Get These Values Before the Best Ball Market Catches Up

Even Sharp Drafters Still Give Away Value

If you treat a best ball draft like a redraft league, you’re doing it wrong.

If you’re reading this article, you probably already know that. Even sharp drafters can make maddening mistakes when the clock is winding down and players they like, or don’t, are staring at them from the board.

That’s why Draft Sharks exists: to help you avoid the draft-day mistakes that can kill your season.

Avoid These Dream-Killing Mistakes

With no waivers during the season, a bad draft can wipe out your chances of winning anything. Here are four mistakes that can leave you with more tears than victories.

1. Chasing Last Year’s Points

This applies across fantasy formats, which is why we roll out fantasy football projections so early in the calendar.

Last year matters, of course, but even a full season is a small enough sample to feed us misleading data.

That’s why the projections behind our best ball rankings pull from much more than just what happened last year, including play-caller trends, aging-curve data, each player’s previous seasons, and what’s changed in his situation for the coming year.

2. Drafting Too Safely

This matters less if you’re building a single roster to win a normal-sized league. In a best ball championship chase, though, upside matters more because a player’s peak weeks help you more than his down weeks hurt.

We account for that in our projections with a ceiling projection and ceiling likelihood for every player. That ceiling projection feeds into each player’s 3D value, and Upside Mode gives it even more weight during your draft.

Upside Mode flips on earlier in your Best Ball Draft War Room than it does for lineup-setting leagues, and you can turn it on even sooner if you’d like.

3. Ignoring Roster Construction

You can do well in many fantasy formats by simply chasing value and upside throughout your draft. But when you’re trying to win a large-field tournament, you need to dig a little deeper with roster construction.

Your roster construction starts with knowing how many players to grab at each position. Overall, you’ll typically want:

• 2-3 QBs
• 5-7 RBs
• 7-9 WRs
• 2-3 TEs

Of course, those totals depend on the types of players you take. Grab a stud QB early, and you can probably wait fairly late for QB2 while strongly considering skipping a third. Same idea at TE, where drafting a stud means betting on loads of high-level weeks.

The longer you wait at those one-starter positions, however, the sooner you should look for your second option and the more seriously you should consider a worthwhile No. 3.

RB and WR allow for more variation in best ball strategy because each position runs deeper. But you still need to weigh when you draft those players and what types you land. Get two clear lead RBs in the single-digit rounds, for example, and you can generally wait before filling out the position.

You also want ways to differentiate from the field, but that variation needs to make sense. Getting different just to get different is probably wasting an entry.

4. Stacking Wrong

You already know stacking matters on a best ball roster. The key is making sure you’re not doing it wrong.

Reaching well beyond ADP to complete a stack can wipe out much of the edge you’re chasing. The farther you reach, the worse the asset usually gets. (This matters less in the late rounds.)

Ideally, you’re completing stacks without overreaching while still finding spots to differentiate. Start with the ADP for the specific site you’re drafting on to uncover some underplayed stacks.

Also, if there’s a QB value you like later in the draft -- especially one you know you want to target ahead of his ADP -- plan ahead by snaring a pass catcher or two from his team earlier in your draft.

What’s Different About Best Ball Rankings?

Check the Rankings dropdown at the top of our site and you’ll see “Best Ball” among the options. So what makes those rankings different from the rest?

Well, they won’t look dramatically different, of course. We’re not talking about a completely different game here, but there are some key variations.

The biggest difference is that best ball pushes us to chase upside and worry less about risk. In a lineup-setting format, the WR who delivers three bench-level weeks for every big outing can be maddening because you’ll struggle to figure out when to start him.

In a best ball draft, though, we want that guy because the format captures every spike week while starting other players in his place during the down weeks.

We developed Best Ball Factor specifically to add value to that player type in your Best Ball Draft War Room. Meanwhile, the player who plods along with WR3-level weeks and no spikes loses some value. He can help stabilize your roster if you opened with three spike-week types, but he’s not winning you a tournament.

