2022 ADP Arbitrage: WR Production for Less

The idea of arbitrage was initially brought into my life by the sharp and mysterious Fantasy Douche of RotoViz, and then pounded into my head repeatedly by Matthew Freedman.

That’s not a complaint — I love arbitrage. Simply put, an arbitrage opportunity in fantasy football means we have two very similar fantasy assets, but one is cheaper, and sometimes significantly so.

Fortunately for you, the Player Comp Projections tool displays the most similar 2020 players for anybody you select, along with their rank among all similar players throughout the whole database. In other words — arbitrage. These are the top arbitrage scenarios at WR this season.

*All ADP data from Underdog Fantasy

The Arbitrage A.J. Brown (26.1) - D.K. Metcalf (54.1)

Teammates at Ole Miss, these absolute alphas find themselves in different situations from a year ago. Brown was traded from the Titans to Philly, while Metcalf lost Russell Wilson as his QB, downgrading to some combination of Geno Smith and Drew Lock.

Brown gets off of one of the most run-heavy teams in the NFL. The issue is that the Eagles are just as run-heavy versus expectation.

The late-season table seems more appropriate here given that Shane Steichen took over Philadelphia’s play-calling during the second-half of the year, and will reportedly do so again in 2022. We can expect some kind of boost due to having Brown himself — someone I am still high on — but the Eagles certainly project as a lower-volume passing team.

The real story here is Metcalf, who very quietly performed just fine in a short 2021 stint with Smith.

We can comfortably assume Seattle’s offense is going to be poor and more run-aggressive in 2022 — but they are also likely to be pretty bad overall. Volume wise, Brown and Metcalf should be fairly similar.

And while it was on about one-fifth the sample, Smith actually had a better PFF passing grade (71.4) than Jalen Hurts (69.2). He also performed better in Ben Baldwin’s EPA + CPOE index.