The popularity of best ball has exploded over the last two years. But that’s not because the public has acquired a sudden taste for grinding out standalone ball drafts. Instead, best ball’s newfound popularity has been driven by what is essentially the introduction of a new form of fantasy football: single-week tournament best ball.
This type of best ball tournament, most popularly offered on Underdog, DraftKings, and FFPC, has four rounds. The first is a 14-week best ball tournament, where you compete in a 12-team league with (typically) the top 2 scoring teams advancing.
The second and third rounds are small field (usually sub-20-team) single-week tournaments, and the fourth and final round is a small-to-medium field single-week tournament in Week 17. The championship round size varies from roughly 10 to 1,000, depending on the tournament. And you’ll find differences in Rounds 2-3 as well. For example, FFPC’s best ball tournament advances three teams from a 63-person Round 3 (Week 16), while Underdog’s Best Ball Mania 3 advances one team from an 18-person Round 3 (Week 16).
If you’ve played best ball this summer, you’re likely well aware of this format. Because, despite small differences across sites, we’re looking at a pretty standard contest structure. What we are not looking at is traditional best ball, where you compete to win a single, self-contained league. We’re not even looking at something all that similar to the total points best ball tournaments offered by Drafters and NFC, where you compete to score the most points among all teams across many 12-team leagues from Weeks 1-17.
Peter Overzet laid all of this out masterfully in his video breakdown of the fundamental importance of building for Week 17 in Best Ball Mania (which is the tournament I’ll be primarily focused on in this article series).
As Pete explains above, by drafting an entry in Best Ball Mania, you’re turning $25 into an expected return of $22.51. It’s a tournament that includes rake, so without an edge on your competition, it’s a losing proposition. But if you advance to Round 2—finishing top two in your 12-team league—you now have an expected value of $119.68. In other words, making the playoffs in your 12-team league more than 5x’s your initial expected return. That’s cool... but that 5x is still “expected.” There’s more work to do. Winning a small field single-week tournament in Round 2 (Week 15) jumps your expected value to $861.81, and winning another small field tournament in Round 3 (Week 16) jumps your EV to $11,723.94. Then, finally... you need to win the championship round last in Week 17. Regarding Best Ball Mania, we’re talking about a 470-team tournament with a $2 million grand prize.
In this type of contest, solid best ball tactics are a must. It doesn’t matter how many points you score in Weeks 15-17 if your team never advances to those rounds. But at the same time... “best ball” is almost a misleading way to describe this endeavor, given that “best ball” used to refer almost exclusively to self-contained leagues.
In this type of tournament, three single-week tournaments are the most important steps on our road to victory. Unless you have a team built to win a single-week tournament, advancing teams to the playoffs at a high rate will not save you.
For the advance rate bros out there let's talk about some #math why focusing on this solely is missing the point.
— Liam Murphy (@ChessLiam) May 31, 2022
Underdog's advance rate's are 2/12 advance, 1/10 advance out of week 15, 1/16 advance out of week 16 to finals. It's actually easier to make the finals this year.
🧵
Of course, it’s legitimate to question if we can build teams that are more optimally designed for the single-week tournaments than the 14-week best ball round. It could very well be that the best strategy for these tournaments is to simply to draft the best players. In that case, you’re wasting your time here; just go get your guys and start shopping for yachts.
Single-week Tournament Tactics
For any strategy to work, it has to include hitting on some of the must-have players in a given season. But we also have evidence that we can build our teams strategically for the multi-round best ball tournament structure. Again, Pete has us covered.
In the video above, Pete illustrates how Zero RB had the lowest Round 1 advance rate among running back strategies in 2021 yet still yielded the highest expected return because of phenomenal success in advancing through the single-week tournaments. Of course, these results are from a single year in a high variance tournament, so... grains, salt, things of that nature. But Mike Leone also found that in 2020, Zero RB had “a massive ceiling and top 3 finish rate.” The strategy has never been popular in any real sense of the word, so again, these are small sample size results.
However, it’s tough for me to completely dismiss Zero RB’s late-season form when scoring more points at the end of the year than at the beginning is one of the stated goals of the strategy. Likewise, Zero RB’s lower-than-average advance rates also support the idea that these teams are not at their peak to begin the season. For better or worse, the strategy seems to be playing out as designed.
