Fantasy NFL Articles

NFL Fantasy

July 2, 2022

2022 Best Ball Targets: Rounds 1-6

Three months ago, Underdog Fantasy launched the largest best ball tournament in history, featuring 451,200 entries and $10 million in total prizes. 30% of the prize pool will be split among three entries, including $2 million to first, $1 million to second, and $1 million to the highest-scoring team in the regular season (Weeks 1-14). […]

Sam Choudhury

NFL Fantasy

April 18, 2022

Best Ball Fades for the 2022 Fantasy Football Season

In fantasy football, the best teams are usually carried by 2-3 players vastly outperforming their average draft position. The same is true in best ball. I doubt those who drafted Cooper Kupp in the fourth round last year were far “better” drafters than average, yet teams with Cooper Kupp advanced at three times the average […]

Josh Larky

NFL Fantasy

April 14, 2022

Best Ball 2022: The Top Stacks to Target in 2022

“Josh, give me some stacks to target in my 2022 best ball drafts already.” This is that article.   The Game Plan I’m going to keep it simple: Highlight an impressive stack from 2021 and provide its Underdog Fantasy best ball win rate Determine which 2022 stack looks most similar to the 2021 version Rinse […]

Josh Larky

NFL Fantasy

April 13, 2022

Best Ball 2022: The Art of the Stack in Fantasy Football

Stacking — pairing your QB with one or more of his skill position players — is imperative in best ball drafts, both 12-person and tournaments. If you’re on the fence about stacking, or are curious to explore how stacking actually affects win rates in big money best ball tournaments, you found the right article.   […]

Josh Larky

NFL Fantasy

April 7, 2022

Best Ball 101: Breaking Down the Strategy and Approach

“I hate fantasy drafts.” — Said no one ever. Best ball is the fastest growing format in fantasy football, because 100% of your time is spent drafting.  If you’re brand new to best ball, you’ll find the next two sections helpful. If you already have experience with best ball on Underdog Fantasy, scroll down to […]

Josh Larky

NFL Fantasy

April 6, 2022

Best Ball Late-Round Targets: Wide Receiver/Tight End

It’s early April, the 2022 NFL Draft is still weeks away, but Best Ball season is still in full swing. If you like to draft early — and plenty of people do — odds are you like doing it so you can be early to the best values. (Be sure to check out Josh Larky’s […]

Tyler Loechner

NFL Fantasy

April 5, 2022

Best Ball Late-Round Targets: Quarterback/Running Back

It’s early April, the 2022 NFL Draft is still weeks away, but best ball season is still in full swing around fantasy. If you like to draft early — and plenty of people do — odds are you like doing it so you can be early to the best values. (Be sure to check out […]

Tyler Loechner

NFL Fantasy

April 4, 2022

8 Best Ball Targets for Fantasy Football 2022

When participating in best ball drafts in April — nearly five months prior to the start of the NFL season — player ADP is wildly inefficient. That gives us an opportunity. Below, I’m breaking down eight players I’m heavily targeting in my 2022 drafts. More important than the players themselves though, is my process. I […]

Josh Larky

NFL Fantasy

August 26, 2021

Drafters best ball strategy – Late-round gems to target

Every fantasy football season, we mine the later rounds of drafts hoping to strike gold. Last year’s later rounds were plentiful with breakout players like Chase Claypool. This year we have a new crop of new and familiar faces to target with the last picks of our Drafters rosters. Let’s dive into the players who could sparkle […]

Derek Brown

NFL Fantasy

August 25, 2021

Drafters best ball strategy – Stacks to target

Stacking is one of the first fantasy football concepts usually mentioned when discussing best ball, and for very good reason. Especially if you’re entering into large-field tournaments against thousands of other people, the aim is to capture weekly upside and the lion’s share of production from a top-flight offense. The same theory is deployed in […]

Derek Brown

NFL Fantasy

August 25, 2021

Underdog best ball strategy – Round positional breakdown

I’m a visual learner. I like things laid out in spreadsheets … color-coded is a huge plus. So, when I head into my fantasy football best ball drafts on Underdog, I always pull in the most recent ADP and take a look at a round-by-round positional breakdown of how drafts are going. This allows me […]

Matt Jones

NFL Fantasy

August 25, 2021

Breaking down stacking QB and RB in best ball

Stacking has always been a point of contention during fantasy football draft seasons. It has become a particularly hot topic this season. At the end of the day, we’re working with a pretty small sample of best ball tournaments. Many are pointing to last year as if that’s how these things always shake out. The […]

Matt Jones

NFL Fantasy

August 24, 2021

Best Ball Stategy – 5 must-draft players on Drafters

As Week 1 is right around the corner, we are firmly in the midst of Drafters best ball season. In this format, it’s important to spread out your exposures on players and teams, so all of your rosters are not a victim to injury or variance if a handful of players bust. In saying that, […]

Derek Brown

NFL Fantasy

August 19, 2021

The 10 Best Ball Commandments

We’re all familiar with the 10 commandments as a set of guiding principles. Today, it’s time to introduce the 10 best ball commandments that people should consider just as important … or at least that’s what my ego wants to believe.  Either way, it’s important to set rules for yourself in fantasy football and understand […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

August 19, 2021

Underdog Fantasy – Staying ahead of the trend

When playing on Underdog Fantasy you are playing on the website with the sharpest ADP. As the platform that is all the rave on social media platforms, you have more sharp drafters chasing million-dollar top prizes here than anywhere else. This means the ADP is accurate, as it moves quickly, and people are applying intelligent, […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

August 19, 2021

3 must-have QB/WR stacks on Underdog

Stacking in best ball is not the fantasy football must that some make it out to be, but if done properly it can create an edge for you against your competition. The thought process is rather simple: You stack a QB and WR on the same team and they have correlated outcomes. If you get […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

