Late-Season Best Ball Draft Strategy

If you’ve been drafting best ball teams since the start of the offseason, dating all the way back to Underdog Fantasy’s Pre-Draft “Big Board” contest, you’ve probably noticed a significant change in your opponent’s behavior/drafting style over the last few weeks with ADP continuing to fluctuate daily. There are a few reasons for these drastic changes in player values, with the most obvious being the continuous influx of information stemming from the NFL news cycle in the mindset or training camp and preseason games. As we get closer to the start of the regular season, more casual drafters begin to pile in, making it critical to be aware of your surroundings and read the room. With about a month left to draft, I wanted to go over how I’m altering my strategy to adjust to the new environment and round out my final entries.

News vs. Noise

One of the biggest flaws among drafters during this time of the offseason is overreacting to every training camp blurb/beat report, which often tends to be a whole lot of nothing. We want to take in as much information as possible while also trying to separate news vs. noise. For instance, a rookie playing with the second-team offense, or lower on the depth chart than you may have expected is something to file away, but not something that should completely change your outlook on a first-year player still getting acclimated to the next level. Training camp highlights and puff pieces are fun, especially when they confirm your priors, but we want to pay more attention to negative news and adjust our rankings accordingly. To stay up to date on the most relevant news and information around the league, be sure to check out the daily “Training Camp Roundup” series on FTN Fantasy.

Embracing Uncertainty

In a large-field tournament like Best Ball Mania, I’m looking to embrace uncertainty, trying to extrapolate as much closing line value as possible. This offseason is unique with a handful of notable players at risk of missing time due to a recent injury or a potential suspension. I’m OK sprinkling in players who have seen their stock plummet in recent weeks, without getting too overweight, in hopes of creating unique pairings that had not been available for most of the draft season. As a result, I’m much more likely to buy the dip on players priced at their floor, fading those that have seen their stock rise due to positive reports, without a real change in their situation. For example, Rashee Rice and Nick Chubb have skyrocketed up the boards, going earlier than ever, despite no real clarity on their outlook for the upcoming season. I’d rather take on the risk with ambiguous depth charts, especially before the rest of the preseason games kick off, usually targeting the cheaper option.

Reading The Room

As I mentioned earlier, the draft environment had started to change, making it critical for us to adjust our draft strategy accordingly. I’ve spoken at length throughout the offseason on how I’m handing the wide receiver “avalanche” often fading the early-round running backs. With that said, over the last month, we’ve seen a steady drop-off in prices for receivers, coinciding with rising ADPs for many of the bell cow backs.

This has allowed me to increase my exposure to the earlier backs, even grabbing some in the traditional rounds 3-5 “RB Dead Zone.” With that said, I’m still drafting a good bit of “Hero/Zero RB” teams, keeping in mind that the position dries up a lot quicker than before. We’ve seen a similar type of movement in first/second-year players, or those that may not be 100% healthy at the start of the season.

This is another group I want to attack, especially before seeing them on the field in preseason games. I mainly want to target the rookies, preferably with strong draft capital, most of whom finally have a reasonable ADP and see their stock rise the most from now until the start of the regular season. I’ve touched on the importance of trying to maximize closing line value, significantly improving your odds against the field in the playoffs. However, with more casual drafters, I’m willing to reach a bit, preferably staying within two rounds, in an attempt to complete a stack if I feel a player is unlikely to fall to me. You’ll notice that quarterbacks often get drafted unstacked, with a larger population of drafters unfamiliar with some of the more common best ball strategies. As a result, I’m constantly leaving myself out for correlation by creating backdoor stacks, in the case of an unfortunate snipe.

The Late Rounds

I’ve recently broken some of my favorite “Dart Throws” and “Leverage Picks,” highlighting a few players that I’m attaching to the end of my rosters who have not been drafted for the majority of Best Ball Mania. Differentiating yourself from the field is critical in large field tournaments, especially once you get to the playoffs where the players with the highest advance rate appear on multiple rosters. This strategy is best implemented towards the end of the offseason, with enough information to get unique while also mitigating the risk of a dead roster spot.