Zero RB is built on the concept of antifragility, the idea that you can benefit from the chaos of the NFL season. So, at least to me—someone who buys into the strategy—it makes sense that successful Zero RB teams tend to peak after nearly an entire season of chaos has descended upon the fantasy landscape. This logically makes these teams a good fit for a format that wipes the slate clean every week after Week 14.
But Zero RB is far from the only strategy intended to optimize teams for the end of the season. Jack Miller had an excellent article last season demonstrating the power of rookie fantasy contributions down the stretch. (If you’re interested in the archetype of league-winning rookie wide receivers, I dove into that last season as well).
Identifying contingent value is also crucial to uncovering late-season upside, regardless of when you prefer to draft running backs. Erik Beimfohr has you covered there; he went so far down the late-season contingent value rabbit hole he imagined a Tyler Boyd spike week.
There has also been some excellent research on ways to attack the single-week format specifically. Hayden Winks helped stoke a correlation bro frenzy by writing about Week 17 game stacking. Alex Baker ran simulations on advancing through the single-week rounds, arguing in favor of 3QB builds and focusing on Week 16 correlation in addition to Week 17. Liam Murphy has also written about the need to modify your quarterback tactics for single-week tournaments. And Mike Leone has gone so far as to ponder running back handcuffs (borderline heresy) as a means of advancing an uncommon player through the single-week rounds. After all, Justin Herzig won Best Ball Mania 1 when he was able to advance an otherwise unrostered Alvin Kamara to the final round, who then went off for six rushing TDs in the championship.
So, there’s been a lot of great work on this subject. Because, fundamentally, we’re trying to solve a new game. Drafting the best players could be what wins the big money this year, but I’m willing to bet that there are additional tactics we can use to gain an edge.
I believe one of those edges stems from understanding how each position scores fantasy points on a week-by-week basis—which I cover in detail below.
Better in Best Ball Points
Hayden Winks conducted research in 2021 to quantify “better in best ball” points, which measured the number of points a player scored above their positional baseline. These baselines—RB24, WR36, TE12—reflect the Underdog starting lineup requirements and thereby measure how much each player is actually moving the needle on a weekly basis.
Hayden concluded that there was a slight edge in targeting players with desirable best ball profiles: “when two receivers have similar yearly projections and one has a higher aDOT and is more involved in the red zone, pick him every time.” Although, Hayden cautioned drafters not to get carried away chasing spike week profiles, as did Michael Dubner, who did a similar study in 2020.
Tournament Winning Spike Weeks
But what if we analyze best ball scoring by position rather than individual players? And what if we move the goal posts for what counts as a high score? After all, our primary goal in playoff best ball is to win three consecutive single-week contests; we want tournament-winning scores.
To determine a tournament-winning spike week in 0.5 PPR scoring, I looked at FanDuel’s full-week perfect lineups from 2019-2021.
Over that period, 100% of quarterbacks, 98% of running backs, 99% of wide receivers, and 98% of tight ends hit the following scoring thresholds when in the optimal FanDuel lineup.
- Quarterback
- 28 points
- Running back
- 20 points
- Wide Receiver
- 20 points
- Tight End
- 13 points
Admittedly, these thresholds are an imperfect measure. Best ball drafters aren’t making their teams minutes before Sunday kickoff. Their lineups are locked well before the season starts. And they are constrained by ADP and 11 other drafters rather than FanDuel’s weekly salaries. But fundamentally, Best Ball Mania drafters are still trying to put up huge scores in single-week tournaments. And using these thresholds as a measure of what constitutes a playoff-winning spike week allows us to look at 52 separate weekly slates dating back to 2019.
Necessary Upside
Just like you don’t need the optimal lineup to win a FanDuel tournament, you don’t need the optimal lineup to win a best ball single-week tournament. Last year’s Best Ball Mania winner, Liam Murphy, scored 201.8 points in the Week 17 final. This was still a ways off Week 17’s optimal FanDuel lineup which, excluding defense, totaled 245 points. But Liam’s lineup included FanDuel’s optimal RB1, WR1, WR2, and TE1, all of whom combined for 131.2 points—an average of 32.8 points.
As they say in the biz' CheckMATE! Fitting that it takes the nuts, to win the biggest Bestball tournament ever. 🧵
— Liam Murphy (@ChessLiam) January 4, 2022
First place in @underdogfantasy's BBM2, absolutely unreal.
I also took 6th in the Puppy 1.
