The Worst Value Per ADP At Every Position

We have posted the team by team previews and touched on just about every player who should be fantasy relevant in 2023, but before you arrive at Draft Day, it’ll be helpful to collate some players worth additional discussion in groups. Today, we will talk about the current worst values by ADP, which will be provided by Fantasy Pros. I wouldn’t necessarily say these players are busts, because I don’t believe they’ll be flat out bad. Rather, their risk is very high, or their projections are overblown, and I do not believe they will provide their managers much value based on where they are going in drafts. We will hone in on one per position.

Quarterback Worst Value: Trevor Lawrence, Jaguars (ADP: 54)

Lawrence is a great example of the difference between being a bust and a poor value. I believe in Lawrence’s talent, and he absolutely has the ceiling of a Top 5 fantasy QB, so his current status as the QB8 off the board would theoretically make him a value right? Not quite. Dak Prescott has the talent to be a Top 5 QB as well; in fact, we’ve seen Prescott do that, and even though he’s the QB9 off the board, he’s being taken 24 picks later than Lawrence.

Being freed from Urban Meyer was awesome for the former No. 1 overall pick, as he doubled his TD total, halved his interceptions and posted his first 4,000-yard passing season, which is a number QBs have to healthily clear to be fantasy relevant without big rushing numbers. But he’s only going seven picks later than Justin Herbert, a guy who disappointed managers last season by throwing for 4,739 yards, a.k.a 600+ more than Lawrence, and 25 touchdowns (matching Lawrence). The previous season, Herbert was up over 5,000 passing yards. Of course, Lawrence could hit these marks because he’s got as much physical ability as anyone, and the Jaguars added a legitimate WR1 in Calvin Ridley. But it’s a long way from 4,100 yards to the ceiling shown by guys like Herbert and Prescott (4,902 yards in 2019) and at this ADP he’s being priced like it’s a guarantee. Lawrence only averaged 17.1 yards per game on the ground, with his rushing numbers inflated by five touchdowns. If those don’t come, you need him to dramatically up his passing production just to meet the ADP, let alone exceed it.

Running Back Worst Value: Jonathan Taylor, Colts (ADP: 15)

Taylor has sank like a stone on my list this offseason, having opened the summer as a guy I felt was very undervalued, and now nearing the end of it as a borderline DO NOT DRAFT player. The argument for Taylor is very simple: he’s insanely talented, young, built for three-down, workhorse usage and has a track record of dominance. He’s in an offense that will lean heavily on him, and has a running QB to open up running lanes. So what’s the problem?

Well, the once-mighty Colts O-line struggled last season and Taylor saw his yards per carry sliced by a full yard in 2022. His touchdowns plummeted from 20 in 2022, to four (only 11 games, but still), and his yards per reception tumbled from nine to 5.1. At his best, Taylor is a candidate to be the best position player in fantasy, but last season was alarming to say the least. Now, Indianapolis has revamped its coaching staff and installed a new freak athlete at QB. While QBs like Anthony Richardson are overall positives in the run game, he could vulture TD opportunities from Taylor. He’s also unrefined as a passer, and possesses a cannon for an arm, which, for young QBs, often leads to risk-taking rather than safe checkdowns to the RB.

Lastly, Taylor is the face of the newest NFL controversy of RBs being underpaid and underappreciated. He’s held out all summer, not taking part and getting comfortable in the new offense, and allegedly having more procedures done on the ankle that limited him last season. We think he’ll be on the field in Week 1, but who can know for sure? Who can be positive that his conditioning is up to snuff and that he won’t start slow? Right now he’s going ahead of Derrick Henry, Tony Pollard and Davante Adams. If he wasn’t in a controversy tornado, that would be fine, but with all these things swirling how can you feel good about passing on those other players?

Wide Receiver Worst Value: Jerry Jeudy, Broncos (ADP: 57)

Jeudy is currently the WR23 off the board, meaning he’s a locked-in WR2 in 12-team leagues on average. To put it plainly, I don’t get it. He was one of the most heralded prospects in the loaded 2020 WR class, but he’s disappointed massively in comparison to guys like CeeDee Lamb, Justin Jefferson, Tee Higgins and Michael Pittman Jr., among others. We’re going into Year 4, and Jeudy has failed to hit 1,000 yards in a season, score more than six touchdowns, or catch 70 passes. Bringing in Russell Wilson last season was supposed to unlock Jeudy, but aside from a hot streak late in the season, when he’d already helped tank fantasy teams, that just didn’t help much.

Yes, from Weeks 13-18 Jeudy averaged 6.2 receptions and 87.2 yards per game. Gaudy stuff. But all three of the touchdowns he scored in that span came in one game vs. the Chiefs. A deeper look at Jeudy’s season(s) thanks to Reception Perception reveals that, while poor QB play is an issue for any receiver, Jeudy is largely to blame for his underwhelming NFL career thus far. The hard truth is that he came out of Alabama with a reputation as a devastating route runner, but since entering the league he doesn’t separate. Known as a “technician,” Jeudy was in the fifth percentile of NFL receivers vs. zone coverage with a pedestrian 68.4% success rate. That is something teams can live with when it comes to star X receivers like D.K. Metcalf or Tee Higgins, but Jeudy is only decent vs. man (70.6%, 63rd percentile). His route tree is alarming. He was below average on corners, posts, digs, curls and comebacks, with a sub-50% win rate on nine routes where he could conceivably gain efficiency through chunk plays. He did crush it on out routes (78.8%) and running to the flats, but that’s not the way to fantasy stardom. Even worse, this has been Jeudy his whole career. Marlo Stanfield, one of the most ruthless characters from The Wire, the greatest show in TV history, once said “You want it to be one way, but it’s the other way.” That’s us with Jerry Jeudy, still drafting him as a WR2 even though he’s never been that, or shown us he can.

Tight End Worst Value: T.J. Hockenson, Vikings (ADP: 43)

Hockenson is the TE3 off the board, which is a pretty crazy ADP to me considering the sample size it’s based off of. There are definitely more physically impressive TEs, so the argument for him here is guaranteed volume at a position where premium, consistent production is scarce. Yeah, he’s going to score less than WRs at this point in the draft, but he will outproduce his peers relative to the WRs in that range vs. other WRs.

The argument has teeth. Excluding Week 18, Hockenson played nine games with the Vikings, averaging 9.4 targets, 6.6 receptions and 55.9 yards per game with three touchdowns. Sounds sick, but parse it out and you’ll see five games with fewer than 50 yards. We have seen Hockenson be “the guy” in Detroit before, where he maxed out at 723 receiving yards before 2022. He graded out as a Top 10 TE per PFF, but he was 10th, nothing exceptional. And don’t forget, he was added to this team and stole from the mouth of Adam Thielen, who has shown decline for several seasons in a row. Thielen is gone now, replaced by a first round receiver named Jordan Addison who could significantly eat into the big target share Hockenson had last year. None of this means Hockenson won’t be good in 2023. Hockenson is a very safe choice to perform as a weekly TE1. The problem is that Kyle Pitts is 20 picks later with higher upside, Dallas Goedert is 17 picks later in a very similar situation and role, and Darren Waller is 19 picks later as the clear-cut first option for the Giants. Hockenson has to dramatically outperform those players just to justify this ADP, and he is simply not talented on the level of Mark Andrews or Travis Kelce to reasonably expect that from him.