Best Ball Fantasy Football Observations & Value Picks

Best Ball Fantasy Football: July Recap

Once the NFL Draft occurs, NFL Fantasy fans tend to start looking at their dynasty and keeper teams, and some will get the itch to start participating in some Best Ball leagues, myself included. Doing Best Ball drafts early exposes you to risk of someone on your team getting injured or playing their way out of a job by September. This is why I choose to keep it light earlier in the year, and why ADP during this time of year will be driven by the hardcore Best Ball guys and some dynasty guys looking for redraft action. Knowing that we’re up against more seasoned drafters earlier in the year give us a chance to see what players may be undervalued heading into the summer as more casual players start joining Best Ball leagues. Through 35+ drafts on BestBall10s and PlayDraft, here are some of my observations.

Quarterback is Deep

Quarterbacks seem to be going later than last year. If you’re not targeting one of the top 5 QBs, then you can wait well into the 11th and 12th rounds to take your top 2 signal-callers. A few of the most undervalued QBs right now are Kyler Murray, Dak Prescott, and Mitch Trubisky. All three of these guys are being drafted as the QB17-19 on BestBall10s. After finishing my projection work, I have 2 of these guys in my top 10 (Kyler is QB2) and Mitch just misses at QB11. I am more than happy to go into the year with two out of these three and load up on the other positions early. Sometimes you can get Carson Wentz fairly late, and then there are guys like Jimmy Garoppolo (who is returning from injury but plays in the offensive scheme that gets everyone an interview as a head coach these days) and Josh Allen (running QB that had huge spike weeks last year) available into the 11th-12th rounds.

Questions and Concerns with an Erratic ADP

Running Backs seem to confuse people in the early rounds, after we get past the top 4 of Barkley, McCaffrey, Elliott, and Kamara. Guys like David Johnson, Damien Williams, Todd Gurley, and Aaron Jones pop out as players I have projected higher than ADP, and aside from David Johnson, they can be had in the 2nd and 3rd rounds while people are over-prioritizing the WRs there. I have those RBs ranked in the order I just listed, and would take an RB with my first pick as long as any of those first 5 are there. After that top 6, it gets dicey. There are questions about guys like Melvin Gordon and his hold-out, Gurley and his knee, Joe Mixon and his now injured OL, Lev Bell and his re-acclimation after a year off and playing behind a bad OL for a coach that devalues the RB. In year’s past, I’ve avoided the RB-RB-RB start because the WRs at the top were “safer”. This year, I am going hard after RBs early on because I like the depth of the WR position enough to feel confident in piecing together a bunch of WRs from Rounds 5 through 8 to make up for what I miss from the elite tier, and not have to reach for questionable RBs in those 5th through 8th rounds. Some of my favorite RB targets after the top 3 rounds are Mark Ingram in the 4th, David Montgomery in Rd5, and Latavius Murray in the 6-7th. I have been throwing a few darts with Kenyan Drake in the 5th as well, hoping he takes on the role Lamar Miller used to have there and has some spike week games. All three of these guys will play in run-heavy offenses that will feature them in some way. The pass-catching backs on my radar include James White, who will be Brady’s security blanket this year without Gronk; Nyheim Hines, who should continue to play the passing back role in Indy and is a solid target in the 8th round; and Dion Lewis who is going in the 10-11th. Lewis will have a near every-down role if anything happens to the big fella ahead of him and has to stand alone value as it is. 

Wide Receiver is Deep

When taking RBs early, I have a handful of names I’m targeting in the 5th-9th round on a consistent basis. Calvin Ridley, Curtis Samuel, D.J. Moore, Dede Westbrook, Christian Kirk, Larry Fitzgerald, Geronimo Allison, Tyler Lockett, and Dante Pettis are all guys I’ve been prioritizing for my WR core when I go RB heavy up top. There are some decent flyers late in the draft as well. Guys like Tre’Quan Smith, Donte Moncrief, John Brown, Albert Wilson, Emmanuel Sanders, and Paul Richardson,  all have the potential to either provide some useful spike week value or be solid enough to give you starting points if you lose a lot of WRs to injury as the season goes on.

Tight End is a Wasteland

I started the year not willing to spend a top pick for a TE, which meant I was likely going to miss out on Kelce, Ertz, Kittle. Lately, I have been mixing in those guys where it makes sense. One of the guys I prioritize if not going TE early is Hunter Henry, but he’s not always making it to round 5 in drafts, which is where I prefer to take him. The tier of Vance McDonald, Austin Hooper, Trey Burton, and Jack Doyle is usually where I’m landing my first TE. Then, following that up with a guy like Kyle Rudolph, Jordan Reed, Greg Olsen, Tyler Eifert or Mike Gesicki in the later rounds.

I’m even more comfortable waiting on defenses. Most people draft these based on last year’s data and forgot which key players have changed teams. Most of the time you can wait for your last two picks and get some combination of the Colts, Cowboys, Packers, Bills, Eagles, Titans, and 49ers – all of whom should be better than last year based on their off-season moves.

In the next couple of months, there will be more drafters to compete with, and drafts will rely less on the ADP that has been built by the hardcore, spring-drafting crowd. It may be harder to rely on your core value picks with the possibility of people going off the board more to beat ADP for guys they want to plant a flag with. I would expect to see QB ADP rise in the coming months, especially on the high profile guys like Mahomes, Murray and Mayfield. Plus we have training camp not too far off the horizon, and beat reports will swing and sway ADP with glowing reports. Now is the time to get in, get your 2019 process established, and be ready to adjust on the fly as we head into training camp and preseason.

Footnote: Jess Jones has 3 years of BestBall experience, turning in a positive ROI every year.