Obviously I own most of my strategy chops to the @swolecast. pic.twitter.com/uhNlpGQ6Gy
And Liam’s score wasn’t that far off FanDuel’s optimal weekly average of 231.2 (excluding defense). Moreover, Best Ball Mania 2 required the winner to finish first out of 160 teams. This year’s tournament has a final round of 470 teams. Even the $5 Puppy 3 has a final round of 230 teams. So we need more upside than last year to win these tournaments... and winning last year already took a lot of upside.
So... how do we maximize weekly upside when drafting a best ball team?
Spike Week Frequency by Position
For this analysis, I broke down the last two seasons of Underdog ADP into five sections:
- Rounds 1-2
- Rounds 3-5
- Rounds 6-9
- Rounds 10-13
- Rounds 14+
I chose this method to give the first two rounds of drafts their due and to give Rounds 3-5 a slightly higher weight as well. The rest of the 18-round draft is broken into three roughly equal parts (4 rounds, 4 rounds, and 5 rounds). This method was also handy since even the earliest quarterbacks have had ADPs of Round 3 or later in the last two seasons, keeping the first section of the draft limited to skill players.
Skill Position Trends
For this article, I’ll focus on the trends at running back, wide receiver, and tight end. Then, I’ll tackle the quarterback trends in depth in Part 2.
Running Back
It’s not hard to see the appeal of early-round running backs... they produce 44% of spike weeks at the position. The dead zone is also in clear view, with spike week production essentially leveling out from Round 3 through the rest of the draft.
But picking the right players is difficult, so the number of running backs selected in each part of the draft needs to be accounted for. Particularly because the number of running backs selected in each round is not consistent. By the final rounds, drafters are selecting any running back with a pulse, as you can see below.
In the chart above, you can see that the late-round spike weeks going to be pretty difficult to find. 41% of running backs are drafted in those rounds, yet they only produce 11% of tournament-winning spike weeks. Meanwhile, Rounds 1-2 continue to look enticing.
Wide Receiver
Wide receiver shows the opposite effect as running backs in Rounds 3-5. This helps explain why the RB dead zone has become such a universal concept. It’s not just that running backs are generally bad bets in this range; wide receivers have also been extremely good bets. By selecting a dead zone running back, you risk losing twice.
Rounds 1-2 are less impressive, producing less than half as many spike weeks as Rounds 3-5. Rounds 6-9 look like fertile ground for teams that attack other positions early, while the late rounds look challenging.
However... we again need to adjust for the number of receivers selected in each portion of the draft.
Once accounting for the number of wide receivers drafted, the late rounds look like an absolute minefield. And while Rounds 6-9 still look interesting, the first two rounds look very interesting, accounting for 17% of all spike weeks while representing just 6% of drafted wide receivers. This illuminates why robust running back drafters often struggle to match elite wide receiver scoring with late-round wide receiver volume, despite best ball’s optimal starting lineup feature. Even though early-round wide receivers come with a lot of opportunity cost, their ceilings are very difficult to match.
Tight End
Tight end spike weeks are distributed fairly evenly throughout the draft... but by now, you know that is misleading.
The vast majority of tight ends have been drafted as late-round dart throws over the last two years. As a result, Rounds 1-5 have managed to combine for 17% of all drafted spike weeks (15% total) while representing just 11% of drafted tight ends. You only have to start one tight end... making an early selection a risky deployment of precious draft capital. But the weekly ceiling of the top tight ends helps explain the power of elite tight end builds.
Tournament Winning Power
It’s great if our players are frequently hitting high totals... but not all spike weeks are made equal. So far, I’ve treated Devin Singletary‘s helpful 23-point Week 17 the same as Ja’Marr Chase‘s earth-shattering 50.1-point outing. While both of these performances may reach my arbitrary tournament-winning spike week threshold... they are not the same. To account for this, I calculated the Z-score for every spike performance. The idea here is to measure not just the frequency of spike weeks but how much each position can separate from its peers in terms of peak performance.
The chart below shows the total positional Z-score % that each segment of the draft has accounted for.
More red meat for early running back drafters. At running back, 60% of single-week tournament-winning power is found in Rounds 1-2. Just 20% is found at wide receiver. This fits with my research last year on legendary upside at the running back position. When you hit on a legendary running back season, it is truly a game-changer. You’re hitting massive upside at a position that doesn’t have a ton of upside to offer. However, we also need to consider that drafters are feverishly chasing these rare upside outcomes.
