If you followed my articles during the summer, folks, you’ll know I had plenty to say about best ball, and I drafted quite a lot of teams to back up my convictions. So, how am I doing here at the halfway point of the fantasy regular season?
Well, for context, the average advance rate for Underdog Fantasy’s flagship contest, Best Ball Mania VI, is 16.7%, as two out of every 12 teams will advance to the second round after Week 14. Not every tournament on Underdog has that same advance rate, and that also holds for DraftKings and Fast Draft.
My Advance Rates
With that being said, out of 113 drafts on Underdog that operate using the “pod” structure, I’m currently advancing 16 of them, which comes out to 14.16%. The other 12 UD drafts (8 Marathons and 4 Weekly Winners) are largely not going to win anything, though I have 1 Marathon team that’s currently in 4,001 that would be at least slightly better than min-cash.
One interesting thing for me, though, is that I have 18 other teams within 50 points of the 2nd place team, meaning if things bounced my way, I could more than double my advance rate. While certainly not a guarantee, it will be very fun to see which of those teams get through, and which of my 16 currently advancing fall out of contention.
On DraftKings, I drafted 29 best ball teams, and I’m currently advancing six teams, for an advance rate of 30.7%. However, I am also within 50 points of the 2nd place team in three other drafts, which I consider to be a bridgeable gap if things bounce my way in the 2nd half of the season. The drafts on Fast Draft are all total points contests, but I currently am not “winning” any money for the nine teams I drafted there.
My Player Exposures – Underdog Pre-Draft
For further context, player exposures have a standard of about 8-9% if you were to take every player evenly. Anything above that is someone you have convictions on, and anyone below that was someone that you faded (or didn’t have the opportunity to take if you didn’t get enough 1.01s to get Ja’Marr Chase this year).
On Underdog, their contests are separated into Pre-NFL Draft and Post-NFL Draft, and my exposures are definitely different between the two. I only drafted 19 pre-draft contests, so the exposures will be a little rougher and more robust one way or the other.
The players that I feel great about being over the field on: 21% Jalen Hurts, 21% Drake Maye, 36% Quinshon Judkins, 26% Bijan Robinson, 15% Cam Skattebo, 21% Chris Olave, 21% Jake Ferguson, 21% Harold Fannin Jr., and 21% George Kittle.
Unfortunately, there’s also plenty of misses for me: 26% Anthony Richardson, 15% Cam Ward, 21% of Braelon Allen, DJ Giddens, and Kaleel Mullings, 31% Calvin Ridley, 26% Christian Kirk, 21% Adonai Mitchell, and 15% Mike Gesicki.
I only have 10% of Christian McCaffrey, Jonathan Taylor, and Jahmyr Gibbs, and only 5% of De’Vone Achane. I only have 5% Amon-Ra St. Brown, 5% Puka Nacua, and 5% JSN, and I didn’t get a single 1.01 to draft Ja’Marr Chase in the pre-draft contests. Sadly, I also have more Colston Loveland than Tyler Warren, and no Brock Bowers in pre-draft contests either (though that hasn’t hurt me too bad so far).
My Player Exposures – Underdog Post Draft
This is a much bigger sample size of 84 best ball teams, so any stands or beliefs I had will be much more prevalent and impactful here, to be honest.
Some standouts here: 15% Justin Herbert, 16% Cam Skattebo, 14% Quinshon Judkins, 17% Emeka Egbuka, and 15% Rome Odunze. I also have a lot of the really great players this season in the 8-12% range, which explains my advance rate, I think. The right combos of 1-2 early-round smashes with 1-2 mid-round smashes will carry your team a long way in this tournament.
Unfortunately, I have some silly exposures too: 16% Cam Ward (my highest drafted QB), 13% Geno Smith, 19% Roschon Johnson, 16% Tank Bigsby, 15% Miles Sanders, 14% Jarquez Hunter, 27% Brandon Ayiuk, 14% Jack Bech, 13% Tre Harris, and 11% Mike Gesicki.
