2020 NFL Early-Draft Exploits: VOA vs. ADP for Wide Receivers

I am introducing three metrics for fantasy football for the 2020 season: Value Over Starter (VOS), Value Over Average (VOA), and Value Over Replacement (VOR). The idea behind the concept was simple: take position scarcity into account and calculate how each player over/underperformed when compared to those with starter/average/replacement value at that concrete position. With that in mind, it is easy to identify who provides the most value at each skill position, how the players pertaining to it rank in similar tiers, and who should be drafted earlier based on how much more points he provides compared to his peers.

Now that the 2019 season is well behind us and we're already locked into what is about to come in just a few months time, it is time to check the drafts and ADP values before the NFL draft to see who is going under the radar and who is being massively overvalued this time of the year.

I already went through the data in another column as an introduction to the positional breakdown I'll be doing next. Using VOA+ and ADP I will try to identify overvalued players at each position and picks going under the radar worth taking later in drafts given their performance levels when compared to the average starter at the position. Let's get it going.

Valuing Wide Receivers by VOA/ADP

With the data at hand (that is, the 2019 VOA+ and 2020 ADP values of each player as of this writing), it is time to try and find some players getting off the board way earlier than they should, considering the value they provide compared to other players at the position. In order to do so in an objective way, I have made a simple calculation: VOA squared to ADP. Those with higher values would carry the best value/price and those with the lowest the worst. Imagine two players with a VOA+ of 200 going first overall and 100th overall. You'd definitely want the second one (same production, 100 times cheaper), and in fact, his value would be much higher (200^100 against 200^1) than that of the first player.

First of all, here is how both VOA+ and ADP compare for players at the wide receiver position.

There are 217 wide receivers in the data set I'm using, and only 23 of them played above the average player at the position. Considering most standard leagues feature two starting WRs, that means at least one fantasy owner was theoretically left with a below-average player starting weekly. You can read that again. I wrote "below-average player", not "below-starter player". There is a huge gap between those two concepts.

I could have used my VOS metric (Value Over Starter) instead of VOA (Value Over Average), but there were only 11 WRs with a VOS+ over 100, which means 13 WRs started at the position but had lesser numbers than the average starting wide receiver. A.J. Brown was the 24th-best wide receiver (worst starter in 2WR leagues, not counting the FLEX) and he already logged a 99 VOA+.

After having an impossible, historical season Michael Thomas is being drafted inside the top-five picks of early drafts and currently has a 4.5 ADP. Nothing to argue there. Thomas racked up a colossal 374.6 PPR points last year, set multiple records, lapped the field at the WR position and there is nothing telling us he won't have another marvelous year in 2020 (perhaps he won't repeat those marks, but most probably still great).

Evaluating Top Performers

The problems, or better said inefficiencies you should take advantage of, start to appear if we go further down the ADP leaderboard. At the time of this writing, four more receivers are being drafted inside the first round of drafts:

• DeAndre Hopkins and Julio Jones are going seventh and 12th. Both played to a similar level last year with 129 and 134 VOA+ marks respectively, and their prices aren't that different as to criticize any of the picks at the position they're being made.
• DeVante Adams, though? While he only played 12 games last season and was pretty banged up, drafting Adams so early (ADP 9.3) might mean risky business. His VOA+ should be higher on a 16-game schedule, but finishing with a 104 mark isn't cutting for me given his price.
• On a similar note, Tyreek Hill's 12.2 ADP seems absolutely outrageous for someone dropping under the 100-mark logging just a paltry 90 VOA+ last season. Both Patrick Mahomes and Hill missed time, sure, but the value/price doesn't seem to be the best here.
• Just because of how close he is to those three in ADP, Chris Godwin is worth mentioning here. He had the second-best VOA+ of 2019 at 134 and although playing under Jameis Winston probably boosted his numbers the change to Tom Brady shouldn't be seen as a development-killer. Godwin is the sixth receiver off the board, yet second in production over the average player at the position. I don't think there is much more to say.

The bulk of above-average wide receivers are all getting drafted from rounds two to four, but there are some glaring exceptions we'll get to later. Here is a breakdown of those aforementioned rounds:

• Go after Allen Robinson II. Don't even doubt it for a second. Don't get scared of Mitchell Trubisky/Nick Foles manning the Bears pocket. Robinson produces huge numbers no matter what, his VOA+ of 124 put him 24% PPR-points above the average player at the position even in that sick environment and he's not being drafted until the 35th pick on average. That means he's dropping to the fourth round in most drafts out there while being the seventh-best receiver in 2019.
• Mike Evans missed three games yet he had a not-bad 113 VOA+. Give him a 16-game full season of playing time under Brady and I'm confident the price (17.3 ADP) is right.
• I'd absolutely avoid Adam Thielen at his current ADP, and the same goes for T.Y. Hilton and Deebo Samuel. Look at the vast amount of players with similar production (vertical axis) going much much much cheaper (to the right in the plot).

Late Values

There are three more interesting players going totally under the radar in later rounds: Julian Edelman (I'd buy too high on him though, given New England's status at the QB position), DeVante Parker (probably the steal of the draft at this point with no real questions or issues in Miami's offense threatening his 2020 production), and John Brown (now paired with Stefon Diggs in Buffalo and expected to have some more room to operate).

With no more above-average players to comment on, there are still some slightly below-average receivers worth considering late:

• Robby Anderson is still a free agent at the time of this writing. Teammate Jamison Crowder holds a silly 131.1 ADP yet he had a 96 VOA+ last season, making him more than a worth pick that late in the draft (almost the 13th round!). (Editor's note: Robby Anderson recently signed with the Carolina Panthers.)
• Emmanuel Sanders will be Michael Thomas' second fiddle in New Orleans in 2020 with Drew Brees back at quarterback. For some reason and after posting an 89 VOA+ (remember, he split time between Denver and San Francisco, two middling offenses), Sanders' price is really cheap with an ADP of 122.1 these days, out of the first 10 rounds of early drafts.
• Another 90+ VOA+ player in 2019 was Marvin Jones Jr. Matthew Stafford should be back and Jones missed three games last year, so there is no reason to think he can't play at an above-average level come next season. And even with that, there are 14 players with worst VOA+ marks in 2019 getting off the board earlier right now, including completely unknown bets such as N'Keal Harry!
• Some pretty interesting fliers in deeper leagues: Cole Beasley, Larry Fitzgerald, and Danny Amendola.

Finally, here are the top-three players to target and to avoid at the wide receiver position given their VOA+ marks from 2019 and their current ADPs:

• Top-3 WRs to Target: DeVante Parker, Allen Robinson, Jarvis Landry
• Top-3 WRs to Avoid: Brandin Cooks, Curtis Samuel, Marquise Brown

More Fantasy Football Analysis