Best ball contests have rejuvenated my interest in the NFL
I’ve been borderline obsessed with college football for the better part of the last two decades. Over that time, as life obligations increase, you find your time for sports consumption under pressure. My interest in the NFL has waned over the years.
But after barely being able to tell you much about the state of the NFL in recent years, I can now give you an opinion on the Pittsburgh Steelers receiving corps, thoughts about the Philadelphia Eagles run game and I’m stressed about Tua’s health in Miami.
You can blame Underdog Fantasy’s best ball tournaments.
Since I was introduced to these contests earlier this summer, I’ve officially done just under 150 best ball “drafts” or entries, each with a varying entry fee.
Before we continue, note that you can signup for Underdog and they’ll double your first deposit up to $100. You’ve got a little over a week to enter some of these contests before the NFL season starts and that free $100 will cover a bunch of entries. Check it out, I’ve found it incredibly fun.
Let’s hit the “best ball” basics, and then I’ll explain why these have really struck a chord with me.
What are NFL best ball contests?
It’s a form of fantasy football that most of you are familiar with. Draft a roster of players. Hope they do well. Win prizes. Simple.
But best ball takes the best pieces of what you like about fantasy football and discards the stuff you don’t like. Plus, it adds a few more things in that really appeal to me.
Here’s why it’s better than your old school fantasy football league:
- The online interface makes drafting easy, fun and quick. As I’ve said, I’ve done almost 150 of these!
- There’s a wide range of entry fees and prize structures, so whether you want to drop some serious cash into this venture or just throw a few bucks in for fun, you can find an option you like.
- “Best ball” means that there is zero maintenance the entire year once you draft your team. No setting your line up. No trade requests. Totally hands off. Best ball means that the system automatically counts your best scoring players each week. Your lineup is auto-optimized. Yes, please.
- You can play for fun, or look at some advanced strategies and get really into this.
- The prize money. There is very big money at stake. Winning big bucks is hard, very hard. But hey, it’s fun to shoot for no? Underdog’s annual “best ball mania” contest has $3 million going to first place winner this year!
Here’s a look at what these things look like on Underdog:
Ok, so why might these contests appeal to me in particular? After all daily fantasy stuff has been around for a long time.
Why I’ve become obsessed with fantasy football best ball contests
You aren’t competing against a league of ten of your friends. In these large field, big prize contests, you’re competing against potentially a few hundred thousand entries. As such, this brings some interesting strategy considerations.
Because the prize money (big bucks!) are skewed so much to the top finishers, your goal is to finish high. Very high. You might say, well, no kidding!
Uniqueness and leverage
But there’s a major difference in how you structure your roster if you are trying to finish in the top 1% of users versus the top 20% of users. Of course you need good players. You need good players and maybe some upside surprises to get into contention. But to win this thing, you need variance and uniqueness.
A “chalk” roster of a bunch of good players that everyone else thinks is good might get you a high amount of points, but this roster is also one that is likely shared by a ton of people. To win big bucks, you need not just a high performing roster, you need a uniquely high performing roster. This gets into a concept called leverage in fantasy circles.
Striving for unique rosters opens up brainstorming some unique builds. Are most people drafting WR, WR, RB, QB over the first four rounds or so? Perhaps go wild here and go TE, RB, RB, QB. You get the picture.
Exposure
If you start entering multiple rosters like me, Underdog has a great interface that lets you monitor your exposure across your teams. What is exposure? Well if you do 50 entries and take Pat Mahomes on every single roster, you have 100% exposure. You have very high risk. If Mahomes breaks his ankle, all 50 of your rosters are basically toast.
You can see my recent exposure levels for quarterbacks at the following screen shot.
Being able to see your exposure levels at a glance helps you plan around multiple entries into these contests. Plus you can be strategic. Maybe you think Anthony Richardson is going to be a huge bust and you want to keep his exposure under 5%. Or, you might think Mac Jones is due for a rebound year. You can see how much you own him across your teams.
You’ve got a little over a week…
Ok, so NFL season starts in a week or so. Go sign up and check out Underdog’s best ball contests. Best ball mania is about 80% filled, so there are still openings and if you want cheaper entry contests, there are a bunch of those available as well. Enjoy!
Take advantage of this Underdog deposit match where you can get up to free $100 on your first deposit. That’s 4 entries to Best Ball Mania free or even more entries to the less expensive contests.
