Best Ball Draft Strategy For 2025: When To Ignore ADP

For the most part, ADP (average draft position) on Underdog is very good.

It represents the "wisdom of the crowds" across hundreds of thousands of drafts, providing us with a very good proxy for how these players should be ranked from best to worst.

But ADP isn't infallible. There are places it can go wrong, and there are reasons we shouldn't be slaves to it in drafts.

For one, it can take time for ADP to get efficient. Because ADP is calculated and updated as a rolling average of drafts, it can take days (if not weeks) for ADP to "catch up" to injuries, news, and other factors impacting player value.

I would argue that Jonnu Smith's price (177.9) has finally reached a fair price despite the trade to the Steelers occurring over a month ago.

There are also pockets of the draft board where the board is very flat (aka a bunch of players in a similar tier who should all be valued equally) or where there are no good options at a specific position (like the WR deadzone, which I'll discuss in a second).

In these spots, we should be more willing to ignore ADP and select players whom we prefer and/or who make more sense for the current team being drafted.

Below, I will highlight a few of these situations and spots on the draft board where I'm willing to say "IKB" (I know better) than the market …

Avoid The Falling Knives Who Are Falling Too Slow

The three biggest ADP fallers over the past week are a trio of RBs who all have massive question marks surrounding their health (Najee Harris, Joe Mixon) or a looming suspension (Quinshon Judkins):

By the way, you can review all of the biggest Underdog ADP risers/fallers via Best Ball HQ.

To illustrate why their current ADPs are essentially "fake" and why you should avoid them in drafts, let me list off their current ADP and where they went in a handful of Best Ball Mania drafts I did on Monday:

Mixon (ADP: 68.9): 76, 106, 86, 79
Judkins (ADP: 105.8): 112, 113, 120, 110
Harris (ADP: 132): 144, 154, 143, 137

As you can see, they all were selected after their ADP and sometimes significantly after their ADP (like Mixon at 106).

My personal approach with these fallers who are at risk of missing significant time is to completely avoid until we get more news or clarity on their situations. The risk of taking a zero in a high-leverage round far outweighs the benefit of catching a faller who ends up being a solid value.

Chase The Risers Who Aren't Moving Quickly Enough

On the flip side, the ADP risers who are moving up draft boards often don't rise fast enough. These are spots to ignore the "fake" ADP and prioritize them in a sweet spot between their current ADP and what would still represent a value.

Here are four players I'm "chasing" up draft boards during this lag period where their ADP doesn't represent their true value:

Emeka Egbuka (ADP: 80): The combo of bearish reports on Chris Godwin's health, coupled with Egbuka crushing camp, has him rising up boards. I have zero issue pulling him up to the 6/7 turn (pick 72/73) right now to accumulate shares. It is not hard to envision him as an early sixth-round pick in short order.
Dylan Sampson (ADP: 144.4): With the Judkins uncertainty, you can easily make the case for Sampson to be a top-130 selection. I like locking him in the 11th round or once Tyjae Spears and Bhayshul Tuten (let's keep tabs on his hammy) are off the board.
Tank Bigsby (ADP: 156.9): There is going to be a league-winner from the Jags backfield, and the buzz on Bigsby is strong right now. I had been prioritizing Travis Etienne and Tuten, so now it is time to play catch-up on Bigsby. He is going to get expensive quickly, so take him as much as you can in the 140s right now.
Nick Chubb (ADP: 166.9): Now is the time to capitalize on the Mixon uncertainty and grab some Chubb (hey-o) before he gets too pricey. At this current ADP, there is basically zero downside in taking a flier. While not perfectly comparable, Chubb right now feels similar to J.K. Dobbins at this time last year (post-hype sleeper in a wide-open backfield).

Get Creative In Round 3

It seems weird to say this about the top 36 overall players, but I really don't enjoy the options in Round 3 right now. Via Best Ball HQ, you can see my current Round 3 exposures:

Use promo code PETE for 20% off your FantasyLife+ subscription, which includes access to features like this in Best Ball HQ, along with a ton of other premium tools.

Round 3 is mostly composed of an extremely flat tier of WRs–Marvin Harrison Jr., Garrett Wilson, Davante Adams, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Terry McLaurin.

All of these guys are fine, and there are certainly things to like, but none of them strike me as significantly better values than some of the Round 4 WRs I love like Xavier Worthy, Tetairoa McMillan, and George Pickens:

Instead of capitulating to ADP and selecting the best available WR in this range, my Round 3 plan going forward is to:

Take Trey McBride whenever he is available.
Start "reaching" on Elite QBs like Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Jayden Daniels.
Click a ton of Omarion Hampton, whose true value is likely the 2/3 turn right now.

One of the reasons the aforementioned WRs constantly get selected in this range is that drafters don't want to "fall behind" at WR. But after drafting hundreds of teams this summer, I can assure you that it is not hard to pull off.

Here's a team I drafted on Monday's Best Ball Breakfast stream with Mike Leone, where we started with 2 RBs and then took Allen in Round 3 over the less-inspiring WR options:

As you can see, we were still able to build out a strong WR room despite starting the draft with three non-WRs:

ou can review all of your individual teams–including the CLV, projections, and your exposure percentages via Best Ball HQ.

Don't Get Caught Sleeping In The WR Deadzone

The final place I highly recommend ignoring ADP is in the WR Deadzone, which I'm loosely going to define as the WRs going between picks 100-150:

There are certainly exceptions (I love Luther Burden), but for the most part, this range of WRs simply does not project that much differently than the WRs going after 150 like Romeo Doubs, Joshua Palmer, DeMario Douglas, and Wan'Dale Robinson—to name a few.

In a perfectly efficient landscape, most of these WRs would be going after pick 150, but drafters who are behind at WR often panic in this range and select one of the above options.

This is the perfect situation to fully ignore ADP, be patient, and prioritize other positions in this range–specifically the QB and TE values, as well as the Zero RB targets.

This isn't to say you should never take a WR in this range (you can see in the screenshot above my exposures which are mostly below the 8.3% average, but not zero).

I still target the rookies when I need upside and the veterans when I'm stacking with their QB (Marvin Mims with Bo Nix, Christian Kirk (I mean, "Slot Demon") with C.J. Stroud, etc.), but for the most part I want to be extremely patient and extremely picky with my WR selections in this range.

Best Ball Draft Strategy For 2025: When To Ignore ADP

Avoid The Falling Knives Who Are Falling Too Slow

Chase The Risers Who Aren't Moving Quickly Enough

Get Creative In Round 3

Don't Get Caught Sleeping In The WR Deadzone

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