Something I’ve found extraordinarily useful in my preparation for fantasy football drafts is to look back at what worked and what didn’t. Come August, we will be so far separated from the previous season that it will be difficult to remember why so many were excited about Le’Veon Bell, Damien Williams or Jared Cook and how everyone slept on Cooper Kupp, Austin Hooper and Chris Godwin. I figure now is the ideal time to study and prepare our minds for next season. I’ll get to my current top 200 rest of season rankings (for if your league drafted today), but first let’s take a pit spot to try to learn from where the general public failed.
View your league’s top available players with My Playbook 
20 Biggest Risers Compared to Preseason ADP
- Dalvin Cook (ADP #15 to current #2)
- Leonard Fournette (ADP #26 to current #9)
- Chris Carson (ADP #37 to current #11)
- Cooper Kupp (ADP #51 to current #12)
- Austin Hooper (ADP #119 to current #18)
- Darren Waller (ADP #205 to current #21)
- Chris Godwin (ADP #45 to current #24)
- D.J. Chark (ADP #291 to current #45)
- Courtland Sutton (ADP #117 to current #47)
- Golden Tate (ADP #129 to current #50)
- Emmanuel Sanders (ADP #102 to current #54)
- Devin Singletary (ADP #104 to current #56)
- Carlos Hyde (ADP #150 to current #61)
- Mark Andrews (ADP #131 to current #65)
- John Brown (ADP #160 to current #66)
- Terry McLaurin (ADP #384 to current #68)
- Michael Gallup (ADP #126 to current #77)
- Adrian Peterson (ADP #122 to current #78)
- D.K. Metcalf (ADP #136 to current #85)
- Devante Parker (ADP #220 to current #112)
The takeaways here are as clear as day. For running backs, we can throw our prior perception of talent out the window. We once thought Todd Gurley was awful under Jeff Fisher then he was amazing under McVay, and now he sucks again because the offensive line blows. The point, of course, is that volume and team scheme are the end all measurements of fantasy football production.
There are several common themes at the pass-catching positions. Cooper Kupp, Chris Godwin, Emmanuel Sanders, John Brown and Devante Parker, for example, were all much better in terms of efficiency than their ADPs would suggest. They finally got healthy and/or found their way into snaps, and of course, took off. Austin Hooper, Mark Andrews and Terry McLaurin are the classic target hogs that would should have seen from a mile away. Then there are the athletic freaks (Darren Waller, D.J. Chark and D.K. Metcalf) who had no prior production and major question marks but more often than not, talent wins the day.
20 Biggest Fallers Compared to Preseason ADP
- David Johnson (ADP #5 to current #44)
- James Conner (ADP #8 to current #31)
- Le’Veon Bell (ADP #8 to current #26)
- Odell Beckham Jr. (ADP #13 to current #30)
- Todd Gurley (ADP #14 to current #55)
- JuJu Smith-Schuster (ADP #16 to current #29)
- Joe Mixon (ADP #18 to current #72)
- Antonio Brown (ADP #22 to current #130)
- Damien Williams (ADP #27 to current #57)
- O.J. Howard (ADP #54 to current #124)
- Baker Mayfield (ADP #58 to current #204)
- Josh Gordon (ADP #63 to current #113)
- Duke Johnson (ADP #70 to current #114)
- Jared Cook (ADP #71 to current #212)
- Carson Wentz (ADP #74 to current #146)
- Robby Anderson (ADP #75 to current #129)
- Chicago D/ST (ADP #78 to current #150)
- Vance McDonald (ADP #82 to current #211)
- Dante Pettis (ADP #105 to current #232)
- Jacksonville D/ST (ADP #110 to current #268)
*Kerryon Johnson (ADP #29), Cam Newton (ADP #87), Ben Roethlisberger (ADP #113), DeSean Jackson (ADP #127) and Stephen Gostkowski (ADP #133) have been ruled out for the season
Let’s be fair, some of these were impossible to predict like Big Ben getting injured killing Conner and JuJu’s value or Baker Mayfield turning into Eli Manning overnight crushing Odell’s stock. For others, the writing was on the wall. For example, Antonio Brown and Josh Gordon obviously had red flags that should have kept us away. Duke Johnson had never sustained a workload before, Robby Anderson had the toughest schedule imaginable, Dante Pettis was in the preseason dog house, and Bruce Arians has historically shown us that he hates tight ends. Furthermore, Joe Mixon, Le’Veon Bell and David Johnson played for terrible offenses, Andy Reid was trying to replace Damien Williams all off-season and drafting defenses high never ever ever EVER works.
My Rankings
The rankings below are how I would personally draft for a 12-team, half PPR league with 15 rounds if my drafts were today. Make sure to let me know on Twitter what you would do differently or if you have any questions.
Get a free analysis of your team with My Playbook
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | TuneIn | RSS
