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Jackson Sparks gives his strategy tips for best ball fantasy football league drafts. He offers advice on how to draft and build a winning best ball team in 2023.
Best Ball leagues have become one of the most popular formats for fantasy football enthusiasts over the past few years. In these formats, there are no start 'em or sit 'em decisions to be made, as the highest-scoring players on your roster will automatically be entered into your lineup at the end of each week. The rankings and average draft positions will look similar to traditional leagues in this format, but there will be some players who have varying values.
Ultimately, best ball scoring is set up for players with huge ceilings and low floors. Ultra-volatile wide receivers who carry a "boom or bust" tag aren't as risky since you won't have to eat their low-scoring weeks in your starting lineup. Like regular leagues, there are a ton of different draft strategies, but since many best ball leagues have no waiver wire or in-season transactions, the draft is more important than ever.
Whether your home league is transitioning to a best ball scoring system for less in-season maintenance or you're playing in large-scale tournaments, this article should help you with a basic understanding of some of the most popular strategies for 2023 best ball drafts. Let's dive in.
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Scoring System and Roster Requirements
Like all leagues, knowing the ins and outs of the scoring system and roster requirements is paramount for success in best ball. Some leagues have starting lineups consisting of one QB, two RBs, three WRs, one TE, and one FLEX, while others will have four to five wideouts or additional flex spots. Again, you won't be making lineup decisions, but knowing how many of each position will enter the weekly lineup is still important.
Many best ball leagues utilize half-PPR scoring with four-point passing touchdowns, six-point rushing touchdowns, and six-point receiving touchdowns. As always, be sure to look through your league rules with a careful eye. Especially, in a league full of friends, the scoring rules can be tampered with and changed mightily.
Popular Draft Strategies
Hero-RB
This strategy involves selecting a stud running back in the first round, then addressing all other positions before taking another ball carrier. As workhorse running backs become more scarce, there are only a few backs that provide a significant advantage in fantasy football. Most of those guys will go in Round One, so this strategy revolves around your "Hero RB" anchoring the position for you while relying on late-round flyers to fill the RB2 chair.
Based on this year's ADP (Underdog), Christian McCaffrey, Austin Ekeler, and Bijan Robinson are the only three hero-RB candidates.
Zero-RB
The zero-RB strategy has become ultra-popular in recent years given the scarcity of running backs, the pass-happy NFL, and the injury rate at the position. With game-changing wide receivers like Cooper Kupp, Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson, and Ja'Marr Chase continuing to post video game-like spike weeks, the position now has more players selected in the first round than running backs. Running backs are seemingly becoming more dependent on the situation around them and are always dealing with minor or major injuries.
With this strategy, fantasy managers will likely hammer the WR position in at least the first three rounds, building a high-ceiling lineup with volatility. This strategy can be executed out of any draft spot as well. With a top-three pick, a fantasy manager could select Justin Jefferson or Ja'Marr Chase, then come back in rounds two and three to take Tee Higgins and DK Metcalf. For drafters at the 1.12 spot, double tapping receivers Davante Adams and Garrett Wilson back-to-back, then taking Amari Cooper or Keenan Allen in Round 3 is an example of this process.
After the core of the team is built, zero-RB drafters will take a ton of flyers on late-round running backs that are in committees. Especially since it's best ball scoring, they won't have to make head-scratching decisions on which running backs will see bigger roles on a week-to-week basis. Instead, they'll hope two or three of the ambiguous backfield RBs will fire in a given week. In this year's landscape, running backs on the Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins, and Buffalo Bills are all being selected after the seventh round. They are all prime zero-RB assets since it's unknown what the workloads will look like in those committees.
Robust-RB
Robust RB is one of the riskiest draft strategies thanks to high injury rates at the position. However, if it fires, it can be lethal and produce a league-winning lineup. These builds rely on drafting at least three running backs in the first four-t0-five rounds, leaving other teams with less-than-ideal running back rooms.
Last season, a Christian McCaffrey-Nick Chubb-Josh Jacobs robust RB build would've been dominant, so it can be done. However, running backs have proven to be less predictable and their seasonal production has become largely inconsistent. A Jonathan Taylor-D'Andre Swift-Leonard Fournette build looked good on paper last season, but it was obviously disastrous as the year moved along. This year, one of the best robust RB builds looks to be a Christian McCaffrey-Tony Pollard-Josh Jacobs setup in rounds 1-3 with an early draft pick.
Anchor-TE
There's not much to be said here, but this strategy simply involves taking Travis Kelce in the first round. After that, you can transition into another strategy, but Kelce has been arguably the biggest advantage in fantasy football, and he goes anywhere from 1.01 to 1.08.
Value-Driven
Simply put, this kind of drafter takes the best value according to ADP when they are on the clock – no matter what flex position happens to be. Obviously, they'll wait on drafting a second tight end or quarterback after they have one, but whether it's a running back or a wide receiver, they'll take the value.
There are always players who fall too far down the draft board based on their previous production and projected future production. This strategy takes advantage of the unwarranted fading from the rest of the league. In reality, this strategy should be a part of everyone's draft but many fantasy gamers get too caught up in their position-specific builds.
Final Thoughts
If you're playing in a large-scale league with an end-of-the-season tournament, stacking pass-catchers with quarterbacks in great offenses is usually the best way to compete for a top spot. Paying attention to matchups during the fantasy football playoffs (Weeks 15-17) matters.
It's also important to be flexible with your draft strategy. It's not a great idea to enter a draft with one specific strategy in mind, as the draft board can look completely different from expectations and what the ADP dictates. It's also easier to pull off some strategies from different spots in the draft order, so be ready to pivot when your ideal situation doesn't materialize.
As always, be sure to use our consensus 2023 Best Ball rankings to aid you in drafts. Good luck!
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