2023 Underdog Best Ball Draft Review: The Bulldog.

Pete recently completed a slow draft in Underdog Fantasy’s high stakes best ball contest, The Bulldog. Today he’ll walk through his decision-making process at each point in the draft and explain both his individual player selections and overall team structure.

A tough pill to swallow when chasing top prizes in large-field best ball tournaments is the reality of how hard it will be to get a team to the finals.

Earlier this summer, I crunched the sobering numbers on this dynamic. The tl;dr is that if you were to max-enter Best Ball Mania IV (150 entries) on Underdog Fantasy as a drafter with average skill, you’d have roughly a 10% chance of getting just one team to the 441-person finals.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m still chasing these top prizes – but I also want a chance to realize my edge more quickly in smaller contests. That’s where contests like The Bulldog come into play:

$500 entry
432 total entries (36 drafts)
$30,000 to first place (Top 144 get paid)
Smaller playoff groups:
- Round 1 (Weeks 1-14): 12-person groups (Top 4 advance)
- Round 2 (Week 15): 6-person groups (Top 2 advance)
- Round 3 (Week 16): 6-person groups (Top 1 advances)
- Round 4 (Week 17): 8-person final group

In addition to a much smaller field, these higher-stakes contests give me a chance to draft off-stream. For some reason, I decided that it would be a good idea to stream all 150 of my Best Ball Mania IV drafts, where viewers can gleefully snipe me on stacks and steal all of my favorite targets.

But in the comfy confines of The Bulldog? I was safe to build specifically around my preferred structures and player targets. The end result is a zero-RB monster loaded at WR with an elite QB that also takes advantage of all the current late-round TE value.

Let’s dig in to see how this Bulldog draft unfolded for me from the 9 slot…

Rounds 1-3: Avoid the avalanche

Rounds 1-3

The WR landscape on Underdog is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, as Dwain recently outlined here. In my drafts, I work under the default assumption that WRs will fly off the board quickly until proven otherwise.

I elected to start this draft with CeeDee Lamb and see what the room gave me coming back around the Round 1-2 turn. If Austin Ekeler or Bijan Robinson had fallen, I would've gladly scooped up the RB value, but that didn't happen, so instead I took the top WR available to me at pick No. 16, Jaylen Waddle.

One reason I like to prioritize double-tapping WRs from a draft slot toward the end of the first round is that sometimes extreme RB values will fall to you in the late-third round. I’ve had drafts where I was able to select Breece Hall and Josh Jacobs at the Round 3-4 turn because the WR thirst was so strong.

This almost came to fruition here with Hall going just one pick before me, so I settled for my favorite WRs in this range, Deebo Samuel.

Rounds 4-5: Time for two detours

Rounds 4-5

A simple rule I’ve used to help navigate the WR avalanche meta on Underdog this summer is to take a maximum of two detours away from WR in the first seven rounds. There are of course exceptions to every rule, but this tends to work well in an environment where WRs with legitimate upside evaporate by around pick No. 84 overall.

In the early-fourth round, I saw a perfect opportunity to take a detour from WR for an elite QB with Lamar Jackson having fallen seven spots past ADP. I value the WRs from Rounds 4 to 7 more or less in one big tier, so the positional advantage of Jackson stood out as a strong selection here.

I'm also currently light on my exposure to Jackson in BBM4 – something I discussed with Jonathan recently – so getting a share in a higher-stakes tournament helped me correct that oversight from a portfolio standpoint.

Lamar Jackson teams

In Round 5, I grabbed another ADP faller in Kenneth Walker at pick No. 57. Walker and Zach Charbonnet are both strong selections in tournaments, but I think the market has course-corrected on Walker’s price too much. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be at least a fourth-round selection alongside similar RBs like Najee Harris and Travis Etienne. Walker at this price gave me the flexibility to treat him like an anchor RB or a luxury zero RB.

Rounds 6-8: Stay on schedule at WR

Rounds 6-8

After taking two detours away from WR, it was time to get back on track. Diontae Johnson is due for both TD regression and better QB play in 2023.

I was very bummed to miss out on a massive Kyle Pitts value by one selection, but Zay Flowers was an obvious stacking candidate with Jackson here (and my preferred selection over Rashod Bateman until we get more clarity on his rehab from Lisfranc).

Elijah Moore at pick No. 88 represented the very last WR I like before the WR cliff. Moore is also my preferred way to attack the Browns passing game this year as opposed to the much more expensive Amari Cooper.

Through eight rounds of this Bulldog draft, my roster was composed of six WRs, one QB, and one RB.

