top of page
Search

Building my perfect best ball team on Drafters

Updated: Aug 1

Drafters portfolio 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.


I've got a portfolio of 50 unique lineups that I believe all have a shot of winning the Drafters Mini NFL Best Ball Championship this season. Looking back at the data, what would my perfect best ball team look like if I built it out using my most rostered players as much as possible?


Let's take a look!




Ground rules

  1. For this exercise, I will be using a roster that consists of 3 quarterbacks, 6 running backs, 8 wide receivers and 3 tight ends, consistent with Mikey's findings on the top 300 teams from last season.

  2. All of my quarterbacks must have at least two skill position players stacked with them, as I am a big proponent of stacking in best ball tournaments.

  3. I'm going to be somewhat loose with the pick numbers of players, with my most important criteria being high ownership in my portfolio. So, spoiler alert for the first round, while I've drafted a wide receiver 96% of the time, I'm not selecting Ja'Marr Chase there even though he is my number one overall player for this season.

  4. We're also going to ve conscious of bye weeks. In a 3-6-8-3 setup like this, that means I'm following my standard rules:

    1. No overlapping byes at the onesie positions (QB and TE)

    2. No more than two players on the same bye at the multi-positions (RB and WR)

  5. Many of these picks will, naturally, be consistent with some of the rankings in the Basement Brewed Fantasy Football Draft Dominator tool, and none of these picks will be surprising to anyone in the BBFF Discord channel.




The first three rounds - all wide receivers


We'll be following my picks by position as our guide while we go round-by-round to select our perfect team. You'll see that in many rounds there's a clear cut positional selection that we're making, while in others, it may be a bit more murky.


The first three are clear cut.


Round number

QB selection percentage

RB selection percentage

WR selection percentage

TE selection percentage

1

0%

4%

96%

0%

2

0%

14%

78%

8%

3

6%

10%

80%

4%


With it narrowed down to one position, it makes the selection process easy for us. Let's grab the top three wide receivers that I have the most of in my portfolio with my drafted ADP in each round range:

  • Round 1: WR Puka Nacua, Los Angeles Rams (24% drafted, average ADP of 7.2)

  • Round 2: WR AJ Brown, Philadelphia Eagles (22% drafted, average ADP of 15.9)

  • Round 3: WR Tyreek Hill, Miami Dolphins (30% drafted, average ADP of 29.9 - this is why drafting early can work, folks!)


I'm happy to grab three wide receivers that can command high target shares in a full point PPR setting and have massive week-to-week ceiling upside.


And with that, we have two stackable options in my mind in the Los Angeles Rams and Miami Dolphins. We absolutely could stack the Philadelphia Eagles here, too, but as I've mentioned before, when I'm grabbing an elite QB like Jalen Hurts, I'm typically sticking to only a two quarterback team, so that defeats the purpose of this exercise.



Rounds 4 through 7 - setting up another stack, plus finally getting some running backs


Round number

QB selection percentage

RB selection percentage

WR selection percentage

TE selection percentage

4

26%

16%

52%

6%

5

4%

56%

40%

0%

6

4%

30%

62%

4%

7

6%

62%

24%

8%


  • Round 4: WR DJ Moore, Chicago Bears (22% drafted, average ADP of 40.4)

  • Round 5: RB Alvin Kamara, New Orleans Saints (20% drafted, average ADP of

  • Round 6: WR Rome Odunze, Chicago Bears (22% drafted, average ADP of 64.6)

  • Round 7: RB Aaron Jones, Minnesota Vikings (26% drafted, average ADP of 79.8)


We've nabbed two running backs who are likely to have high-impact pass catching roles and have sizeable enough rushing volume to stabilize the position at the top.


We've also set up a third stackable option with two Chicago Bears pass catchers. In a real draft, I would prioritize getting Caleb Williams to complete that stack, and since we're drafting in a vacuum here, that's what we'll do.




Rounds 8 through 11 - it's not that clear cut anymore!


Round number

QB selection percentage

RB selection percentage

WR selection percentage

TE selection percentage

8

28%

24%

30%

18%

9

32%

28%

22%

18%

10

30%

50%

10%

10%

11

26%

40%

20%

14%


  • Round 8: TE TJ Hockenson, Minnesota Vikings (16% drafted, average ADP of 83.5)

  • Round 9: QB Caleb Williams, Chicago Bears (12% drafted, average ADP of 97.3)

  • Round 10: RB Tyrone Tracy, Jr., New York Giants (32% drafted, average ADP of 107.8)

  • Round 11: RB Austin Ekeler, Washington Commanders (28% drafted, average ADP of 138.1)


We have our first reach! Knowing that we want to try and nab Tua Tagovailoa and Matthew Stafford with our next two selections, we grab BBFF favorite Austin Ekeler a round ahead of schedule as our fourth RB, with another time-share back in Tyrone Tracy, Jr. preceding him.


