2012 ADP vs. Reality: QBs
Sunday, February 24, 2013
I’m going to take you on a journey of average draft position. It may sound like the worst possible journey next to a Carnival cruise, but it’s really not all that bad. We’re going to take a look at how well ADP predicted actual fantasy numbers.
I’m a firm believer that if you take good ADP rankings and compare them to well thought out rankings from really smart people, you’re still going to come up with similar results. Unfortunately I’m no mathmagician and trying to quantify that possibly wildly inaccurate claim is beyond my ability, so I thought we would get in the way back machine and see how well ADP worked for 2012. We’ll start with quarterbacks, the most loved and hated of the football playing kind.
For the sake of sticking with the theme “average” we’ll go with
ESPN’s standard scoring and
Fantasy Pros’ average of six sites’ ADP for analysis.
Aaron Rodgers– ADP 1 (Finish 2) – Rodgers was by far the first quarterback to come off the board in the summer of ’12. His ADP was second overall, which, as you know is darn high for a quarterback. But at least with Rodgers his high ADP wasn’t based on one big season, but a slow burn of great fantasy seasons topped off with an MVP effort. Depending on your scoring, Rodgers had been the number one or two fantasy player in each of the four previous seasons. That kind of consistency is appealing to those who have been burned by early round running backs over and over.
So did he live up to his number two overall ADP? Well, if you look at the numbers in a vacuum he sure did. But of course that means
Drew Brees should have been the number one overall pick and that you should get out of that vacuum. Rodgers ended up tied for second with
Tom Brady in overall scoring, but we all know that his numbers didn’t live up to expectations. From week 8 to 14 he had sub-20 point fantasy point games in all but one. That is quite a turnaround from 2011 when he had just one game with less than 20 points all season.
But if you made the fantasy playoffs with him, he did come up big with two top-5 games in week’s 15 and 16. Looking back his
consistency rating was fifth for quarterbacks on the season with nine startable (top 10) games. That’s good, but not top-2 overall good. And nothing compared to his 2011 when he led the league with 15 of 15 startable games!
He will most likely be the top quarterback taken or at least fight
Drew Brees for that honor in 2013, but we might see people once again backing off the first round quarterback after jumping on them due to the huge numbers of 2011.
Tom Brady– ADP 2 (Finish 2) – Brady was picked 5th overall on average, which does seem odd with
Drew Brees having clearly been the number one or two fantasy quarterback in 2011, but it does seem people were slightly scared off by
Sean Payton letting the Bounty Gate hit him on his way out and buoyed by the addition of
Brandon Lloyd to Patriot Way. Brady ended up finishing behind Brees, but tied for second with Rodgers.
Brady was slightly more consistent than Rodgers, but didn’t put up the huge numbers you need for a quarterback to torch the competition. Looking back here is how he ranked each week against his fellow quarterbacks, going from week 16 to 1 -- 11, 4, 3, 24, 2, 4, 12, 2, 7, 9, 8, 1, 15, 20, and 11. Brady’s consistency rating was third for quarterbacks with 10 startable games, which gives him the slight edge over Rodgers on the season. So even though they finished with the same number of fantasy points, Brady was a better pick than Rodgers who went before him, but still taken too high in the grand scheme of fake football (which is to dominate all fantasy takers).
Drew Brees– ADP 3 (Finish 1) – Mr. Brees wasn’t the best real quarterback in 2012 as seen in wins and losses and interceptions, but he was the best fantasy quarterback across the board. The lack of an acceptable Saints’ defense allowed Brees to throw the ball in comeback style and hit that 5k yards, 40+ touchdown mark once again. He was also the most consistent fantasy quarterback with 11 startable games paired with the most stud games (top 2) for a quarterback with four.
Brees went off the board seventh overall, which is too high for me, but looking back, was a safe pick. Like Rodgers, he’s been extremely consistent, and that dome coupled with a pass happy offense is a breeding ground for fantasy points. Of course he still finished 16th overall in ESPN’s consistency rankings and seventh in “stud” games, which means running backs and receivers were the true studs last season. If I were drafting with my Grays Sports Almanac in hand, I probably still wouldn’t have owned Brees with his first round ADP.
Cam Newton– ADP 4 (Finish 4) – Talk about a weird season for Mr. Newton! Ok, sure, that’s what I’m here for. Newton’s 2012 was a tale of two seasons, or more likely, a tale of three big games between weeks 12-14. Newton actually landed firmly in fourth overall in fantasy scoring, just in line with his ADP. But if you ask his fantasy owners how they feel about his 2012, you’ll get a wide variety of answers depending on how far behind the eight ball he placed their teams.
