Underdog Fantasy NFL Playoffs Contest
Just because the NFL regular season is over and most season-long fantasy football formats were done in week 17 (with a few carrying over into week 18) that doesn’t mean fantasy football has to be done. If you’re still hungry for more fantasy football, Underdog Fantasy has you covered. Underdog Fantasy NFL Playoffs Best-Ball is one of my favorite fantasy sports games. The concept is simple. You draft once, scoring points in the playoffs, with the final tournament prizes being based on Super Bowl scoring. This means that in the majority of Underdog NFL Playoff Best-Ball leagues if you don’t have Super Bowl Players then you won’t win top prizes. Each draft is a quick 6-person, 10-round draft. Typical starting lineups are 1QB, 1RB, 2WR/TE, and 1flex spot (RB/WR/TE), with 5 additional bench spots. That’s it. Easy. But there’s another option other than just your traditional best-ball tournament. Underdog also provides a Weekly Winners Best-Ball tournament. This is the one I chose to enter for the sake of this article. I will discuss what this type of tournament entails as well as the different strategies you can employ when doing your draft. There’s no clear-cut way to ensure victory in this format. Like a lot of fantasy football, there’s an element of luck, but through a certain amount of knowledge and a decent strategy, you can put yourself in the best possible position to do well.
What is Underdog Fantasy?
With a focus on Best Ball leagues and Best Ball tournaments, Underdog Fantasy is the greatest and most straightforward way to play fantasy sports. They have gained enormous popularity in the daily fantasy market. Every major sport, including the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL, has drafts available on Underdog Fantasy. The drafts range from three-team serpentine selections to 12-team drafts. For the Best Ball community, UnderDog Fantasy provides everything from limited leagues to crowded tournaments, all at different price points. Along with entering the prop market, UnderDog Fantasy also introduced its Pick’em choices for sports like NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MMA, Golf, Boxing, and Esports, with an increased emphasis on statistical categories and competitions.
Read Our Full Review of Underdog Fantasy Here
Weekly Winners NFL Playoffs Best Ball
The first thing to know about Weekly Winners NFL Playoffs Best Ball vs. the more traditional NFL Playoffs Best Ball is that it’s not as immediate of a concern to worry about advancing from week to week. This allows for a bit more flexibility when drafting and ultimately leads to a few major opposing views on how to approach the draft. One school of thought includes going all in on the teams with the best odds to make it to the Super Bowl (49ers and Ravens) and then pairing those players with high-upside players on teams that may be out after the first or second round. In a perfect world, if you choose to target primarily 49ers and Ravens players, you would be able to pair them with players on other potential contenders. Teams that could surprise in the playoffs. Teams like the Cowboys, Bills, Dolphins, and Chiefs come to mind. Another way of approaching this draft is to completely bypass the 49ers and Ravens and focus solely on the Wild Card round. Because there are weekly winners in this format you could go after players like Mike Evans, Kyren Williams, Puka Nacua, Rachaad White, Nico Collins, or C.J. Stroud, knowing that they may have a tough time making a deep run, but should be able to pay dividends in the first round (maybe two.) Ultimately, just like with any fantasy football draft, it is good to have a strategy going in, while remaining flexible. The way the rest of the competitors draft will help to dictate which route you go, and after doing two of these drafts I found that the majority of teams are going all in on the 49ers and Ravens so depending on your draft position you may be forced to focus on the first round or two and forget about the top two teams. Besides, upsets happen and if the 49ers and/or the Ravens get knocked out of the playoffs then you could all of a sudden find yourself with a roster that is competing right up through the Super Bowl.
NFL Playoff Contest Details
- Draft Size: 6
- Rounds: 10
- Pick Clock: 30 seconds
- 0.5PPR scoring format
- Roster: QB, RB, 2 WR/TE, Flex, 5 Bench
- Prizes: $100K
My Strategy
Before I get into my specific strategy we should discuss the overall strategy of any best ball draft. With a 10-man roster of 1QB, 1RB, 2WR/TE, 1flex spot (RB/WR/TE), and 5 additional bench spots, it’s important to have depth at every position so as players get eliminated you still have a chance to score points. This isn’t AS important in the weekly winners format, but it’s still good to give yourself a fighting chance in later rounds if possible. Typically, depending on how you approach the draft, this means drafting 2-3 QBs, 2-4 RBs, and 5-7 flex. The start of the draft will dictate how the rest of the draft plays out, but you want to make sure you don’t just have one QB or one RB because that will be a zero in those spots if your player gets eliminated from the playoffs. So while the weekly winners format does impact the strategy somewhat, it is still a best-ball draft and the majority of rules surrounding that type of draft remain.
