In Part 2 of this series, I’ll walk you through the absolute worst picks you can make in Best Ball Mania 6 (BBM6) on Underdog to start out the first half of your draft. With so much money available to those who make the final round, it’s important to try and avoid picks that are overvalued or overly risky, especially early on in the draft. Let’s get into it and pick up where we left off, in Round 8. If you missed the first part of this, be sure to read Picks to Make if You Love to Pay the Rake in BBM6.
Round 8
I know the name still has star power. Trust me, every time I see him on the board, I have to remind myself of his situation. But Cooper Kupp is so, so unlikely to be good at this stage of his career. Listen, I get it, I really do.
Kupp had 2k receiving yards only a couple of years ago. He battled injuries last year, which could explain away all of his red flags analytically. But he’s also about to turn 32, and is on a new team for the first time in his career. I understand the upside case, but I also think we as a community are far too willing to overlook how bad the Seahawks offense projects as it currently stands.
Their offensive line is still pretty poor, even with the incoming rookies to try and help out. Darnold has never, ever, played well behind a line that wasn’t Top 5 in the league. The Hawks’ line will definitely not be that good. JSN runs a lot of the same routes that Kupp does, and is younger and better at those routes at this point.
I just don’t see a ceiling for Kupp. He’s drafted for name value, much like DeAndre Hopkins was last year, despite being in a terrible situation in Tennessee. The reality is that Kupp is not giving you 2k, or possibly even 1k, receiving yards at this point. Maybe you get lucky on touchdowns or a JSN injury that vacates enough targets for you. But Seattle is going to be a run-heavy, first read offense with Darnold, and Kupp could easily give you a turd of a season, despite only being the WR47.
Round 7
With how much I disparage the guy, you’d think I’m a Patrick Mahomes hater. I promise I’m not. I think he’s the best real-life QB in the NFL, and will surpass Brady as the best ever by the end of his career. But that doesn’t make him a great fantasy pick.
Now, he’s much cheaper than he was last year, thankfully. Pick 83 isn’t that expensive… but it’s still not cheap enough. Yes, Mahomes has QB1 overall as a ceiling outcome. Totally agree. So does Dak Prescott. So does Kyler Murray. Justin Fields, too. And a handful of other pure pocket passers could get there in an outlier year as well.
Mahomes definitely has a better chance to do well than they do, but it’s not that much higher. What’s very clear is that the 5 QBs ahead of Mahomes have a much safer floor and arguably higher ceiling, which is why there’s such a big gap between QB5 and QB6. But Mahomes is going as high as he is purely because of name value. The Chiefs don’t score points in the regular season, and they never will, as long as their defense is elite with Steve Spagnuolo.
The market drafts Mahomes this high out of FOMO, not based on an actual, realistic projection. He will certainly have several more mega-nuclear seasons under his belt, but drafting him out of the fear of that outcome will hurt you more often than help you. I’m all for stacking Mahomes with Rice and Worthy, but I see too many folks take him unstacked ahead of ADP, and that’s just plain bad.
Round 6
Round 6 of BBM6 is a pretty fun round, outside of 1 guy who sadly sticks out like a sore thumb. There used to be a pretty well-established rule of fantasy back in the good ol’ ball knower days. Don’t count on veteran receivers on a new team, especially when they’re coming off injury. Especially veteran receivers teetering on the age cliff at 29 years old.
I’m unfortunately out on Deebo Samuel, and I think you should be too. He’s always been a bit of a Shanahan merchant, and he doesn’t have the skill set needed to ensure he can succeed in any offense. Jayden Daniels is the truth, but Kliff Kingsbury very much is not, and I’m worried that Kliff will basically just turn Deebo into super-sized Rondale Moore with screens, screens, and more screens.
If Deebo has lost any explosiveness or agility, he could be in a lot of trouble in his ability to produce for fantasy. The way he doesn’t hurt you is he gets a lot of rushing and red zone work on a good projected offense, and he actually converts that into touchdowns and explosive plays. Sadly, that’s a bit of a thin bet to make for an injury-riddled, running-back-usage 29-year-old gadget wide receiver. I could be wrong for sure on this one, but I don’t think I’ll be so wrong that I’ll regret passing on him. I’ll let someone else take the risk in BBM6.
