Over the years, fantasy owners have won their leagues using numerous unique strategies. Some have followed Zero RB and drafted stud wide receivers to their heart’s content. Others have turned that strategy on its head and drafted only running backs for the first handful of rounds.
There is more than one road that leads to glory, but there are some landmarks you better be passing on your way to Titletown. I’m going to sharpen some essential tools in your draft toolbelt, and then I’ll touch on some of the more successful strategies that I’ve employed in best ball drafts. If you’re unfamiliar with best ball drafts, please check out my article earlier this week, the “Beginner’s Guide to DRAFT Best Ball.”
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The Staples
The most important thing in a best ball draft is that you need to roll with the punches. Each pick is different, and each draft is different as a result. Respond to what the other owners do. I love the saying, “Don’t hate players, hate ADPs.” I have zero shares of Joe Mixon.
That doesn’t mean I don’t like him as a player; it just means I don’t like the price I’m paying to get him on my team. If Joe Mixon fell to the fourth or fifth round, I would indeed be taking him at that point. As you process my guide through best ball, know that I’m not necessarily suggesting players, but instead suggesting pathways to roster construction.
It’s also valuable to note the scoring system is half-PPR, which means skill players get half a point for each catch. This makes running backs, particularly pass-catching ones, more valuable than wide receivers when compared to a full-PPR scoring format. Lastly, we need to address the starting lineup spots. Each week, you’re asked to start just 1 QB and 1 TE, but you’ll need 2 RBs, 3 WRs, and 1 flex. The flex spot can be filled with any non-QB player. Because five or six of the eight starting spots will be filled with running backs and wide receivers, these are the positions you will need lots of depth at.
Drafting RBs/WRs
The early rounds of a best ball draft don’t stray too far from the habits of a normal season-long draft. You want to take the best players available, and you want to load up on running backs and wide receivers. Barring a star TE or QB falling down the draft board, I try to get eight total RBs and WRs through the first eight rounds. My favorite early round tactic is to go top-heavy at one of the positions. The best way for me to explain my method is by example.
When I’m drafting in the first four picks, I cannot pass on the bell-cow backs like Le’Veon Bell, David Johnson, Todd Gurley, and Ezekiel Elliott. The raw touches these players will get means more to me than roster construction. Picking in the top four means that on the turn, I’m now making somewhere between Pick 21 and Pick 24. Most of the top-tier talent is gone at this point, but there are some great backs and receivers still on the board. Having already selected an RB, I like to take another top-end ball carrier like Devonta Freeman, Jerick McKinnon, or Christian McCaffrey.
Going top heavy at running back allows me to draft for depth at wide receiver in the later rounds. This is where rolling with the punches comes in. If by some error in drafting, my league mates let an elite WR like Odell Beckham, Julio Jones, etc. fall to the end of the second round, I would ignore the strategy of going top heavy, and I would take the Tier 1 player over any Tier 2 player. As a drafter, you must be flexible.
I do believe that taking a balanced approach and quasi-alternating between RB and WR in the early rounds typically forces you to need depth at both positions towards the end of the draft, so try to avoid that. Keep in mind that best ball is not a normal season-long format. If it’s a muddy picture when trying to identify which players are your starters, you don’t need to worry about that. You’ll never have to make a decision about which three wide receivers of your eight above average players should start. You just need three of those eight to do well.
Starting at the front of the draft typically yields me two RBs in the first two rounds, and then I can draft a solid WR1 in the third round like Doug Baldwin, Stefon Diggs, or Larry Fitzgerald. Once you have two top-end running backs, you can focus on running backs later in the draft that match two archetypes: undervalued specimens and guys who have done it before and have a path to become a starter. Undervalued athletic freaks who overachieved their ADP in 2017 are Jerick McKinnon, Alvin Kamara, and Rex Burkhead, the highest of which was being drafted at RB44. These are examples of guys who, if given significant playing time, could (and arguably should) thrive off of their athleticism. I would guess that in 2017 I had less than 10% Todd Gurley, but I did have over 80% Kamara and that more than made up for it since he was drafted as RB52.
