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Betting on Baker Mayfield to win $2 million in DraftKings Best Ball

Updated: Jul 22


DraftKings Best Ball Millionaire draft review

NOTE FROM MIKEY: Basement Brewed Fantasy Football is happy and proud to offer a space for friends of BBFF to share their own articles, thoughts and analysis, like what you're about to read below.


That said, please note that what you're about to read does not necessarily represent the views, opinions or beliefs of Mikey or anyone at Basement Brewed Fantasy Football.


My first 2025 Best Ball Millionaire draft is in the books on DraftKings, and it features a really fun build centered around Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers - and it's maybe not the players you're thinking of right away.


This is the first of (a few? many? dozens of?) blogs where I'll review my entries into DraftKings' $15 Millionaire Best Ball Tournament with $2 million to first place. New this year is the ability to download all the data from the tournament before the tournament locks, which you can do here.




But first, let's talk strategy


In Best Ball tournaments, like on DraftKings and most tournaments on Underdog, you will draft against 11 other people to form a "pod" for the regular season (Weeks 1-14), and then you'll advance to go against other "pod" winners as you advance to one week playoffs (Weeks 15-17).


Because of this, setting up your team to win in the playoff weeks is paramount; these weeks play more like DFS contests than anything else.


What does that mean for us?

  • Stacking your offenses helps capture the most upside in a given week. Using the Bucs here, having just Mike Evans on a team when he catches 6 balls for 122 yards and a touchdown is fine, but adding Baker in - who may have thrown for 300 yards and 3 TDs - helps lift your whole team alongside the Bucs offense performing well.

  • Trying to leverage playoff-week bring backs (i.e. an offensive player on the other side of a game) can make a bet on a whole game going over the total and capitalizing on as much upside as you can.

  • Of course, with upside comes downside, so there is risk that if the team doesn't perform as well, it could negatively impact your team - but with payouts that rise sharply as you advance, the risk ends up, in many cases, worth the reward.


There's a lot more to it than that, but generally speaking, when I start talking below about stacks and playoff correlations, I'm talking about this stuff.





The Team


Position-by-position, I have:

  • 3 quarterbacks

  • 6 running backs

  • 8 wide receivers

  • 3 tight ends


This is what I would call the "default" build that DraftKings recommends when it comes to a final roster construction. Not all of my teams will end up this way, but this one did.




The Stacks


Tampa Bay Buccaneers - Baker Mayfield plus a triple stack

  • QB Baker Mayfield (pick 82)

  • RB Rachaad White (pick 135)

  • WR Mike Evans (pick 39)

  • TE Cade Otton (pick 178)


Missing the flashy new names, huh? No Bucky, no Egbuka, no Chris Godwin either. What this team relies on is the sure-fire roles that these skill players have.


Starting with the key piece, Mike Evans, who is going for yet another 1,000 yard season. He's the main focal point of this passing offense and is the perfect archetype of player for best ball, with a consistent enough floor and huge upside on a week-to-week basis.


Cade Otton is the no-doubt TE1 on this team who can command some targets and carries a lot of contingent upside as a pass catcher. We saw it last year when players missed time - he immediately stepped in and filled the target void to produce elite TE results.


And while Rachaad White certainly was surpassed as the lead back last season, he is the clear RB2 in the offense and carved out a nice role as more of a pass game specialist last season, catching over 50 balls for more than 400 yards and 6 touchdowns.


Most players in this tournament are going to try and stack Baker Mayfield, who was exceptional last season and now has an even stronger supporting cast, with another one of his receivers and leave it at that. I'm hoping getting three pieces - and ones that are more unique in their situational uses - can propel me through the playoffs.


And if not, I have two more stacks backing them up.


Jacksonville Jaguars - Trevor Lawrence plus a double stack

  • QB Trevor Lawrence (pick 111)

  • WR Brian Thomas, Jr. (pick 15)

  • TE Brenton Strange (pick 154)


Securing Brian Thomas, Jr. - who easily could have been a first-round pick this season - was an easy click when he fell to pick 15. Knowing I had him on the team opened up the possibility of creating a stack with him, and that's what I did.


This offense should be improved overall with the addition of Travis Hunter, and while I couldn't add him on this team, I did add Brenton Strange, who emerged as a quality pass-catching TE in his own right who has plenty of room to take another leap.


Miami Dolphins - Tua Tagovailoa plus a double stack

  • QB Tua Tagovailoa (pick 130)

  • WR Tyreek Hill (pick 34)

  • WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine (pick 207)


I'm on the record in our Discord server - which you can access with a BBFF subscription - with the take that Tyreek Hill might've been the most mispriced player in best ball in the early parts of the season (his ADP has since steadily risen, now to pick 26). Nabbing him in the third round - as my WR3, no less - was thrilling.


And just like with Brian Thomas, Jr. before, it opened up an opportunity to create a team stack around him, this time with a fellow wide receiver going late in Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, who emerged last year in a bad situation in Tennessee and will be the clear-cut WR3 for this offense with contingent upside should something happen to any other pass-catchers.




The Playoff Correlations


Again, these are the players that are correlated to my stacks during the Best Ball playoff weeks (15-17).


  • Steelers WR Roman Wilson (pick 231) plays against Miami in week 15

  • Panthers WR Xavier Legette (pick 159) plays against Tampa Bay in week 16

  • Of note, Tampa Bay and Miami play each other in week 17, so if I make it to the finals and that game goes well over the total, I might be in a really good spot.




The Resources



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