Fantasy Contrarian: Why You Should Draft Devonta Freeman Higher Than his ADP

Fantasy Contrarian: Why You Should Draft Devonta Freeman Higher Than his ADP 

Freeman was the fantasy darling of the 2015 season. He seemingly came out of nowhere to help lucky owners from around the league win fantasy titles. Freeman took the NFL and the fantasy world by storm and he’s back for an encore in 2015 — except that no one believes it was real. His ADP (Average draft position) is currently #20! When in the world has a youthful RB with the talents of Freeman come off a year where he led all Fantasy RB in points been overlooked or underhyped this much? For those who believe his backup Tevin Colemen is a treat to his workload please ignore all the preseason hype! We understand coach speak and of course they will say all the “right things” about cutting freemans workload and sharing the ball more. But at the end of the day the talent demands him to be on the field, and lets not forgot Colemans fumbling issues. One big fumble in game one or two of the season and he will be back into the “doghouse”.

Devonta Freeman is currently the 7th running back off the board!

7th? He was number one last year at the end of the season… was it just a fluke? I think not. Freeman was a talented runner at Florida State and excelled against the top competition in the country. He’s 24 years old and only has a little over 300 carries on those legs — which means he’s got plenty of fuel left in the tank. Not to mention, 2015 was just his second year in the league and the first time he got the opportunity to be the man.

People are drafting Ezekiel Elliott ahead of last year’s number one point-getter. This is some serious opportunity to take advantage of your opponents’ mistakes. Elliott could very well have a terrific season, but you’d be taking a major risk by drafting him ahead of Freeman who ran for over 1,000 yards and 11 touchdowns last year. Elliott was still at Ohio State. Do you see my point here?

On top of his talent, Freeman will be running behind an upgraded offensive line this year. The Falcons went out and upgraded the big guys up front and Freeman will be the primary beneficiary of that. When you combine all these factors, there is a real good chance of Devonta Freeman repeating his fantasy football success. He has Matt Ryan and Julio Jones to take the focus off him and an upgraded O-Line to run behind… what’s not to like? Sometimes you have to “zig when everyone is zaging.