The chart below divides each position’s tournament-winning power by the percentage of the drafted positional pool it accounts for. (e.g. 60% of running back power in Rounds 1-2 divided by 17% of running backs selected in Rounds 1-2 = 3.5). This weights tournament power by the volume of players selected at each position.
We’ll never stop fighting about when to draft running backs, and this chart neatly sums up why. Early-round wide receivers have the better peak performance profile once you account for the higher hit rates they provide. And... the Underdog starting lineup consists of three wide receivers, two running backs, and a FLEX position. With the ability to start twice as many receivers as running backs in a given week, early wide receiver drafters can hammer opponents with high-end depth.
But then again, immediately after the early rounds, wide receivers remain great selections while running backs fall off a massive cliff. And you can’t take down three consecutive single-week tournaments if you’re not scoring a lot of points at running back. So why not take running backs in Rounds 1-2 and then hit wide receiver? You totally can. As we’ll get to, multiple early-round running back strategies have produced strong results and fit with these trends. But fortunately, you can also pivot to early-round wide receiver selections and still be very live to win this type of tournament.
So if you don’t draft running backs in the first two rounds... when do you?
Running Back
The last two seasons have offered two clear target areas for running backs: Rounds 1-2 and 10-13. Rounds 1-2 offer by far the most spike week upside at the position, but they also come with opportunity cost at wide receiver and tight end. Rounds 10-13, meanwhile, have been nearly as powerful as Rounds 3-5 and better than Rounds 6-9. But, of course, this is based on only two years of data, and Rounds 6-9 may come roaring back this season, or Rounds 3-5 could see a resurgence for that matter. Still, Rounds 10-13 have coincided with a falloff at wide receiver, as we’ll get to, lessening the opportunity cost of running back selections in those rounds.
The low wattage of Rounds 14+ is equally interesting. It probably doesn’t matter all that much if you grab your RB3 in round 8 or 11. There’s more risk of missing on a difference-making wide receiver in Round 8, but you’re also likely to make a better bet at running back with an earlier selection. But suppose you push your RB4 selection back from Round 12 to Round 15. That is likely to be somewhat impactful because difference-making running back performances have been a needle in a haystack in the late rounds. Many Zero RB practitioners, like myself, got comfortable with the strategy in managed leagues that include waivers and don’t overly punish you for whiffing on your late-round running back dart throws. Tournament best ball is less forgiving.
Wide Receiver
The opportunity cost is real in the early rounds at wide receiver. By picking them at the top of the draft, you give up your only chance to select running backs with a decent hit rate. But then again, early running back drafters have missed out on 51% of weighted tournament power at wide receiver. Choose your side.
Rounds 3-5 remain a major target for receiver firepower, while Rounds 6-9 look decently interesting. Unfortunately, playoff-winning performances from the late rounds are exceedingly rare, and Rounds 10-13 aren’t much better.
In some ways, Rounds 10-13 have offered a reverse dead zone effect from that of Rounds 3-5. This is because these early double-digit rounds have been the last call for peak running back spike weeks, while tournament-winning wide receiver production has mostly dried up by that point. Positional value can shift from season to season, but this pocket feels similar in 2022.
We talk about the RB dead zone often. What we fail to mention is the WR dead zone of rounds 11-14
— Rob Coakley (@KingCoakley) August 5, 2022
Tight End
Tight ends have outperformed wide receivers and running backs in Rounds 1-2, albeit with a lower bar for what constitutes a playoff-winning spike week. However, with just one starting spot to fill, an early tight end selection comes with significant opportunity cost at the two higher-scoring skill positions. And, while tight end performance is powerful in the early rounds relative to the other positions, it doesn’t make up as big a portion of the total tournament-winning power throughout the draft. In other words... you can find tight end spike weeks later in the draft more easily than at running back and wide receiver.
If skipping Rounds 1-2, 3-5 is another strong pocket. But even his section of the draft requires forgoing a pick at wide receiver in the best rounds for that position. Nonetheless, even with substantial opportunity cost, elite tight end has been a powerful strategy because of how well the best tight ends have separated from their peers.
Interestingly though, tight end value can be had throughout the draft. With just one required starter at the lowest scoring position, drafters have understandably refrained from hammering tight ends at any point in the draft.
Winning Roster Construction: The Playoff Build
Based on these trends, we should expect some builds to be better fits for the best ball playoffs than others.
- At wide receiver, there’s clearly been value in having sufficient firepower before the double-digit rounds hit.
