The NFL season is quickly approaching and there will be many fluctuations in value between now and when the season starts, but these are the fifteen players who currently stand out as good value at ADP in the first fifteen rounds of drafts.
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Players to Target at ADP in Each Round
Here are players to target by ADP for every round of fantasy football drafts.
Round 1 – Cooper Kupp
The 2022 Rams were not even a shadow of the Super Bowl-winning team when they took the field in September, but one constant remained and that was Cooper Kupp’s fantasy stardom. Before Kupp’s season was curtailed by injury, he was putting up 22.4 PPR points per game, behind only Justin Jefferson‘s 22.6. Kupp was also one of only three wide receivers to have a target share of 30% or greater. While the Rams spluttered and disappointed week after week, the same wasn’t true for Kupp, who averaged 90.2 yards per game (third-most) on 10.9 targets per game (also third-most).
Round 2 – Nick Chubb
With the Browns moving on from Kareem Hunt, Nick Chubb looks set for possibly the biggest fantasy points total of his career. The ding on Chubb has often been that he won’t be involved in the passing game and while Chubb has never been a slick route runner, he has safe hands and should surpass his three-year average of 24 targets per season. The Browns are expected to take a step forward on offense, and Chubb should be involved in more high-scoring games than last year.
Round 3 – Lamar Jackson
If we remove Lamar Jackson’s Week 13 game, where he played only 14% of snaps before exiting with an injury, then his points per game for 2022 jump from 20.3 to 21.98, which paints a much rosier picture. Jackson now enters 2023 as the highest-paid player in NFL history on a per-year basis. He has a new play caller in Todd Monken, who is allowing Jackson more freedom to adjust play calling, plus he now has easily the best supporting cast of his career. The ceiling for Jackson is another MVP campaign like his historic 2019 year that broke fantasy records.
Round 4 – Jerry Jeudy
Nobody is pretending that 2022 was a good year for the Denver Broncos. It’s entirely fair to suggest that Russell Wilson is in last-chance saloon right now, but it’s also fair to suggest that this team looks poised for more success in 2023, with Sean Payton at the helm and strengthening the offensive line a priority. One of the few silver linings in Denver’s 2022 season was Jerry Jeudy, who was the half PPR WR12 from Weeks 11 through 17. He scored 14.2 points per game and averaged 2.7 fantasy points per touch, which was equal to Justin Jefferson’s stats during that same period. Jeudy should now benefit from better play-calling and hopefully a version of Russell Wilson who isn’t trying to do too much at once.
Round 5 – Joe Mixon
This offseason could have gone in several different ways for Joe Mixon but as of now, he’s still on the Bengals roster. Samaje Perine, on the other hand, is not and that means Mixon’s competition has gotten weaker. The Bengals seem content to enter the season with Mixon as their main hope at running back and when it comes to this offense, we want to attach ourselves to the players who will be a big part of the team’s plans.
Round 6 – Marquise Brown
Marquise Brown now finds himself as the unquestioned top target of an offense for arguably the first time in his career and he has little pass-catching competition of note. While it is fair to expect this Cardinals offense to be a mess this season, with Kyler Murray likely missing a reasonable amount of time to start the year, Brown has shown that he can be deployed in a number of ways. If Murray is back by the end of the season, then it might be worth drafting Brown at this low cost as your third or even fourth wide receiver.
Round 7 – Jordan Addison
The Vikings needed to add another receiver after moving on from Adam Thielen and they drafted one of the very best in this class in Jordan Addison. His ability to manipulate defenses and excellent route-running skills will pair incredibly well with Justin Jefferson, and both players will be able to cycle in and out of the slot. Addison walks into a potential near-every-down workload from early on in his career and could end up being the most relevant rookie wide receiver this season.
Round 8 – James Conner
Conner missed three games with an injury midway through the season, but from Week 9 onwards, he was a top-five running back on four occasions and only finished outside the top 15 once. We know that running backs struggle with injuries as they get older and Conner is 28 years old now, which normally causes alarm bells to ring for dynasty managers. But he is the only real option in Arizona’s running back room and we’ve seen him be productive with and without Kyler Murray, so with this late of an ADP, it’s time to saddle up to Conner one more time.
Round 9 – Damien Harris
There are many positive attributes to James Cook‘s game, but he’s by no means a short-yardage bruiser like Damien Harris, or even the type of back teams will rely upon inside the red zone, something that Harris has shown he can do well over his career. The Bills have consistently talked about not wanting Josh Allen to rush as much in 2023, believing that the heavy contact Allen picks up rushing the ball led to issues in the passing game last year. It’s unlikely Allen stops completely, but using a bruiser like Harris in short-yardage situations makes a lot of sense.
Round 10 – Chigoziem Okonkwo
It’s possible that Okonkwo never develops into the every-down type player that we’d love for fantasy, but his breakout down the stretch of the 2022 season was noteworthy. It feels possible that he will follow it up with another big year, thanks in part to the lack of other options the Titans have. Between Weeks 12 and 17, Okonkwo had 2.5 yards per route run, which was the third-highest among all pass-catchers with 10 catches or more. It’s unlikely that Okonkwo continues to produce like that but at this price, we don’t necessarily need him to.
Round 11 – Jaylen Warren
When Najee Harris dealt with a foot injury last offseason, former undrafted free agent Jaylen Warren earned his way on to the field. Harris never managed to wrestle back complete control of the backfield after; hiss opportunity share was 83% in 2022, but that dropped to 63% with Warren taking some of the work away in 2023. Warren outproduced Harris in yards per carry, with 4.8 to Harris’s 3.8, and had 8.3 yards per reception to Harris’s 5.5. If Harris doesn’t start the season hot, what’s to stop Warren from taking even more of the work?
Round 12 – Roschon Johnson
The Chicago Bears trio of capable running backs is at least one more than we’d hope for in fantasy football. And while Khalil Herbert and D’Onta Foreman both have good aspects to their games, Roschon Johnson is a very promising rookie who could take hold of this backfield. Unlike Herbert or Foreman, Johnson shines in pass protection and his work in the receiving game is likely to outshine both of the other options. With an offensive line still in repair, the Bears could do with good pass protection as often as possible, which will open up other opportunities for Johnson.
Round 13 – Kenny Pickett
Pickett’s low touchdown rate of 1.7% was the 660th-lowest rate among quarterbacks to start 10+ games since 2000. That’s from a total sample size of 679. The NFL average TD rate over the last three seasons among quarterbacks starting 10+ games has been 4.53%, and while we shouldn’t automatically assume Pickett can leap to that number, it shouldn’t be surprising to see him double his 1.7% and end up throwing over 20 touchdowns in 2023. Unlike many of the other quarterbacks in this range, Pickett should start every game.
Round 14 – Chuba Hubbard
Miles Sanders might be the RB1 in Carolina, but he’s not a three-down back unless you think the Eagles misused him over the last few years, and that’s not a common assumption. Hubbard will find his way onto the field early and would be a top-tier handcuff if anything happened to Sanders.
Round 15 – Tyjae Spears
The Titans don’t seem to be worried about Tyjae Spears’s lack of ACL and perhaps we shouldn’t be either. For whatever period of time Spears manages to play in the NFL, he could be the perfect player to take over from 29-year-old Derrick Henry. Betting against Henry hasn’t paid off so far in his career, but Father Time is always undefeated.
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