Best Ball Draft Strategy. Your Guide to Underdog Resurrection.

What if you could get a mulligan on all of the bad teams you drafted this summer?

And what if you could draft with the benefit of knowing how NFL offenses would look in 2023 and how players would be deployed?

Well, that’s exactly what is possible thanks to Underdog Fantasy’s “Best Ball Resurrection” contest–a mid-season best ball tournament with a $10 entry, $300,000 in total prizes, and a $30,000 top prize.

“Hot best ball summer” was fun and all, but it’s time for a “chilly best ball fall” (idk, I’ll workshop it).

Anyways, here’s everything you need to know before jumping into a draft…

Tip 1: Know the Nuts & Bolts

For the most part, the Resurrection tournament is structured exactly the same as all of the Underdog contests you are familiar with (Best Ball Mania IV, Puppy’s, etc.).

If you aren’t familiar with general Underdog best ball tournament settings, check out all of the content we produced this summer:

But there are some key differences we need to be aware of before diving in…

1) This contest starts Week 6, so even though you will be drafting before Week 5, points won’t tally until Thursday Night Football on October 12th. The contest will lock a few hours before at 6:26pm (oddly specific, Underdog!).

2) The Tournament will have 4 Rounds, with each round consisting of player groups as seen below:

Round 1 (Weeks 1-14) - 12 person groups (Top 2 teams advance)

Round 2 (Weeks 15) - 10 person groups (Top 2 teams advance)

Round 3 (Weeks 16) - 10 person groups (Top 1 team advance)

Round 4 (Weeks 17) - 112 person final group

Looking to dip your toes in the waters of Resurrection? You can sign up below with promo code LIFE and get a 100% deposit match of up to $100 below and start drafting TODAY!

Tip 2: Target Rookies Aggressively

One of the downsides of loading up on rookies in full season-long contests is that it often takes them time to turn into fantasy contributors.

There are countless examples of rookies following an Amon-Ra St. Brown trajectory where they are non-factors in the first 2/3rds of the season and then league-winners down the stretch.

But if we take too many rookies, our teams are at risk of never advancing to the playoffs and realizing the benefits of the late-season surge.

In a contest like the Resurrection, though, where the points don’t start until Week 6, we can capture a lot of the late-season upside without taking on the risk of the early-season doldrums (I’m looking at you, Jahmyr Gibbs and Jaxon Smith-Njigba).

Sep 17, 2023; Detroit, Michigan, USA; Detroit Lions linebacker Jack Campbell (46) tackles Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba (11) during the second half at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: Junfu Han-USA TODAY Sports

Some of the rookies are already appropriately priced thanks to their fast starts (De’Von Achane and Puka Nacua are early third-round picks, Sam LaPorta goes as the TE4 at the 4/5 turn, etc.), but savvy drafters can use utilization trends to identify sneaky rookies on the verge of a second-half breakout.

A few examples of undervalued rookies relative to their recent usage:

WR Quentin Johnston (ADP: 93.1): Johnston saw a season-high 71% route participation. He didn’t deliver in the box score but still ranks second on the active roster with an 18% TPRR, and he could see an increased workload after the team’s bye in Week 5
TE Dalton Kincaid (ADP: 133.2): In Week 4, Kincaid’s utilization separated from Dawson Knox for the first time this season with a 79% versus 48% route participation.
RB Tyjae Spears (ADP: 131.7): Spears’ role is somehow better than anyone could imagine (he’s nearly matched Derrick Henry in snaps and has run 53% of the routes compared to Henry’s 41%). He’s a premium target.
RB Tank Bigsby (ADP: 155): Bigsby is somehow cheaper than he was this summer, despite establishing himself as the clear handcuff with the goalline role. I love Travis Etienne, but he really struggled in London.
WR Jalin Hyatt (ADP: 184.2): Hyatt’s route participation jumped from the 30s to 59% in Week 4. A full time role is forming.

