With no lineup setting or waiver-wire pickups, best ball formats can’t be won without putting together a formidable lineup on draft day

Fantasy football is a growing market that continues to draw significant interest and money with each passing year. As such, innovation is required to keep pushing the industry forward. One of those market movers has been the popularization of the “best ball” format. We’ve seen a meteoric rise in the number of participants and poten- tial payouts in the best ball format in recent years. Now offering contests with millions of dollars up for grabs, best ball looks like it has cemented itself as a key cog in the fantasy football wheel.

For those just getting acquainted with this style of play, there are several changes to your typical fantasy football league. The best ball format takes arguably the most enjoyable part of a fantasy league — the draft — and then cuts off your responsibility to that league as soon as the last pick of the last round is made. There is no lineup setting. There are no waivers. There’s no FAAB to monitor, no injured reserve, no week-to-week obligation. You put all of your faith in your draft aptitude as it is quite literally a “draft-and-forget” format.

No changes to our lineups mean we must be extremely cognizant of how our drafts are unfolding and having the right amount of depth at each position. We must take into account bye weeks, potential injuries, and any off-field concerns. This sentiment correlates most closely with the “onesie” positions — the quarterback, tight end, defense, and kicker. It’s easy to get caught up in a fast draft and accidentally draft two quarterbacks with the same bye week. If this occurs, you’ll need to draft a third quarterback with a different bye week or risk taking a zero that week.

Opportunity cost now enters the equation as selecting depth at one position means sacrificing elsewhere. Adding that third quarterback in the example above could lead to you having a weaker wide receiver depth or lead to you missing out on your favorite running back sleeper. You draft with a finite number of picks and getting depth at one position means sacrificing elsewhere. Most of what can be said about bye weeks is also applicable to injuries. Without a free agent player pool to mitigate injuries and grab replacements, we need to be smart about how we construct our teams. Roster construction is a particularly important aspect to this game that often gets overlooked. Don’t make that mistake.

The total number of players selected at each position is an important box to check by the end of our drafts, but we need to draft dynamically in terms of the draft capital spent at each position. For example, today’s NFL has fewer and fewer workhorse running backs. While you can gobble up the market and spend each of your first four round selections at the running back position, you are also sacrificing elite draft capital at quarterback, wide receiver, and tight end. You are missing out on the studs at those other positions that sport high average draft positions. When you select each position should dictate both the total volume of picks at each position and how to address the remaining positions. There’s a cascading ripple effect with your decision making and each draft unfolds in its own unique way.

Archetypes also enter play as position-specific ways to vary your squad. Think of this topic as choosing between mobile quarterbacks versus stationary. Pass catching
backs versus short down and distance options. Volatile deep-yardage wide receivers versus short-yardage slot chain movers. Leaning heavily into one archetype can create a team full of either high floor or high ceiling players. Ceiling chasing isn’t a terrible thing in these top-heavy payout contests, but we must be cognizant of their weekly variability producing spike weeks. Field stretchers aren’t often consistently hitting 100+ yards and a touchdown week in and week out. We need some of those shallow route, PPR- type wideouts to help balance our lineups for those weeks where the big-play guys fall flat. We can also bucket players into their league experience. Rookies tend to start slow but are known to produce more consistently down the stretch. Older veterans tend to operate inversely. Varying the types of players you draft can help create a balance between high floors and high ceilings.

In some of the large field tournaments that offer big prize payouts, “stacking” has become a near necessity leveraging big performances to your advantage. This has been a common tactic in daily fantasy sports (DFS) for years and it’s no surprise that it’s carried over to best ball given the rewards. Stacking refers to combining players from one specific team, generally the quarterback with one or more of his pass catchers, chasing the potential for a high ceiling week and/or season. If a quarterback throws for 300+ yards and three passing touchdowns, he’s likely to have one (or more) pass catchers also post a spike week performance. Stacking correctly allows you to combine the big week by the quarterback along with the pass catcher to produce a high scoring outcome. In a contest where we’re looking to score the most points, stacking has become almost second nature with drafters looking to parlay successful picks and often building around specific offenses.

Quite simply, the best ball format is a great way to help prepare yourself for the upcoming fantasy season while also giving yourself a chance to make some serious money. They can help prepare you for your upcoming friends and family leagues, work leagues, high-stakes contests, or even DFS by the time September arrives. We’ve only covered the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the intricacies of best ball drafting techniques and strategies. For more information on draft strategies, roster construction tactics, and downloadable player rankings, please visit us at FantasyGuru.

Happy Drafting!