News often changes players' market values. Sometimes very little. Sometimes a lot more than a little. Because there are only so many players we can keep track of day-to-day. Who has time for Mike Davis and his RB72 ADP, or Danny Gray and his WR158 ADP? But all it takes sometimes is a trending news item--something that compels us to quickly look up the 100-150 largely ignored--but still potentially fantasy relevant--QBs, RBs, WRs, and TEs.
Yesterday a couple items hit, and in the coming days we might see the fallout. I'm anticipating value drops for J.K. Dobbins and Brandon Aiyuk an value upticks for Gus Edwards, Mike Davis, Tyler Badie, Jauan Jennings, and Danny Gray. Maybe they'll be short-term shifts; another piece of news could reset the market to where things stood a few days ago.
For now, it's important to make sense of it. Let's zoom in on Baltimore, where NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported that Dobbins is "no sure thing for Week 1. He hasn’t had any setbacks. But his knee injury was a serious one, and Baltimore has no incentive to rush him back. They protected themselves with veteran Mike Davis, regardless." The irony is that this is all old news. Many fantasy managers have anticipated the possibility that Dobbins won't be 100% by Week 1, and/or the franchise will play things conservatively. The offseason Davis signing was a transparent measure--a lesson learned after the Ravens lost their top-three RBs last year in advance of Week 1.
And Rapoport's Tweet might have been largely ignored, except that Dobbins himself responded: "I might not even go on PUP because that’s how good my rehab is going and I’m damn sure going to be ready for week 1." When I first read it, I thought he was referring to the in-season PUP, where players have to sit their first six games. PFN's Jason Katz corrected me on the Slack channel, saying Dobbins' "PUP" referred to the preseason (a different "PUP" than in-season, for those keeping score).
This all seemed confusingly irrelevant to me. Except in fantasy, it's anything but irrelevant. Dobbins has been outside the top 30 RBs on my draft board for months. His RB ADP is 21. I was loving that, because it meant in my draft, someone was probably going to use a 4th/5th-round pick on him--what I viewed as a "wasted" pick that early. Dobbins' RB ADP has been ahead of guys like Breece Hall and Travis Etienne . . . guys I have *ahead* of Dobbins on my board.
Pretty much nothing in the Rapoport-Dobbins exchange changes reality. Dobbins was, and still is, one of the riskiest "starting" RBs in fantasy. At his best, he could be a top-10 guy. But he's battling against what's expected to be a solid year-long recovery, plus returning to football shape, plus getting Baltimore to entrust him with a moderately heavy workload. That's a lot of hurdles to overcome for the RB21, who's trying to fend off two starter-capable backs and an intriguing, catch-happy rookie.
I'd be shocked if Dobbins' RB ADP doesn't drop by the weekend, and likely to 25 or worse. No news was good news for Dobbins' fantasy value. But yesterday's exchange was a reminder to many that his RB21 ADP is (I believe) aggressive at best. And for those of us banking on an opponent to draft him too early, we might have lost a competitive edge.
And competitive edges are a key to drafting. If we know a little bit more about most players than our opponents, we can reach for and fade players with more confidence, and hopefully (altogether) more accurately. But widely broadcast news items can be an equalizer for opponents who aren't paying as much attention. To keep our competitive edge, we can't just settle for what we know and wait it out.
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Yesterday a couple items hit, and in the coming days we might see the fallout. I'm anticipating value drops for J.K. Dobbins and Brandon Aiyuk an value upticks for Gus Edwards, Mike Davis, Tyler Badie, Jauan Jennings, and Danny Gray. Maybe they'll be short-term shifts; another piece of news could reset the market to where things stood a few days ago.
For now, it's important to make sense of it. Let's zoom in on Baltimore, where NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reported that Dobbins is "no sure thing for Week 1. He hasn’t had any setbacks. But his knee injury was a serious one, and Baltimore has no incentive to rush him back. They protected themselves with veteran Mike Davis, regardless." The irony is that this is all old news. Many fantasy managers have anticipated the possibility that Dobbins won't be 100% by Week 1, and/or the franchise will play things conservatively. The offseason Davis signing was a transparent measure--a lesson learned after the Ravens lost their top-three RBs last year in advance of Week 1.
And Rapoport's Tweet might have been largely ignored, except that Dobbins himself responded: "I might not even go on PUP because that’s how good my rehab is going and I’m damn sure going to be ready for week 1." When I first read it, I thought he was referring to the in-season PUP, where players have to sit their first six games. PFN's Jason Katz corrected me on the Slack channel, saying Dobbins' "PUP" referred to the preseason (a different "PUP" than in-season, for those keeping score).
This all seemed confusingly irrelevant to me. Except in fantasy, it's anything but irrelevant. Dobbins has been outside the top 30 RBs on my draft board for months. His RB ADP is 21. I was loving that, because it meant in my draft, someone was probably going to use a 4th/5th-round pick on him--what I viewed as a "wasted" pick that early. Dobbins' RB ADP has been ahead of guys like Breece Hall and Travis Etienne . . . guys I have *ahead* of Dobbins on my board.
Pretty much nothing in the Rapoport-Dobbins exchange changes reality. Dobbins was, and still is, one of the riskiest "starting" RBs in fantasy. At his best, he could be a top-10 guy. But he's battling against what's expected to be a solid year-long recovery, plus returning to football shape, plus getting Baltimore to entrust him with a moderately heavy workload. That's a lot of hurdles to overcome for the RB21, who's trying to fend off two starter-capable backs and an intriguing, catch-happy rookie.
I'd be shocked if Dobbins' RB ADP doesn't drop by the weekend, and likely to 25 or worse. No news was good news for Dobbins' fantasy value. But yesterday's exchange was a reminder to many that his RB21 ADP is (I believe) aggressive at best. And for those of us banking on an opponent to draft him too early, we might have lost a competitive edge.
And competitive edges are a key to drafting. If we know a little bit more about most players than our opponents, we can reach for and fade players with more confidence, and hopefully (altogether) more accurately. But widely broadcast news items can be an equalizer for opponents who aren't paying as much attention. To keep our competitive edge, we can't just settle for what we know and wait it out.
---
Sign up for my 2022 Fantasy Draft Rankings ("PFN Pass") or 1:1 Advisory Services ("Touchdown Pass"):
https://pass.profootballnetwork.com/