Round 5
It’s probably getting boring to hear at this point, but we’ve got to stop it with these old, inefficient RBs behind bad offensive lines. Stop it with Joe Mixon, just stop. He is a pure volume play, along the lines of Najee Harris from years’ past. The only way that volume plays pay off is if the offense is good, and that is not a guarantee for Houston this season.
Their offensive line is atrocious on paper, and they didn’t address it basically at all in the NFL draft. There is a very real possibility that CJ Stroud spends most of his year running for his life from defenders, and that doesn’t make for the best environment for scoring a lot of fantasy points.
The Texans also traded up with already limited draft capital to add Woody Marks to the backfield, who projects as almost a pure third-down scat back. If that turns out to be true, and Mixon loses a lot of passing down work, we’re left with a plodding, inefficient two-down running back on an average-bad offense behind a terrible offensive line. There’s also a small chance that Marks can be more than a scat back, though, and if he’s just flat out more efficient and more explosive than Mixon, you’ve got yourself a bust of a 5th-round BBM6 pick.
Round 4
If you want to draft a running back coming off a season of incredible touchdown luck, ultra efficiency, and a whopping 46% of the offensive snaps, James Cook is the man for you.
I, however, am good on that one. I ask that we think back to the first 2 seasons of Cook’s career. What was always the big problem with his profile? Josh Allen stole all his touchdowns, and Cook very rarely got goal line work.
Last season, James Cook ranked second in the NFL on TD% for Rushes inside the 20-yard line, behind only his QB, Josh Allen. He was just ahead of both Jalen Hurts and David Montgomery, who both had the same amount of TDs inside the 20, on 1 more attempt each.
Cook ranked 15th of 19 qualifying players in total % of team rushing attempts inside the 20 (minimum 40). Only Jalen Hurts (a quarterback), Saquon Barkley (who split with said quarterback), David Montgomery (who split with Jahmyr Gibbs), and Brian Robinson Jr (no idea on this one, he was demonstrably the worst as well at only 33%, but it’s not like Jayden Daniels was very high) had a worse rush % of qualifying players.
Basically, James Cook ran sun-runned touchdowns last year at a very high efficiency. And yes, you’re hoping for touchdowns when you draft players. But that is not something you can predict, and a 4th round ADP is way too much holding up last year’s stats into what his projection should be for 2025. Unless Cook suddenly gets 60+% of the snaps this year, you’re making a pure touchdown efficiency bet, and that kind of bet is far too thin to make as a top 4 drafted player on your BBM6 teams.
Round 3
None of these picks are “bad”, per se. Because of that, I’ll instead give you the riskiest. I don’t think much needs to be said on Tyreek Hill’s off-the-field baggage and seemingly yearly escapades. He’s not close to Antonio Brown levels, but he’s unquestionably the most colorful and unpredictable character in today’s NFL landscape, especially for fantasy-relevant players.
That doesn’t make him a bad pick, though. We’re 1 full season removed from Hill making a push for 2k receiving yards. The Dolphins were an organizational mess last year. More Tua concussions, Hill’s injuries suffered during an arrest before a game, a litany of season-ending injuries to prominent players on both sides of the ball. Miami suffered a season from hell.
Plenty of people will point to Hill’s drop in efficiency and explosiveness, and they’d argue that he has dropped off the precipitous side of the age cliff. Those people could be correct, and that would make Hill an incredibly bad pick in the 3rd round.
There’s also a real argument to be made that Hill did the best he could in the environment of last season. A better offensive line, retooled and healthy defense, and a full off-season for Mike McDaniel to repurpose the offense around the idea of keeping Tua upright, could result in Tyreek Hill returning to Top 5 fantasy player status just like that.
Something that is becoming more clear in the NFL is that certain players don’t fit in traditional age and injury-related camps of when the drop off hits. See Adrian Peterson, Derrick Henry, etc. Don’t forget for one second, Tyreek Hill is an athletic freak. I would take him in a foot race with Xavier Worthy right now, and I think I’d be right to do so. Sometimes, players defy logic and defy statistics, and Hill is one of those guys for me.
Hill is not at all a bad pick to make in Round 3, but doing so could very well make or break your entire team single-handedly, which isn’t always the most appetizing decision to have to make, especially this early in your draft.
