Daily Fantasy, Daily Life: Volume XXIV - Unique & Stupid
As your resident Underdog Fantasy Best Ball Mania III expert – please remember I made the finals last year, a fact I will periodically remind you about – I think I may have stumbled into a draft strategy that is both unique and quite possibly stupid.
I will share it with you in a moment, but first, a quick rundown of where Best Ball Mania III drafts have been going thus far.
Way I see it, at this point in time, everyone is pretty much following the same blueprint: Grab at least one stud running back early, load up on wide receivers, grab a quarterback, correlate to the best of your abilities, and play for Week 17.
These are all smart moves.
Sure, you can go bully tight end or robust RB, or whatever else, but for the most part – again, at this stage of the game – we’re pretty much calcified into the rundown above. This wasn’t the case earlier in the draft season, where ADP had yet to be poured into concrete, and it certainly wasn’t the case in the Puppy, where I’m convinced half the people drafting were either drunk or very drunk.
But for BBMIII? Things seem pretty static right now. Makes sense, probably, as I’m sure the majority of BBMIII drafters at this point of the game – post-early draft season excitement, pre-training camp excitement – consists of A1 superstar players like me, you know, people who made the finals last year, not sure if I’ve ever mentioned that.
Anyway, after drafting a handful of teams thus far – 22 in total across the contests – I realized there was a different way to draft, a way I haven’t really seen written about, a way that definitely creates a different looking team. I call it “Eleven Seven,” which, you have to admit, is pretty cool. I was toying with calling it the “Reverse Slurpee,” but for now, let’s just stick with the “Eleven Seven.”
And what it is is this: Take the best 11 wide receivers and running backs you can get your hands on in the first 11 rounds (unless Rob Gronkowski is available at pick 125 or so), and then fill out your roster with tight ends and quarterbacks. Correlate if possible. Rinse, repeat.
My best team so far: Quarterbacks Daniel Jones, Zach Wilson, Marcus Mariota, and Desmond Ritter matched with this squad of wide receivers: Terry McLaurin, JuJu, Treylon Burks, and Elijah Moore & Garrett Wilson to go with Zach and Kadarious Toney and Kenny Golladay to match with Jones. My tight ends are Gronk, Big Bob Tonyan and Tyler Higbee, and my running backs are Austin Ekeler, Saquan Barkley, Javonte Williams, and Hassan Haskins.
See? Unique and stupid, which I’m hoping is enough to get me back to the finals. It’s a little bit of a zig while everyone is zagging.
Here’s another team: QBs: Jones/Wilson/Mariota/Ridder. RBs: Dalvin Cook, D’Andre Swift, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Alexander Mattison. WRs: Marquise Brown, Jerry Jeudy, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Drake London, Kadarius Toney, Tyler Boyd, and Kenny Golladay. TEs: Mike Gesicki, Noah Fant, Hayden Hurst.
My basic theory is this: By passing on quarterbacks and tight ends early, you’re getting more good running backs and receivers (duh), and then, by taking at least three quarterbacks and three tight ends later you hope to luck box your way into hitting Josh Allen Kelce-type ceilings each week. (I also love the idea of Mariota and Ridder, as they’re near-locks to be available in the last two rounds of the draft.)
Is this a profitable strategy? I have no freaking idea, but it’s certainly different, and as a former Best Ball finalist – ask me about it sometime – I’m hoping my experiment bears fruit.
Signed,
A 2021 Best Ball Mania Finalist