Buyer beware: 4 players who no longer provide great draft value
Got a month-old fantasy cheat sheet? You can go ahead and rip it up.
With 2016 training camps well underway, the fantasy football news cycle is updating at such a furious pace that today's rankings may be completely obsolete in a week. Those sleepers and busts you identified early in the draft process are now everybody else's sleepers and busts, too - and in the case of the players listed below, all the early hype has quashed their value.
Here are four players who rode the hype train - and are now being drafted so high, they're no longer the strong value plays they were a month ago (standard 12-team ADPs courtesy Fantasy Football Calculator):
RB DeAngelo Williams, Steelers
July 4 ADP: 91
August 3 ADP: 58
Williams has skyrocketed up draft boards thanks to Steelers No. 1 running back Le'Veon Bell's imminent four-game suspension for missing a series of drug tests. Williams will be the bellcow back for the first quarter of the season, and he showed last year in Bell's absence he has No. 1 potential.
Those who jumped on board earlier in training camp were rewarded with a top-5 fantasy running back option at a middle-of-the-eighth-round ADP. Now, you'll need to use a fifth-round pick to nab him - and you'll need to pass up a handful of players with better year-long job security to do it.
If you believe you're a strong enough fantasy player to find running back value later in the draft, using a fifth-rounder on Williams is defensible. But if you're a Bell owner thinking about nabbing Williams as a handcuff, you'll be spending two of your first five picks on one backfield. That's a big price tag.
RB Arian Foster, Dolphins
July 4 ADP: 89
August 3 ADP: 67
Foster is a hot fantasy ticket after signing on with Miami last month. Dolphins head coach Adam Gase is a big Foster fan, and he believes the 29-year-old still has plenty in the tank despite missing all but four games last season after tearing his Achilles' tendon in late October.
Gase is considered one of the top offensive minds in football, and he will look to maximize Foster's skill set - specifically, his patience in the running game and ability to be an asset in the passing game. And with Jay Ajayi nursing a bone bruise in his knee, Foster has been running with the first-team offense.
That said, Foster carries significant injury risk - he has played just 25 out of 48 games the past three seasons - and Ajayi will still be in the mix for touches when the season starts. Neither player represents great value - especially Foster, who is going in the middle of the sixth round.
WR Donte Moncrief, Colts
July 4 ADP: 78
August 3 ADP: 56
There are few things more frustrating than being one of the first people to trumpet an under-the-radar wide receiver, only to see the rest of the fantasy world catch up well before draft time. That's what has happened with Moncrief, who has gone from a prime sleeper to a slightly overrated option.
The Colts' No. 2 receiver has climbed the rankings amid the realization quarterback Andrew Luck is back, and will have to reassign the more than 200 targets the Colts lost with the departures of WR Andre Johnson and TE Coby Fleener. And they can't all go to No. 1 receiver T.Y. Hilton.
Moncrief is in line for a good year, but he is going ahead of the Jets Eric Decker, the Cardinals Larry Fitzgerald and the Eagles Jordan Matthews - players with better track records. He deserves to be mentioned in this group, but he's no longer the value option he was as a seventh-round pick in early July.
WR Josh Gordon, Browns
July 4 ADP: 120
August 3 ADP: 73
Less than two weeks ago, Gordon was being selected in the middle of the 12th round as the ultimate high-risk lottery ticket. But after having his suspension overturned by commissioner Roger Goodell, the enigmatic Browns star has seen his draft stock soar.
The majority of fantasy football players are divided on Gordon. Those who believe in him point to his ridiculous 2013 campaign in which he led the NFL with 1,646 receiving yards and suggest he's capable of returning to those lofty heights. At age 25, he still has plenty of miles left on the odometer.
But there are also those who see a guy who has played just five NFL games since 2014 - and will rightly point out those five games weren't exactly star-caliber (303 yards, zero touchdowns). For a guy with major question marks surrounding him, an eighth-round ADP seems a little high.