// Data Sept 1, 2026 · 8 min read

ADP vs Reality, 2015 to 2025

Eleven seasons of preseason fantasy football ADP matched against final PPR finishes. Hit rates and bust rates by round, by position, and by draft slot.

We pulled preseason PPR ADP for every season from 2015 to 2025 and matched it against final PPR finishes. Eleven years, roughly 50 players per round per position for the round-by-round tables, RB and WR only.

The 1.01 finished first at his position once in eleven years. Six of eleven times he finished outside the top 12 at his own position, worse than an average round-one pick.

Round-one WRs hit their tier slightly more often than round-one RBs, and bust less. The "RB is safer in round one" idea does not hold up in the data. Round two is the one place RBs clearly separate from WRs.

Below is every table behind those two findings, plus slot-by-slot hit rates, the late-round hits, and the method.

"Finish" is rank at the player's position by total season points, not points per game. A hit means the player finished at or above his ADP slot.

One first-at-position finish in eleven years. Six finishes outside the top 12 at the position. The 1.01 carries the highest ceiling on the board and the same injury odds as pick 150, and one bad injury wipes out the whole premium you paid to get him.

The ADP RB1, WR1, QB1, and TE1, year by year

The consensus top player at each position, and where he actually finished.

Bust means finished outside the top 36 at the position. Rounds are 12-team, one pick per round per team.

n per round, RB/WR: 77/51, 58/62, 52/57, 45/68, 45/55, 43/55, 48/44, 49/52, 42/54, 41/48.

Round one and round two are where the positions split. WRs hit slightly more in round one and bust less. RBs hit meaningfully more in round two, 53.4% to 40.3%. By round five both positions are a coin flip on busting entirely, and round seven onward is mostly noise either way.

For round one specifically, the median finish rank was RB 10, WR 7. WRs also finish closer to their ADP slot on average in round one.

A hit means the player finished at or above his ADP slot at that position. RB and WR go to slot 24 (two per team), QB and TE to slot 12 (one per team).

RB and WR run to slot 24 (two starters per team), QB and TE stop at 12 (one starter per team), so the bottom of those two columns is blank.

WR1 hits twice as often as RB1, 36.4% to 18.2%. The ADP WR1 is a far more stable investment than the ADP RB1. RB5 is the single worst hit rate in the whole table at 9.1%. TE10 and TE12 are the standout value slots, both above 80%.

How many of the ADP top 12 (top 6 for QB and TE) actually finished in the top 12 (top 6 for QB and TE) that season, by year.

Roughly half the "locked in" preseason tier turns over every single year at every position. QB and TE turn over even more: at best half the top 6 repeats, and some years only one QB does.

Round 8 or later at ADP, ranked by how many spots the player beat his positional ADP rank by.

Justin Jefferson's 2020 rookie season and Alvin Kamara's 2017 rookie season are both on this list. So is a 2015 running back room, Devonta Freeman and DeAngelo Williams, that nobody was drafting inside round nine.