Top Best Ball Values by Round

Now let’s highlight some of the best values in the current market. Because best ball drafting hinges so much on roster construction, we’re doing this a little differently than usual.

Rather than simply point to the biggest values by our Best Ball ADP Index -- you can check that page to find an up-to-date version of those any time you want -- let’s go round by round. That’ll allow us to look at value picks in a way that can actually help you build a worthwhile best ball roster.

(Note: ADPs are constantly changing, so these results might not match what you see when you check the index.)

Round 1: Puka Nacua, WR, Los Angeles Rams

Nacua leads our best ball rankings while sitting just fourth overall in Underdog Fantasy ADP. He led all WRs by 1.7 half-PPR points per game last year, despite an eight-game stretch of uneven playing time in the middle of the season as he navigated an ankle sprain and rib injury.

Nacua also would have ranked fourth among RBs in points per game, but we like him better this year than Christian McCaffrey (age and injury risk) and Jonathan Taylor (TD regression plus QB-driven offense questions).

I wouldn’t draft the Rams wideout first overall every time I pick, but I like him over the RBs (and Ja’Marr Chase) if I get one shot at it. He’s at least easy to like anywhere in the top 4 of your draft.

Round 2: Nico Collins, WR, Houston Texans

Collins finished the past three seasons sixth, eighth, and 10th at the position in half-PPR points per game, yet he sat in early Round 3 in ADP early this draft season.

Collins has climbed a little, but his WR9 ADP still trails our WR7 ranking for the format. More importantly, the rush to grab early RBs still has him sitting near the end of Round 2 in ADP. 

Compare that with his ADP around the 1-2 turn the past two years, and it gets easier to understand why he’s a value.

Bonus on these first two wideouts: Each will be easy to stack with his QB. Matthew Stafford sits an appropriate 14th among QBs in ADP, while C.J. Stroud’s all the way down at QB24.

Round 3: Josh Jacobs, RB, Green Bay Packers

Is it cheating to use a player with a 4.02 ADP in Round 3 here? I don’t think so, because I’m willing to draft Jacobs anywhere in this round. He should be going early in Round 3 and was before he got arrested in May on domestic-violence charges.

That situation presents obvious risk, but Jacobs also hasn’t been formally charged yet. Given how slowly NFL discipline tends to move in these cases, there’s a pretty good chance it doesn’t affect his 2026 availability.

And if that proves true, he’ll be a steal at current cost. Jacobs has ranked sixth and eighth in half-PPR points per game in his two Packers seasons so far. He’s going 18th among RBs on Underdog right now.

Josh Allen would beat Jacobs on straight value, but I’m going RB here because Jacobs stands out as easily the position’s top early value and we can address QB later.

Round 4: Colston Loveland, TE, Chicago Bears

Loveland matches Josh Allen as the biggest values among the first four rounds by our numbers, despite sitting third among TEs in ADP. That’s because you can get him more than two rounds after Brock Bowers and nearly two rounds after Trey McBride.

Jared and I discussed on the TE Tiers podcast how we see Loveland’s ceiling lining up pretty closely with those of Bowers and McBride, so there’s a big potential advantage in getting to draft three other players before chasing that ceiling.

We also agree that his QB, Caleb Williams, is overvalued at his QB6 Underdog Fantasy ADP. So I wouldn’t be looking to stack this one too often.

Round 5: Christian Watson, WR, Green Bay Packers

Just like in Round 3, this spot would go to a QB (Lamar Jackson) if I stuck with straight value. But we’ll address that position next round.

I can understand if you’re apprehensive about Watson and his injury history, but he hasn’t had hamstring trouble since 2023 and didn’t lose a game to injury last year after returning from his ACL recovery.

Watson also ranked 17th among half-PPR WRs with a career high in points per game, and his recent contract extension signaled Green Bay’s plan to keep him in charge of the receiving. That frightening injury history is keeping his price down.

If you’re actually building a roster, I don’t love pairing a WR and RB from the same team this early. But each presents value individually, and the Packers finished four of the past six seasons among the league’s top-12 in scoring.

