Happy Friday!

Long time no speak, First Seed family. I’ve missed you.

A quick update on the newsletter side of things here - this season the newsletter will primarily be a draft-prep and pre-season newsletter. This means I will not be sending a newsletter weekly during the season this year. So be prepared for weekly draft prep!

Personal news that is somewhat related: I am going to be a father! My wife and I are expecting some time during the regular season, so this has lead me to prepare myself to focus my time there this fall.

Happy to be back and excited to get this season started.

Now, let’s win these drafts.

In this week’s newsletter:

• 🏷️ This Week’s Draft Values

• 😴 Sleeper of the Week

• 📚 Other Fantasy Football Readings

• 🥇 QB Rankings

🏷️ This Week’s Draft Values

Every week I’ll highlight draft values found in draft rooms, primarily using my Abusing Draft Rankings tool to help find these players.

Obviously right now it’s too early to take advantage of these values, unless you’re drafting this weekend! It’s still a massive benefit to keep an eye on both ADP trends and consistent discrepancies between ADP, draft room rankings and expert ranks.

WR Amari Cooper – All Platforms

Draft room rank: 42 | Expert rank: 58-69

This may be a byproduct of ongoing contract negotiations, but I can’t imagine Amari Cooper missing any of the season because of it. He’s appearing in draft rooms as a WR3 (???) and I’m having a hard time avoiding that price for Cooper. This most likely adjust as the summer goes on, but it’s also possible drafters are just bored of Amari Cooper when he’s still a solid fantasy asset!

49ers WRs - ESPN

Brandon Aiyuk: Draft room rank: 34-36 | Expert rank: 15-20

Deebo Samuel: Draft room rank: 46 | Expert rank: 21-27

Somehow both of these players are appearing in ESPN draft rooms about two rounds later than where they are ranked, and it’s a screaming value to me. I can imagine this re-shapes as any and all trade rumors around Aiyuk either die down or increase, but in reality I think both his and Deebo’s value to fantasy football is still top tier.

😴 Sleeper of the Week

Each week here, I’ll highlight a guy that I think is a little underappreciated in draft rooms and rankings. Guys that I expect to outperform current expectations and could be some mid-to-late-round gold.

David Montgomery - RB, Detroit Lions

Current ADP: RB20

The coaching staff for the Lions is committed to using two running backs. We saw this with D’Andre Swift and Jamaal Williams in 2022, and last year with this same pair in David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs. Gibbs is currently being drafted in the first round, while Montgomery is floating in the 6th round of drafts as the RB21 on ESPN.

Montgomery finished 2023 as the RB12 in PPR points per game and has a path to see similar workloads. While Gibbs was putting up RB1 numbers in the second half of the season, Montgomery was still putting up double-digit fantasy scores.

If you’re eyeing up any mid-round RBs, make sure you’re circling Montgomery at this current price.

Other Fantasy Football Readings:

• Learning from our 2023 mistakes

• A 2024 tight end deep dive

• If you’re into best ball, here’s a Twitter/X thread on stacking weeks 15 and 16

🥇 QB Rankings

This week’s QB rankings:

Spread the word! Share this newsletter with your friends. Feel free to forward this to your friends, coworkers, or even your dad!