First TD Bets — Wild Card Monday Slate
Alex Christenson
The 2024-2025 season is nearly in the books, with only the Super Bowl remaining. For the true sickos out there, you should know it’s never too early to start looking ahead to the upcoming league year with best ball season already in full swing. Our friends at Underdog Fantasy recently launched their annual “The Big Board” contest, featuring $2 million in total prizes and $250k to first.
There’s a lot of strategy and game theory involved when trying to construct teams capable of taking down a large-field contest, especially ahead of the actual NFL draft with rookies included in the player pool. However, the general concept of best ball remains the same.
Intro To Best Ball
Best ball is a set-it-and-forget-it form of fantasy sports, focusing on the best part — the draft. Outside of private or contained leagues, there is no in-season management, placing a greater emphasis on proper roster construction and positional allocation during the draft. Once the regular season begins, the highest-scoring players at each position automatically get slotted into the starting lineup week-to-week, getting rid of the grueling task of making difficult start/sit decisions.
For most of the larger tournaments, including The Big Board contest, there are no roster transactions beyond the draft, which means you will not have the ability to trade with your league-mates or add/drop players through the waiver wire. As a result, it’s critical to have enough depth at each position while being cognizant of bye weeks. Unfortunately, we won’t have access to the schedule before the NFL Draft, making it even more important to allocate enough draft capital for each position, especially the “onesies,” consisting of quarterbacks and tight ends.
Why Play Best Ball?
The hassle-free nature of best ball has skyrocketed in popularity and has continued to evolve and become more widely available across a variety of platforms. It’s a great way to dabble in fantasy sports regardless of your level of commitment with a new sweat each week and no work once the season kicks off. Best ball has nearly replaced the concept of mock drafting entirely, serving as a more fun and efficient way to get ready for the start of the NFL season with some skin in the game.
Where To Try Best Ball?
Underdog Fantasy is one of many different platforms that offers best ball contests, which also includes DraftKings, Drafters, FFPC and BestBall10 just to name a few. The rules, structures, scoring and prize pools vary from site to site, so it’s important to be familiar with the tournament before you enter. As a reminder, new users at Underdog Fantasy can receive a deposit match up to $250 on their first deposit by using the promo code “FTN” upon signup.
