ECR Risers & Fallers: Late August (2020 Fantasy Football)

The best fantasy drafters capitalize on shifts in player value. A guy who is a first-rounder one week may become a second-rounder the next, and you’ll want to know when to buy and when to sell. You’ll also want to know when a player’s price has risen far past what you should be paying.

To do so, you should follow trends in both players’ average draft positions (ADP) and expert consensus rankings (ECR). Both metrics help you gauge how other people value a given player — ADP measures a typical user, while ECR measures what analysts think. If a player shoots up in ECR but not ADP, that makes them a steal — but if their ECR crashes while their ADP doesn’t, they’re probably a fade.

Here are the key trends to note in player ECR through late August. This article is the last one about ECR in this series, but I’ll have one final ADP breakdown next week!

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ECR Risers

Ezekiel Elliott (RB – DAL)
After spending most of August even with Michael Thomas, Zeke overtook him by a solid margin in the past two weeks. While a differential of 0.7 might not seem like a lot, it’s quite a bit that high in the rankings, and it signals that the experts have become much more committed to him than Thomas. That makes perfect sense, as Zeke carries more of a positional advantage than a wide receiver. Zeke has posted RB1 finishes in each of his four seasons (RB2, RB12, RB5, RB3), and he shows no signs of slowing down behind Dallas’ elite offensive line.

Miles Sanders (RB – PHI)
Not even an injury could derail the Sanders hype train. The sophomore running back is out indefinitely/”week-to-week,” so there’s no logical explanation, in my opinion, for his continued rise in the ECR. At 16th overall, he’s an early second-round pick, and he’s getting ranked above Joe Mixon, who has a much clearer path to an RB1 finish. Don’t make the mistake of taking Sanders, who has never functioned as a bell-cow back, before a more proven and talented RB1.

James Conner (RB – PIT)
Conner’s value continues to rise. He’s now jumped 2.6 spots in the ECR since late July, and as I wrote two weeks ago, it seems like an overdue correction after the Steelers’ ill-fated 2019 campaign. Conner is one season removed from an RB1 finish in which he earned 270 total touches, 55 of them receptions. With Ben Roethlisberger back in the lineup, opposing defenses won’t be able to stack the box, and Conner should be able to post at least RB2 numbers. While the injury concerns with him are fair, no running back distinguished himself in Conner’s absence last season, so I doubt that anyone else (including Anthony McFarland Jr.) will be able to dethrone him should he miss time. Conner’s ECR should continue to rise close to 40 before the season starts.

Terry McLaurin (WR – WAS)
Last year’s breakout rookie receiver has gotten some much-deserved respect during the previous two weeks. He didn’t pass any of his fellow receivers, but he’s now just .1 point behind Keenan Allen in terms of ECR. While Mike Williams’ injury may give Allen a boost before the season starts, McLaurin remains a strong pick to finish in this range. His air yards and usage suggest that he’s a sustainable fantasy option, and I’m optimistic that Ron Rivera will boost McLaurin’s fantasy stock.

Michael Gallup (WR – DAL)
The fantasy community remembered that Gallup existed over the past two weeks. Gallup had been ranked below the likes of Marquise Brown and Julian Edelman until just recently, but that’s not fair to the Dallas receiver. Yes, the team added CeeDee Lamb in the draft, but Gallup still earned 100-plus targets, and there are 166 up for grabs without Jason Witten and Randall Cobb. Gallup put together a WR22 finish in 14 games last year, and he was the 70th overall scorer (this metric skews against receivers and running backs; Mitch Trubisky ranked 69th). Expect his ECR to keep rising.

Cam Akers (RB – LAR) and Tyler Higbee (TE – LAR)
These two guys are seeing their stocks rise as people speculate on the Rams’ offensive playbook. Will they use more 12-personnel packages? Will Sean McVay use the 49ers’ committee approach? Will Darrell Henderson’s injury allow Akers to go wild at the start of the year? The truth is, we don’t know. And Sean McVay has never shied away from mid-season changes — remember his “me not being an idiot” line after he increased Gurley’s usage last year? There’s a lot of value in the Rams’ offense, but remember that it’s all speculative.