My Player Exposures – DraftKings
On DraftKings, with 20 rounds and full PPR, there’s a little more wiggle room to make up for some 0’s. I feel a lot better about some of my teams on DK, and my exposures kind of reflect that.
I have 23% Drake Maye, 17% Quinshon Judkins, 14% Cam Skattebo, 14% JT, 20% George Pickens, 17% Puka, 17% Rome Odunze, 14% Emeka Egbuka, and 20% Harold Fannin Jr. Unfortunately, I also have 14% Cam Ward, 17% Kaleb Johnson, 17% TreVeyon Henderson, 14% Adonai Mitchell, 14% Jalen Royals, and 17% Brenton Strange.
I definitely went hard on rookies this season, and it is so far playing out about 50/50 on what is hitting and what is whiffing. I have lots of higher exposure players for rookies who are late season plays like Bhayshul Tuten and Brashard Smith as well.
My Favorite Advancing Best Ball Teams
I’ll be using screenshots in this section from a fantastic tool made by Patrick Donovan called BBMDB, which uses Underdog’s draft database they release after contests close, to help display all of your teams, their position, and even remind you of the draft order in every contest you drafted in during the spring and summer.
My favorite advancing best ball team through the halfway point of the season on Underdog was drafted in a contest called The Puppy, which is only $5 per entry but still gives out massive prizes at the end to the winner ($100k to 1st place). Out of 225,000 teams drafted, this current team ranks 916th, with 1126.06 points scored.
For context, the Puppy is the contest that closes the fastest every year, which usually results in there being 3 or 4 total Puppy contests released throughout the summer. This team was drafted early in draft season, when ADP was still largely uncertain about rookies and how teams were shaping up from a real-life perspective.
I adore this team if I’m honest. Patrick Mahomes has basically carried my QB position all season, though Geno certainly could play better in the second half with their bye week just finished up.
Running back is wildly thin for sure, but it’s thin with the 2 best RBs on the season in CMC and JT as my 1st and 2nd round picks. Tank and Keaton Mitchell have at least shown some signs of life, though Roschon sadly is pretty much a permanent 0.
Wide Receiver is where this team truly shines. For 6 weeks, it propelled me forward with DeVonta Smith, Rome, and Emeka Egbuka hitting the lineup most weeks, with occasional one-offs from each of the other players as my Flex options.
But now, Rashee Rice is back, and he has immediately strengthened this team from good to truly great as he ascends to my WR1 spot seemingly week-in and week-out.
Tight end is not the best, but Njoku and Theo Johnson at least have a solid floor to not give me 0’s every single week. I don’t need their points to advance into Round 2, but the hope is that one or both of them randomly go off in the tournament rounds to help get me to the finals.
On DraftKings, I have a best ball team that feels absolutely loaded on paper, as long as my wide receivers and tight ends stay healthy the rest of the way.
A QB core of Maye, Fields, and Purdy feels very strong, especially if Fields can hold onto the starting role rest of the season.
At RB, I somehow (I don’t even remember this) drafted a team with Jahmyr Gibbs, Ashton Jeanty in the 2nd, and Jonathan Taylor in the 3rd round…. oh, and Dylan Sampson and RJ Harvey waiting in the wings to boot.
Wide Receiver is the weakest position here, but as long as it remains healthy, the rotation of Rome, DJ Moore, Worthy, Tet, Hollywood, Ayomanor, Jayden Higgins, and hopefully Ricky Pearsall at some point can keep this team competing all the way to the end. The only truly useless piece at this point is Jalen Royals.
Tight End is a little weak, but it can certainly score enough in aggregate to continue getting by with David Njoku, Hunter Henry, and maybe an end-of-season emergence for Elijah Arroyo? All in all, the fact I got JT in the 3rd is truly what is pushing this team over the top, and if Jeanty happens to break out… I will be watching this team closely to be sure.
It will be fun to see how my best ball season plays out over the second half of the year, and I hope to have some fun teams to sweat out Weeks 15-17.
