Now that the calendar is flipping to June, the 2021 fantasy football draft season is right around the corner. And as any schooled team manager knows, league winners are usually decided in the months before the draft through their depth of preparation and attention to detail.
Sure, luck plays a big part in fantasy sports, but draft prep is critical to giving your team its best chance at the championship prize.
One of the smarter ways to prepare for your league’s draft is understanding a player’s ADP, or average draft position, heading into the draft. With so much data available on the internet, understanding a player’s ADP is an easy and sensible way to gauge when is the right time to pick that running back or wide receiver you have your eye on.
And let’s face it, as a Bears fan, you’re more likely to reach on a skill player from your favorite team. So it’s critical that you understand where each of the Bears’ main offensive weapons is being drafted at this point in draft season so you don’t overextend yourself and put your 2021 fantasy season in jeopardy.
Let’s start at quarterback, where it’s really anyone’s guess who the opening day starter will be. The battle between Andy Dalton and Justin Fields will be an entertaining one, even if Dalton is only competing for the right to be a starter for the first half of the season. Regardless, the fantasy community is higher on Fields, who’s currently QB24 with an ADP of 152. That’ll be a bargain come Week 8.
At running back, the disrespect for David Montgomery extends to the fantasy community. He’s currently RB19 with an ADP of 32. He’s essentially a late-third-round pick in 12-team leagues. Again, that’s great value if he begins the year like he finished 2020.
Allen Robinson is the best of the Bears’ skill players and his fantasy ADP is proof of that. He’s currently WR15 — a fringe WR1 in fantasy — with an ADP of 42. That feels about right for him, although he’s setting up for a potential career year regardless of who wins the Bears’ starting job. Both Dalton and Fields would rank as the best quarterback A-Rob has ever played with.
At tight end, Cole Kmet is considered a backup at TE25 with an ADP of 170. Again, that’s fair, considering Kmet had a very slow start to his rookie season and didn’t factor much in the passing game at all in 2020. That said, he’ll have a much bigger role in the offense this season and should be the Bears’ primary pass-catcher at the position.