RADIO
I am going to start this column by introducing the concept of ADP, which I'm pretty sure you know what it is about. Average Draft Position (ADP) indicates the average position where a player is drafted over more than one fantasy football draft. You can consider it as the price you have to pay to draft and get a player on your team. A high ADP (that is actually a low-numbered ADP) means that a player is getting off draft boards early, and thus you'll need to draft him in the first rounds if you truly want him.
Low or high ADP values are not gospel. Each of us fantasy GMs have our strategies and value players differently depending on what we think is the most important for them to have in terms of abilities. No matter what, ADPs are good to know how the "average value" of the "average GM" you'll be drafting against is for each asset (in this case, the players). By now, with free agency and the draft well finalized and just a few players left to be signed, it makes sense to go look at how ADPs are varying during the last month as we get closer to peak draft season.
In this series, I’ll highlight players at each skill position seeing significant fluctuation from mid-June to mid-July using data from FFPC drafts. Today, it's time to look at three tight-end fallers.
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Tight Ends - ADP Fallers
Rob Gronkowski, Tampa Bay Buccanneers
I don't think this need much explanation unless you've been living under a rock for a month, but let me update you on the whole situation just in case. The rumors started flying around by the last third of June when Jordan Schultz from ESPN leaked that Gronk would "announce his retirement in the near future."
That, indeed, happened on Tuesday, June 21 when Gronk took to Instagram to make everybody aware of it with a simple post that each passing day seems more solid than it ever did. In other words: Gronk's "last" retirement seems to be, well, his true and definitive last one.
Gronkowski already retired and came back to play along with Tom Brady in Tampa Bay (and win a ring while at it, because of course) but even with Tommy back in Florida to toss passes around, it feels like Gronk's football days are over.
Teammate Mike Evans called it a career for Gronk on July 7th, saying that "I've seen his body [...] and I understand why [he would retire]." Gronk himself told ESPN's Mike Reiss on July 13th that he is "done with football" even if Tom Brady tries to convince him to come back.
Feel free to fade Gronk for good and salute the best tight end to ever do it. The ADP fall is reasonable and it should be that way. Shouts out to Gronk, the no. 1 TE.
Logan Thomas, Washington Commanders
The lack of information regarding Logan Thomas' status and condition, along with the fact that Washington re-signed mighty WR1 Terry McLaurin while also boasting an average-not-mediocre-nor-great stable of receivers/rushers/tight-ends not to mention an average-ish quarterback, has all definitely impacted Thomas' recent ADP fall.
Dropping a round is worrying, falling more than two rounds in 12-team drafts is rather concerning. Things seem to have stabilized a bit of late for Thomas and his stock, but the fall was more than notable in the past few weeks.
Thomas, if you remember, had a super-late breakout season in 2020 already nearing 30 years of age, though he was good to finish inside the top-three TE of the season thanks to a marvelous 176.6 PPR points to the tune of a 110/72/670/6 receiving line in 16 games.
He could only play six games last season, though, so every GM who drafted him at his ADP of TE7/OVR78 clearly hated to see that happen and missed on a much better player with that pick. Thomas said in mid-June that he is hopeful to be ready for Week 1 after he fully blew his ACL, MCL, and meniscus last year. That's massively huge in terms of making a comeback, so we'll see what happens as the injury happened as recently as last December.
We're now past July's midpoint and about to hit peak-training season before things got rolling in September. Thomas is looking, at best, as an improbable Week 1 starter and, at worst, as a potential Week 3/Week 4 starter for the Commanders.
There is a large bunch of risk baked into drafting Thomas, but the more the ADP falls, the better the play looks as a dart play to gamble on late in drafts.
Approaching the 200th-overall pick and projected to a TE26 finish by PFF, Thomas could turn into a league-winning player for whoever lands him but that should only happen via the draft in the deepest of leagues with Thomas looking better as a WW/post-draft addition to fantasy rosters barring breaking/positive news about his status arriving in the next few weeks.
David Njoku, Cleveland Browns
It's been almost two months since Njoku inked a four-year deal with the Browns. The bump in salary (the fifth-largest deal for a TE in the NFL when signed) meant that 1) Njoku was a very wealthy person and also that 2) Njoku's role in Cleveland was not losing stock in the slightest of ways, even more considering the departure of OBJ last season and the arrival of Deshaun Watson to pass him the ball.
Of course, things went south quickly. The hype steadily cooled off, Watson is facing a potential season-long suspension, OBJ got replaced in the offseason by Amari Cooper, and the Browns backfield is one of the strongest units in the whole league with capable rushing/pass-catching players being part of it.
Njoku topped at TE9 back in 2018 when his ADP that summer was that of the TE12 off the board. That great season turned into an ADP in the summer of 2019 only for him to miss almost the full campaign appearing (barely) in just four games.
Njoku has played 13 and 16 games since then and with Austin Hooper out he should command more targets in 2022 than he did last year. That said, he's not reached a top-20 finish in three years running (neither did Hooper in his two years in Cleveland).
Betting on Njoku is betting on promises and dreams, but PFF sees a breakout year in the veteran TE as they've projected him to a TE10 finish. Of course, if that's the case, and given his ADP of TE19, the ROI would be absolutely massive and he would post the second-largest ROI only behind Tyler Higbee's.
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