4 Tips for Drafting Best Ball Teams Before the NFL Draft
The 2023 NFL season just came to a close, but it’s never too early to start thinking about the 2024 campaign. While we’ll have to wait another 7 months for the new season to officially kick off, I can think of few better ways to pass the time than by taking a deep dive into NFL Best Ball.
Based on Best Ball’s incredible popularity, it’s no surprise to see that sites are already running Best Ball contests. Underdog Fantasy, for example, has a contest featuring a $2 million prize pool paying $200,000 to the winner that will lock before the 2024 NFL Draft gets underway. Be on the lookout for Drafters and DraftKings to post their contests at some point too.
Of course, a lot can (and will) change between the NFL Draft and Week 1. That makes drafting Best Ball teams so early in the year a tricky endeavor. However, there’s still an edge to be found if you know where to look.
Below are four tips to help you draft for Best Ball before the 2024 NFL Draft.
Best Ball Drafting Tips Before the NFL Draft
Don’t Overthink Rumors
Roger Goodell has tried his best to make the NFL a year-round sport, but the post-Super Bowl, pre-free agency period is the dullest on the calendar. Free agency won’t open until March 13, which means fans, talking heads, and reporters will try to flood the zone with rumors in the meantime.
If you’ve spent any time consuming NFL content since the end of the season, you’ve surely heard or read some of them already: Justin Fields to the Falcons! Saquon Barkley to the Texans!
If you’re drafting before free agency begins, be careful. Rumors are just rumors, after all. You’re better suited to let other people chase potential fake news in the draft lobby. If someone else wants to reach for Barkley because they think he’d be an awesome fit in Houston, let them. There’s a lot more uncertainty with these situations than most may assume. Remember when Dalvin Cook was allegedly going to Miami? We saw how that panned out.
Diversify Your Drafts
This should go without saying, and it’s a good evergreen tip for Best Ball drafts regardless of the time of year. If you’re drafting multiple teams, you’d better diversify your portfolio.
Considering you won’t be drafting in the same position every time, this should come naturally. Everybody wanted Justin Jefferson before last season began, but you almost surely weren’t getting him if you didn’t have one of the first 2 picks of the draft.
The key is to avoid overcommitting to the same players in early rounds. The risk of whiffing on your 2nd-rounder is significantly greater than missing on a guy you grab in the 15th. Even if you have a strong conviction about a certain player, you probably don’t want to be drafting that guy into all of your teams.
Diversification is also about risk tolerance. Limiting your maximum exposure to players across the board naturally lowers your overall risk. If 13 of your 15 teams have Patrick Mahomes and he goes down for the season in Week 3, your season is already cooked.
Most Rookies Aren’t Good
How you approach rookies is key to any Best Ball draft. This is especially true for a draft that takes place before we even know for certain where these rookies will be playing next season.
Just look to last year as an example. Bijan Robinson had an ADP of between 7-8 at Underdog, and he was typically the 3rd running back off the board behind Christian McCaffrey and Austin Ekeler. We saw flashes of brilliance from Bijan on occasion, but his final numbers certainly didn’t live up to the preseason hype. Jahmyr Gibbs, meanwhile, was more productive despite an Underdog ADP of around 30. While Gibbs was great, his ADP was also 48 spots higher than that of David Montgomery. That’s just a little lopsided, especially in a single-season format like Best Ball.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba had a higher ADP than Mike Evans, Alvin Kamara, Rachaad White, and Michael Pittman. JSN also went ahead of fellow rookie wideouts like Jordan Addison and Zay Flowers. Sam LaPorta and Tank Dell – who proved to be 2 of the best rookies in the league at their positions – had ADPs of 136 and 177, respectively.
In summary, rookies are a crapshoot! Getting tunnel vision for one – or reaching a bit for a first-year player over some other more well-established veterans – can be a fool’s errand in the end.
Avoid Recency Bias
NFL takes are at their hottest come playoff time. How many tweets did you see calling Brock Purdy “trash” during the Niners’ run to the NFC title? Probably a lot. Remember when Travis Kelce was “washed” after struggling to end the regular season? Kelce’s torrid playoff run made that talk look a little silly.
Taking a measured approach to emotional reactions is important if you want to be a diligent Best Ball drafter. The reality with cases like Purdy’s and Kelce’s is likely somewhere in the middle. While he did look mortal at times during the playoffs, let’s not forget that Purdy still finished the regular season as the QB6. Assuming the 49ers don’t make a shocking change at the position over the summer, Purdy will likely put up big regular-season numbers again in 2024.
Kelce will be a divisive figure in drafts, too. Tight end is such a thin position that Kelce was still the TE3 last year despite meager numbers (by his standards). After a stellar playoff run, it’s fairly likely we’ll see Kelce drafted as the TE1 in Best Ball ahead of Sam LaPorta, Mark Andrews, and George Kittle. While Kelce did look spry in the postseason, we shouldn’t be overreacting to a small 4-game sample, especially for a guy who’ll turn 35 in the middle of next season.
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