PlayerProfiler is home to award-winning dynasty rankings and tools. Our Dynasty Deluxe package includes complete Dynasty Rankings, Rookie Rankings, Trade Analyzer, Draft Planner, Mock Drafts, and more. Check it out. Below, Bradley Stalder shares seven strategies to help you win more this year in your Underdog Fantasy bestball drafts.
Winning. That’s why we play fantasy football. And Underdog Fantasy handsomely rewards the biggest of winners in their largest tournament– Best Ball Mania. In 2024, Underdog launched the “Marathon” Tournament, where the best weekly scores from Weeks 1 through 17 competed for a top prize of $300,000.
ATRAAIN emerged victorious this year, scoring 2,497.18 fantasy points throughout the season. And, for a third year in a row, the average weekly score for this highest-scoring team for Underdog’s season-long contest was approximately 150 points per week in half-PPR scoring.
Let’s dive a little deeper into ATRAAIN‘s team to determine the pathways for our own future success in this flagship tournament.
Underdog Fantasy | 7 Winning Strategies
1. A Winning WR-QB stack
Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow were drafted within the first seven rounds. Chase finished as the WR1 overall by a sizable margin.
Joe Burrow finished as the QB3 in Bestball Value Rating (BBVR), finishing only behind Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. Burrow and Chase picked it up near the end of the year as the Bengals tried to rally into the playoffs but fell short. Had the Bengals made the playoffs, Burrow would’ve been in MVP consideration.
2. Veteran RB Values
Derrick Henry was drafted in Round 2 by ATRAAIN‘s squad. While Henry joined the best offense of his career, he had suffered injuries over the previous few years and was on the wrong side of the age apex. However, ATRAAIN also drafted Alvin Kamara as his second running back in Round 6. Henry finished as the RB3 in BBVR, and Kamara finished as the RB7. Chase Brown, a second-year player, was drafted in Round 9, and finished as the RB15 in BBVR with a 59.3-percent FLEX rate, which was no. 14 at the position.
3. Hitting on Late-Round Values
Running Backs Justice Hill and Tank Bigsby, along with the emergence of Marvin Mims down the stretch, brought FLEX values to a team that posted high-floor weeks. Mike Gesicki as a last-round pick to stack with Joe Burrow, also supported some weeks when tight end Trey McBride didn’t hit.
4. Injury Variance
Outside of Gabe Davis, no player on ATRAAIN‘s roster missed more than a couple of games during the season. One of the “lucky” parts of bestball is avoiding the landmines of long-term injuries.
Perhaps the riskiest players to draft in season-long best ball contests are the players whom fantasy managers know have an injury entering into the 2025 season (i.e. Christian Watson, Deshaun Watson, Tank Dell, Chris Godwin, Rashee Rice, etc.). Notice how Jonathon Brooks, T.J. Hockenson, Nick Chubb, and other players who entered 2024 with long-term injuries were not on the list. Taking a guaranteed zero (especially for injury) hurts both the floor and ceiling of a best ball team.
5. Taking Zeros
This team took two zeros. Gabe Davis, who missed the final six weeks due to a torn meniscus, and Will Levis who finished as the QB43. Not taking many zeros helped keep this team churning out enough FLEX weeks to keep a high floor. It also allowed players like Jordan Addison and Jerry Jeudy‘s sinusoidal outputs to not disproportionately affect the outcome.
6. Structure
2 Quarterbacks, 6 Running Backs, 8 Wide Receivers, 2 Tight Ends. In reality, Joe Burrow carried the QB position, Trey McBride carried the TE position, and with anchors of Henry, McLaurin, and Kamara, the rest of the team’s outputs stood up to the test of the season.
7. Wide Receiver Ambiguity
Jordan Addison‘s ADP was suppressed due to an off-season road rage incident that is still pending now into 2025. The Vikings were also not clear during the 2024 offseason about which quarterback (Sam Darnold or J.J. McCarthy) would start the season. It didn’t matter as McCarthy missed the 2024 season due to a knee injury. Darnell Mooney was an all-but-forgotten piece of the Atlanta Falcons passing attack. He put up a few large outputs on a new team with a new quarterback (Kirk Cousins). Jerry Jeudy was traded from the Denver Broncos to the Cleveland Browns and ended up putting up the best statistical season of his career.
Any win of this nature requires the highest of variance outcomes, threading the needle through bye weeks, injuries, and depth chart changes. These takeaways should help frame a better strategy for future drafts. The 2025 Best Ball season is right around the corner.
