So I do this thing every year called ADP trends. Basically looking at the ADP change for each player before and after their rookie years.

Face planters are bad bets. (lose 12 or more spots of ADP)

And hence that rookie you want to buy-low on is a very bad idea.

Let's dive in

Here is a list of WR that lost 12 or more spots since 2007 from the first round of dynasty rookie drafts.

#badbets

Now I get that you are going to tell me that player x is different because he was injured! And I totally understand the rationale. But ZERO of the guys that went on to hit had extensive injuries as rookies.

The four guys that went on to hit had this many games played:

DT - 10
Golden Tate - 11
Nelson Agholor - 13
Tyler Boyd - 16

These arent "he barely played" szns

Or another popular objection is, "but, but, but he was a good prospect so we just need to give him time."

And maybe that's true, but good prospects (or at least good prospects based on what I look at are far from immune).

I've got 4 Bulletproof players on this list and only one recovered. Maybe I am writing off N'Keal Harry too soon, but he has done zero things in the NFL that give me hope he's going to turn it around.

From the coinflip tier 3/14 recovered. 21%

That is a far cry from a coinflip.

Demaryious Thomas is the lone player on the list that I think probably deserved the benefit of the doubt

I could be wrong but I believe he fell because he had a particularly unique starting quarterback named Tim Tebow

Tebow wasnt exactly known for his passing skillz

Considering the rest of his metrics that matter were pretty solid including a mesmerizing rookie year PFF grade of 82.7.

That still puts him at 9th in rookie year PFF grade since they started tracking it

If we look at his sophomore comps given the benefit of hindsight and pretend he was a 2020 rookie and we knew what we know now about the rest of the players in the database, these were his closest comps among drafted WR's back to 2003.

I can get behind this kind of buy low as he was being faded for his situation. Not his talent.

The other guys, dont have comps like this.

And if we flip to receivers drafted in the 2nd round of dynasty rookie drafts we see a whole bunch of guys that weren't worth your investment.

Now obviously there will be players that hit from time to time. But historically this has been a near death sentence.

Guys that recover are unicorns and as a principle I dont go chasing unicorns.

I use May as the cutoff for this so I dont know where the 2020 class will fall yet, but my guess is that the following players will be added to this list:

Jalen Reagor
Henry Ruggs
Michael Pittman
Denzel Mims
Bryan Edwards

This is the kind of thing that heavily influences my dynasty rankings on patreon.

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