- At running back, Rounds 1-2 have been a legitimate decision point; whether to push running back depth into the late rounds has not.
- Drafters have been far more successful with sufficient running back depth before Round 14.
- At tight end, early-round options have provided a huge edge.
- But there also doesn’t appear to be a wrong place to draft tight ends, because the position offers relative value throughout the draft.
- Additionally, since there is a lower bar for difference-making weeks at the tight end position, we should expect that in a given week, many different players have a chance to be “the guy you need” at the position.
- Therefore, drafters may be undervaluing tight ends in multiple ways, both by underestimating the power of elite tight end and by underutilizing 3TE builds.
- But there also doesn’t appear to be a wrong place to draft tight ends, because the position offers relative value throughout the draft.
We can combine these takeaways in the RotoViz Roster Construction Explorer. Teams that selected their RB4 before Round 14 (avoiding the late-round drop-off), their WR4 before Round 10 (avoiding important picks in the WR dead zone), and their TE1 before Round 6 (securing an elite option) performed very well in the playoffs.
And teams that stopped at just two quarterbacks were extremely powerful, posting a positive expected value of $26.57. Additional quarterback tactics made this build even more successful, as we’ll get to next time.
Notably, the 2QB version of this build was +EV with either two or three tight ends. Again, this is an elite tight end build, yet the 3TE version had an expected value of $28.22, while the 2TE build was at just $26.00.
Narrowing down to teams that selected their TE2 before Round 14, the 2TE build was more successful, with a tremendous expected value of $31.09. But the 3TE version of this construction also remained very powerful, with an expected value of $29.27.
Long story short, both 2TE and 3TE builds look perfectly viable as long as drafters avoid the positional drop-offs at running back and wide receiver. As a reminder, these builds are based on just a year’s worth of data. But fortunately, we can also look at the Fanball Roster Construction Explorer, which has results from 2015-2021. This is a 20-round PPR format without single-week playoff rounds... but the win rates and Top-2 percentile teams can still help point us in the right direction. And the Fanball results show both the power of this structure and the flexibility it provides at tight end.
Interestingly, the percentage of top-2 percentile finishes increases slightly for the overall build if 2021 is removed. This helps ease concerns that season-specific outcomes are driving the positive results for the Playoff Build.*
I refer to the Playoff Build throughout the rest of this article. By that I mean a 2QB roster construction with 4 RBs before Round 14, 4 WRs before Round 10 and 1 TE before Round 6.
Layering on RB Strategies
Part of the appeal of the Playoff Build is its flexibility. Although it requires an elite tight end selection, you have eight remaining early rounds to select four wide receivers. And you can select between 0-3 single-digit round running backs while still having room for an elite quarterback. Other than limiting the quarterback position to two players, the rest is completely up to you.
But does this flexibility actually play out when combined with other strategies? Delightfully, yes, it does.
The Playoff Build can be combined with all four of them most popular running back strategies:
- Hero RB (aka. Anchor RB)
- RB1 before Round 3
- RB2 after Round 5
- Superhero RB
- RB2 before Round 3
- RB3 after Round 5
- Hyperfragile
- RB3 before Round 5
- Max of four RBs total
- Zero RB
- RB1 after Round 5
These are all well-established best ball strategies. And the Playoff Build dramatically improved the expected value of all four structures.
All four versions also punched well above their weight in sending teams to the finals compared to the basic versions of each strategy. Overall, these versions were also higher scoring in Week 17, which... people forget... is where all the money is.
The Fanball results from 2015-2021 also back up these findings. While the win rates of hyperfragile builds dropped when combined with the Playoff Build, the win rates of every other strategy improved. And the top-2-percentile rates increased for all four running back strategies.
Where is the Limit at Tight End?
The elite tight end strategy appears to be one of the keys to the current best ball tournament landscape. This is partly because when elite tight end picks hit, they can provide a considerable scoring edge in the playoff weeks. But Conor O’Driscoll—the winner of FFPC’s 2021 Best Ball Tournament—has pointed out that elite tight end is also an underutilized tactic in Hero RB, Zero RB, and Hyperfragile builds. If elite tight end is once again dominant this season, it will also provide leverage against similarly built teams... an almost unfair combination.
But ok, you’ve selected an elite tight end. Now what?
While it can sometimes be tempting to add a second elite tight end, this did not pan out well on Underdog last season.