Round 2
I bet you all are expecting me to say Derrick Henry here. Well, you’d all be wrong! Josh Jacobs is once again 2-3 rounds too expensive, pure and simple.
Despite being drafted as a great pass-catcher out of Alabama, Jacobs has never provided much of anything in that area for fantasy. There is no reason to assume that will suddenly change this season.
Last year, people were slightly hesitant about Jacobs because of the team drafting Marshawn Lloyd in the 3rd round of the NFL draft. Jacobs ran pure on that front, as he stayed healthy all season (just like every other starting running back in the NFL somehow last year) while Lloyd lost the entire year to a combo of injuries and misfortunes.
Lloyd is still behind Jacobs, and while he certainly doesn’t have steal the job potential, he does have the skill and potential to take Josh off the field more than years past. We are now approaching a Derrick Henry, Joe Mixon-level bet if that happens.
The good thing is that Green Bay should be a good offense, which gives Jacobs somewhat permanent touchdown upside even if he does lose work. But there’s also very little upside at his current price. He’s not magically earning 60+ targets in 2025, nor is he going to have a lock on the red zone work. Jacobs could run pure on touchdowns, but like I said with James Cook, I’m not paying a high price betting almost exclusively on sun-running TDs. I’m out at this price, especially compared to the backs going around him that all have better workloads and/or passing work upside.
Round 1
We’ve made it! You’re finally awake, I mean… It’s the 1st Round! There can’t possibly be a bad pick in the 1st Rd, right?
Wrong. And it’s not who you think I’m going to say. The 12th pick overall is a little rich for my blood on Brian Thomas Jr. Which freaking sucks, because I loved him as a prospect and had a bag and a half of him in dynasty rookie drafts last summer.
Don’t hear what I’m not saying, BTJ is an absolute stud, and I think he has just as much upside as every other receiver in the 1st. The problem is that he also has the downside that no other receiver has in the 1st. I think it’s easy to project that BTJ takes a step in Year 2 and establishes himself as an Alpha receiver. And he very well could, especially based on the athletic profile.
But… I’m sorry, guys, Travis Hunter is good. That should be obvious by what the Jaguars paid to move up to 2 and take him. I don’t care one bit that he will play some defense, too, at all. The fact that he’s good enough to do that should freak you out as a BTJ believer.
There is a very real chance that Hunter is better than BTJ, full stop. It’s not the most likely outcome, and it’s not the bet I’m making when I’m drafting Hunter or BTJ. But tell me who else in the 1st or even the top half of the 2nd round in BBM6 at wide receiver has a player at that level competing with them for targets? The answer is none of them. The closest arguments are Chase and Tee Higgins, but we have very clear data on who is the alpha when both are on the field and healthy.
The only other consideration is Puka and Davante Adams, but Adams is a thin bet to make of being the alpha at 32 years old on his 3rd team in 2 seasons. He’s certainly not going to be bad, but it’s way more likely he’s declining than it is he comes in and displaces a soon-to-be 24-year-old Alpha receiver not even sniffing his prime yet.
Hunter is 5 months older than BTJ (which is honestly pretty funny), and has nearly as impressive an athletic and production profile as BTJ does. If he’s utilized in the Chris Godwin role in Liam Coen’s offense, he will most likely out-produce BTJ. If you don’t believe me, look at the numbers of Godwin and Mike Evans last season before Godwin got hurt.
People forget Godwin was THE WR1 overall in fantasy up to that point. And Evans was on a fast track to missing 1k yards for the first time in his career. Now, BTJ is a better receiver than Mike Evans is today, but there’s a pretty real chance that Hunter is a better wide receiver today than Chris Godwin was last season.
Even though I love Brian Thomas Jr as a player, and I think he and Travis Hunter will ascend into the premier WR duo in football, I’m not willing to bet my 1st round pick in BBM6 currently that BTJ is the certain alpha of that WR duo. I need to see it first before I’m willing to pay that steep of a price. Until then, BTJ belongs in the Drake London/Ladd McConkey tier of receivers for me. And sure, that’s only 4-6 spots of ADP, but at the back of the 1st round, I’m not looking to make such a leap of faith when there are excellent players still available on the board at that point.
