There is a new wrinkle for all the best ball lovers out there, as DraftKings offers new best ball contests at the start of each week. Every Monday evening during the season, they post a new version of best ball, and this week it is from Week 3 to Week 17. They offer Sit & Go contests, which are cash games with entry fees at $1, $10, $109 and $1,060. They also have a Week 3 tournament called the Week 3 Special, which is a $20 entry fee (103 max entry), $60,000 prize pool, with a $20,000 to first top prize. It currently has 1,000 of 3,456 entries and will go live just before the Thursday Night Football game. It is done like a typical best ball fantasy football draft, just with a different scoring and advancement system. Below is a guide on how to draft in-season fantasy football best ball teams.
How to Draft In-Season Best Ball Fantasy Football Teams
DraftKings Best Ball Week 3-17 Tournament Breakdown
- Round 1 = Weeks 3-14 (Top 2 Advance)
- Round 2 = Week 15 (Top 2 Advance)
- Round 3 = Week 16 (Top 1 Advance)
- Round 4 = Week 17 (8 entries in the Finals battle it out)
Standard Rosters Consisting of 20 Spots
- 1 Quarterback
- 2 Running Backs
- 3 Wide Receivers
- 1 Tight End
- 1 Flex (RB/WR/TE)
- 12 Bench Slots
Prize Breakdown
- 1st = $20,000
- 2nd = $5,720
- 3rd = $3,000
- 4th = $2,000
- 5th-6th = $1,500
- 7th-8th = $1,000
- Round 3 2nd-4th = $125
- Round 3 5th-12th = $100
- Round 2 3rd-4th = $35
- Round 2 5th-12th = $30
10 Tips and Tricks for Drafting In-Season Best Ball Teams
- Follow Injury News — When DraftKings launches these tournaments the players’ ADPs are all over the place, and players that are out for the season still have an ADP. Some players that were injured this past week still have a high ADP and will end up getting drafted by others because of that. Players on IR are set to return after Week 3, and there might be some value in some of those players.
- Draft Early When Contest Is First Posted — These contests on DraftKings are typically released on Monday evening. and those drafting right away have to deal with the pain of the bad ADP, but it also allows for avoiding the bad players and finding great values on players that are trending up. Drafting in-season best ball is a lot more work, as it means doing the research and rankings to get an advantage.
- Compare ADP vs. Rankings and Find Mispriced Players — DraftKings ADP is strange early in the week and never adjusts fully by the time kickoff happens on Thursday. Compare the Awesemo “Rest of Season” projections with some of the DraftKings ADP rankings and find the player values. Finding the mispriced ADP’s is probably the biggest edge in these contests, as it helps to avoid the bad players and load up on the players that project well throughout all 20 rounds of the draft.
- Follow a Standard Roster Construction — It is still a tournament with a top prize of $20,000, so do not get too conservative with team builds. That being said, even a well-balanced team (three quarterbacks, six running backs, eight receivers, three tight ends) can still get the job done. Do not target a top quarterback and a top tight end when drafting these teams, as that will provide more flexibility to build a 2/7/9/2 type for more shots at running back and receiver as quarterback and tight end are locked down.
- Onesie Positions Are More Valuable as the Season Goes On – The value of Patrick Mahomes, Kyler Murray, Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen is more important deeper into the season and should be targeted higher than they were during the summer. It is the same for the tight end position since Travis Kelce and Darren Waller can be locked in each week with confidence, and they tend to outscore the rest of the position every week. This is one of the areas where in-season best ball is much different than regular best ball, and others do not view the star quarterbacks and tight ends that way in this format just yet.
- Stacking Is Still Very Important — As the playoff rounds approach, the more important it is to correlate teams by stacking a quarterback with one (or multiple) of their pass catchers. Stacking is more valuable in these in-season best ball leagues, as it will bring the best chance of putting up high-scoring weeks.
- Bye Weeks Are Going to Be a Big Advantage — Once the bye weeks start, teams that have built accordingly will have a slight advantage of scoring more points during the bye week schedule. Another huge advantage is, when drafting in Week 7, players that had a Week 6 bye (Atlanta, New Orleans, Jets, San Francisco) provide an extra week of scoring since they will not miss their bye week. A player like Alvin Kamara might be considered the 1.01 pick in Week 7 best ball because he already had his bye week, and he also has that extra week of rest and should be fresh.
- Rookies Tend to Break Out in the Second Half of the Season — The NFL can be a challenging game to dominate right from the start as a rookie. Rookies can jump in and contribute right away, but there are also plenty that get off to slow starts as they adjust to the next level. Some rookies are good options in the later rounds of in-season best ball drafts, as they give some value and a late-season push at a nice discount. Bad teams start to pack it in, so they want to give their younger players more playing time to see what they have to work with in the future.
- Look at Strength of Schedule Closely with More Data — As the weeks go on, there is more data to work with. Some of the teams that were expected to be bad before the season might surprise, and some of the good teams might not be as good as advertised. Adjust rankings to draft strategy to what teams will have favorable matchups in Week 15 through Week 17.
- Be Willing to Adapt Draft Strategy — This is no different from any other fantasy football draft. Be willing to have an unlimited number of draft plans going into the draft, and after each round passes, re-evaluate and adjust.
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