This is the last article of the season on best ball, so it only makes sense to do a recap of the season and what we have learned from as many perspectives as possible.
We hope you have enjoyed this series and we hope that it helps you to be profitable in your games. I will answer these questions for myself, and I will also ask them of our guest on the podcast this week.
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What were some of the key areas of improvement you wanted to work on this year? And if you accomplished your goal how has it helped you during draft season?
For me, after having gotten so close to a big prize I wanted to improve on two key areas.
First, I wanted to watch more player tape, especially of the rookies, and I wanted to challenge myself to be more flexible to change views when applicable especially when it came to situations or players I was fading. Historically, my mistakes come much more from that side.
Tape watching did improve as I made sure to watch at least four games of every rookie that made sense.
This helped a lot as the late part of my drafts are littered with rookies whose tape I liked and sometimes even ones I was mixed on.
As for being more flexible, there was a lot of improvement but still work to do heading into next year as I was too late to the party on the Steelers offense as one example.
What strategies did you employ that you are most proud of?
By continuing to force myself to study others' work more, I was able to make tactical changes as the season wore on. An example of this is the two double stud tight end theory on FFPC.
Another one is adapting my draft planning as positional ADP adjusted.
The most recent example is how all offseason there were a lot of late RBs I liked that facilitated more zero running back lineups than I have ever done.
But after preseason Week 1, those started drying up and I started pushing up my third to in some cases sixth RBs so I was done at the position before the players I liked disappeared.
What worked well last year that you didn’t chase this year?
I tried my best to not double down on possible outliers.
For me, the most obvious one was Travis Kelce’s monster season. As good as he is, he is 34 years old and we saw a lot of the other premium TEs get hurt last year. As such, I am underweight on Kelce this year.
One of my key focuses this year was to not be pushed around by others' thoughts without looking into it deeper.
I slowed considerably on David Njoku the last month as almost everyone I read agreed with me on the value of late TE, but I felt Njoku has the opportunity more than others in his range to be a top three or four TE. I wish I had continued drafting at the pace I had been.
How did you adapt to the biggest change of the offseason the price on QBs?
When the top three QBs were going in the second round, I mostly avoided them. As they slipped into the third round, especially Josh Allen, I would take even if I didn’t have a key stack.
Similar to Kelce, the second tier of QB last year was a historical disaster, and I felt much better about some of those QBs this year. I also drafted a lot of Justin Fields and Lamar Jackson when they would fall in drafts below their ADP.
The second biggest change from last year was how much the WRs were pushed up. How did you adapt?
I wanted to come out of the first ten rounds of most drafts with five to six WRs.
The other four to five spots would normally have two or three RBs and one or two QBs or TEs.
By getting my core of WRs before the value at the position dropped off a cliff, it allowed me to make the best teams possible while mixing up my builds so that I had flexibility within the core strategy.
How much did you draft early vs. late and why?
I still drafted 50/50 approximately before and after training camp started, and I focused more on players who I felt had steady roles or were mispriced when early drafting.
How do you draft differently on the different sites Underdog, DraftKings, and FFPC
Simplistically, I am much more likely to draft two-down RBs on Underdog, much more likely to wait on QB on Draftkings, and less likely to push up running QBs as the dropback passers can get you that 300-yard bonus.
On FFPC, I focus on TEs who catch a lot of passes only as I believe the average drafter pushes up all TEs rather than the ones who actually catch a lot of passes and benefit from the extra half a point those catches accrue. Of course, there are more things but these are the key examples.
Who are your most rostered players by position?
• Dak Prescott, Justin Fields, Deshaun Watson and Russell Wilson
• Tyjae Spears (everywhere), Dameon Pierce (Underdog) Samaje Perine(DraftKings)
• Skyy Moore, Michael Pittman, Davante Adams and Tank Dell (DraftKings)
• Greg Dulcich, Jake Ferguson, Isaiah Likely, Jelani Woods
Who are some of your boldest fades and which one of them makes you the most nervous?
I am very light on the rookies, especially the WRs like Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Jordan Addison. Among the vets, older players like James Conner and Derrick Henry.
Also DK Metcalf, who I think is just mispriced. And Rachaad White and Alexander Mattison everyone assumes a role but we have seen non-efficient RBs whom we assume a role fail in the past
Of all of them, JSN was giving me the most concern up to his injury. I would say possibly Henry now.
A lot of lessons we will learn as we move forward, but what lesson are you learning now that you will take with you into next season?
To buy the dip on these RB holdouts as they have no leverage, and when they come back the discount ends.
Thank you so much for joining us this season and good luck in your games!
This is part of a best ball strategy series from expert best ball player Tod Burros.
