Market Monday: The Wildest ADP Move Adam Has Seen (Episode 992 with Adam Levitan)

**Adam Levitan** (0:13)
Hello, and welcome to episode 992 of the official establishtherun.com podcast. My name is Adam Levitan, I am one of the co-founders here at ETR, and it is time for the show you cannot survive without, Market Monday. Each week, I examine the biggest risers and followers in Best Ball ADP, and discuss whether I'm buying or selling these players at their new prices. The idea is simple, give you an idea of how the market is thinking about players, and also how I'm thinking about them.
Reminder that if you want to use the rankings that the guys who won both the DraftKings and FanDuel flagships last year for $2 million each, you need the ETR Best Ball product. Obviously, I'm biased, but the reason all the sharpest people upload our rankings before they draft is because they know how hard we grind every shred of information to ensure our uploadable rankings are as accurate as possible. Our Best Ball product is just $60, renews 365 days from your purchase date, so head to establishtherun.com for details. Also for my true grinders out there, you should check out The Solver Draft Assistant. As Sam Shepard, the DraftKings $2 million winner did last year. Link to that is in the Best Ball tab on ETR.
All right, going to start with the risers from the last 7 days. First one is Quinton Johnston Chargers Wide Receiver up 7.3 more spots to 72 overall.
Someone is going to have to explain this to me. Two months ago, Quinton Johnston's ADP was 114 We were at 104 overall on him. Now, he's going 72 overall and we're at 97 in the ranks. I'm not sure what has changed that's led to Quinton Johnston steaming up 40 spots. We already knew Kenan Allen was unlikely to come back to the Chargers. Lad McConkey, yeah, he sat out some of OTAs with a hamstring issue, but he's expected to be fine. And like, I agree that Mike McDaniel is a good thing for QJ in the entire offense, but he was hired six months ago back in January. So over the last two months, I legit do not see anything that has changed. This is one of the wildest moves I can recall in the best ball era. Forty spots of ADP on total air, no depth chart change, no injuries around him. I mean, there's not even like rookie hype that sent Trevion Henderson and Emeka Egbuka flying up the board last year.
I'm also confused by this because Quinton Johnston has not been a very good NFL player. Yes, he showed improvement last year, but he was one of the worst round one rookie wide receivers ever back in 2023
Let's say you want to throw that out, say, oh, he was a rookie, whatever. I don't think you should throw it out, but OK, fine. Even across 2024 and 2025, QJ only posted a 60% catch rate, only caught 3.65 passes per game. He was at 1.54 yards per route run last two years. Even last season, he had eight games under 50 yards. That's half of the games that he played. And on top of all that, it's so crowded in Los Angeles this year. McConkey, Trey Harris, they drafted Brendan Thompson, Amarin Hampton. Keaton Mitchell, Kamani Vidal. The tight end room is really strong with Gadsden and Kohler and Ninjoku.
Oh, and on the coaching change pod, which by the way, I think you guys should really watch slash listen to, but we forgot to mention when we were talking about Mike McDaniel. Yes, I love him, we love him, but his offenses tend to play pretty slow, depressed play volume. So I don't know, man, I was down to take Quinton Johnston around pick 100 as part of Justin Herbert teams or just as part of running back heavy starts. It's going to be really hard for me to ever take QJ when he's going around Drake May, Jaden Daniels, Jordan Tyson, Ramondre Stevenson, Tony Pollard, et cetera.
Second riser, Ricky Pearsall up 2.4 spots to 105 overall. I've mentioned a few times about this mini group of wide receivers. When I am making my running back heavy starts, I really try to get into that. Jaden Reid, Josh Downs, Michael Pittman, Jordan Addison, Ricky Pearsall, Xavier Worthy, Matthew Golden tier of wide receivers.
On Pearsall specifically, of course, you know, got shot, got his Rolex back. But long time listeners probably know I am very much against the I can predict injuries crowd. Every NFL player who has a major role is a favorite to get hurt. You know, they told me Christian McCaffrey would never sustain health. And then he played 17 games in 2022, 2023 and 2025 They said Matthew Stafford was injury prone early in his career, and he's been one of the NFL's most durable quarterback since. So I'm not just going to ignore Ricky Pearsall's ceiling because I'm playing scared with regard to injury risk.