No judgments; I’ve dabbled in drafting multiple elite tight ends this season, mostly out of astonishment that Kelce/Pitts, Kelce/Kittle combinations are achievable at an ADP discount. But as Conor points out, tight ends aren’t good bets to outscore top wide receivers and running backs—making them unideal FLEX options. That, in turn, makes a second elite tight end selection less than perfect in a format that requires a Week 17 scoring explosion.
Then again, having two shots at an elite tight end hitting your lineup in the Weeks 15-16 is pretty enticing. And double elite TE has actually worked pretty well on Fanball over the last seven seasons when combined with the Playoff Build. (RB4 before 14, WR4 before 10, TE1 before 6, 2QBs total).
The bullish Fanball results fit with Madison Parkhill’s research on Bully TE (TE2 before Round 7), which performed very well in the Underdog Semi-Finals, and had an extremely low utilization rate.
But waiting a little further for your TE2 is probably more effective. Teams that selected their TE2 in Rounds 6-9 as part of the Playoff Build had strong results last season, as did teams who waited until rounds 10-13, as did teams who waited until Rounds 14+.
The fact that every other TE2 option produced strong results makes Bully TE or double elite TE a little less enticing. Moreover, even if taking two elite tight ends helps your team make Week 17... it almost has to hurt that team’s single-week upside in the championship round. With at least one top-five pick a suboptimal FLEX option, the structure is not ideal for putting up a massive championship-winning total. Unfortunately, no double-elite TE teams made the finals last year, so we didn’t see any in action in the championship, but the Week 15 and Week 16 single-week averages were uninspiring.
3TE Constructions
While I’m skeptical of taking two elite tight ends, the trends lead me to believe that the position may be undervalued in general. After all, we’re not letting locked-in every-snap starters fall to the 14th round at the other skill positions.
Tyler Higbee ranked 11th among TEs in targets per game in 2021. Sixth in RZ targets. Second in snap rate. Remains uncontested TE1 in one of the NFL's best offenses.
— Jack Miller (@JackMiller02) August 8, 2022
6.6 YPT is a concern considering aDOT fell to 5.7, but every-snap role is just so lucrative.
TE20 on Underdog.
Last year... as long as drafters waited past Round 5 for their TE2 in 2QB, elite TE builds, a third tight end helped their advance rates and playoff success.
And as part of the Playoff Build, three and even four tight end builds were highly successful.
Keep in mind that the Fanball results do not back up this approach. Even as part of the Playoff Build, 2TE teams have outperformed 3TE teams since 2015.
For that reason, I recommend being judicious with 3TE builds and avoiding using it with strategies like Zero RB that already have a lower than average playoff advance rate. But for as long as the current ADP environment exists, I’m intrigued by 3TE builds... even when I already have an elite tight end. That third tight end selection may ultimately hurt my chances of advancing to the playoffs, but it could be a differentiator in the single-week playoffs, allowing me to sneak a low-owned elite tight end into the championship round.
Tight End Pivots
If you’re trying to draft four wide receivers by the end of Round 9 and four running backs by the end of 13, you’re basically going to be able to do it. And if you take your WR4 at the 10.04 or your RB4 at the 13.03... yes, that counts. We’re going by the spirit of the law here.
But getting your TE1 in the top five rounds of every draft is simply not doable. And frankly, even pulling it off would create a massive position on just a handful of players. It might also require reaching for tight ends that don’t typically go in the top-5 rounds, which... is not the point. So it’s important to note that the Playoff Build works perfectly fine when selecting your TE1 between Rounds 6-9.
The build isn’t quite as dominant without an elite tight end, but you’d certainly rather pivot to this construction than force a reach just to ensure an early-round tight end selection. After Round 9, though... things got shaky in the playoffs.
The results for double-digit TE1 teams indicate a clear advantage for 3TE builds, where advance rates, at least, were good. Fanball’s data also supports the idea that 3TE builds are optimal when waiting until the double-digit rounds for your TE1.
The Fanball results also provide hope that 2021’s disastrous playoff results from double-digit TE1 teams were a fluke, as the build has produced top 2-percentile teams at a slightly higher than expected rate.
So while an elite tight end is preferable, and a single-digit round tight end is next best, it’s still fine to let the draft come to you at tight end. Better to piece together the occasional 3TE room than never get an elite tight end value.
What About Quarterback?
In Part 2 of this article, I’ll dig into the recent trends at the quarterback position and explain my general preference for 2QB builds while also exploring successful 3QB tactics.