Miller: 2023 Season-Long Draft Targets

In a vacuum, we — the fantasy football community — are pretty bad at fantasy football. There’s a lot we’re going to get wrong this year. Lest we forget how Josh Jacobs‘ ADP dipped multiple rounds after he got significant playing time in the Hall of Fame Game last year, and then he finished the season as the PPR RB3. Trey Lance has fooled some people three years in a row.

With that being said, we’re also pretty good at this, at least on a relative basis. Mike Leone’s Best Ball Mania Manifesto detailed how you’re sacrificing expected value every time you reach past ADP. I found something similar when investigating the power of the market last summer. We (everyone contributing to ADP) get a lot wrong, but it’s also one of the best predictors we have for how a player is going to perform in the upcoming season.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to outperform it! RotoViz’s Blair Andrews has written about how there are two ways to beat ADP: You can either pick players better than everyone else or identify systemic inefficiencies. Blair’s research indicated it’s very difficult to consistently just pick the misvalued players, so he recommended finding the types of players the market has gotten wrong historically. An example of this would be the “running back dead zone” or the late-round QB strategy — two methods that have performed admirably in the past but may have been corrected for this season.

Trying to actually pick the right players requires humility — realizing you might be wrong — but it’s natural to have some micro-level takes after a summer of researching and projecting how players will perform in 2023. Today, I’ll highlight which players I’m targeting at their current ADP. Soon, I’ll have a similar article detailing which players I’m fading. Both articles will use FFPC season-long ADP and focus only on players who will be drafted in most home leagues (so no super deep sleepers).

JAMES COOK (ADP 70.9)

James Cook averaged 5.7 yards per carry as a rookie and has the passing-down role for Buffalo to himself with Devin Singletary in Houston. He’s also been drawing rave reviews at camp, plus he played 86% of snaps and ran a route on 70% of Josh Allen‘s dropbacks in Week 2 of the preseason. That’s an incredibly small sample size, but it bodes well for Cook’s receiving involvement in Year 2. He was touted as an accomplished receiver coming out of Georgia, and the Bills spent Round 2 draft capital a year ago to get him. While Damien Harris or Latavius Murray may steal some early-down looks and goal-line carries, Cook should have plenty of high-value touches in an elite offense. There’s also a world where he’s just really good — truthers would point to his rookie-year efficiency as a defense — and earns a near-every-down role in Year 2. As the clear committee leader in a fruitful fantasy backfield, Cook fits the archetype we’re looking for in a mid-round RB. His ADP is also at the end of the running back dead zone — and Rounds 7-10 have historically been a lucrative range for breakout running backs.

DAVID MONTGOMERY (ADP 71.9)

Jamaal Williams led the league in rushing touchdowns last season. The Lions gave David Montgomery a three-year, $18 million contract with $11 million guaranteed to replace him. Jahmyr Gibbs, the 12th overall pick in this year’s NFL Draft, is the most desirable Lions running back for fantasy. but there’s room for multiple fantasy contributors in this offense. Montgomery should be the primary early-down back, while Gibbs will primarily play in passing situations. Montgomery will have usable fantasy weeks when he finds the end zone, while Gibbs is more likely to have massive yardage and reception games.