Fantasy Football Best Ball Primer for the 2024 NFL Season (2024)

Do you love fantasy football but can't commit to a season-long league? Are you sick of boom/bust players in redraft or dynasty formats? If so, best ball contests might be just the right thing for you.

In best ball, you conduct a snake draft—typically 18 or 20 rounds—and let the computer overlords take it from there. Each team automatically has its highest-scoring lineup selected every week.

There's no waiver wire to worry about. You don't have to waste time mulling start/sit decisions. Once you draft, you're done managing your roster. You just sit back and hope you made the right picks, particularly once December comes around.

There's plenty of overlap between redraft and best ball strategies, but there are some key differences, too. Here, we'll walk through the top things to keep in mind ahead of best ball drafts.

Much like with season-long leagues, the first step of winning a best ball contest is knowing the roster and scoring settings and adjusting your draft strategy accordingly.

Underdog Fantasy, which hosts Best Ball Mania every year, holds 18-round drafts and awards players a half-point for every reception. DraftKings, which continues to expand its best ball offerings, holds 20-round drafts and awards players a full point for every reception.

Those might sound like small differences, but they have major impacts on roster construction and draft rankings.

High-volume running backs who don't catch a ton of passes—hi, Derrick Henry—are far more valuable on Underdog than they are on DraftKings because receptions are only worth a half-point instead of a full point. Meanwhile, third-down scatbacks who tend to rack up a handful of catches per game should be more appealing on DraftKings.

DraftKings also awards position-specific bonuses if players top certain statistical thresholds. Quarterbacks who throw for 300-plus yards get an extra three points, while anyone with 100-plus rushing yards or 100-plus receiving yards gets an extra three points as well. That's another thing to keep in mind while assembling your predraft rankings.

At both Underdog and DraftKings, you start eight players per week: one quarterback, two running backs, three wide receivers, one tight end and one flex (RB/WR/TE). You have 10 bench players at Underdog and 12 at DraftKings.

Since there's no waiver wire in best ball contests, you have to remain mindful of injury risk. If you draft only one quarterback or tight end and that player gets hurt, you'll be guaranteed zero points from that roster spot until he returns. If he suffers a season-ending injury, your team is likely toast.

Most best ball teams should feature 2-3 quarterbacks, 5-7 running backs, 7-9 wide receivers and 2-3 tight ends (depending on overall roster size). Figuring out the optimal roster construction from there depends on where you spend your early draft capital.

If you take an elite quarterback or tight end with an early-round pick, you typically should devote your attention elsewhere after that. Double-dipping at positions where you only have to start one player per week (particularly at quarterback) could leave you scrounging for value at running back and wide receiver later in the draft.

According to Hayden Winks of Underdog Fantasy, spending early draft capital on two tight ends—the "bully TE" build—has been "a very below-average strategy" in all four years of Best Ball Mania. It's often better to load up on wide receivers and running backs in the earlier rounds and then round out your roster with some late-round depth at quarterback and tight end.

Since you have to start at least three wide receivers per week at both Underdog and DraftKings, average draft position is typically slanted in favor of wideouts.

In 2023, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins was the WR15 in ADP, according to FantasyPros. New England Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson was the RB9. Higgins came off the board earlier than Stevenson on average.

Drafts might be even more lopsided in favor of wideouts in 2024. Houston Texans wide receiver Tank Dell (WR29) is being selected in the same range as Seattle Seahawks running back Kenneth Walker III (RB15) and Texans running back Joe Mixon (RB16).

According to Hayden Winks of Underdog Fantasy, the "Golden Rule of Best Ball" is that fantasy managers should select at least four wide receivers by Round 7 of their drafts. "There are fewer late-round WR breakouts and fewer stone-cold busts" compared to other positions, Winks noted, which could put you behind the 8-ball if you bypass them for quarterbacks, running backs and tight ends early on in drafts.

Since both Underdog (0.5 PPR) and DraftKings (full-point PPR) award additional points for each reception, high-volume pass-catchers inherently have more value than players who don't catch a ton of passes. That tends to push wide receivers up the draft board and creates more opportunities for value at other positions in later rounds.

In a season-long league, it often makes sense to pair a quarterback with his star receiver so you get more points whenever they score a touchdown. The same holds true in best ball.

