The NFL Playoffs Best Ball Manifesto
As we head into Super Bowl week, I’m bemoaning the fact that my best ball entries across Underdog Fantasy’s best ball contests now have zero entries alive for the big game this next week. Going into the conference championship games, I had several viable rosters including a very intriguing roster that had both the Lions’ Jared Goff and Ravens’ Lamar Jackson along with viable players at both running back and wide receiver. Lions-Ravens Super Bowl here we come! Unfortunately, it was not to be.
It wasn’t a total failure, I made some money advancing through the first three rounds of the playoffs, but to get into legitimate profit and the opportunity to win big bucks, you’ve really got to get into the final round for the big game. If you’re new to best ball, the prize pools are quite top heavy. You can win big bucks, but the real money is pretty much only available to the handful of users that finish at the top. Considering these contests usually have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of entries, we’re talking VERY top heavy.
But they’re incredibly fun. I’ve been enjoying NFL best ball more than I’ve been enjoying simple spread bets on your favorite sports betting app. I enjoy the strategy, the fact that I’m competing against other people (rather than the house) and the potential for big winnings. What we’re talking about here is essentially taking the best of fantasy football and pairing it with a great app on your phone and huge winnings potential. What’s not to like?
So, best ball contests are available for all major sports on platforms like Underdog, and NFL season long best ball contests are incredibly popular. But here we’re going to talk about best ball specific to the NFL Playoffs. Because of the nature of how the playoffs work, there are extra layers of strategy here that you don’t have to consider during regular season best ball tournaments.
There are mainly two things to be aware of. First, you’re drafting rosters to compete during the wild card round of the NFL Playoffs through the Super Bowl. 14 teams begin the playoffs and end with two teams in the Super Bowl. This means a lot of the players you drat aren’t even going to be playing, maybe even after just the first round. You have to factor this in.
Moreover, the top seed in each conference has a bye during wild card weekend. Because most participants will consider that the top seeds are potentially the most likely teams to advance to the Super Bowl, these players are obviously attractive draft picks when building your roster. But you won’t have them in the first round. You’ve got to advance past the first round to even get the benefit of having these players. It’s tricky. And that’s why NFL Playoffs best ball is so fun.
Note: Here’s my favorite roster from recent weeks. Pour one out for my failed attempt.
Let’s get started. Here are the 6 rules of the NFL Playoffs Best Ball manifesto.
Rule #1: Start early for unique builds and combinations
The perception of teams moves around quite a bit during the final weeks of the NFL regular season. For much of the NFL Playoffs best ball draft season, the Kansas City Chiefs were completely discounted. The reality is that over the weeks of the draft season, the average draft positions (ADPs) will move around. As such, you need to be participating across the full range of draft season in order to get unique builds.
Going into the 2024 playoffs, the combination of Christian McCaffrey and Lamar Jackson was about as coveted of a duo to land as possible. To land this combo, you really needed to be drafting early as this was pretty much impossible as the season wound down. The fact that the Ravens didn’t advance to the Super Bowl doesn’t matter. Getting this combo was the right move with respect to strategy.
Rule #2: You have to be prepared to enter a lot of entries
If you didn’t catch this from our first rule, you need to be prepared to invest in a lot of entries. Simply put, this game is too hard to throw a single entry or two into the contest and expect any results. To really employ strategy for best ball, it requires multi-entry. For me personally I did upwards of 75 drafts for the playoffs best ball season. You might think that sounds like a lot, but the truly die hards are maxing out most contests and registering many hundreds of entries. Yes, this can get expensive.
Best ball is hard. Results will not go as you expect. Teams get upset. Players put in dud performances. No name guys come out of nowhere and score multiple touchdowns in a playoff game. You’re going to need a wide range of outcomes in your favor to make real progress.
Rule #3: Make sure you have viable Super Bowl rosters
We know that the NFL playoffs can be unpredictable. Sometimes teams get into the Super Bowl that barely got into the playoffs. But we also know that there are typically a number of teams that are extremely unlikely to make the Super Bowl every year in the playoffs. You might consider the Tampa Bay Bucs this year… or the Green Bay Packers… or the Houston Texans. These teams were good and gave their best punch, but very few people figured these teams would go all the way.
