Underdog Fantasy has taken the fantasy football community by storm since its inception in 2020. It’s the most popular site for Best Ball Redraft formats, offering tons of different tournaments for chances to win millions of dollars. The largest of these tournaments consists of hundreds of thousands of entries and fills up at an unbelievable rate. But these are purely Redraft formats, so what does this have to do with our Dynasty teams? Allow me to explain.
Underdog ADP is the sharpest Redraft ADP you can find, as all their drafts require you to put real money on the line, and many of their customers are drafting hundreds of teams every year. Almost all the site’s top performers release their own content and rankings, which the rest of the community follows like gospel, making the ADP that much sharper. We can use this to our advantage for our Dynasty rosters, specifically on those contending teams. Best Ball Redraft is more of a “ceiling” game, chasing players capable of spike weeks that can advance your teams to the next round. So, if we’re looking at our contending Dynasty rosters and wondering how to increase our ceiling, Underdog ADP is a great reference to keep at your disposal.
Veterans to Buy/Sell
To determine which veterans are the best (and worst) values for your contending team, I’ll be comparing Underdog ADP with Dynasty rankings from FantasyPros. Underdog’s ADP updates daily and uses drafts from the prior two days. (They can go off a two-day average because of the sheer volume of drafts daily.) For FantasyPros, I’m using their 1QB Dynasty rankings, as Underdog lineups are all 1QB lineups. But, rather than focusing on the actual draft ADP, we’ll be looking at the positional ranking of each prospect. Most of us play in Superflex formats, so the ADP itself won’t tell us much.
Let’s take a look at a few market inefficiencies to take advantage of on your contending teams based on the discrepancy between Underdog Best Ball and FantasyPros’ Dynasty rankings.
Davante Adams (Buy)
Redraft: WR12
Dynasty: WR29
I understand the concern for Davante Adams in Dynasty. He’s in his Age-32 season in what projects to be a mediocre passing offense, and we don’t have the luxury of sitting around and waiting for the situation to improve. But Adams has yet to show any real signs of slowing down, at least when it comes to commanding a large target share. Last season, Adams finished with 171 targets (WR5 overall), with a target share of 29.4%. The raw numbers didn’t fully reflect just how dominant Adams was on this Las Vegas team.
We know Antonio Pierce is a coach who loves to feed his best players the football as much as possible, and there’s no reason for us to expect anything different in 2024. I believe the addition of Brock Bowers will help to take some attention off Adams and open things up for him. Underdog drafters believe this is a guy who still can (and should) finish as a WR1 this coming season. Vegas can get out of Adams’ contract after 2024, but I imagine they’ll find a way to restructure things to keep him on board, barring some massive fall-off. He’s being valued around the 1.11-1.12 rookie pick, guys much further down the board in Underdog ADP. If you’re putting all your chips in for 2024, Adams is a very affordable option, given his elite ceiling.
Michael Pittman Jr. (Sell)
Redraft: WR21
Dynasty: WR15
Michael Pittman Jr. is one of the more peculiar values in my opinion, valued much higher in Dynasty, despite the fact he’s entering his Age 27 season. According to Dynasty Data Lab, Pittman is being valued higher than the 2024 rookie pick 1.07 in Superflex formats. That’s a bit rich for my blood.
Entering his fifth season, we have a good idea of who MPJ is as a fantasy asset. He’s a receptions merchant, which is great in PPR formats (this is partially why MPJ is ranked lower on Underdog, which is Half-PPR scoring). That said, Pittman has never exceeded 16 FPPG in any season. Does Pittman have a league-winning upside? Probably not, and this is reflected in the Underdog price tag. He’s likely just part of the long, flat tier of WR2s in Dynasty, of which I’d prefer to buy whoever is cheapest. With the addition of AD Mitchell in an offense that probably isn’t throwing the football 35+ times a game, I’m not optimistic about Pittman’s fantasy outlook relative to his price.
KeepTradeCut says you could sell MPJ for Adams plus a mid-second, and I imagine you could get even more than that, especially if the current Davante owner is not in a position to compete this year. Adams projects to score more points this year (and probably next), and the pick allows you to acquire more youth and production. I think this is a sharp move for a 2024 contender.
Nico Collins (Buy)
Redraft: WR15
Dynasty: WR20
Even after the Stefon Diggs signing, Nico Collins is going around the 2-3 turn as a Top-15 WR in Underdog drafts. The Year 3 breakout finished with over 1,300 scrimmage yards and eight touchdowns in 2023, tied to one of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL.
I do understand the hesitation from a Dynasty perspective. He may not even be the top receiver on his team anymore, and this is his last year on contract with the Texans. Also, Nico never put up overly impressive numbers prior to 2023—not even in college.
There’s certainly some short-term and long-term risk with buying Nico Collins. What I do know is this man is valued as the WR1 on his team in Underdog drafts, so the market projects him to be the top dog (granted, Diggs is not far behind). He may not be a Houston Texan for the long haul, but if he produces in 2024 as the market projects him to (Top 12 upside), he should be headed into next offseason with the leverage to demand a massive contract as another team’s top target earner. We’ll likely see Collins’ 26% target share from 2023 take a slight dip in 2024, but if passing volume increases, it shouldn’t be an issue. Underdog sharps are telling us Nico is a guy with an elite weekly ceiling, and he just turned 25, so he has plenty of prime years left.
Travis Etienne Jr. (Sell)
Redraft: RB11
Dynasty: RB6
RB11 in Redraft vs. RB6 in Dynasty is a pretty large discrepancy, especially at the RB position where the shelf life is so short and immediate production is so important. Outside of Derrick Henry, there aren’t any incredibly old backs ahead of him in Underdog that we can point to and say, “Well, this guy will have no value after 2024.”
Etienne is still relatively young but much older than many people realize. He was a four-year player at Clemson and essentially redshirted his rookie year in the NFL with a Lisfranc injury. Believe it or not, Etienne is headed into Year 4 and his Age 25 season.
Etienne struggled from an efficiency standpoint in 2023, failing to hit 4.0 YPA or 3.0 YCO/A. In his defense, he got no help from his offensive line, who finished second-to-last in PFF Run Block Grade. Etienne actually finished 2nd in the NFL in missed tackles forced, as he typically had to break a couple just to get back to the line.
I could understand this Dynasty price tag a bit more if Etienne were two years younger, but he’s not. He has two more years on contract with the Jags in what could still be a below-average line. De’Von Achane is ranked as the RB8 in both Redraft and Dynasty, so you could probably go out and sell Etienne for Achane plus another asset and acquire the younger player with the higher weekly ceiling. I’m not a massive Achane guy myself, but that move makes sense.
Conclusion
As you can see, utilizing Underdog’s ADP is a great way to gauge which players are being overvalued or undervalued in Dynasty. While Underdog only cares about the 2024 season, comparing the ranks between it and Dynasty ranks gives us some insight into market inefficiencies. Are there older veterans that are being valued higher in Dynasty than Redraft? Are there any young, ascending assets that the Redraft market values more highly than Dynasty? If you come across any of these discrepancies, there’s likely value to be had in the Dynasty market, and I’d immediately send out trade offers to take advantage.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article, and I hope you got some valuable information you can use for your fantasy team! If you’d like additional insight into Dynasty Football news and analysis, please follow me on Twitter at @jim_DFF. Until next time, keep grinding out there, DFF family! #DFFArmy #AlwaysBeBuilding
