Every August, fantasy Twitter turns into a “who do you love” contest, and most of the takes evaporate by Week 3. This isn’t that. These are five names I’m comfortable reaching for a round, sometimes two, ahead of where the market has them, because the underlying data says the price is about to move. ADP is a snapshot of where the room’s confidence sits today. Wait for these profiles to become obvious and you pay full retail in September for what you could’ve had at a discount in August. Five guys I’m getting out ahead of the field on, plus one veteran bonus.
Every August, fantasy Twitter turns into a “who do you love” contest, and most of the takes evaporate by Week 3. This isn’t that. These are five names I’m comfortable reaching for a round, sometimes two, ahead of where the market has them, because the underlying data says the price is about to move. ADP is a snapshot of where the room’s confidence sits today. Wait for these profiles to become obvious, and you pay full retail in September for what you could’ve had at a discount in August. Five guys I’m getting out ahead of the field on, plus one veteran bonus.
De’Zhaun Stribling, WR, San Francisco 49ers
Current ADP: WR56, #175 overall. Expert consensus rank: WR52. That four-spot gap between where the room drafts him and where the analysts rank him is the kind of crack I look for.
San Francisco spent its first pick of the 2026 draft, 33rd overall and the top of Round 2, on Stribling out of Ole Miss, where he caught 55 passes for 811 yards and 6 touchdowns in his lone season there after stops at Oklahoma State and Washington State. The roster around him has changed twice since. Ricky Pearsall is done for the year after PCL surgery on a knee that flared up in the first week of training camp. Jauan Jennings left in free agency for a one-year, $13 million deal in Minnesota. Christian Kirk has barely practiced and, per multiple camp reports, is fighting to make the 53-man roster. That’s three names off the depth chart in six months.
Yes, the 49ers re-signed Deebo Samuel on a one-year deal and added six-time Pro Bowler Mike Evans on a three-year contract. This isn’t an empty room, and Stribling isn’t walking into a WR1 job. But he forced his way into the rotation on talent alone. In his preseason debut against Tennessee, he caught 7 of his targets for 63 yards and averaged 4.2 yards per route run, with all of his production coming in the first half, including a 32-yard sideline shot and an 11-yard third-down conversion that set up a touchdown. Only one other receiver in the last decade caught seven passes in the opening 20 minutes of a preseason game. Kyle Shanahan said afterward he “liked how his hands looked out there and played physical.” Titans head coach Robert Saleh, watching from the other sideline, called him “a big, strong receiver” who’s “going to be pretty good.”
At a WR56 price tag (he’s rostered in barely a third of leagues right now), you’re not paying for a starting job. You’re paying for a route-running rookie with real juice who has climbed past two veterans on the depth chart in one training camp, in an offense that scored the most points in the NFL as recently as 2024. Grab him a round before he’s a household name.
Travis Etienne, RB, New Orleans Saints
Current ADP: RB17, #32 overall (#34 in PPR). The public read on Etienne right now is lukewarm at best. The consensus framing from most outlets is “priced fairly, no real upside,” largely because his per-touch efficiency cratered in his final Jacksonville season (0.81 fantasy points per opportunity, 32nd among running backs) and his target share never topped single digits (9.5% in 2025).
New Orleans made Etienne QB-money for a running back this offseason: four years, $52 million. That kind of commitment doesn’t sit on the bench. Camp reports out of New Orleans have Etienne splitting first-team reps with Alvin Kamara, and outlets covering the position battle have pegged him as the “1A” given the contract. Kamara turns 31 in July and is coming off a down 2025: 131 carries for 471 yards and a single rushing touchdown across 11 games, well off his 950 yards and 6 scores the year before. If New Orleans pays Etienne like a workhorse, the team plans to use him like one.
The knock on the offense is real: the Saints finished 28th in scoring last season, and new play-caller Kellen Moore’s system leans more pass-heavy than what Etienne ran in Jacksonville. But that cuts both ways. A pass-funnel offense next to an aging complementary back is exactly the spot where a younger, cheaper lead runner starts eating into passing-down work that used to be off-limits. Camp reports suggest Etienne is trending toward winning the early-down job outright in the first two weeks, and once that happens his price climbs out of the RB17 range fast. Lock him in now.
Brian Thomas Jr., WR, Jacksonville Jaguars
Current ADP: WR35 (PPR) / WR37 (standard), sitting around pick 82-85 overall. That’s a brutal fall for a player who was a Pro Bowler and Offensive Rookie of the Year finalist twelve months earlier.
The tape and the box score both explain the drop. As a rookie in 2024, Thomas caught 87 of 133 targets for 1,282 yards and 10 touchdowns across 17 games, a legitimate WR1 season. In 2025, across 14 games, he managed just 48 catches on 91 targets for 707 yards and 2 touchdowns. Same 14.7 yards-per-catch average both years, so the tools didn’t disappear. The volume and the touchdowns did, and the industry discounted him almost two full rounds for it.
The current ADP undervalues the context behind that decline. Jacksonville handed the offense to head coach Liam Coen and offensive coordinator Shane Waldron this offseason, and Travis Hunter, the two-way Heisman winner, has emerged as a legitimate second weapon rather than a defensive-first project, which should soften the double-teams that smothered Thomas for stretches last season. A receiver with his catch radius and explosive-play profile doesn’t turn into a WR35 because a quarterback situation and a scheme misfired for one year. Buy the bounce-back a round before the “post-hype sleeper” columns run in every outlet.