Newton was a top ten quarterback in just half of his games and a top two quarterback in half of those. Three of those top two performances came at the end of the fantasy football season, which was most likely too late for many. So if you were in a total points league (I know, few are, but more should be) Newton gave you a miraculous comeback! But for the most part, his QB ADP of four was too high.
Newton’s overall ADP ranged from 7 to 22, so as we get further down in ADP the ranges from site to site and draft to draft, fluctuate much more than they did with the top guys. Newton at 22nd overall in the right league settings could have been a great pick, but overall he most likely hurt your team if you drafted him in the first round.
But with that strong finish, there is a good chance his ADP will once again be high. We know he has the ability, but will he have the consistency? How about you start up a cumulative scoring league and draft him early? And then spread the word to all my friends that cumulative scoring is the bee’s knees and/or elbows.
Matthew Stafford– ADP 5 (Finish 10) – Oh Matt, Matt, Matt, why did you have to do us like that, that, that? Bro Stafford, much like
Drew Brees, threw the ball more than any human should have to throw a ball, but unlike Mr. Brees, Stafford had a much harder time converting those throws into fantasy points. Stafford finished the season tenth in fantasy points and first in pass attempts. That’s a monumental task in itself.
Stafford didn’t come close to living up to his ADP, even with the top 10 overall finish. He had seven startable games and only one top 2 game. In a down year for quarterbacks, that wasn’t at the bottom of the pack, but if you grabbed him at his overall ADP of 10, you are still crying hard and often.
There were many factors for his poor season, but his inconsistency was the leading one. He still has him arm attached after throwing the ball 727 times and the last I heard
Calvin Johnson is still on the Lions and those two things point to a nice bounce back season in 2013.
Michael Vick– ADP 6 (Finish 27) – Remember
Michael Vick? You know, that guy who in 2010 led many leagues in fantasy points, but only played in 12 games? Yeah, I think many of us were remembering that guy when we drafted back in August.
It was a poor season for Vick without a doubt. He only played in ten games and finished 27th in quarterback scoring. If you extrapolate his numbers out to a whole season, he still only finished around 14th overall. If you take out the Dallas game in which he was injured it helps him a little, but overall he was not a top tier fantasy quarterback when healthy.
But he still is at least a top-10 fantasy quarterback when healthy, unfortunately “when healthy” is the operative phrase you can’t get around. This season he will be much cheaper and much easier to take a gamble on in drafts and if I’m gambling on backup quarterbacks in 2013, it’s on one that can run.
Eli Manning– ADP 7 (Finish 15) – Eli didn’t live up to his 2011, like every quarterback ever to play the game it seems. But he was quietly horrible beyond hope. He finished 15th in fantasy quarterbacking points. That’s less than a whole slew of players you don’t want on your fantasy teams.
Michael Vick did better than Eli on a game-by-game basis and he is thoroughly despised by us fake footballers.
Out of his 16 starts, Manning only finished in the top 10 quarterbacks five times. Last season he finished in the top 10 ten times. Much like Stafford, Manning throws the ball enough to still see hope for his fantasy future, especially after such a bad season where he should come at a discount. If Cruz, Nicks and Randle can hold their bones together long enough, it’s hard not to see a rebound.
Peyton Manning–- ADP 8 (Finish 5) – Most of us were on the fence with older brother coming into 2012. Much depended on where you could get him in your drafts, because you knew if he was healthy, he would put up decent numbers. Thankfully he was healthy and he did indeed put up decent numbers.
He finished fifth overall in fantasy points for quarterbacks, but tied for first with
Drew Brees for number of top 10 weeks with 11. That consistency helped a lot of teams into their fantasy playoffs this season. He didn’t put up the huge games Brees did, but at a lot cheaper ADP he put up consistent numbers that gave you a shot at winning your matchups week to week. There’s a great chance that teams who drafted Brees early were either beaten by the Manning-ized teams, or at least, were playing them in the championship.
With
Eric Decker and
Demaryius Thomas at his disposal, it’s hard not to like him again next season, even though he might not be as easy to get in later rounds. He did appear worn down in the playoffs last season, so the decline has to happen at some point, but his overall numbers last season were all close to his career highs, so I’m on board for another year.
Matt Ryan– ADP 9 (Finish 7) – Ryan’s numbers early on sure led us all to believe we had made the right decision in hyping him last offseason. And in retrospect his 7th most fantasy points for a quarterback makes picking him as the 9th best quarterback seem smart, but I think we all hoped for a little more, well, of course we hoped, but we also expected a little more. Ryan finished with nine top 10 weeks, putting him 5th on the quarterback consistency list.
