The Weekly Bender: Fantasy Tourism

Sun Aug 24 8:58am ET
By HOWARD BENDER
Fantasy Writer

It’s officially late August and fantasy football drafts are kicking into high gear. Your favorite fantasy analysts, along with the hardcore players, have been drafting for months but now is the time when mainstream drafters have awakened from their offseason slumber and every NFL player who makes a positive, preseason headline is seeing his fantasy football ADP hit a massive spike. Welcome to fantasy tourist season!

Calling someone a fantasy tourist isn’t meant to be an insult as much as it is meant to serve as a warning for the rest of us. Think about it this way as my new home in Juneau, Alaska has this front-and-center right now. Imagine you live in a nice, cute, coastal city and a Royal Caribbean cruise liner docks in your port. The population of your town sees a 7,500-person increase, all of whom are interested in seeing and doing everything you already see and do. When one of them hears about something fun, word spreads like wildfire and suddenly everyone is doing it. That’s what happens when a player has a dynamic preseason moment or someone gets hurt at this time of year. Mainstream drafters see the news and vault these players up their draft boards.

It started last week when our ship set sail and the Washington Commanders announced they were officially shopping running back Brian Robinson. The deal hadn’t even been made and suddenly Jacory Croskey-Merritt, a.k.a. Bill, was flying up the draft boards. He went from being an undrafted afterthought to a 10^th-round depth pick. You even saw numerous high-stakes players jump even more and we saw Croskey-Merritt go as high as the fifth round. I had him in the 10^th round of my Fantasy Football Cheat Sheet (promo code BEATBENDER gets you 25% off and an entry into a drawing to play against me in a season-long league), but now that the trade has become official and BRob is gone, I’m probably going to have to bump him even higher. The fifth round seems a bit silly, but as a late-seventh/early-eighth? I’m headed to the souvenir shop.

Looking over the starboard side of the ship, we see a number of fantasy tourists pushing the ADP up on Tampa Bay wide receiver, Emeka Egbuka. A few weeks ago, the rookie wideout was coming off draft boards around the 10^th or 11^th round, but with news that Chris Godwin (ankle) is unlikely to return until October and Jalen McMillan suffered a neck injury that just landed him on IR, the draft capital needed to acquire Egbuka has spiked significantly. We’re talking about a fifth-round pick. Seriously, a fifth-rounder. That’s even higher than Godwin was going in drafts a month ago and is nearly comparable to where Mike Evans is being taken.

On the port side, we have all the tourists clamoring for 49ers wide receiver Ricky Pearsall. He also started drafts this year somewhere around the 10^th round, but now that we know Brandon Aiyuk isn’t coming back until Week 6 and Jauan Jennings is dealing with a calf issue, Pearsall’s ADP has climbed to the sixth round in many drafts. He’s even gone past Jennings’ ADP in a number of spots. I get that Big Fantasy has been pushing Pearsall on us for much of the preseason, but does he deserve to bump past Jennings, who runs well out of both the slot and on the outside? Not in my book, but the tourists are out and about and suddenly the value we were getting on Pearsall is maybe even-money, at best, right now.

The calf injury to Miami running back De’Von Achane also seems to be a popular tourist attraction these days. Rookie Ollie Gordon has gone from late-round afterthought to a 12^th round pick in many drafts. We can probably thank Big Fantasy for this one, too, as they’ve been pushing the bruising back to fill the Raheem Mostert void despite the fact that Jaylen Wright fits the bill a whole lot better. Consider Wright the local hot spot that only the nicest and coolest of tourists are told about.

And if you’re looking for something off the beaten path, something that could also become a hotbed of action for tourists, check out Carolina’s Jalen Coker. Rumor has it the Vikings are looking at a possible deal to bring back Adam Thielen, which would put Coker back on the mainstream’s radar. Be careful, though. He is another favorite of Big Fantasy and should Thielen get dealt, Coker could end up with a ton of hype; maybe even more than the boatload of slot snaps that will be predicted.

Again, the goal here is not to poke fun at the herd that treats every news-byte like it's an announcement of this year’s next league-winner. It’s to serve as a warning for those who like value in drafts. The more the fantasy tourists flock to a player, the more difficult it is going to be to find value in that player. The good news is that with every rising tourist attraction, there are good ol’ standby players whose value is also being pushed down.

It also means, there may be more hidden gems emerging. I’m looking at you Tory Horton!

Whoops. I’ve said too much. Back to the ship!

Bender out.

The Weekly Bender: Fantasy Tourism

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