Shawn Siegele melds key insights from the Best Ball Workshops with the immense upside from fun drafts in order to turn them into a tournament-winning masterpiece.
As the next week’s Thursday night opener hurtles toward us, we’re about to embark on a drafting frenzy that puts every other part of the fantasy season to shame. The Underdog Best Ball Mania 3 contest is 83% full as I type, and getting closer to filling with each passing minute. Someone is going to win $2 million, and someone else is going to win $1 million. Those winners have an excellent chance to come from remaining drafts, and it might not be the drafter you think.
Your naïve co-workers have a lot of advantages that can add up when trying to take down the biggest prize in fantasy.
- They aren’t hyper-focused on statistical regression or worried about hybrid quarterbacks, so they get exposure to the best players in football like Deebo Samuel and A.J. Brown.
- They’re not focused on grinding that last ADP edge or forcing that Week 17 correlation, so they have no compromise or fringe players that limit the chances to build a power roster, advance to the playoffs, and win the $1 million regular season crown.
- They draft players they want to watch on Sundays, which leaves them with plenty of exposure to stars on the Bills, Bengals, Rams, Chargers, Chiefs, and Broncos, so they still end up building rosters with Week 17 shootout potential.
If you’re thinking to yourself, “Those sound like pretty fun teams,” that’s exactly what I’m thinking as well. On Stealing Bananas and RotoViz Overtime, Ben Gretch, Colm Kelly, and I talk a lot about how you should never come out of a draft not liking your team. In most cases, that sense of dissatisfaction doesn’t stem from blowing your construction, but from not being aggressive enough in targeting the players you actually want. You didn’t have enough fun. And that should never be the case because fantasy drafts are nothing if not a party.
The best way to gain an edge on your hard-partying co-workers and also gain an edge on your highly sophisticated best-ball peers is to beat them both at their own games. Use the lessons from Michael Dubner’s Silver Bullet Strategy and the Best Ball Bible and then fire up the app and draft the most fun team you possibly can. Pore over Conor O’Driscoll’s Underdog Workshop and then go out and draft your five favorite players within a dominant build.
Check out the headlines to Conor’s series. These builds are dripping with upside.
Don’t Overthink Uniqueness in a Zero RB Build
An Extreme Anchor RB Strategy With Even More Upside
Fixing Hyperfragile: Dominating with a Contrarian Approach
In today’s exercise, I’m going to work through an Underdog draft from the 1.06 where I put a priority on fun over everything else. Does it still hit two ridiculously high-upside QBs in the Window? Of course, because structural drafting should amplify your fun, not constrain it.
