With the NFL regular season finally kicking off, Underdog Fantasy has officially launched their in-season weekly draft contests, headlined by the Battle Royale. The Battle Royale is a 6-person, 6-round fantasy draft. There are no bench spots, and you must start 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, and 1 Flex spot.
Your goal is to pick the best combination of 6 high-scoring players, with the weekly grand prize available of $50,000 to the ultimate drafter. If you’ve never played on Underdog before, try it out! Click this link and sign up for Underdog Fantasy. Play $5, get $50 in site credits to use on other games and drafts. If you want to join in the fun, let me walk you through my favorite clicks at each position to get you ready to draft a shipper in Week 1.
Don’t Get Fancy in Round 1
The name of the game in the Battle Royale is taking the most projected points you can at every single position, in a combination that is unique to everyone else in the draft pool. Despite the goal of drafting a unique team, you don’t need to worry about that immediately off the rip, especially with the current ADP.
The first 5 picks are all incredibly strong projected players in Chase, McCaffrey, Gibbs, Bijan, and JT. If you have a favorite of those that you want to plant your flag on, feel free. If you plan to build out a portfolio of teams and draft in volume, I’d personally recommend having a more flat exposure on the first round picks this week.
The 6th pick will be left with 3 solid WR selections to choose from in Nico, Nabers, and London. Double-tapping two of these guys gives your team the best WR target volume projection in the draft, to make up for missing out on a pretty clear Big 5.
Round 2 and 3 Feel… Reversed?
I’ve got to be honest, the ADPs of Round 2 and 3 feel like someone put them in the wrong order. There are several players going in the 3rd round that should really be 2nd round picks. To me, Puka Nacua and Chase Brown both have the kind of volume projections that make them closer to 1st round picks than 3rd round picks. I’d much rather have Brown over Bucky Irving, and I’d much rather have Puka over BTJ or Mike Evans.
If you want an “elite” QB or TE as well, these rounds are for you. The 3 top TEs in Bowers, McBride, and Kittle all go in the 2nd and 3rd round, and the only 2 elite QBs playing in the main Sunday slate (Jayden Daniels and Joe Burrow) also go here. If you believe any of these 5 are the key to winning the week, now is the time to take them, even if it means reaching ahead of their ADP. However, fading these 5 also gives you the best paths to unique combinations and lineups, which I’ll talk about more a bit later.
Round 4 is For the Running Backs
The 3 RBs at the top of Round 4 are absolute smashes to me, especially considering that the team at the 6 hole most likely doubled up on receiver to start the draft. Achane seems to be practicing and is on track to play in Week 1. Ashton Jeanty is an ultra-talented mystery box who will most likely get the lion’s share of the work immediately. And Josh Jacobs is almost certainly getting a Kyren Williams’ level of touches with no really talented backup fighting for playing time, in a game against the Lions that could easily be a shootout.
Outside of these 3 players, to me, this truly starts the range of reaching on low-drafted players to attempt to create unique lineups. Simply drafting players directly following their ADP will very rarely win you any money in the Battle Royale. Projections are important, but they do not directly correlate to actual fantasy points on a week-to-week basis. You’re looking for players that can break fantasy, and you’re looking for environments with lots of points. I’d recommend starting to look through the player pool to identify what game or player you want to target that you think could finish the week as a top 3-5 player at the position if things break their way.
The Rest of Your Draft
One of the most important aspects of winning a game like the Battle Royale is the idea of stacking a pass-catcher with their quarterback, unless they are more of a rushing QB (though not prohibitive). How you interpret a pass-catcher is up to you, and it gives you the potential to increase your uniqueness to try and win it all.
In these last 2 rounds, you’ll be filling out your lineup with whatever spots you haven’t touched to this point. That will shape who you target in these rounds, and it’s important to think about how the players you choose for these spots can give you both a ceiling to shoot for and a floor you’re comfortable with that can still supplement your score to still turn a profit if not all 6 players are amazing.
Who to Target
So who should you take? I’ll tell you who my targets are at each position, keeping in mind the idea of balancing good project-able volume with understanding how the field may build their lineups.
Quarterbacks – Expensive | Mid-Range | Free
Joe Burrow | Trevor Lawrence/Drake Maye | Joe Flacco
Running backs – Expensive | Mid-Range | Free
Jonathan Taylor | Chase Brown/Josh Jacobs | Tony Pollard/David Montgomery
Wide Receivers – Expensive | Mid-Range | Free
Ja’Marr Chase | Emeka Egbuka/Tetairoa McMillan | Travis Hunter/Cedric Tillman/Josh Downs
Tight Ends – Expensive | Mid-Range | Free
George Kittle | Tucker Kraft | Ja’Tavion Sanders/Chig Okonkwo
Flex – Expensive | Mid-Range | Free
De’Von Achane/ Ashton Jeanty | Jaxon Smith-Njigba/James Conner/Kyren Williams | Garrett Wilson/Calvin Ridley/Travis Etienne/Jerome Ford
