An easy way to gain an edge over your competition is to take advantage of the differences in the pre-draft automatic player rankings across the sites. There is a natural tendency for most drafters to be heavily influenced by the pre-draft rankings they see when they enter the Yahoo! draft room. In today's article, we will compare the Yahoo! ADP to the Footballguys Consensus to identify which players we can steal later in Yahoo! drafts than we might be able to on a different platform.
Stealing these players is how you beat Yahoo! Fantasy Football.
ADP Values on Yahoo!
These 10 players are drafted significantly later on Yahoo! than on other sites. Awareness of these ADP outliers allows you to get extreme draft value when others in your league stick too closely to the Yahoo! automated rankings.
Players to Target on Yahoo!
TE Dalton Kincaid, Buffalo
Kincaid is being drafted 22 spots later on Yahoo! than in the Footballguys Consensus ADP. Yahoo! drafters are underestimating his upside as he enters his second season. With Stefon Diggs now in Houston, Kincaid is the best bet to emerge as Josh Allen's favorite target. It is common to see young tight ends struggle as rookies, which makes Kincaid's total of 73 catches as a rookie all the more impressive. Footballguys' Matt Waldman recently wrote about how Kincaid is worth the fantasy buzz he is receiving. Waldman views Kincaid as an elite young talent. Target Kincaid a round higher than his Yahoo! ADP and lock down a high-end TE1 with league-winning upside.
WR Calvin Ridley, Tennessee
We saw Ridley as the top target in a pass-heavy offense back in 2020, and he produced elite numbers: 90 catches for 1,374 yards and nine touchdowns. Ridley could be among the league leaders in targets as the Titans transition to a more aggressive offensive approach under new head coach Brian Callahan. His Yahoo! ADP of 81st overall is an extreme bargain. Ridley makes a fantastic target as your WR3 or even WR4.
RB Jonathon Brooks, Carolina
Brooks will not be a fit for everyone. You will need to have enough running back depth to get through the early part of the season with no production from a guy who will cost you somewhere between a 9th and 12th-round pick in most drafts. However, it is worth remembering that positioning yourself to have the best lineup possible when the fantasy playoffs roll around in Week 15 has to be the top priority. Trust that you can draft well enough to get there, even without early contributions from one of your mid-round picks. The potential reward is tantalizing. Brooks is the most talented rookie running back and should be able to dominate the backfield touches for the Panthers during the second half of the season.
Todd Gurley tore his ACL on November 15th, 2014 at 20 years old. Here’s how many touches he had as a rookie in 2015.
— Dave Kluge (@DaveKluge) August 3, 2024
Week 1: 0 (inactive)
Week 2: 0 (inactive)
Week 3: 7
Week 4: 21
Week 5: 30
Jonathon Brooks tore his ACL on November 11th, 2023 at 20 years old.
Players Going Too Early on Yahoo!
If you want any of the 10 players listed below, you will likely have to draft them earlier on Yahoo! than on most other sites.
While you do not have to avoid the players shown above in your Yahoo! drafts, you should know that their Yahoo! ADP does not reflect the overall consensus, and each is likely to be overdrafted due to their pre-draft ranking on Yahoo!
- You may reach the sixth or seventh round and see Raheem Mostert at the top of the Yahoo! queue. It is still too early to take him. The risk of investing a premium fantasy pick on any 32-year-old running back is extremely high. It is even higher in this specific case when a pair of highly talented young backs (De'Von Achane and Jaylen Wright) will compete for touches.
- Quarterback is exceptionally deep this year. Do not reach for the likes of Jared Goff and Brock Purdy. There is no need to panic if you reach pick 80 or 90 and do not yet have a starting quarterback. Trevor Lawrence, Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams, and others are fantastic fallback options.
- Marquise Brown (Yahoo! ADP of 68), who will miss the start of the season with a shoulder injury, going 38 picks earlier than Xavier Worthy (Yahoo! ADP of 106) and 18 picks ahead of Rashee Rice (Yahoo! ADP of 86) is impossible to justify. Both Worthy and Rice should be priority targets in your Yahoo! draft who you may be able to get at a fantastic value given their egregiously low pre-draft ADPs.
Late-Round Sleeper Values
In addition to the potential value options going early in your draft, here are 10 players going late in Yahoo! drafts who are more highly valued in the Footballguys Consensus.
Rookie WR Value
When looking at the list of players being drafted outside the Top 10 rounds on Yahoo! and comparing their Yahoo! ADP to the consensus, we quickly notice that one group is overrepresented: rookie wide receivers. There is extreme value in targeting rookie wide receivers in your Yahoo! drafts.
The 2024 NFL Draft wide receiver class was universally lauded as one of the best in recent memory. There were seven wide receivers drafted in the first round. Another three went off the board within the first five picks of the second round. 10 wide receivers are off the board within the first 37 draft picks. Every one of them is being drafted later on Yahoo! than elsewhere.
We have seen rookies finish as Top 7 wide receivers three times in the last four seasons (Justin Jefferson in 2020, Ja'Marr Chase in 2021, and Puka Nacua in 2023). The 2023 wide receiver class was considered well below average, but it still gave us a league-winner in Nacua. Plus, Rashee Rice, Zay Flowers, and Tank Dell ended up being excellent values and players we were able to trust in our starting lineups for long stretches of the season. We should expect a much more significant impact from the vaunted 2024 rookie wide receiver class.
Aside from Marvin Harrison Jr., I firmly believe every rookie wide receiver listed in the table above is going at least one full round later on Yahoo! than he should be. 80% of them are going at least ten picks later on Yahoo! than in the Footballguys Consensus. The cheat code to dominate your Yahoo! draft is to know the rookie wide receivers are universally underrated in the pre-draft rankings. Do not forget these top prospects from a historically loaded class just because they are buried in the Yahoo! pre-draft rankings.