You’ve got to make sure you’ve got a large number of rosters that are actually viable to get into the Super Bowl. If you have a bunch of rosters full of players from the Bucs and Texans, you might have a shot getting out of the first round, but you’re almost certainly drawing dead on getting to the latter rounds of these contests.
You should not be building rosters to advance out of the first round. Because of the top heavy prize pools, you need to be going for the actual win in the tournament. You want teams that at least have a shot of winning the entire thing. Building rosters that are optimized for first round performance is a losing strategy.
Rule #4: Get past the first round
With that said, you still need to get past the first round. Because the 1-seed teams have byes, you’ve got to be strategic here. Some ideas…
- Go heavy on the 1-seed on one side of the bracket, then go heavy on players that aren’t on the 1-seed team on the other side of the bracket. This year, this might have been getting Christian McCaffrey and other 49ers players, but then avoiding the Ravens on the AFC side. Or vice versa.
- Or if you end up getting players from both 1-seeds, you are going to want to try and get multiple versions of this combination so that you can pair this core 1-seed group with different playmakers from other teams. Since these are likely to be from players from worse teams that are unlikely to advance, you might view these as week 1 “rentals” only. This year, I did this with a number of Rams players as I figured they could put up huge numbers, but the chances of the Rams going far was low.
There are multiple ways to approach this, and there is no silver bullet with respect to optimizing for Super Bowl while also ensuring you advance out of round 1.
Rule #5: Don’t bet against Mahomes
This doesn’t take much explanation. You better have proper Pat Mahomes exposure. The dude just gets to AFC championship games and Super Bowls. Enough said.
Rule #6: The 2023-24 Travis Kelce rule
Kelce this year was crazy. And I’m not talking about the Taylor Swift component. I’m talking fantasy production!
Travis Kelce had a single touchdown across the last 9 regular season games of the year, never crossing over 100 receiving yards during any of these games. Worse, five of the nine games, he had under 50 yards receiving.
And then he explodes in the playoffs! Through the 3 playoff games, Kelce has 23 receptions for 262 yards and 3 touchdowns. He’s been an absolute animal.
What can we learn from this? Well, remember for aging stars that have a history of performing on the biggest stage, it might be that these players are saving themselves for the playoffs. Regular season performance might need to be discounted. At a minimum, you’ve got to have some exposure here.
Sound fun to you? Here’s how you can still play
If sports betting isn’t really your thing, best ball fantasy contests might be more your style. While the full NFL playoff contests are over, there are still some really fun options for you to consider over at Underdog Fantasy:
- Next year NFL season long best ball contests are already live! And you can draft guys like Marvin Harrison, Jr. who haven’t even been drafted by an NFL team yet. Got a gut feel on one of next year’s rookies because you’re a college football nut? Welp, you can factor that into. Note Marvin Harrison, Jr. is going in late second round in many of these drafts! Sound too early to get started here? See rule #1 above.
- I’ve been hammering the early NBA Playoffs best ball contests. Rule #1 applies here. As for unique builds, I’ve got one in the bank already where I’ve got both Tatum and Luka Doncic on a single roster. Not easy to do. Again, unique builds are important.
- MLB and PGA season long best ball contests are also available. If you are a long-time fantasy baseball player, you should absolutely try this this year. Now is the time to get in. On the PGA side, last year, one of my favorite contests as the best ball contest around the 4 PGA Majors. Each major was an elimination round similar to NFL Playoffs. Very fun.
If you join, Underdog will match your first deposit up to $100, so you can immediate pay the entry fees for some of these contests and enjoy the participation “on the house.” Click here to join and enjoy the ride.
Underdog Fantasy is live and legal in many U.S. states. Underdog is also launching its new sportsbook when all of the major sportsbooks launch in North Carolina next month. You can learn more about what North Carolina sports betting apps will be available.