ECR Fallers

Michael Thomas (WR – NO)
The flipside of Zeke’s rise is Thomas’ fall. Obviously, neither change has much to do with preseason activities; it’s all about positional value. While Thomas is the clear-cut WR1 entering 2020 (he led the league in targets by 28 and in receptions by 33), wide receiver is a much deeper position than running back. He’s a strong option if the top tier of rushers has gone before your first-round pick, but he deserves to be ranked more than just .1 spots behind Zeke and Alvin Kamara.

DeAndre Hopkins (WR – ARI)
Experts had Hopkins correctly ranked below both Tyreek Hill and Julio Jones in mid-August, but his ranking has continued to fall. He now sits 3.7 behind Hill, 3.3 behind Jones, and just 0.6 above Chris Godwin. This shift was a necessary correction in Hopkins’ value given his move to a new team and offense for 2020. I don’t doubt that he can succeed with Kyler Murray, but they may take some time to click, and until they do, Christian Kirk and Larry Fitzgerald will be there to vulture targets. There’s too much upside to let Hopkins fall much further, however, and you should pounce if he ever falls below Godwin.

Joe Mixon (RB – CIN)
I don’t get this one. Mixon is the clear workhorse in a rebounding offense, and opposing defenses may finally need to respect Cincinnati’s passing game. There is no world in which Mixon should ever be ranked below Miles Sanders, an as-of-yet-unproven asset with some competition in his own backfield. Mixon’s ECR should bump back up now that Sanders is hurt, but it shouldn’t have ever fallen in the first place. If you can get Mixon anywhere near his ECR, do so with confidence.

Kenyan Drake (RB – ARI) and Todd Gurley (RB – ATL)
Drake is in a walking boot. It’s supposedly precautionary, but with Kliff Kingsbury’s confidence in Chase Edmonds, Drake may not have as long of a leash as some had expected. I don’t expect much more than a high-end RB2 finish from the ex-Dolphin, and I’m glad that the experts are starting to adjust his ranking accordingly. Likewise, Todd Gurley has fallen in the rankings after concerns with his health resurged. Around August 12th, a source told ESPN that Gurley “can’t put his foot in the dirt and go like the old Todd Gurley, but he could still be a productive back.” But on August 25th, Dirk Koetter said that he plans to give Gurley at least 15 carries per game. While there are valid efficiency concerns, Gurley is a much safer play than Drake, as he’s going in the third or fourth round.

T.Y. Hilton (WR – IND)
Hilton’s ECR fell much closer to his ADP this week. His ADP had dropped considerably after his hamstring injury put him on the active/NFI list, but it has since recovered to 57.7. That said, his ECR still sat at 54.7 on August 12th, the same time that his ADP hit a low of 60.8, so it’s not surprising to see some adjustment. Since Hilton is coming off an injury and has a new quarterback to work with, he’s a hard player to project. I’m cautiously optimistic about him given Keenan Allen’s success with Philip Rivers last year (even if it was mostly boom-or-bust), so I’m a bit surprised to see Hilton ranked below DK Metcalf and DeVante Parker.

Devin Singletary (RB – BUF)
I want to like Singletary. He performed as a solid RB2 option in Buffalo last season, and he didn’t need the red-zone work to do so — he managed an RB17 finish between Week 9 to Week 16 on 131 carries despite scoring just one touchdown while working alongside Frank Gore and Josh Allen. The fact that he could post such a strong result without handling the goal-line work suggests that he can succeed with Zack Moss in the backfield. That said, we don’t know how Sean McDermott will split the carries. I think Singletary could easily beat this ranking, but there’s a bit more risk with him than with the similarly-ranked Kareem Hunt (64.4) or Raheem Mostert (75.6).

A.J. Green (WR – CIN) and Julian Edelman (WR – NE) 
Green’s ranking has fallen now that he’s once again dealing with an injury. He hurt his hamstring on August 17th, and he’s just now returning to practice on August 26th. While the missed time won’t mean a ton for the veteran, it limited his exposure to new quarterback Joe Burrow, and Auden Tate has flashed in his absence. Green’s return to practice should lead to a bump back up in his ECR, but keep an eye on his injury status as the season approaches. Likewise, Julian Edelman has been missing some practices that would have helped him build chemistry with Cam Newton. Unlike Green, we’ve seen Edelman finish as a WR1 as recently as last year, and I don’t think his volume will fall off a ton. He should not be ranked below Marquise Brown.

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Isaiah Sirois is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Isaiah, check out his archive and follow him @is_sirois.