There are new trends in fantasy football seemingly every year. Maybe you’ve just tried to expand your versatility and play in a Superflex league. Maybe you’ve tried tight end premium scoring. But what about best ball leagues?
There’s always a part of us that resists change, and that’s completely normal. When it came to best ball leagues, that’s where my resistance started. I liked fantasy football the way I had it. There was no need to mess with a good thing (it’s how I feel about pizza). But someone asked me a question that changed everything a few years back.
“What’s your favorite part about the fantasy football season?”
Go ahead and ask yourself that question right now. My answer was simple: Draft day. You get to find out what team you’ll be working with to defeat your friends that particular season. There’s nothing like sitting around afterward, staring at your team when all is said and done, telling your friends why you’re better than them. This is where best ball comes in.
WHAT IS BEST-BALL?
It’s a draft-only format that requires absolutely zero maintenance or attention after you draft. That’s right, you take the best thing from the fantasy football season, and that’s it. You draft your team, and then the hosting site will automatically set your best lineup on a week-to-week basis. You may be saying to yourself, “Well I do that with my teams already.” But what’s significantly different is that best ball sets your best lineup after the games have been played.
You no longer have to wonder whether you should be starting Player X because he’s about to go up against a top-tier cornerback like Jalen Ramsey. You don’t have to wonder if Jordan Howard will fall into the end zone twice while on your bench, or if Kyle Shanahan will go back to Jeff Wilson. You don’t have to make any decisions, because, again, the hosting site will automatically set your best lineup based on the points they scored each week.
You also don’t have to worry about trades, waiver wires, free agents, etc. You’ll draft your team and then never touch it again. There are plenty of fantasy owners who enjoy doing those things (as do I), but best ball helps us get through the offseason while remaining sharp. By drafting teams in best ball, it keeps you in the know for the fantasy season, as you’ll walk into your season-long drafts with a better idea of how you want to build your team. In short, best ball is a no-nonsense format that rewards the owner(s) who drafted the best team. And before you ask, yes, injuries are going to happen and derail your team at times, but that’s a risk to every team in the league.
HOW DO I PLAY AND WHAT’S THE COST?
After hearing about what best ball is, now you want to get your feet wet. The best part is that you don’t even have to shell out much money to do that. There are sites offering best ball leagues for as cheap as $1 to join. If you’re a high-roller and want to jump into the high-stakes leagues, there are best-ball leagues that have $1,000-plus entries as well.
A few years ago, there were just one place you could go to play best ball, but thanks to a surge in popularity, we have a few sites to choose from. You could play at Yahoo, DraftKings, FanDuel, FFPC, or Best Ball 10s (formerly MFL10s). The payouts range from site-to-site, but it’s typically around 50 percent of the pot goes to first, 30 percent to second, and 10 percent to third. There are also some new leagues taking a page out of the DFS book, offering 50/50 contests where as long as you finish in the top-half of the league, you nearly double your money, though finishing in first place gets you nothing extra.
THE DRAFT
If you’ve played in a fantasy football league, you likely know about the hassle it is to get everyone together at the same time for the draft. I mean, everyone has lives, right? Fortunately, best ball drafts don’t have to put a strain on your plans in life. Why? They have two different types of options on best-ball sites. You can do drafts that require you to pick within 30 seconds and those drafts are done within an hour. Then there’s the standard option where you have 4-8 hours to make your selection and those drafts typically take 1-2 weeks to complete.
It’s worth noting that not everyone uses their full timer in slow drafts, and there’s times where you’ll make it through an entire round in a matter of hours, but the idea is that you have enough time to make your pick (if needed), even if you’re tied up at work or at an event. Some choose to use the auto-draft setting that’ll automatically choose the next player on their list in case they’re concerned about not being available for one (or more) of their picks. If the next owner doesn’t have any players on their auto-draft list, you’ll have to wait. If they were to take up the full 4-8 hours and not make a selection, their pick defaults to the next player available based on the site’s recommendation.
ROSTER REQUIREMENTS AND SCORING SETTINGS
Your best ball draft will often consist of 20 rounds where you’ll select a combination of quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, tight ends, and on some sites, defenses. There is no limit as to the number of players you can draft per position, but you’re obviously not going to leave yourself with one quarterback, as he’s going to have a bye week and ruin your score for that particular week. There’s also the chance that he gets injured, which would effectively ruin your best-ball league. Remember, you aren’t setting a roster and there are no waivers or trades; you only have the players who are on your drafted roster. While we don’t care about bye weeks in redraft or dynasty formats, we do in best ball.
The scoring settings vary from site-to-site, as Yahoo and FanDuel are half-PPR, FFPC is full-PPR with 1.5PPR for tight ends, while Best Ball 10s and DraftKings are full-PPR. All of them have slight differences in the details, so make sure you check out the scoring settings prior to drafting. The leagues will be played through Week 16, similar to the way most fantasy leagues do nowadays. There are no playoffs in best-ball, only the team who has the most points at the end of the year.
BASIC STRATEGY
Similar to your re-draft leagues, it’s important that you don’t stick to any one strategy. It’s important to have an idea of what you want to do, but remain fluid, and be willing to go wherever the draft takes you. With that being said, here is a general outline to get you started:
2-3 QUARTERBACKS
4-7 RUNNING BACKS
6-8 WIDE RECEIVERS
2-3 TIGHT ENDS
2 D/ST (In leagues that require them)
In short, don’t draft a quarterback in the first four rounds. In today’s NFL, many signal callers can provide you massive value later in the draft (Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, Ryan Tannehill, Justin Herbert, and Kirk Cousins all finished top-12 but were drafted outside the top-eight).
The only other piece of general advice (for FFPC and Best Ball 10s) would be that you shouldn’t be taking any defense anywhere inside of the top 15 rounds. Remember, there is so much volatility year over year at the position. Don’t be left chasing last year’s points.
By now, you should be prepared to start your first best-ball draft. Even though I told you not to stick to any one particular strategy, you likely have questions about what strategies may work best in an ideal situation. Because of that, we’ll have an article soon explaining the best way to attack your MFL10s. Until then, pleasant drafting!
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Mike Tagliere is a featured writer at FantasyPros. For more from Mike, check out his archive and follow him @MikeTagliereNFL.