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Rounds 9-13: The Zero RB sweet spot

Rounds 9-13

It’s very rare that I’m able to get more than one or two of my favorite RB selections in this zero RB sweet spot of the draft, but I was miraculously able to get five of them in a row here.

I love the ambiguity of the Commanders' RB room and think that Antonio Gibson has the chance to give us a Rhamondre Stevenson-lite breakout performance in 2023 if Sam Howell can take a leap forward.

Samaje Perine is another of my favorite selections in zero-RB builds because of both the immediate production he should offer as well as his standalone value in an offense led by a coach who has historically deployed two RBs.

I take a Dolphins RB in nearly every draft, so getting Devon Achane almost a full round past ADP at pick No. 129 was impossible to pass up on. He also builds out my bet on the Dolphins that I started in Round 2 with Waddle.

Then I added another rookie RB after Achane. I’ve drafted Kendre Miller more than any other RB across all my drafts, so I certainly wasn’t going to stop here. His affordable price continues to puzzle me.

Kendre Miller exposure

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I finished my blitz on RBs with Jerome Ford. Ford is a clear-cut handcuff to Nick Chubb and also helps me build out my bet on the Browns after having selected Moore in Round 8.

Getting to six RBs by this point in the draft was crucial because it allowed me to not take late-round fliers on RBs with uncertain job security and freed up my remaining five picks on a final WR, a second QB, and three TEs to round out my roster.

Rounds 14-15: Tying up loose ends

Rounds 14-15

I think you could have made an argument to stop at six WRs in this early WR-heavy build, but I also didn't think that it was necessary to draft three QBs or seven RBs.

With that in mind, I decided to spend a luxury pick on one of the few remaining WRs with breakout upside, Tyquan Thornton. The market rarely offers second-year breakout profiles at discounted prices, but Thornton is an interesting exception that I've continued to hammer in Best Ball Mania drafts.

Tyquan Thornton exposure

Brock Purdy was an obvious selection for me at QB in Round 15 to pair with Jackson. I think he’s one of the more undervalued QBs in the entire pool and don’t need to worry about him smashing out of the gate because Jackson can cover the early-season stretch. I also wanted to pair Purdy with my third-round selection of Deebo to double down on my bet on the 49ers offense.

Rounds 16-18: Stick the TE landing

Rounds 16-18

As I mentioned above, I would have loved to select Pitts at pick No. 80 but got sniped. I also would have taken Pat Freiermuth at pick No. 105 if he had fallen just one more spot to me, but it’s never been more viable to take multiple TEs late than in 2023 drafts.

I ran to the podium to select Sam LaPorta at pick No. 184, nearly 20 picks past ADP. LaPorta could easily command the second-most targets on the Lions behind Amon-Ra St. Brown, especially with Jameson Williams suspended for the first six games. LaPorta also gives me late-season upside like we saw with rookie TEs in 2022, as Trey McBride, Jelani Woods, and Chigoziem Okonkwo all finished strongly last year.

Isaiah Likely was the perfect selection for this late-round TE build. He gives me a double stack with Jackson and immense contingent upside if Mark Andrews were to miss time. Likely's standalone value could be thin, but that’s why I prefer to pair him with an elite TE or add him for upside in these 3TE builds.

I wrapped up this Bulldog draft with another big ADP faller, Mike Gesicki, 20 spots past ADP. He further added to my cheap bet on the Patriots with Thornton.

I think you could argue that my TE room has a high ceiling but a low floor. But even in a smaller-field tournament, I still want to give myself access to upside and breakout candidates, which this team has in spades.

The finished product

Bulldog Roster

I’ve drafted over 150 best ball teams already this summer, and this Bulldog roster is legitimately one of my favorites, which is good considering that the entry fee was equivalent to 20 BBM4 drafts.

Not only was I able to execute my preferred build type, zero RB with an elite QB, but I was also able to get some of my favorite targets at each position. The only thing that would have made this team sweeter would've been a TE with elite potential like Pitts or Freiermuth, but I still like this Bulldog roster a lot.

If you think that you're an above-average drafter – and if you’ve been reading all of our best ball content at Fantasy Life and utilizing the Best Ball Hub, I’d argue that you are – I highly recommend allocating some of your bankroll to these smaller-field tournaments where you can more realistically realize your edge.

And if you ever want to talk about contest selection or best ball strategy, hit me up in the Fantasy Life Discord. I'm there for office hours every Tuesday at 3:30pm ET.

You can build some of your own interesting best ball rosters on Underdog Fantasy and double your first deposit of up to $100 when you sign up below!