Well it’s not quite an annual rant but some of you really need to know the truth about ADP.

As in Average Draft Position – and even that is a misnomer. What it really is comes from averaging already drafted spots of players in drafts. BUT the key components are:

1) When were these drafts? How current is the information?

2) What was the league format that was being drafted?

3) Who was in the draft? How many bots? (If that answer is any number other than 0 throw it away)

Number one is I hope, self-explanatory, as is number three.

Number two is probably the most important. The LABR mixed draft that Todd wrote about here is terrific information. Not about where to draft someone in YOUR draft but about what THAT writer or analyst thought about the player pool on THAT particular day.  But does your draft match the same positions or have the same number of players? Nobody drafting in the NFBC or FBPC should view that as more than entertaining information because the formats are totally different – in both the high stakes leagues you have all the draft slots to assemble a starting lineup, you don’t have to have all the specific roster slots filled at the end of 23 rounds. And LABR, like Tout, has very different reserve player rules than the high stakes leagues, and even if it was only one (and I suspect it was several more than that) drafter who purposely waited on a player to make sure they had Reserve status (i.e. can be activated/reserved any week as opposed to a drafted player who can only be reserved for DL status), it would skew the positions.

What you really need to know, rather than the number of the draft slots averaged out, is what was the earliest the player was drafted and what was the latest spot the player was drafted (information that NFBC gives its paying customers) with min and max for each player in addition to the averaged number. Yes, all the shows in addition to the weekly NFBC show on SiriusXM are using that information, although we really don’t know the last time the radio folk got the updated numbers. And even then we don’t know if some of the really odd “earliest picks” were the result of some online accident (but there are instances of that).

I am not saying that ADP is not valuable assuming everything is a perfect match for the league you will be drafting in. It does give you “market research.” But remember the most important thing is YOUR rankings and knowing where to draft players. And don’t forget you can ask questions with quick answers in our Platinum Forums.

And the best way to get that is to draft – even if it is just practice. And if you want practice and can’t afford low entry leagues or can’t find leagues that match what you need to practice for, try the Draft Wizard by fantasy pros. You can set the parameters you want and do a whole draft in less than an hour. Still at blazing speeds, slow down and look at the players actually being drafted instead of just making your next pick.

Finally, remember that if all your picks are based on Average Draft Position, you will only have an average team. {jcomments on}