As it turns out, in both of my drafts I ended up picking from the No. 1 spot. While this makes it nearly impossible to stick to a strict strategy because you have no idea who will be available to you at the end of the 2nd-round, it did allow me to employ two different strategies from the same spot and see how both played out. In the first draft, I decided to try to get as many players on those top two teams as possible. I started by choosing Christian McCaffrey (a no-brainer if you’re targeting the 49ers and the Ravens and have the first pick.) When it came back around to me, though, there were not a lot of the top-tier players from those teams available. Still, at the 2/3 turn, I paired CMC with QB Josh Allen (the Bills are a team that could surprise this year) and then chose the last elite option left on either the Ravens or 49ers, George Kittle. After that, it became prudent to pivot my line of thinking and focus on the best player available regardless of team, although I still tried to target players that were either on teams that could make a deep run or had favorable first-round matchups. Although I did not plan this going in, I ended up only drafting two RBs. This is because I expect CMC to be there the whole time and a top-scorer at the position and I liked other players more than the running backs that were available when it came back around to me. In the end, I ended up with a roster that I feel good about. It has a certain amount of risk but also feels pretty safe with players that have upside and who have a history of producing.
Just like your typical best ball draft I also found myself stocking up on pass catchers. With two WR/TE spots, plus an additional flex spot I decided pass catchers, especially in a half-PPR league, would put me in the best position to score the most weekly points. A lot of times in these formats I find myself looking at my draft at the end and noticing a key moment when things went sideways. But that wasn’t the case here. Perhaps that’s because due to there being fewer teams there are only 10 rounds and as such, fewer opportunities to get a pick wrong. Or maybe it’s because with all these teams being playoff-caliber teams there is no shortage of valuable fantasy assets. Whatever the reason, I felt good about my team overall. Still, as with any draft, there were picks that I liked more than some. Here are my best and worst picks in this draft, as well as my biggest question mark.
Best
CMC (1.1) – This might be a bit of a cheat. He’s an obvious choice for the No. 1 spot. He was the most valuable fantasy running back during the regular season and I don’t see that changing in the playoffs.
Cooper Kupp (4.6) – I think with the emergence of Puka Nacua, who just broke the rookie receiving record, people have begun to forget that Kupp is still capable of producing at a top-tier level. Getting him at the end of the fourth round felt like great value.
Mike Evans (6.6) – Evans was the WR5 in half-PPR formats this season. He has a lethal combination of being a high target earner while also having massive touchdown upside. Plus, with the way the Eagles have looked the last few weeks, the Buccaneers could surprise us and advance to the next round. I loved getting him where I did.
Worst
George Kittle (3.1) – Don’t get me wrong, Kittle is an elite option at the position, and having decided I was going to target 49ers and Ravens players this pick made sense. But if that had not been the case this was probably a little early to pick him. A high-upside receiver would’ve been a better option.
Dalton Kincaid (10.6) – Taking Kincaid here, even as the last pick in the draft, comes with a lot of risk. Since Dawson Knox has returned, Kincaid’s production has been up and down, and on Sunday night in a must-win game, it was Knox who got the touchdown, not Kincaid. Although, Kincaid did see five more targets and finished with 62 more yards than Knox. If that involvement continues then this will ultimately be a good pick, but there is a lot of uncertainty where Kincaid is concerned.
Biggest Question Mark
Mark Andrews (9.1) – Going with Andrews here could end up being one of the best picks of my draft or the absolute worst. It will all boil down to whether or not he can go. Recent reports have stated that Andrews is eyeing a postseason return. If that happens, I will have gotten an elite pass catcher toward the end of the draft. If it doesn’t happen, it’s a completely wasted pick. The range of outcomes for Andrews is wider than any other player, but since the goal here was to target those top teams, and Andrews has so much upside, I decided to take the risk.
In my second draft, I decided to go in planning to punt the 49ers and Ravens. In doing so I started by drafting a bonafide stud WR in CeeDee Lamb. Then paired him with Dak Prescott. I then got another elite pass catcher in A.J. Brown and continued that way by taking the best player available who wasn’t on the 49ers or Ravens. A couple of my players have recent injury concerns, but none of them are believed to be serious and they are expected to be ready for the playoffs. Likely the teams were playing it safe with these players having already clinched a playoff berth. In this draft, I went a bit more balanced. Because the first running back I selected was Raheem Mostert, it was important to get at least two more, and because the goal here was to avoid the 49ers and Ravens when possible I found myself passing on players I may have ultimately taken if I wasn’t trying a strategy out. I also loaded up on elite pass catchers and filled out the QB position with three QBs that filled different roles. The best of the three is likely Prescott. He is playing at a very high level and of the three has the best chance of making a deep run in the playoffs. Then you have Tua who is surrounded by elite options and even if they lose to the Chiefs in round one he should be able to produce some high numbers in the first round. Lastly, you have C.J. Stroud. No one can take anything away from what Stroud has done this season, but choosing him was just a decision to invest in someone who has very little to lose and could surprise us all. For the rest of the draft, I focused on the best available player. Overall, I felt pretty good about this team as well. There’s a lot of upside on this roster and while it likely won’t lead to me scoring much in the NFC/AFC Championships or the Super Bowl, it should allow me to be pretty competitive in the first two rounds. But as was the case with my first draft there are still picks I love and others I’m not as excited about. Here are my best and worst picks, and my biggest question mark for this draft.