Jonathon Brooks, RB, Carolina Panthers
Current ADP: RB39, #116 overall. Expert consensus rank: RB29, with individual rankings as high as RB21. That’s the widest gap on this list between where the room drafts a player and where the people who study this for a living rate him: call it a full round of free value sitting on the board.
The reason for the discount is obvious, and overcorrected. Brooks tore his ACL at Texas in November 2023, then tore the same knee again three weeks after being cleared as a Panthers rookie in 2024. He has missed two full NFL seasons on one knee. But he was a productive college back before either injury, and Carolina used a second-round pick on him with this long-term plan in mind. He was cleared for his preseason debut this August and played into the second quarter, flashing the burst that made him a Day 2 pick in the first place.
The Panthers didn’t hand him the job outright. Chuba Hubbard signed a contract extension this offseason and remains the incumbent, though he’s been managing a hamstring injury through camp and carries a week-to-week tag. Head coach Dave Canales has described the plan as a committee, with “whoever the lead guy for the base downs is” getting the rhythm work and the other back handling passing downs, a setup that could tip toward Brooks the moment Hubbard’s hamstring becomes an issue in the regular season. A second ACL rehab is a real risk. It’s also the kind of story that gets priced out of value territory the first time Brooks strings together two good practices in September.
KC Concepcion, WR, Cleveland Browns
Current ADP: WR48, #132 overall. His dynasty consensus rank sits at WR34, a full round-plus higher than his redraft price. The long-term evaluators see something the redraft market hasn’t caught up to yet.
Cleveland made Concepcion a first-round pick, 24th overall, after a college career that closed with First-Team All-SEC honors, the Paul Hornung Award (given annually to the most versatile player in the country), and consensus second-team All-American recognition following his 2025 transfer season at Texas A&M. “Versatile” isn’t just a word on his résumé, it’s the entire fantasy case. In his preseason debut against Chicago, he touched the ball three different ways in the first 22 minutes: 3 catches for 27 yards, a 14-yard jet-sweep touchdown run, and a 31-yard punt return that set up a field goal, 72 all-purpose yards and a score before most starters had broken a sweat. Offensive coordinator Todd Monken said afterward the staff was “trying to get some of our skilled guys’ touches,” and Concepcion made the most of every one he got.
The competition for targets is real. Harold Fannin Jr. finished as a top-seven fantasy tight end as a rookie on a 25.5% target-per-route rate, the second-highest mark at any position in the league last season, and fellow rookie Denzel Boston is also in the mix. The quarterback situation behind center is unsettled too, with Deshaun Watson, working back from multiple Achilles tears, opening the year as QB1 over Shedeur Sanders. That’s why Concepcion’s designed touches matter: jet sweeps, screens, and return work don’t need a clean pocket or a finished quarterback to produce fantasy points. A Round 1 pick already scoring on manufactured touches in preseason game one isn’t a WR48. Get him before the return yardage and jet-sweep production show up in a real box score and the price catches up.
Bonus Value: Stefon Diggs, WR, Washington Commanders
I’m not spending a full pick slot on this one in the main five, but it would be a mistake not to flag it. Diggs was released by New England after a productive 2025: 85 catches on 102 targets for over 1,000 yards and four scores, a WR28 finish in points per game at age 32, and landed in Washington on a one-year deal in early August. With Deebo Samuel gone from the Commanders’ receiver room this offseason, Diggs steps into a clean No. 2 role next to Terry McLaurin, catching passes from a Jayden Daniels offense that’s ascending rather than declining.
Current ADP has him around WR43, #119 overall, with a range as generous as WR33 from the more bullish rankers. A savvy, sure-handed target earner who caught 83% of his looks a year ago is walking into an offense with a real franchise quarterback at a WR4/5 price. That’s the kind of veteran value that wins fantasy leagues in November while everyone else argues about rookie receivers.
The Bottom Line
None of these are free-roll darts. Stribling shares a room with two established veterans, Etienne is splitting camp reps, Brooks is on his second knee reconstruction, and Concepcion is competing with one of the league’s most efficient young tight ends for targets. But each one carries verifiable production or draft-capital signals that the current ADP hasn’t absorbed yet. Draft season rewards the people who act on that gap before the consensus catches up, not after.
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TLDR
Five ADP reaches worth making before the field catches on, plus one bonus veteran.
- De’Zhaun Stribling (49ers, WR56 ADP): Rookie who passed two veterans on the depth chart in camp and caught 7 balls for 63 yards in his preseason debut, even with Mike Evans and Deebo Samuel in the room.
- Travis Etienne (Saints, RB17 ADP): Signed for $52 million and is splitting first-team reps with a fading Alvin Kamara, who managed 471 yards and 1 rushing TD in 2025.
- Brian Thomas Jr. (Jaguars, WR35/37 ADP): Dropped two rounds after a 707-yard sophomore slump, but he posted 1,282 yards and 10 TDs as a rookie and gets a new coaching staff.
- Jonathon Brooks (Panthers, RB39 ADP): Sits ten spots below his expert consensus rank despite two ACL tears behind him, and lands in a real committee next to an injured Chuba Hubbard.
- KC Concepcion (Browns, WR48 ADP): First-round pick scoring on jet sweeps and returns, with 72 all-purpose yards and a touchdown in his preseason debut.
- Bonus, Stefon Diggs (Commanders, WR43 ADP): Walks into a clean WR2 role next to Terry McLaurin after catching 85 of 102 targets last season.
