Alex Cupps is treating DeVonta Smith like a player worth taking at the 2-3 turn in best ball drafts, and that view is colliding with a far slower market on Sleeper. Smith is still available as late as the fourth round there, a gap that gives fantasy managers a real decision point in 2026 drafts.
That matters now because the draft landscape is being watched site by site, and Cupps has been using that split to identify his must-draft players all summer. The comparison comes from a fantasy football ADP tool that blends draft data from Sleeper, and Yahoo into one average, which makes the differences easier to see but does not erase them. If a player is going near the top of one board and much later on another, the average can hide how much room there is to shop around.
Cupps put it plainly: DeVonta Smith has been one of the players he has drafted all summer at the 2-3 turn in best ball formats, and he said it was shocking to see Smith fall to the late fourth round on Sleeper. The point is not subtle. In one draft room, Smith looks like a player managers must pay up for. In another, he is sitting there several rounds later, waiting for someone willing to trust the market less than the player.
The piece was published Aug. 14, 2026, as part of the second edition of Cupps' Cupboard, with an update later that day. That timing makes the split especially relevant for managers preparing for 2026 drafts, because the same player can look expensive, reasonable or outright discounted depending on which platform is setting the price. Yahoo Fantasy Football sits inside that mix, but the broader lesson is larger than one site: platform ADP is still moving enough to matter, and it can change how a draft plan should be built.
The unresolved question is not whether Smith is good enough to go earlier. It is whether fantasy managers will keep letting the gap persist. If the average keeps blending the boards together while one site keeps letting him slide, the edge belongs to the manager who knows where the market is still out of sync.
