The month of August is a busy time for fantasy football owners who are doing mock drafts consistently as part of their draft preparation.

Average draft position (ADP) becomes a valuable resource to spot value in every round. Finding those boom picks in each round is valuable to help drive your team to a fantasy championship, but avoiding those potential landmines is just as important. Training camp time is the time of year when you are going to see plenty of reports hyping up players that will drive their ADP up. But sometimes we have to rein it in and admit that there are some players who are either being drafted too high or who shouldn’t be drafted at all.

Using the ADP data from NFC (National Fantasy Championships) for the month of July for a 12-team PPR league, I’ve identified who you should be avoiding at their ADP for a 14-round draft. 

Round 1:

Austin Ekeler (Los Angeles Chargers)

Ekeler is coming off 326 touches. I have some concerns about Ekeler replicating his success given his age and the accumulative touches he has. I also expect some of those touches, especially catches, to come down as I don’t expect Mike Williams and Keenan Allen to miss as many games again. Over 30% of his fantasy production in the last two years is tied to touchdowns. I wouldn’t be surprised with a healthy trio of Allen, Williams, and Quentin Johnston, if we see more passing TDs from the Chargers around the red zone this year.  Give me Bijan Robinson over Ekeler this year.

Round 2:

Jonathan Taylor (Indianapolis Colts?)

There are a lot of players I like in round two over Jonathan Taylor, including most of the running backs taken after him. Even before the recent tension and trade requests with the team, there were red flags with Taylor this season. After being the RB2 the year prior, Taylor was barely a top-20 running back last season. Five out of his 12 games last year he was an RB30 or worse. Now with Anthony Richardson at quarterback, I would expect a decrease in pass attempts to Taylor and more importantly a decrease in redzone touchdowns.

Round 3:

Deebo Samuel

I am still seeing Deebo Samuel go in the third round of mock drafts despite finishing outside of the top 30 last year, averaging about 13 PPR points per game. This team has a lot of offensive weapons now, especially with the addition of Christian McCaffrey, which could have led to Samuel having only five total touchdowns last year compared to 14 the prior year. I see his season from two years ago as the exception, not what you should expect to happen again. Additionally, Brandon Aiyuk took over as the WR1 last season, leading Samuel in targets, receptions, air yards, and fantasy points per game.

Related Article: The 2023-24 San Francisco 49ers

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