and is arguably a straight-up bad value at his typical draft position at the beginning of the second round. Olave was 17th among wideouts in target share last year but had several production droughts on an offense that struggled to score fantasy points in general. Olave also struggled to get open in one-on-one situations, ranking 40th among receivers in average target separation. And while the volume numbers are decent, interestingly enough, Olave actually isn’t a full-time player for the Saints. He played on 70% of the team’s snaps or less in every game after Week 1.
Jaylen Waddle (Overvalued)
Waddle is an enticing second-round pick heading into his fourth NFL season. Heavily featured on one of the NFL’s most creative, exciting, and explosive offenses, Waddle fits right in with his blazing speed and strong target separation (WR13) and yards per route numbers (WR8). But the POP model – even with the knowledge of the quality of the Dolphins’ offense – indicates that Waddle’s mid-second-round ADP is a little rich considering the plethora of talent, speed, and scoring options he shares the field with. He still projects as a double-digit weekly scorer, and the weekly upside is enticing, but should his usage falter or the team’s overall production diminish, Waddle would project as a late-fourth or early-fifth round pick. He’s not off-limits at his ADP, just understand you’re taking him closer to his ceiling than some other players around him.
Kyren Williams (Undervalued)
Williams is the first-round fantasy stud in second-rounder’s clothing this year. Drafters are way ahead of themselves in predicting a usage dropoff for Williams based almost entirely on the team’s selection of a mid-round running back. While Blake Corum will be an improvement upon last year in terms of the quality of talent backing up Williams, this backfield is Williams’ alone so long as he is healthy. And if that’s the case, the opportunity profile, especially at draft cost, is remarkable: Williams was fourth in opportunity share, fourth in red zone touches, and fourth in route participation among all backs last season. He ranked in the top 20 in fantasy scoring in every game he played after returning from injury in Week 12, including four top-10 finishes and two finishes as the RB1 overall. If you need to take Corum as a pure insurance policy in the later rounds to feel better about the pick, you can, but based on the POP metric, Williams is the most undervalued pick in the early rounds, and possibly the most undervalued running back in all of fantasy football.
Comments
Something that seems to be missing: for the first round picks that are considered overvalued (ARSB, J Gibbs, etc), who should then go in their place?
Has this data impacted the ballers rankings at all? They seem to still be high on Waddle & DeVonta Smith, yet the data says otherwise. I am not expecting them to tag them as busts by any means, but maybe cool on them.
Any word on Achane? He is lower in the graph but is that due to injury or is that taken into account?
Thanks, great article Matt!
Have draft 8/10
Read Matt’s article
Drafted overvalued players
Cool Cool Cool