The second style of pick are running backs who have done it before. That sounds pretty funny to say, but I mean it. Most teams use somewhat of a committee in the backfield, and teams who rely too heavily on the starter, typically end up with an injury and the backup taking over the bulk of the snaps. Last season, Kareem Hunt was just a pretty good backup up until Spencer Ware went down with a knee injury just before the season started. Hunt went on to take 93% of his team’s carries and RB1 status. Some current players with bell-cow capabilities in muddy situations are the aforementioned Spencer Ware, Rashaad Penny, Royce Freeman, Bilal Powell, and Javorius Allen. These are backs who aren’t going to sink you if you draft them and they don’t become starters, but they’ll lift your team to new heights if they do receive a bulk of the timeshare.
In an alternate universe where I’m selecting at the end of the pack, I tend to do the opposite. In various drafts, I’ve been able to snag every wide receiver except Antonio Brown at the end of the first round. One of Odell Beckham, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, Michael Thomas, or Keenan Allen will be there to close out the first round, and some of them will still be there at the turn of your second pick in most drafts. This means that you can start your draft with two top-six wide receivers.
Once you have some top-end talent at the wide receiver position, you can focus in on two wide receiver archetypes: the big-play dart throw and the high-volume receiver on a low-end offense. Dart throws are guys like Will Fuller, Josh Doctson, and Marquise Goodwin. These are the type of receivers who could score you two fantasy points, or they could score you 18 with very few games in between. They could conceivably catch two passes for two touchdowns. When paired with two Tier 1 receiving options, you are okay with that risk because most weeks you’ll only need one wide receiver to fill the final starting slot.
The second archetype you can draft are guys who play for low-quality NFL teams, but should see the bulk of their team’s target share. Last season I used some of my final best ball picks on a player who fit both of these roles: Robby Anderson. Anderson was a playmaking machine in an offense that didn’t have any other weapons once Quincy Enunwa went down with a neck injury. He proved to be one of the late-round targets that helped me double my entry fees last year in best ball.
Players this year who are on bad teams but should see high volume are Kelvin Benjamin, Michael Crabtree, and Allen Hurns. These players are being largely ignored because they are tied to questionable offenses, and rightfully so, but if you can get their talent and volume at the discounted price you’re seeing, then you need to take it. In 2017, I was drafting Marqise Lee at the end of drafts because he was the highest projected volume receiver on a team that people were steering clear of.
In fact, last year I wrote a step-by-step description of a best ball draft in which I drafted Ezekiel Elliott with my first pick (pre-suspension) and went on to draft Jordan Reed and Tyler Eifert as my only tight ends (yikes), yet I finished first in the league. Late round picks, particularly at wide receiver, are essential to winning best ball drafts. If you can get four players from these archetypes and two stud wide receivers, the odds are in your favor for a good season from your wideouts.
Drafting QBs/TEs
Because they require only one starter per week, quarterback and tight end are not nearly as important as running back and wide receiver. The dropoff in fantasy production for quarterbacks is also much less than that of the dropoff from tight end production. In 2017, Russell Wilson scored 68% more fantasy points than Jacoby Brissett, QB1 and QB20 respectively. The season’s top tight end, Travis Kelce, however, scored 130% more fantasy points than his 20th place counterpart, Austin Seferian-Jenkins. For this reason, it’s more important to lock down valuable tight ends before rostering your quarterbacks, if at all possible.
Tight end is a roster spot where I’m not fond of shooting for the stars with an unproven commodity. This is due in large part to the lack of depth at the position. You never want to draft more than three tight ends, and I prefer to stick to two, so I can have depth elsewhere. This means that if one of your selections is a whiff, you’re rolling out there with one option each week. My only exception to this guideline is drafting high-ceiling players whose prices have been deflated by injury. The upside that they bring is worth the risk.