Best
Dak Prescott (2.6) – After seeing elite QB options like Jackson, Purdy, and Allen go off the board it was important to grab a top-tier signal caller that has the chance to advance. While Jordan Love and the Packers have played very well at times and were a surprise addition to the playoffs, I don’t see them going into Dallas and knocking off the Cowboys. The fact that I chose CeeDee Lamb at the 1.1 made the selection of Prescott that much easier.
A.J. Brown (3.1) – Yes, Brown as well as QB Jalen Hurts exited the Week 18 contest against the Giants in the first half with injuries. But all reports state that both players should be good to go this week. If Brown is able to go he is an elite option going up against a Tampa Bay defense that allows the ninth most fantasy points to WRs. Sign me up.
Cooper Kupp (5.1) – It looks as if people are sleeping on Cooper Kupp in these playoffs. Yes, Nacua is an incredible player but Kupp has seen 8 or more targets in four of his last five games and is still a safety blanket for QB Matthew Stafford. I expect him to produce in the playoffs.
Worst
D’Andre Swift (7.1) – In recent weeks, Swift’s production has been up and down (more down than up) and now he’s going up against a Buccaneers defense that allows the third-fewest fantasy points to running backs. Not exactly a recipe for success. I would’ve rather gone with David Montgomery or even Jerome Ford here.
Mark Andrews (8.6) – Putting Andrews here isn’t about the player, value, or potential upside. If he plays he’s a good pick, but he’s also the only player I have on either the 49ers or Ravens, meaning at some point he could be the only person scoring points for me and end up just taking up space. I could’ve added someone like Rachaad White and given myself an even better chance to score points in the first two rounds.
C.J. Stroud (9.1) – Look, I love Stroud the player, and what he has accomplished this year is nothing short of remarkable. But he is a rookie in his first playoff game against an elite defense that could make things difficult for him. Plus, the Browns have already beaten the Texans 36-22 this season. Granted, that was with Davis Mills and Case Keenum under center, not Stroud, but the Browns are as good of defense as he’s going to face this year and while Stroud does have a lot of upside, I’m not confident it will be realized this week.
Biggest Question Mark
Raheem Mostert (4.6) – Don’t get me wrong, Raheem Mostert has been a fantasy stud. Even with missing the last two games he finished as the RB2. The issue isn’t talent or his role when on the field. The issue is will he be on the field? He is still dealing with an injury and there’s been no official report on how he is progressing. Then there’s De’Von Achane. With how Achane has performed the last two weeks, even if Mostert is good to go he could see Achane take more of the workload. This would put a bit of a cap on Mostert’s ceiling. But as good as Mostert has been and with his nose for the end zone, I decided the reward was worth the risk.
Final Thoughts
In the end, I can’t say which strategy I preferred when it came to these drafts. What I can say, and what I found very interesting in looking at how the other teams drafted, is that it seemed much easier to invest in the 49ers and Ravens if you’re draft position was at the end rather than the top. Teams 5 and 6 were very successful in stacking players on the top-2 teams with other high-end talent. If you look at the first draft I did, team 5 stacked Deebo Samuel with Brock Purdy and then added players like Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, and Devonta Smith, to then finish out by drafting Odell Beckham Jr. and Rashod Bateman. In the second draft, it was team 6 that was able to stack Samuel, Purdy, and Brandon Aiyuk, while also selecting Zay Flowers. They then added players like Nico Collins, Jerome Ford, and Chris Godwin to give them some upside in the first round, but clearly, they were primarily investing in the later rounds. Only time will tell how any of these strategies play out. The one thing I will say, as a general rule, is that I wish I would’ve focused a bit more on how I approached the QB position. In both drafts, I selected three QBs in different matchups that are not guaranteed to have a second game. This means they could all lose in the first round and I’d be stuck with no QB in subsequent rounds. That would be bad. If I had it to do over again, I would have either selected a couple of QBs facing off against each other in the first round or targeted Purdy or Jackson early to guarantee a second-round QB. Granted, I don’t see Prescott losing to the Packers or Allen losing to the Steelers, and my other QBs could advance as well. But it’s the playoffs, where anything can happen, so the smart move would’ve been to make sure I have a second-round QB locked and loaded. Other than that I felt good about my drafts. They should be competitive with a decent amount of upside. Of course, they could all get hurt in the first quarter as well and I could have the lowest score of any team that week. This is the life of a fantasy football enthusiast. Do with this knowledge what you will and happy drafting.