I’d prefer to be targeting players like the ones listed above, but for the record: I have no problem chasing the steam on players like Achane, Nacua, and LaPorta, who have all flashed unicorn tendencies and surprising production profiles that cannot be ignored (even if it feels like chasing points).

Tip 3: Feast On Recency Bias

One of the most fun things about a contest like Best Ball Resurrection is you can either a) adjust your priors and react to new information or 2) double-down and martingale some of the underperforming players you love who have gotten significantly cheaper since you drafted them in the summer.

As always, the optimal approach probably lies somewhere in the middle. We absolutely need to use the new information to make better selections, but we also want to be careful of small sample-size noise.

My friend Ben Gretch recently reminded me of how much things changed after the first few weeks last year. Check this out:

“Through Week 3 last year, James Robinson was the PPR RB3, Clyde Edwards-Helaire was the RB4, D’Andre Swift was the RB5, and Cordarrelle Patterson was the RB7. None of those guys finished in the top 20 of RB points, despite getting out to sizable early leads. Even crazier, none of them — four of the top seven RBs in fantasy scoring through three weeks — finished as the top-scoring RB on their own NFL teams.”

The point of this anecdote isn’t to go out and catch every falling knife in drafts, but to be cognizant of the fact that there are significant buying opportunities based on early-season woes.

A few spots I’m willing to buy the dip on:

“Elite TEs” like George Kittle, Darren Waller, Dallas Goedert… and yes, Kyle Pitts. Let’s not forget that the thesis for drafting these players was for their spike-week upside and not their week-to-week consistency. The TEs who have the talent to put up 25+ points and completely separate from the position create a unique dynamic in the playoff gauntlet where they could easily become “the guy you need” to advance. Every one of the listed TEs are now multiple rounds cheaper than where they were drafted this summer. You’ll still want to pair them with a more steady eddy, but I love scooping up the discount on these guys.
QB Daniel Jones. Look, I know the Giants have sucked, but Jones is now going as the QB21. This price, though, paired with his rushing ability and the team finally ramping up the roles of its two best WRs in Hyatt and Wan’Dale Robinson, point to better days (especially when Saquon Barkley is back to full health).
WR Drake London. London’s ADP has fallen over 50 spots since this summer. Similar to the Elite TEs, the consistency obviously won’t be there with London, but you don’t need it at these prices. Outside of Week 1, he’s averaging a 23% target share and an aDot of 11.1 All you need is a couple of spike weeks (you can’t predict when, but they are coming) and he can easily pay off this cost.

Tip 4: Don’t Forget To Correlate

As I mentioned at the top, all of the same best ball tournament principles still apply here. I’ll admit that as I did multiple Resurrection drafts this week I found myself hyper-focused on the new player values and ADP landscape and less focused on correlation.

To beat out 111 entrants for $30,000, we’ll still need to be correlating our rosters with stacks (and the occasional bring-back) to ensure our teams have tournament-winning upside.

At the very least, make sure you are building out bets around specific teams you think are undervalued or could outperform expectations.

In my most recent draft, I focused on accumulating talent at RBs and WRs early (Tony Pollard, Chris Olave, Etienne, Gibbs, Garrett Wilson) and then set my sights on correlating around teams I think will bounce back from a fantasy perspective down the stretch:

Broncos: Jerry Jeudy, Russell Wilson, Greg Dulcich

Saints: Olave, Derek Carr, Juwan Johnson, Kendre Miller

Falcons: London, Kyle Pitts, Desmond Ridder

Yes, I’m well aware that some of those names make you want to vomit. But the point is to illustrate that when you are right about a team or situation improving, you want to be really right.

Correlating multiple pieces allows you to supercharge your “bet” when you hit.

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Good luck out there, and be sure to leave some of these rookies for me in the draft rooms.

Best Ball Draft Strategy. Your Guide to Underdog Resurrection.

Tip 1: Know the Nuts & Bolts

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Tip 2: Target Rookies Aggressively

Tip 3: Feast On Recency Bias

Tip 4: Don’t Forget To Correlate