top of page
Search

Hot take: It's okay to draft great receivers on bad offenses in a PPR-format best ball

DraftKings Best Ball Millionaire 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.


One of the best "value" opportunities in best ball lies in bad offenses. That sounds counterintuitive, right? Bad offenses score fewer points, and if they score fewer points, then the ceilings of the players you're drafting are naturally lower.


All of that is true. But we have another variable - ADP - that comes into play. And whenever we're building out teams in best ball drafts, we have to do this three-way delicate dance between projection (whether quantitative, qualitative or both is up to you, and it needs to run the gambit between downside risk, median outcome, and upside), ADP cost, and structure.


With these types of players, and we see this especially at wide receiver, there's typically an ADP drop relative to at least the median projection, because people are afraid that they're not going to get enough upside shots if they take a guy who may rely more on volume, especially in the early portions of drafts.


For this draft, which is number ten in my DraftKings Best Ball Millionaire review series, I did just that - I have a couple of receivers that are on likely bad offenses (Chris Olave, DK Metcalf and Josh Downs), but managed to take the upside swings late to make up for any potential lost ceiling. And if you're going to do this, you need to take upside swings at some point to make up for that ceiling gap.


Let's take a look.




The team, position by position

  • 2 QBs

  • 7 RBs

  • 9 WRs

  • 2 TEs


It's another elite QB, elite TE team - this time with Brock Bowers at the tight end position. I didn't mention this part above, but part of the reason this team is heavier on "bad team" receivers is that I was just chasing down some raw points to make up for the receiver gap as well. Bowers can blow past their starting tight ends not named Trey McBride or George Kittle on a weekly basis, and if I can simply keep up with them at WR, I'm in good shape.



The stacks


Baltimore Ravens double stack

  • QB Lamar Jackson (pick 30)

  • WR Rashod Bateman (pick 102)

  • TE Isaiah Likely (pick 163)


Rashod Bateman represents the first of my "upside" swings at the position. I think his range of outcomes is probably somewhat wide and his median projection is probably overstated for this season, given his finish last year was heavily buoyed by 11 touchdowns on just 51 catches.


That's not to say he can't do it again, but simply it would be quite a feat to do so. So I'll take the correlated chance here and see where it gets me, even though I'll be well under the field on Rashod Bateman when all the cards are turned over.


Minnesota Vikings double stack

  • QB JJ McCarthy (pick 115)

  • RB Aaron Jones (pick 78)

  • WR Justin Jefferson (pick 6)


Having Brock Bowers on this team naturally dissuades me from drafting TJ Hockenson here, so this time we pair the McCarthy & Jefferson with the pass-catching back in the backfield, Aaron Jones. In hindsight, I probably should've also taken Jordan Addison at pick 91 (I took the aforementioned Josh Downs there to try and get my portfolio numbers on him up), but I feel okay with just these two as the pairing.




Playoff correlations




The resources

bottom of page