Generally, I like to use two roster spots for tight ends, and I like them to be solid tight end options who have reasonable floors. These are guys who must play an integral role in their offense’s production, like Charles Clay, Jared Cook, Kyle Rudolph, and the aforementioned Seferian-Jenkins. They don’t scream upside, but you know they will get a good share of targets each week and will rarely lay an egg. Your goal should be to make sure you put eight-plus fantasy points in your tight end starting slot each week. If, and only if, your running back and wide receiver groups are strong and have very little bye week crossover, should you consider selecting a third tight end.
Quarterbacks are the least important position you draft. It’s been an issue in fantasy football forever, but drafters continue to insist that quarterbacks are important because they score the most points. This is simply untrue. It’s all about replacement value. The canyon between Todd Gurley (RB1) and DeMarco Murray (RB20) is monstrous when analyzed alongside the gap between Russell Wilson and Jacoby Brissett.
I won separate best ball drafts last year on the shoulders of Andy Dalton, Blake Bortles, and Joe Flacco. Yes, Joseph Flacco. Having the best quarterback on your team is far less important than the best running backs and wide receivers. Some key points here are to target two quarterbacks with separate bye weeks (otherwise, you’ll need a third QB) and look for quarterbacks who are secure in their job. Flacco fell under that second category last year, but would not this year, and I’m not drafting him because of that.
In the late rounds, you can get Alex Smith, Jameis Winston, Mitchell Trubisky, Case Keenum, Derek Carr, and Blake Bortles. Barring an epic meltdown, none of these guys will be benched this season, and none of them is on a team that will be in a constant positive game script. It’s that straight-forward.
Noteworthy Tidbits
When joining a best ball draft, the contest type is essential in determining your strategy. There are advantages and disadvantages to choosing a fast draft over a slow draft, but I don’t personally believe that the speed of the draft should change how you approach your picks. There are also different-sized leagues. DRAFT offers smaller leagues with three or six owners and larger leagues with 10 or 12 owners.
How you approach the small leagues should be quite different. In these leagues, it’s imperative that you nab an elite tight end and a top-tier quarterback, if not multiple of each position. The main reason for this is that there are only a handful of quarterbacks with the same upside as Aaron Rodgers and similarly a small cohort of tight ends with the same ceiling as Rob Gronkowski. If you can roster both of those players or players of a similar caliber, you have a massive leg up at two shallow positions. This may seem counter-intuitive to my drafting logic in large contests, but the small contest size makes all the difference because of the gap between your selections. Even if you stretched and took Gronkowski and Rodgers in the first two rounds, you would still have the ninth and 10th pick to draft some skill position players.
You can also make up for a lack of high-end talent with lots of depth. That’s a huge value of the computer selecting your starters for you. If you head into a week with Sony Michel and Kerryon Johnson, you don’t have to play rock-paper-scissors to predict the future and guess which one will go off. At the end of the week, the best-performing players are in your lineup.
A secondary benefit of this strategy is that you won’t need to roster three quarterbacks or three tight ends. The only reason you would do this with Rodgers or Gronkowski would be to protect against injury, but that’s irrelevant at that point. If Aaron Rodgers and Rob Gronkowski miss significant time with injury, you aren’t going to win your league anyway so stick with two at each position. Limiting yourself to two quarterbacks and two tight ends allows you to use 14 roster spots for running backs and wide receivers.
The early QB and early TE strategies cannot typically be successfully implemented together in the leagues with 10 or 12 drafters. If you were to take an elite RB in Round 1, then Gronkowski in Round 2, you would need to select Rodgers in Round 3 to ensure that you would get him. That means you would be picking 49th or worse and selecting your RB2 or your WR1. A lot of dominoes have to fall your way. It’s a slippery slope.
Ultimately, no two drafts are alike, and not every shoe fits. Try out my strategy and see what you think. It’s been a successful one for me, but the shoe doesn’t fit on everyone. Get out there and join some best ball contests on DRAFT! Happy drafting season!
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Nick Johnson is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Nick, check out his archive and follow him @bigplaycoachj.