August 16, 2021

5 last-round fliers in best ball

You made it. It’s the 18th round of your best ball draft. You are staring at the draft board and thinking, “I don’t want anyone here.” It’s hard to blame you — the odds any of these guys hit are low. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t swing for the fences. Especially in the Best […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

July 15, 2021

Buy these 5 players on Underdog Fantasy

Underdog ADP shifts every day as the craze of zero-RB and hero-RB takes over. Receivers are moving up the board and running backs are falling down it. As drafts become less of fantasy football Twitter-heavy and more casual drafter-laden, expect running backs to move back up the board and ADP to shift back some. There […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

June 29, 2021

Underdog Best Ball Strategy: Three Man Drafts

If you are looking for fast drafts where your team is full of superstars, look no further than Underdog’s three-man drafts. That's right, there are only three teams and the winner takes all. Three-man drafts create a unique opportunity to take advantage of position scarcity and create positive expected value outcomes with your team. At the […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

June 28, 2021

Fantasy football: Using air yards in your best ball drafts

Raw receiving yardage tells you something about a pass-catcher for fantasy football. But only a little something. Today, we’re going to look at air yards, which is another big piece of the “evaluating a receiver” puzzle. What are air yards? Air yards are the number of total yards the ball travels before reaching a receiver. […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

June 27, 2021

Fantasy football: Best ball tournament strategy

Imagine you’re a fish. No, not that kind of fish, that would be too easy. Imagine you’re an actual fish that swims. When you’re young, you’re given a small tank to swim in and as you get bigger and bigger, you’re given bigger and bigger tanks. There’s one problem… no matter how big your tank […]

Andrew Phillips

NFL Fantasy

June 26, 2021

Top 5 Upside Players in Best Ball for 2021

What is upside in fantasy football? We love to talk about it but rarely define it, because it has so many use cases and it’s an easy out when trying to analyze a player. “He has a lot of speed so he’s got big play upside,” “he has a good matchup so he’s got weekly […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

June 24, 2021

Underdog Fantasy: Early look at Best Ball exposure

Having completed 26 of my eventual 150 teams in the Underdog Best Ball Mania II contest, I thought it was a good time to take an early look at my fantasy football exposures for the 2021 NFL season. I try to spread my entries out over time to adjust to both news and ADP, and […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

June 22, 2021

Underdog Best Ball Strategy – Playoff schedules to stack

If you’re entering the Best Ball Mania ll tournament on Underdog Fantasy versus a field of 155,520 other entries, the backbone of solid roster construction that I discuss here is essential to make it past the qualifiers (Weeks 1-14). But also looking at micro-edges to exploit in the quarterfinals, semifinals and championship rounds (Weeks 15-17) will […]

Derek Brown

NFL Fantasy

June 18, 2021

Best Ball Strategy with Eliot Crist

Best ball strategy is about trying to capture as much upside as possible, while giving your team the necessary floor to get you through the weeks where your ceiling players don’t have big games so you don’t bottom out. Draft strategy has multiple folds — your rankings, your build type (i.e. zero-RB or similar) and […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

June 18, 2021

Best ball stacking, Part 4: Multiple WRs from the same team

If you’re playing best ball fantasy football, stacking is a topic that’s hard to avoid. Best ball — especially the large-field tournaments — has a lot of DFS running through its DNA. Volatility in best ball is something that we should target and embrace. Stacking is one way to embrace that volatility. Once you make […]

Matt Jones

NFL Fantasy

June 18, 2021

Underdog Best Ball Stacks to Target

Stacking in DFS has been a profitable strategy for years and the philosophy has carried over to best ball. The goal is to maximize upside; if you’re able to predict one event, it’s easy to get correlated events correct over an entirely separate outcome. In layman’s terms, predicting a quarterback will have a big year […]

Eliot Crist

NFL Fantasy

June 16, 2021

Best ball stacking, Part 3: QB/TE stacks

If you’re playing best ball fantasy football, stacking is a topic that’s hard to avoid. Best ball — especially the large-field tournaments — has a lot of DFS running through its DNA. Volatility in best ball is something we should target and embrace. Stacking is one way to embrace that volatility. Once you make it […]

Matt Jones

NFL Fantasy

June 16, 2021

Best ball stacking, Part 2: QB/WR stacks

If you’re playing best ball fantasy football, stacking is a topic that’s hard to avoid. Best ball — especially the large-field tournaments — has a lot of DFS running through its DNA. Volatility in best ball is something we should target and embrace. Stacking is one way to embrace that volatility. Once you make it […]

Matt Jones

NFL Fantasy

June 15, 2021

Underdog Fantasy Last Round Draft Targets

With less than 90 days until the NFL season is underway, it’s officially best ball season. One of the interesting points of every draft is who are you adding to your queue when the going gets tough in the 18th round. Who will be that final pick for your money-stacking best ball squad? There are […]

Derek Brown

NFL Fantasy

June 15, 2021

Best ball stacking, Part 1: Positional scoring

If you’re playing best ball fantasy football, stacking is a topic that’s hard to avoid. Best ball — especially the large-field tournaments — has a lot of DFS running through its DNA. Volatility in best ball is something we should target and embrace. Stacking is one way to embrace that volatility. Once you make it […]

Matt Jones

NFL Fantasy

June 14, 2021

Offseason Drumbeat for Fantasy Football

Throughout the NFL offseason at FTN Fantasy, we’ll have our ears to the ground listening for the soft thump of the fantasy football snare drum. This light patter can quickly become a blaring chorus line the closer we get to Week 1. With OTAs and mandatory mini camps seeping into the headlines, let’s discuss who […]

Derek Brown