In fact, stacking teammates has gone from a sharp strategy to a necessity.

Once you get to the fantasy playoffs in Week 15, you typically have to outscore everyone else in a random 12-person group two weeks in a row. If you don't draft many teammates, you'll be banking on offensive production in a higher volume of games those weeks.

Regardless of whether you draft two or three quarterbacks, you should look to pair him with at least one of his pass-catchers. Your early-round picks should shape your later-round targets in that regard, too. For example: If you spend a first-rounder on Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, you should be eyeing Jared Goff as your QB2.

Since you don't have to worry about setting lineups in best ball, you benefit from the stacks when they connect—especially on multi-touchdown days for wide receivers—and you typically don't lose much when they whiff. However, it isn't worth majorly reaching on stacks. Don't go drafting Goff three rounds earlier than his ADP just because you have ARSB.

Justin Herzig, who won the first-ever Best Ball Mania, published a best ball pyramid on Establish The Run with this as its third level: "The goal is to draft ADP value either according to real-time ADP or their eventual closing ADP at the beginning of the season."

When a player slips well below his ADP, he could become enough of a screaming value that he's too much to pass up, even if you aren't a huge believer in his season outlook. Roster uniqueness is another differentiating factor once the best ball playoffs roll around, so you might be able to separate your roster from others by snagging some ADP steals.

Those who already drafted or plan to draft soon could create ADP values of their own if they correctly identify which players will rise up boards after training camp begins. No one should root for an injury, but a backup running back could turn into an instant smash if he lands in a larger-than-expected role.

Comparing players' ADPs between different sites could help you identify some potential values, too. (Just be mindful of how scoring settings could be driving those differences!) However, Michael Leone of Establish The Run cautioned against overvaluing ADP relative to other key questions during your draft.

"If you're building solely with Week 17 in mind, it's obvious that stacking trumps ADP value," he wrote. "A neutral team in terms of ADP value with lots of correlation is way more valuable than one of the best teams in terms of ADP value but with very little correlation."

It's just one of many factors to consider.

Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Gabe Davis is the quintessential example of a boom/bust player who drives his fantasy managers up a wall. He's good for a handful of week-winning games—he had three games with at least four catches for 100 yards and a touchdown with the Buffalo Bills in 2023—but he's just as likely to finish with 50 or fewer yards.

In season-long formats, that makes Davis a maddening player to roster. You can rarely predict his boom weeks with any accuracy, and his bust weeks could cost you a matchup. But in best ball, his boom/bust nature doesn't matter at all. You get credit for his boom weeks, and someone else starts in his place in his bust weeks.

That doesn't mean you should reach on boom/bust players just because they won't hurt you as much as they do in season-long leagues. You should still want players who have a chance of being startable most weeks. Besides, what are the odds of that boom/bust player stringing back-to-back-to-back boom weeks together during the fantasy playoffs?

You just don't have to be as afraid of boom/bust players as you are in season-long leagues, where many of these players find themselves on managers' do-not-draft lists after particularly trying years.

Week 17 is the final boss of best ball.

If you've made it this far, you've returned your buy-in andthen some. (Often by the magnitude of hundreds.) You've outscored two random 12-persongroups in two straight weeks. You likely share many of the same stars as the otherswho've advanced to the finals.

This is where Week 17 game-stacking comes into play.

It's as simple as this: Look at the Week 17 schedule andtarget players from the games that project to be the highest-scoring. (Vegasodds will be your friend in that regard.) If you snag one of those players withan early-round pick, look to get someone from his Week 17 opponent if it'swithin reasonable ADP range. If that game does devolve into a shootout, thewinning lineup will likely feature multiple players from it.

In 2024, the Baltimore Ravens at Houston Texans on ChristmasDay screams out as a chalk play. Lamar Jackson, C.J. Stroud, Stefon Diggs, NicoCollins, Tank Dell, Mark Andrews and Joe Mixon will all be popular picks thisyear, but it should be fairly easy to assemble game stacks with somecombination of those players.

The Dallas Cowboys vs. Philadelphia Eagles and Detroit Lionsvs. San Francisco 49ers are the only two games with a higher over/under thatweek. Players from four should be game-stack candidates as well.