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 risers.
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Tight End Fantasy Football ADP Risers
Cameron Brate, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Gronk 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. Now, for what matters to us, what about Tampa Bay's TE2-until-this-summer Cameron Brate?
The ADP boost is reasonable because poor Cam is going from a complete afterthought to someone to at least consider as a fantasy asset--we'll see how that goes, tho. While not the worst player at the position in the NFL, the last projection by PFF paints a picture of Brate and his upside: TE24 in 2022 with barely 100 (102.4) PPR points over the full season.
Brate has been in TB for eight seasons and while he's got a couple of top-10 years in the past (TE7 and TE10 in back-to-back seasons in the 2016-17 span), he's been meh after that with finishes of TE19, TE24, and TE36, and TE29 in last four years.
Of course, not having a behemoth of a player (and a Brady Brother) such as Gronkowski around should help Brate's upside. With Chris Godwin still recovering and Gronk out, there is a chance the targets go up a bit from the 57 Brate got in 2021.
We don't know yet if he'll get to the 77+ looks he received to reach those two top-10 finishes, but he could reasonably get there if Brady and he develop the proper report with Brate as the main man at the TE position.
With an ADP of TE27 and a projection of TE24, Brate is still a valuable target in deep-league drafts but more of an early-season WW target for most GMs/league formats in case things work and look good for him as the new TE1 of his team.
EDIT: After the time of this writing, Tampa signed Kyle Rudolph to a one-year deal as the presumed backup to Brate.
Tyler Conklin, New York Jets
Yes, the ADP rise is insane at 49 full draft picks and more than four full draft rounds in 12-team drafting sessions, but keep in mind the overall stock of Conklin these days, though, which is around that of the 275th-overall fantasy player.
In other words, we're starting from the basis that you shouldn't draft Conklin at all in any normal/shallow league and only into the deepest ones, having Conklin as a WW option in all other types of fantasy competitions.
The news that are (seemingly) boosting Conklin's ADP up the draft boards are those regarding fellow free-agency signee TE C.J. Uzomah, who missed the Jets minicamp as reported by Connor Hughes of The Athletic back at the start of July.
With Uzomah and Conklin kind of close in terms of their talent but the latter taking many more reps than the latter, it looks like Conklin is now sitting on the TE1 position among players at the position. Even then, though, the Jets spent money to bring those two to NY and that probably means a TEBC is coming to town as long as both can stay healthy--not to mention the ancillary presence of rookie TE Jeremy Ruckert in the TE stable on top of everything.
Only a bunch of injuries or a very serious one to one of the top-two TEs of the Jets would make the other one a draftable asset. Let the ADP rise or fall or it wants, and forget about drafting this or the other man.
Austin Hooper, Tennessee Titans
It took Hooper a couple of years to have his breakout season in Atlanta as he finally did so in back-to-back top-six years back in the 2018-19 span when he put up 163.0 and 191.7 PPR points with the Falcons.
Cleveland acquired him after that, and fantasy GMs drafted Hooper with an ADP of TE12 in 2020 hoping for another TE1 season... only to have a borderline TE2 in Hooper that year (TE21 finish). Of course, the ADP went down to a reasonable figure last summer (TE23) that actually made sense when all was said and done as Hooper finished the year as the TE24 in the NFL.
We're now back at experiencing a rise in Hooper's ADP. While not ridiculous, the rise is of more than a full round in fantasy leagues of 15 or fewer teams with Hooper having an ADP floating around the 150th OVR pick.
Even though Hooper is in a fine position when it comes to his team and environment (yes, Tennessee is going to rush the ball, but still) as he's one of the very few weapons in Ryan Tannehill's arsenal. That said, PFF sees clear red flags in Hooper's upside and has him as just the TE28 in their 2022 projections not even reaching 100 PPR points (95.1) over the full season.
Even though the ADP is still manageable, the outlook isn't any good for Hoop, and even if he mimics his last couple of years in Cleveland, that might be Hooper's ceiling (borderline TE2) while with the Titans.
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