Live drafts are fun, and it is always nice to partner with other smart people to gain new perspectives. It is also a nice way to mix up your exposure if you are doing a lot of volume in tournaments.
Here is a pick-by-pick review of the live draft we did Thursday night for the Underdog Fantasy Best Ball Mania 4 tournament with a top prize of $3 million. We drafted from the seventh spot.
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I was joined by Rumford Johnny and Ray Summerlin, who was under the weather and finished about a third of the draft.
The full youtube video where we talk a lot about correlations and strategies is below.
Best Ball Fantasy Football: Everything You Need to Know
Full Live Best Ball Fantasy Football Draft Results
- Round 1 — Stefon Diggs — Diggs was a unanimous choice of the three of us as we wanted to prioritize WR as a tiebreaker for all picks due to the fact that running backs are heavily devalued throughout drafts on Underdog Fantasy.
- Round 2 — Saquon Barkley — We had interest in Chris Olave, but with Barkley falling he was a no-brainer choice for all three of us.
- Round 3 — Josh Allen — Some might have been tempted to push up Allen to gain the stack, but with his ADP falling lately it makes good sense to wait and be ok with Diggs without Allen if needed. Once he made it back to 3.7 this was another very easy choice. This opened up a Week 17 matchup vs the Patriots that we didn’t fill till the last round. Allen and Diggs have the potential to go off without a have-to-have player coming back.
- Round 4 — Keenan Allen — Jerry Jeudy was interesting but went two picks before us. We knew we liked the Broncos/Chargers Week 17, so in a fairly neutral area where no one stuck out to us Allen became the pick knowing that there were a lot of late Broncos we could correlate with but things get very thin on Chargers after Round 4.
- Round 5 — Michael Pittman — Continuing to build up our receiver corps. Johnny was very high on Anthony Richardson, and both he and I very much think Pittman has the talent if the quarterback comes around to crush this ADP as he was a third-round pick last year. We had been interested in Drake London and a couple of others who went before us, so Pittman became the pick and our third receiver.
- Round 6 — Marquise Brown — We all wanted Tyler Lockett but settled for Brown, who has spike week potential that we liked in a fourth receiver.
- Round 7 — Miles Sanders — Our second running back and an easy pick as we took him at an 18-pick value compared to his ADP.
- Round 8 — Anthony Richardson — Ray was gone and Rummy loved the Richardson/Pittman stack. I think it is fairly unique, but it did lead to us being weaker at the running back position ultimately. I like it personally because Josh Allen could get you to the final dragging a large percentage of teams with him but not give you a huge score against the Patriots the final week. Most teams with Allen will not have a good spike week second option like we have with Richardson.
- Round 9 — Jameson Williams — Love adding him and his huge spike week potential as a fifth receiver, but again these choices led us to a slightly weaker running back room than optimal.
- Round 10 — Jakobi Meyers — Another receiver over running back pick, but this one gave us a sweet Week 17 correlation with our Richardson/Pittman stack.
- Round 11 — Zay Jones — Another receiver over running back pick but a nice correlation with Sanders. Four backs went right before us, all of whom we probably would have taken here.
- Round 12 — Greg Dulcich — Gave us the Keenan Allen correlation and is a personal favorite of both Johnny and myself. Our first tight ends but late tight end theory is in full play on Underdog right now.
- Round 13 — Tyler Allgeier — Finally got back to our third running back. A guy we both like for a good floor here with tremendous upside should Bijan Robinson get hurt.
- Round 14 — Dawson Knox — We both talked about Dalton Kinkaid being overhyped and how Knox is likely to pay off this ADP. Gave us a second weapon in our Diggs-Allen stack.
- Round 15 — Tyjae Spears — Both of us loved him no-brainer pick as our fourth running back.
- Round 16 — John Metchie — One last well we could have gone running back, but we both liked Metchie’s upside and the correlation with Spears. Could have gone with Kenneth Gainwell.
- Round 17 — Jelani Woods — We get a high upside third tight end we both like and added to our Richardson stack.
- Round 18 — Pierre Strong — One of my favorite tapes from last year. If he gets the opportunity, he could crush. Probably only being drafted on 30-40% of teams.
Summary
I wish we had put a little more weight into the running back position, but it is good at times to have some fragility. This team is absolutely loaded everywhere else.
This is part of a best ball strategy series from expert best ball player Tod Burros.
