Everyone is talking about how the Brett Favre trade will affect fantasy football this year. It’s now been 11 days since the trade, and we can clearly see a change in the Jets players’ average draft position (12-team leagues):

Thomas Jones and Jerricho Cotchery had been slightly increasing throughout the preseason, but the Favre trade clearly benefited them in the eyes of fantasy drafters.

Thomas Jones jumped up 10 spots and now commands a third-round pick.

Laveranues Coles moved up 9 spots to put him in the range of Hines Ward, Chris Chambers, and Lee Evans.

The real story though, is Jerricho Cotchery. Cotchery skyrocketed 23 draft positions (2 full rounds!) and is now slightly ahead of Coles. It now takes a sixth round pick for the Jets #2 receiver who had 1100 yards but only 2 TDs last year.

Last year, the Jets offense was 25th in the league while the Packers’ was 4th. The Jets had a measly 15 passing TDs while Favre threw for almost twice that with 28 touchdowns.

From the sharp increases in average draft position, a lot of people are expecting the Jets offense to improve a lot this year. With one of the best quarterbacks of all-time at the helm, it’s hard to argue otherwise. Just don’t expect to get any of them at a discount in your drafts this year.

Now that Chad Johnson is back in camp and rehabbing his ankle, the Bengals’ passing game is rising on the draft boards.

Johnson’s trade demands caused his value to drop quite a bit in April. Now that he’s back in camp and recovering from minor ankle surgery, his draft position has increased. Interestingly, T.J. Houshmandzadeh’s value has not decreased at all, but actually increased two positions in the past two weeks. Here are their average draft position trends for 12-team leagues:

I don’t understand the trend here. Houshmandzadeh’s value increased with the chance of Johnson leaving, but then his value didn’t decrease now that Johnson is healthy and will return. I would have expected a slight dip in Houshmandzadeh’s draft position.

Carson Palmer’s draft position followed a trend similar to Johnson’s, and is now on the rebound. Here you can see how his 12-team ADP has changed:

Overall, the trends indicate that Cincinnati’s problems are behind them, and drafters shouldn’t worry about any previous trade demands or dog jokes.

If anyone is interested in fantasy football auctions, FantasyAuctioneer has written an article about recent auction values of players. He notes that Randy Moss and Tom Brady have lower values in auctions than they do in drafts. Interesting read, especially if you’re doing an auction this year.

There have been a couple articles lately by Football Jabber and CBS Sports about how the traditional RB stud theory might not be the best strategy this season. The most recent ADP trends support this position because second round wide receivers such as Reggie Wayne and Braylon Edwards are increasing in value. Below are their ADP trends for 10-team leagues:

At the same time, second round running backs Larry Johnson and Willis McGahee are decreasing in value in mock drafts:

It’s hard to tell if a decreased interest in running backs is causing drafters to try different strategies, or if drafters’ strategies are causing running backs’ values to fall.

Either way, there are a lot of interesting mock draft strategies this year. It’s no longer as easy as taking the best RB available early on.

Let’s take a look at the top four tight ends. In mock drafts so far, Antonio Gates is #1 at 5.03 (10-team), Witten at 5.04, Winslow at 6.02, and Gonzalez at 7.01. The ADP graph for these four players shows there hasn’t been much movement, except for Witten who could actually overtake Gates as the #1 TE.

Although there’s a 2-round gap separating these players, their stats from last year were all pretty similar (stats via pro-football-reference):

Gates: 984 yds, 9 TDs: 152 Fantasy Points

Witten: 1145 yds, 7 TDs: 156 FP

Winslow: 1106 yds, 5 TDs: 157 FP

Gonzalez: 1172 yds, 5 TDs: 147 FP

Since only 10 fantasy points separated them last year, there must be either high expectations for Gates and Witten, or predicted declines for Winslow and Gonzalez.

Admin Note

On an administrative side note, the ADP graphs no longer have a weird spike for some players. The graphs are a lot easier to read now.

Willie Parker’s ADP is dropping like a rock.

The latest update of the ADP data shows that Willie Parker’s average draft position is dangerously close to the 5th round (4.09) for 10-team leagues. Before the NFL draft he was being taken in the mid-second round:

Parker is now firmly in the range of poor #2 RBs and solid #3 RBs. By August he may even be drafted behind Thomas Jones who was a 7th round pick in April.

While it’s not surprising that Parker’s value decreased with the addition of a new rookie in the backfield, it is surprising that Mendenhall is only being drafted in the late 8th round:

If he is really going to damage Parker’s value enough to make him drop 3 rounds, I think Mendenhall should be valued higher. My guess is that Parker and Mendenhall will end up with similar stats at the end of the year (maybe 900 yds and 7 TDs each). I’d prefer to get that production from my 8th round pick rather than my 5th.

Mendenhall looks like an absolute steal right now.

The average draft position data for 8, 10, and 12 team leagues has been updated. With this update, Marshawn Lynch moves past Reggie Wayne and Peyton Manning.

Here’s Lynch’s draft position since April:

The first black dot is his traffic accident, and the second one is when he pleaded guilty to “failure to exercise due care toward a pedestrian.”

He dropped about 3 or 4 draft spots while his future was uncertain. Now that he’s gotten just a $100 fine, he’s back up to the beginning of the second round.