Best ADP values for 2022 fantasy football drafts

When you are gearing up for your fantasy football drafts, you want to maximize the value of each player you take. One way to determine this is by looking at a player's average draft position or ADP. This stats is useful because it gives you a sense of where players are being drafted on average.

If you think a player will have a better season than where he is being drafted, you know who to target in your drafts and can capitalize by ensuring that player ends up on your roster. If you think a player will perform worse than his ADP suggests, you know which players to avoid. Using the ADP available at FantasyPros and half-PPR scoring, here are some value plays for your 2022 fantasy football drafts.

Top 5 overall ADP values

Derek Carr, QB, Las Vegas Raiders

Carr finished last season as the QB13 and is being drafted as the QB15 this season. The Raiders traded for star wide receiver Davante Adams in the offseason, who will automatically become their best wide receiver. While Carr isn’t among the top quarterbacks in the league, Adams is good enough to elevate whoever is throwing him the ball.

Carr will still have Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow as targets in the offense. Throw in dump-offs to Josh Jacobs and Kenyan Drake; his outlook is leaps and bounds better than last year. It is hard to see an outcome where Carr has Adams and finishes worse than last year. He should finish as a QB1 even though he is being drafted as a high-end QB2. It isn’t much, but that is value.

Elijah Mitchell, RB, San Francisco 49ers

The San Francisco backfield looks convoluted as Raheem Mostert is no longer with the team, but they drafted Tyrion Davis-Price in the 2022 NFL Draft. Elijah Mitchell has risen above the others in the backfield and supposedly will be the team’s lead back as they head into the season.

Mitchell played in 12 games last season and still finished as the RB25 in fantasy. He ran the ball 207 times for 963 yards and five touchdowns and caught 19 passes for an additional 137 yards and one more touchdown. He is being drafted this season as the RB21 at the end of the fourth round. With Trey Lance under center and being the expected starting running back, Mitchell should finish the season as an RB1.

Amon-Ra St. Brown, WR, Detroit Lions

Talk about ending the season on a high note. St. Brown capped off his rookie season by totaling 43 receptions for 560 yards and five touchdowns in his last six games. Now, St. Brown will have another offseason to get on the same page with quarterback Jared Goff. St. Brown enters the 2022 season as the WR1 for the Lions.

When you are looking for values in a draft, you are looking for talent and opportunity. St. Brown has shown that he has the talent; given that he is the top wide receiver on this team, he will have the opportunity. Based on usage, he is being drafted as the overall WR28 when he should finish the season as a top-15 wide receiver.

Austin Hooper, TE, Tennessee Titans

Hooper never really caught on with the Cleveland Browns, as his two worst seasons in the last five years were his two most recent. He had a promising start to his career with the Atlanta Falcons but didn’t quite continue that momentum in Cleveland. He now joins the Tennessee Titans at a good time when they need reliable pass-catchers.

AJ Brown is gone due to a trade, and Tennessee used their returning draft capital to select Arkansas WR Treylon Burks in the 2022 NFL Draft. The Titans will be led by Robert Woods, who is coming off an ACL injury, so the team is desperate for reliability. Enter Hooper. He comes to the Titans in a great spot and is being drafted as the TE23 in the 16th round of 12-team leagues. Tight end is a predictable position, but Hooper at least has the situation that should see him perform well higher than his ADP.

Robert Tonyan, TE, Green Bay Packers

This could be a year with the biggest values coming at the tight end positions. Some teams just have unproven players at wide receiver, and the reliable tight end could see a sharp uptick in work and fantasy football output. Robert Tonyan burst out onto the football scene in 2020 and caught 52 passes for 586 yards and 11 touchdowns. He followed that up with a dud of a season last year, playing eight games with 204 yards and two touchdowns.

The Packers traded Adams to the Raiders and lost both Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Equanimeous St. Brown to free agency. This leaves them with Allen Lazard, Sammy Watkins, Christian Watson (rookie), Randall Cobb, Romeo Doubs (rookie) and Amari Rodgers as their receivers. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers is coming off back-to-back MVP seasons and does have some experience with a number of these players. However, injuries are common with this group, and the others are rookies. Rodgers is the type of quarterback that will look for reliability in the passing game, and that should be Tonyan. He is being drafted towards the end of drafts at the TE20 and should prove to be worth the risk.