Prime-Time First TD Bets — Sunday Night Football, Week 16
Alex Christenson
Underdog Best Ball Playoff contests for the 2022-2023 season are underway, and it’s time for a strategy refresher.
This piece will run through everything you need to know about fantasy football best ball playoffs, and the top teams to stack for the playoffs. These best ball playoff tournaments feature a starting lineup of 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR/TE flex spots and 1 RB/WR/TE flex spot. There are 5 bench spots, too.
General rules and strategy for Underdog Best Ball Playoffs
1. Predict the Super Bowl
That means one team from the AFC and one team from the NFC. You’ll want to stack these two teams heavily. The fantasy teams atop the standings will be stacks. If you have a hodgepodge of random players, you’re guaranteed to whittle down your team each week. Your score might look great in the first round or two, but you won’t have enough firepower to close the deal.
2. Don’t ignore Round 1
Predicting the Super Bowl isn’t as simple as picking the top two seeds and heavily stacking those two teams. If you do that, you might not score enough in the Wild Card round to advance. You’ll have to finish in the top 33% just to make it past Wild Card Weekend in the $5 tournaments or the top 16% (1 out of 6) in the higher-end tournaments.
3. Seeding matters
Your team shouldn’t consist entirely of players from just two teams. As you mix in other teams, just be mindful of playoff seedings. You’ll want a “short stack” in each conference to complement your “primary” stack from that conference. Let’s say, for example, the Cowboys are the No. 5 seed, and you decide to make them your primary NFC stack. You won’t want to make your NFC “short” stack the Buccaneers (the No. 4 seed). Otherwise, you’re locking yourself into losing players no matter what. Try to predict the conference title games, too.
4. Have your roster ‘tell the story’
This is just a reiteration of points 1 and 3, but do not stray from having your lineup “tell the story” of the playoffs. If you properly predict the AFC/NFC Championship games — and the Super Bowl matchup — you’re going to have a strong squad. These playoff contests are a war of attrition more than anything else. Keep as many players alive for as long as possible.
Best Team Stacks for Underdog NFL Best Ball Playoffs 2022
These are the teams you’ll want to target for your primary stacks. (If you’re doing many drafts, you’ll want to diversify and make some primary stacks from teams not in this list. But if you’re just doing one draft, these are your best bets.)
Buffalo Bills
Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, Gabe Davis, Devin Singletary, Dawson Knox, Isaiah McKenzie
The Bills are a Super Bowl-or-bust team that could play four games (the max for this tournament). They also have players draftable across the entire draft, ranging from the elite (Allen, Diggs), to the mids (Davis, Singletary), to fliers at the end (Knox, McKenzie).
Kansas City Chiefs
Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Jerick McKinnon, Isiah Pacheco
The Chiefs are Super Bowl contenders, though if they secure the No. 1 seed, you’d have to be mindful to draft players for Round 1 of the contest, too. Mahomes and Kelce are stackable if your draft falls perfectly. Smith-Schuster is not prohibitively expensive, and the tertiary players on this offense (like Marquez Valdes-Scantling) are extremely cheap.
Cincinnati Bengals
Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Joe Mixon, Tyler Boyd, Hayden Hurst
The AFC Super Bowl team is likely to be one of the Bills, Chiefs or Bengals. Of the three, the Bengals are the easiest to stack in Underdog playoff best ball drafts. The Bengals cannot get the No. 1 seed, so you’ll have plenty of points in Round 1 and a legitimate shot to have a core stack that plays four games.
Philadelphia Eagles
Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, Miles Sanders
The Eagles are relatively easy to stack in Underdog playoff best ball drafts, and they are the favorites from the NFC to reach the Super Bowl. If they lock up the No. 1 seed, you’ll have to make sure you draft players who will be playing Wild Card Weekend to make sure your team has enough points to survive to Round 2.
San Francisco 49ers
Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel
The 49ers may be the best, most complete team in the NFC, and in Underdog playoff best ball drafts, it’s not difficult to fully stack this squad.
Dallas Cowboys
Dak Prescott, Tony Pollard, Ezekiel Elliott, CeeDee Lamb, Dalton Schultz
The Cowboys can hang with any team in the NFC and will likely have a shot to play four full games. The players’ ADPs also make them easy to stack with one another.
Skinny Stacks for Underdog NFL Best Ball Playoffs 2022
These are the teams you’ll want to target for your skinny stacks — in other words, teams that could realistically make it far, but are not Super Bowl favorites.
Minnesota Vikings
Justin Jefferson, Dalvin Cook, Kirk Cousins, T.J. Hockenson and Adam Thielen are all extremely cheap in these drafts.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Drafters are avoiding the Bucs like the plague, making the Bucs extremely easy to stack at the end of your draft. They’ll earn you points in Round 1 — which is a nice bonus — but a trip to the Super Bowl seems unlikely for this squad. (Though it is Tom Brady…).
Los Angeles Chargers
Elite, elite fantasy options (Austin Ekeler, Justin Herbert, Keenan Allen, Mike Williams) at a major discount. The Chargers could also play against a weak opponent in Round 1 (the AFC South champions), making them a solid threat to play two-plus games.
Darkhorse Teams to Stack for Underdog Playoffs 2022
Jacksonville Jaguars
If the Jaguars make it far, your team could really pop off thanks to low rostership. As of this writing, they haven’t even secured a playoff spot yet. They’ve won five of their last six, and their offense has caught fire — not too dissimilar from the Bengals in 2021.
Seattle Seahawks
The Seahawks have a narrow tree of players who would be fantasy relevant, making them easy to stack and earn most of the points. A deep playoff run seems highly unlikely, though — they might not even make the postseason.
New York Giants
While a deep playoff run would be shocking, a Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley, Isaiah Hodgins, Richie James stack would be extremely low-rostered with a nice ceiling.
Underdog fantasy football playoff challenge — rankings
Check out our free Underdog fantasy football playoff rankings here.
What Playoff Tournaments does Underdog have for fantasy football this year?
- The Gauntlet ($25 to enter)
- The Mitten ($5 to enter)
- The Big Mitten ($250 to enter)
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