My trepidation to anoint him as a draft win last season may be due to the one of the guys you’ll read about in a bit, but as a 4th/5th round pick, he put up the numbers you needed. And next season he’ll have a third year
Julio Jones, and maybe a fiftieth year Tony Gonzalez.
Philip Rivers– ADP 10 (Finish 21) – Our own
Evan Silva called this one last offseason, but it was hard to lay off a perennial top 10 quarterback when he fell to the 6th/7th round. But lay off is what we should have done. In the past, Rivers seemed to be able to put up big fantasy numbers while throwing to ball boys and street vendors, but this year, even though he played all 16 games, he finished as the 21st “best” fantasy quarterback. That’s four of 16 games in which he finished in the top 10 for the week. How can you possibly trust him at all going forward? You can’t.
The Usurpers
That was the top 10 Quarterbacks in ADP, and now I’ll take a look at who went from outside the top 10 ADP to finish in the Reality Top 10.
Robert Griffin III– ADP 12 (Finish 5) – RGthree finished as the fifth best fantasy quarterback in the league (tied with
Peyton Manning) and that came with one missed game. It takes a lot for a rookie quarterback to go in drafts as a starter (in 12 team leagues) but Griffin did just that and lived up to and beyond expectations. So really the fantasy community wasn’t completely blindsided by his great fantasy numbers, but to do what he did was still beyond what most people dreamed.
Only
Drew Brees had more top 10 weekly finishes with 11 to RGIII’s10 and Griffin also tied Brees in most top 2 finishes with four. So for our weekly fantasy value buck, he was the second best quarterback on the season. Of course his injury history and present, is concerning going into next season, but his efficiency as a passer (65.6%, 2nd best ever for a rookie) and his ability to improvise with his legs may trump those concerns, especially if he looks to be a full go at the start of the season.
Tony Romo– ADP 11 (Finish 8) – I love
Tony Romo. There I said it. That newsboy hat is just too cool. Oh, and all those fantasy points. But I am not a
Tony Romo apologist, because he just can’t get the job done. I hate the term choke, but some of the things he does in crunch time are mind-boggling. But that’s why
Tony Romo is so awesome. Everyone (even some Dallas fans) despise him, but he’s always worth more in fantasy than perception allows.
I thought he would be better than the 8th best fantasy quarterback so in my estimation he was a bust, but he still was drafted at some value. The emergence of
Dez Bryant as a dominant force and maybe, just maybe, a healthy
Miles Austin should keep him in the hunt for fantasy relevance next season.
Andrew Luck– ADP 16 (Finish 9) –
Andrew Luck out Manning’d rookie Peyton and all rookie quarterbacks ever with 4,374 yards passing last season. Offensive coordinator handed over the reins to Luck and they commenced to passing and passing and then a little more passing. And not short safe passes; they put some air under that ball. With
Reggie Wayne as the only reliable receiver, Luck’s efficiency wasn’t great, but understandable when you consider he led the league in average pass depth.
His inconsistency was the biggest problem last season, which is understandable being a rookie and him needing to pass so often sans a good running game.
T.Y. Hilton,
Dwayne Allen and
Coby Fleener will all have a season under their belt, to go along with Luck’s belted season, and it’s hard not to see him taking a step forward.
So in the end, seven of the top 10 ADP quarterbacks finished in the top 10, while four of the top 5 quarterbacks finished in the top 5. That’s not bad at all. With that kind of reliability, I can see many taking from this the idea that grabbing a quarterback early is the way to go, and maybe it is, but the safer something is, the less reward can be expected.
After this quick analysis, I’m still of the mind that grabbing two quarterbacks later in the draft is the right move, one who is fairly safe for a top 10 finish and one who has upside for more, i.e. RGIII last season. When I take a look at running backs later on, you’ll see much more volatility in ADP vs. Reality and that will either scare you off of running backs or turn you into a RB hoarder.
I’m going to take you on a journey of average draft position. It may sound like the worst possible journey next to a Carnival cruise, but it’s really not all that bad. We’re going to take a look at how well ADP predicted actual fantasy numbers.
http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/nfl/42611/353/2012-adp-vs-reality-qbs
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Much safer to pick a QB early as they tend to perform as per their ADP, at least in the top 5
, only bummer with NBA and MLB is having to set lineups daily, but you can do it ahead thankfully.
