Welcome to the second installment of Tournament Drafting, the series in which I break down my entries for Underdog’s Best Ball Mania III and The Puppy. As I did in the first installment, I will be sharing my thoughts on roster construction, stacking, game theory, ADP, and everything in between. Let’s dive into this bizarre and frustrating draft.
The 10% Rule
The Buccaneers are a great team to stack. Tom Brady will be near the league lead in pass attempts once again, and there are passing game options to target at each level of the draft. I missed out on Russell Gage, who is a solid value right now, but I was able to snag Mike Evans, Rob Gronkowski (fingers crossed for a late-summer return), and rookie RB Rachaad White. Unfortunately, I was unable to secure my preferred QB2, Matthew Stafford. I could have taken him instead of Dalton Schultz at pick 73, but that would have been a massive reach based on ADP.
Let’s talk about ADP for a moment.
When it comes to individual players, ADP is often wrong. There are Cooper Kupp’s and Deebo Samuel’s every year who massively outperform their ADPs. On a large scale, though, ADP is predictive. The expected fantasy output of the 50th pick is higher than the 70th pick which is higher than the 90th pick and so on. This means that you should always be trying to draft players at their most efficient price in order to construct the best possible team. When it comes to reaching for players, I follow the 10% rule, which I originally learned from Josh Larky. If you take a player’s ADP and divide it by 10, that’s the number of slots you are allowed to reach for that player. So, if Matthew Stafford has an ADP of 91, I can feel comfortable taking him at pick 82, but not earlier. At pick 73, the cost of acquisition was just too high.
This type of strict ADP adherence makes the most sense when you are drafting multiple teams. If you are creating a portfolio of rosters, you should be okay missing out on a player in one draft in favor of a more efficient price in another draft. If you’re only drafting one or two teams, feel free to be more flexible in order to get your guys. But you should still be mindful of ADP as much as possible.
Once Stafford was off the board, I decided to wait on my other QB. I ended up with Daniel Jones for the second time in as many drafts. I’m fine with the upside of Jones at his cost, but stacking him with Barkley was bad process in hindsight. Fantasy points come from yards and TDs, and the yards and TDs in an offense typically go to either the QB or the RB, not both at the same time. There is some overlap when the RB is an active receiver, but the overall correlation between the two positions is negative. For high-volume receiving backs in prolific offenses, like Austin Ekeler, you can make a strong case for stacking. But Saquon Barkley and Daniel Jones in this deeply flawed Giants’ offense? Rough scene.
Reflecting on my choices at TE, one word comes to mind: overinvestment. I love Dalton Schultz, Dallas Goedert, and Rob Gronkowski individually, but drafting all three to the same roster was not optimal. On average, TEs score fewer points than RBs and WRs. So, with three of my first ten picks invested in TE, I’m in a lose-lose situation. Either two of those early picks will be riding the bench every week, or one of my surplus TEs is regularly entering the flex spot because my RBs and WRs have missed expectations. In the future, I’ll need to be more aware of my investments in each position to avoid these types of mistakes.
The Robust RB Approach
In my first draft, I only took one RB before pick 100. This time around, I hammered the RB position early. I didn’t love the end result, but I still believe the robust approach is viable if executed properly. Jonathan Taylor was an easy choice at 1.01. He can post game-breaking numbers with his high-volume role and explosive athleticism. I would consider Christian McCaffrey there, but I’m confident that I can get some exposure to him in future drafts at the 1.02, 1.03, or 1.04 slot.
Saquon Barkley has had rotten luck the past couple of seasons, but he’s still an intriguing pick for tournaments. The floor for Barkley is undoubtedly low. The Giants could be awful again, and it’s possible that repeated injuries have sapped his explosiveness. However, the Giants could take a significant leap forward under Brian Daboll, and Barkley could top 100 targets for the first time since his rookie season. To take first place, you’ll need most of your early picks to hit a 90th-percentile outcome. That means you have to close your eyes and imagine what’s possible rather than what’s most likely to occur.
With Taylor and Barkley secured, I was hoping to leave the RB position alone for a while. Unfortunately, the rest of the draft room had other plans. When my turn was four picks away, I had four players in my queue: Kyle Pitts, Darren Waller, George Kittle, and Terry McLaurin. They went back to back to back to back, officially putting me on full tilt mode. Cam Akers had slipped ten slots past his ADP, so I decided to pair him with Allen Robinson and target Matthew Stafford as my QB2. Again, I was keeping upside at the forefront of my mind. What if the Rams lead the league in PPG and Cam Akers scores 15 TDs? What if Cooper Kupp gets injured in Week 10? Ultimately, my plan was foiled, but I believe the process was sound.
The main benefit of the robust RB approach is that it frees up additional roster spots for other positions. I’m already banking on the best-case scenario for Taylor, Barkley, and Akers, so spending multiple late-round picks on more RBs would be counterproductive. I closed out the position with Rachaad White for two reasons.
- As a Tampa Bay pass-catcher, he provides an additional correlation with Tom Brady.
- He has the upside to provide spike weeks if Leonard Fournette gets hurt.
Telling a Believable Story
Building a tournament lineup is about telling yourself a story. And in a way, the quality of the team is based upon the believability of that story. There’s no magic formula for determining “believability,” but you can really boil it down to two factors:
- How many favorable outcomes are required for success?
- What is the likelihood that those outcomes occur?
This is the reason that stacking is so important. By drafting Mike Evans and Tom Brady, I’m tying two players to a single outcome. Their success is correlated. An elite season for Brady likely leads to an elite season for Evans, as well. But if I had drafted Tyreek Hill instead of Evans, I would be making an entirely unrelated bet. I would still need elite production from Brady in order to win, but I would also need a high-end outcome for Hill in a separate offense. This makes the story less believable.
With Mike Evans and Allen Robinson, I was weaving a believable story in which the Buccaneers and Rams dominate the NFC with their prolific passing attacks. Then everything went sideways.
After missing on my WR targets for several consecutive turns, I was left in a tough spot. I needed access to a high ceiling, so I took big swings on Chris Olave, Jahan Dotson, Jalen Tolbert, and Alec Pierce. As rookies, these players could be completely irrelevant, going the way of Terrace Marshall, Dyami Brown, and D’Wayne Eskridge. But all of these rookies project to play significant snaps in year one, so there is upside to go along with the crippling downside. However, the likelihood that one, let alone multiple, realize that upside is relatively low. I also failed to stack any of these players with Jameis Winston, Carson Wentz, or Matt Ryan, meaning that none of these rookie bets are tied to other outcomes on my roster.
My final three WRs are real longshots, but I had to fill out the position somehow. Hopefully, Kendrick Bourne can come through with some spike weeks as he did in 2021. Meanwhile, James Washington and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine will have the opportunity to soak up some vacated targets in their respective offenses. They should be more productive early in the season as Michael Gallup and Robert Woods are eased back into action, which will give my rookies more time to ramp up and get acclimated to the NFL.
Final Thoughts
This draft got off to a promising start with Jonathan Taylor, Mike Evans, and Saquon Barkley. Then, everything seemed to go wrong. I was forced to shift my strategy several times, and the resulting team is more likely to finish dead last than to net a $75,000 prize. When this happens, it’s important to reflect on exactly what went wrong. Identify what you could have done differently and use that knowledge to your advantage in future drafts.
Rating: 4 out of 10
Thanks for reading this article! You can find me on Twitter at @fantasyfreezer if you have any more best ball questions or just want to share your favorite tournament teams!
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