I don’t mind putting both high-upside players on the same roster and making a bet on Green Bay being good in general this year.

Round 6: QB

Why did we pass on Allen and Jackson earlier? Because we can get to Round 6 and find four value QBs potentially available:

• Joe Burrow
• Jayden Daniels
• Drake Maye
• Jalen Hurts

This is a good time to stack any of these guys with a WR you drafted earlier. The three runners in this group are also fine picks without a pass catcher already rostered, because you can still find stacking chances later.

Round 7: DK Metcalf, WR, Pittsburgh Steelers

Straight values would favor a QB or TE Tucker Kraft here, but we’ve already hit those positions and don’t want to double up this early in your draft.

Of course, it would be fine to go RB here in an actual draft and ignore the “value” plays. But for our purposes, I’m highlighting Metcalf, who sits 37th among WRs in Underdog Fantasy ADP vs. WR29 in our best ball rankings.

Metcalf finished 25th among WRs in half-PPR points per game last year and posted four top-12 weeks among 15 appearances, despite his fewest receptions per game since 2019 and an offense that ranked just 22nd in passing yards.

HC Mike McCarthy’s offense should prove more pass-friendly than that of ex-OC Arthur Smith.

Round 8: It depends

This one’s tricky. Our Best Ball ADP Index says the real values in this range are at QB and TE, so if you haven’t addressed one of those spots yet, Round 8 offers a good fit.

If you’ve already drafted starters at both spots, though, this is a little early for your second. Rico Dowdle leads the RB-WR pool in value vs. ADP and would be a fine RB2.

Dowdle has the upside to lead Pittsburgh’s backfield under a coach he played for with the 2024 Cowboys. Even in a split backfield, he’d carry spike-week upside.

I wouldn’t love doubling up on Steelers in the single-digit rounds, though, so you could certainly go a different direction if you already drafted Metcalf.

Round 9: J.K. Dobbins, RB, Denver Broncos

Dobbins is a much bigger value than Dowdle was in Round 8. In fact, he’s the biggest RB value on the board to this point.

Before a Week 10 foot injury ended his season, Dobbins ranked 16th among RBs in carry share, beating RJ Harvey by 103 attempts over that span.

Dobbins didn’t deliver huge spike weeks, but he finished inside the top 16 in five of his 10 appearances, including RB13, RB15, and RB12 the first three games.

He can steady your roster here and let you take more boom/bust shots at RB later.

Round 10: Jonathan Brooks, RB, Carolina Panthers

Let’s go ahead and take one such shot right here.

If you did draft according to this plan and pass on Dowdle in Round 8, then Brooks would look fine-to-good as your RB3 at this stage. He’s back on the field following that second tear of his right ACL and drawing plenty of praise from coaches and other observers.

Even if he opens behind Chuba Hubbard, Brooks still has room for the occasional usable week. His real sleeper case, of course, is overtaking Hubbard or claiming the lead job if the incumbent goes down.

Brooks’ best ball ADP has climbed, but he still counts as a Round 10 value by our numbers.

Now It’s Time to Build Your Best Ball Winner

Ready to find the top values in your own best ball draft?

We built the Best Ball Draft War Room for the specifics of this format, so your job gets easier.

You’ll see stacking options highlighted, control how much weight to give a player’s upside, and get up-to-date pick recommendations at every turn.

Plus, if you’re drafting on Underdog or FFPC, you’ll see the Draft Sharks sidebar right there inside your draft room.

Sync your best ball entry now and get the most powerful draft assistant in the industry.

Next Up

Where Best Ball Tournaments Are Won: Top 2026 Week 17 Game Stacks

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Matt Schauf, Editor

Matt has earned two Fantasy Pros accuracy awards for IDP rankings and won thousands of dollars as a player across best ball, dynasty, and high-stakes fantasy formats. He has been creating fantasy football content for more than 20 years, with work featured by Sporting News, Rotoworld, Athlon, Sirius XM, and others. He's been with Draft Sharks since 2011.