The most important piece of this section is obviously Caleb Williams, who completes our first stack for this team.




Rounds 12-13 - but it is clear cut that I like drafting QBs here!


Round number

QB selection percentage

RB selection percentage

WR selection percentage

TE selection percentage

12

34%

16%

30%

20%

13

34%

28%

18%

20%


  • Round 12: QB Tua Tagovailoa, Miami Dolphins (24% drafted, average ADP of 138.2)

  • Round 13: QB Matthew Stafford, Los Angeles Rams (28% drafted, average ADP of 147.3)


No notes needed here. Got the quarterbacks we were looking for.


Now to complete their stacks...




Rounds 14-20 - finishing out our roster


Round number

QB selection percentage

RB selection percentage

WR selection percentage

TE selection percentage

14

18%

26%

30%

26%

15

2%

44%

38%

16%

16

4%

36%

30%

30%

17

6%

26%

32%

36%

18

4%

32%

20%

44%

19

0%

38%

52%

10%

20

0%

24%

74%

2%


  • Round 14: TE Hunter Henry, New England Patriots (12% drafted, average ADP of 156.5)

  • Round 15: RB Justice Hill, Baltimore Ravens (38% drafted, average ADP of 175.3)

  • Round 16: WR Tutu Atwell, Los Angeles Rams (20% drafted, average ADP of 198.8)

  • Round 17: RB Kareem Hunt, Kansas City Chiefs (36% drafted, average ADP of 202.4)

  • Round 18: TE Tyler Higbee, Los Angeles Rams (22% drafted, average ADP of 205.1)

  • Round 19: WR Jalen Tolbert, Dallas Cowboys (28% drafted, average ADP of 224.4)

  • Round 20: WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, Miami Dolphins (32% drafted, average ADP of 231.7)


We've completed our mission of having three stacks that are at least double stacks - and made one of them a triple stack, too! We add Tutu Atwell and Tyler Higbee to our previously drafted combination of Puka and Stafford, plus added Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, who I am on record in Discord as saying may be my most highly drafted WR this season when my cross-platform portfolio is all said and done, to the previously drafted Tyreek and Tua combination. Fun fact! Did you know that Nick Westbrook-Ikhine is the only WR on the Dolphins roster that's expected to make a meaningful impact this season and is over six feet tall? And he caught nine touchdowns last season on a worse offense? And their top two running backs are not goal-line-type players? And he's basically free in every draft?


We round out our running back room with another pass-catching specialist that can help stabilize the position in Justice Hill and a back in an uncertain situation with room for week-to-week upside in Kareem Hunt. Meanwhile, we add another solid tight end in Hunter Henry who is a high target earner on his team relative to the rest of the tight ends left, albeit with additional target competition this season with Stefon Diggs joining the Patriots. And our remaining pick at wide receiver is Jalen Tolbert, who is on an offense that I think might throw a ton this season, so there's some conditional upside for him as the WR3 in that offense.




Now the real question...have I drafted my perfect best ball team in any of these drafts?


Nope! But I do have two teams that have all three of these quarterbacks stacked with at least two skill players and have a 3-6-8-3 setup.


Here are all three teams side-by-side:


Position

My "perfect" best ball team

Team #11 of 50

Team #50 of 50

Stacks

CHI double stack LAR triple stack MIA double stack

CHI double stack LAR double stack MIA triple stack

CHI double stack LAR double stack MIA quad stack

QBs (3)

Caleb Williams Tua Tagovailoa Matthew Stafford

Caleb Williams Tua Tagovailoa Matthew Stafford

Caleb Williams Tua Tagovailoa Matthew Stafford

RBs (6)

Alvin Kamara Aaron Jones Tyrone Tracy, Jr. Austin Ekeler Justice Hill Kareem Hunt

De'Von Achane David Montgomery Jaylen Warren Javonte Williams Rico Dowdle Jaleel McLaughlin

De'Von Achane Quinshon Judkins Rhamondre Stevenson Javonte Williams Kareem Hunt Woody Marks

WRs (8)

Puka Nacua AJ Brown Tyreek Hill DJ Moore Rome Odunze Tutu Atwell Jalen Tolbert Nick Westbrook-Ikhine

Puka Nacua Tyreek Hill DJ Moore Jaylen Waddle Rome Odunze Adam Thielen DeMario Douglas Brandin Cooks

Puka Nacua Tyreek Hill DJ Moore Calvin Ridley Rome Odunze Wan'Dale Robinson Tutu Atwell Nick Westbrook-Ikhine

TEs (3)

TJ Hockenson Hunter Henry Tyler Higbee

Jonnu Smith - yes, this originally was a Dolphins quadruple stack when I drafted it! Tyler Higbee Juwan Johnson

Jonnu Smith Mike Gesicki Darren Waller




BBFF helps me make better decisions when I'm on the clock


bottom of page