I haven’t done a mock draft in years, aside from a couple of rookie mocks for DFF earlier this offseason where we published our results. I have been doing cheap $10 and $35 dollar buy-in best ball leagues for years and pretended as though I was mocking. I was experimenting, I was reaching, and I was trying to see how far I could take a certain strategy from an early, mid, or late draft slot before that strategy breaks (in my pre-September mind). I have treated those best ball drafts as research. It’s what most people call mocking, but I do it with live drafts with real money.
It has proven profitable over the years just within those best ball leagues, but also in terms of the information and knowledge of the fantasy football (FF) landscape that I have gained from the process.
This year is a whole new ball game for me because of the national bestball tournaments such as on Underdog, DraftKings, FFPC and elsewhere. I didn’t really get into these until this year for the most part. Underdog is offering $5 buy-in tourneys known as Puppy leagues. Where I typically do 10-20 BB league at low stakes in a given year, now I am doing over 100 Puppy drafts and plan on doing at least a couple of dozen Best Ball Mania III drafts, at $25 per.
I prefer live drafts to slow drafts by a wide margin, and largely because I think better upside rosters can be built in a live draft than a slow draft. But I decided I really wanted to get a large volume of entries into at least one of these Puppy contests. So far, I have 18 Puppy I entries, 14 Puppy but Superflex entries, and I recently completed 13 Puppy III entries, all of these live. But like I said I wanted more volume so I managed to get in 47 slow Puppy II drafts, and in so doing I was able to really see which players I had possibly been over or underweight on between the different contests.
This gives significant insight for me as I build my draft board for my high stakes drafts in late August and early September
Here are some insights I made after crunching rostership numbers when the last slow Puppy II results came in:
Justin Fields is by far and away my most rostered QB at 37%, but I showed some restraint in the Puppy II slowdrafts and only took him at 23%, still my #1 in that contest. But I have him at 53% in non-Puppy II contests. I made a concerted effort to mix up my stacking and QBs in these 47 slow drafts. After looking at the results of these and the rest of my Underdog BB drafts, I realized I am a little underweight on:
Joe Burrow (QB – CIN), Lamar Jackson (QB – BAL), Russell Wilson (QB – DEN), and Jalen Hurts (QB – PHI). This got my attention because I like all of these QBs, and I think Wilson could finish as the QB1 this year, and because I have been targeting the week 17 and the week 14 matchup between KC and DEN all offseason in every format. And yet I only came away with one share of Wilson in these 47 drafts. Seems odd to me. Especially since his ADP is reasonable.
Ok, what about RB and WR? Well I have been hammering what I think are great deals all offseason that these contests have been running, and I also see there are probably a few names I need to pump the brakes on. I have Antonio Gibson (RB – WAS) at 36% but I also have hedged that with Brian Robinson (RB – WAS) at 23%, which came largely from the 17/47 Puppy II slow drafts where I took him.
I have Zamir White as my most rostered RB at 55% and will continue to take him until his ADP proves prohibitive. I haven’t seen that yet. Romeo Doubs (WR – GB) is my highest rostered WR at 47% but his ADP is in fact getting close to prohibitive. I have been taking him in every format for the very cheapest of prices. In these Underdog BBs I have been getting him in the 16th to 18th round. Now he is going as early as the 11th.
Bottom line, if I am a little overweight on a couple of players I don’t mind because I think my portfolio is fairly balanced
There are quite a few other insights I gained from this process, as it revealed some biases on my part, both good and bad, that I can learn from and apply as this preseason unfolds and many larger stake drafts approach. One final major piece of strategy here:
I have been on board with Week 17 correlation for years
Apparently, there aren’t as many best ball drafters paying attention to the week 17 matchups all that close, let alone week 16. Week 17 games I am targeting heavily include the Battle of Los Angeles between the Chargers and the Rams, the Broncos and Chiefs (they also play week 14), Bengals and Bills, Raiders and 49ers, and a sneaky one that @BestballNFL and I each like a lot, Chicago at Detroit. Here is my favorite Puppy in terms of including week 16 and 17 correlation between several teams, CHI@DET week 17, BUF@CIN week 17, BUF @ CHI week 16:
Thanks for reading! Look for my FFPC-themed dynasty articles and others soon!
Stay sharp out there and remember, you only have to be better than half your leaguemates on average to be a perennial playoff team. Let’s keep balling! Look for more of my articles soon. Feel free to reach out to me to chat about fantasy football on Twitter @Ship_Chaser and follow along with me on my journey as I chase six-figure paydays! #DFFArmy #FantasyFootball #AlwaysBeBuilding #NFL #NFLTransactions #NFLTrades #AlwaysBeScouting
