Lineup Fantasy Football Show - 10 BEST Fantasy Football Draft Strategies Ranked & Tiered with Joe Pisapia

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Ranking and Tiering the 10 Best Fantasy Football Draft strategies for 2026 with expert Joe Pisapia including Zero RB, Hero RB, Tier Based Drafting, and even ADP Arbitrage! Timestamps: 0:00 - 10 Best Fantasy Football Draft Strategies 1:23 - Zero RB 5:10 - Hero RB 10:57 - Robust RB 17:55 - Tier Based Drafting 21:45 - Elite QB 27:29 - Team & QB Stacking 32:03 - Elite TE 36:53 - Hero WR 40:12 - Robust WR 43:07 - ADP Arbitrage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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So if you want a simple daily upgrade for your teeth that tastes great, check out underbrush. Order now at nathansons.com. That is nathanansons.com. Try it now. Fantasy football drafts are the best part of the year. But what's the best draft strategy to win your fantasy football league? We're ranking and tiering the best fantasy football draft strategies, including a few sneakier

ones your leaguemates don't know about. Let's go. Welcome into the lineup fantasy football show. I'm Mitch Anderson. I'm Justin Mello. And Mello, today we are joined by a very, very, very special guest. We've got Joe Pisapea here to help us break down and rank some of the best fantasy football draft strategies for 2020.

How's it going, Joe? That's great. First of all, that's the most special I've ever been. I got three veries. I just want everybody to know that I got three veries there. So I'm a very special guest. And I'm excited to join you guys. I've been following your stuff on YouTube.

Massive success. I'm jealous as a day one YouTube channel. This is my first day on the job as an independent. And you guys are one of the gold standard. So I'm excited to be here hanging out with you guys and just talking ball. Man, that's what we like to do. Let's do it. Before we get into it, that's a perfect segue to go check out Fandem NFL, Joe's channel on YouTube. It'll be linked in the description and a card will be up here right now. But let's jump in, Mello, and let's talk about one of the first draft strategies that you're going to introduce today. We're starting off with one of the most, I don't know if common is the right word, but I think well known is maybe the better way to put it. And that is the zero running back strategy, essentially bypassing running back the first four to seven rounds, let's call it, in order to load up at other.

positions, get a premium at other positions, and then target running back slate, maybe some guys with upside. And it's a very historically risky and controversial strategy. And I think this year, probably more than most, it's when I see a lot of people fading and trying to get the running back surely. And I absolutely do think there's a lot of wisdom and zinging while everyone else seems to zag. So maybe you can pull one over on your league mates, load up elsewhere, and dominate everything but running back, but it's a really slippery slope to try to climb. It's not one that I'm sure I have the guts for. It's not one that I think I am brave enough for this year, because the next thing you know, you're relying on Chuba Hubbard and Jalen Warren to hold down the running back position,

and that just does not sound desirable. What could go wrong? Yeah, what could go wrong with some fringe starting running backs in your actual fantasy team's starting lineup? To me, Zero running back's kind of like, I don't know if you guys are foodies or if you ever watch the Food Network, but the show chopped. It's like going on chopped and trying to make like a filet mignon out of ground turkey and twizzlers. To me, like maybe you're just better off starting with a nice beef tenderloin.

In other words, you're running back position. That's maybe the best analogy we've ever had on the show. Solid. I'm not going to lie. It's pretty solid. This is a strategy I have loved for years. And I think for me in 2026, just with the ADP landscape, it's like you said, Mello,

like really difficult to try to attempt this, unless you've got a lot of high conviction on late running backs. But Joe, where are you at with ZeroRB in 2026? This one to me is very annual pool. You know, you got to know what's going on. Like some years you get these running back classes with a lot of rookies that you feel like, okay, in the second half, if I draft a couple of these guys, maybe by the second half of the season, they start to come on. I remember Jumear Gibbs' rookie season, you know, there's some guys there, you know, like the second half of David Montgomery was very useful in fantasy his rookie season. But, you know, I think this year, especially when you're

looking at the zero RB, a lot of that has to do with the size of the league you're into. So if you're a 10 team league, I think it's much easier to do because the replacement value is easier. The waiver wire is going to be easier. If you're at a 12 or 14 team league, it gets way more complicated. So for me, I prefer the next strategy we're going to talk about than to go full zero. I am a wide receiver guy at the end of the day. I do prefer to you build my teams that way because I'm sure, as you understand too, Mitch, it's the war of attrition of injury, the quotient of injury can be so high at the running back position every year that it's one of those things. You draft that early running back, like for those people two years ago that went McAff

despite ignoring all the data that, you know, good folks like me were trying to throw out there about, hey, that things happen next year, be careful. It just crushes your season from day one almost. And that's very difficult. I mean, I talked Ednauzian last year on the Black Book and on shows last year on podcast about the 400 plus carries of Saquan Barclay two years ago. And when you hit that 400 carry mark of the last 25 years, Hall of Famers, the Curtis Martins, the, you know, great running backs like Jamal Lewis, Edron James, all the. these guys who did that the next year they did not finish as RB1s did say one barkway finishes an RB one last year no so you've got to understand the workload what you're going into with some

these RBs to go zero altogether is tough especially in the year like this i think there's a couple guys that are kind of on that one a tier of running back that i kind of like the value of in that early second round but again it think it's something you can pull off more in shallow leagues than deeper ones yeah i think and we like to put all of our our uh takes in the context of a 12 team league. And so as a recovering zero RB drafter, I think this to me is a D tier as one of our least favorite strategies here for 2026. But Joe, perfect segue. You brought up our next strategy, which is one I'm actually loving this year. And that is the hero RB, also known as the anchor RB, which is taking a singular running back in the first round to solidify your RB1

spots that you can spend the next few picks building depth in the other positions. I think not only specific to 2026, but I wouldn't be shocked if this remains my favorite, at least. for a few years just because of what we're seeing with the way ADPs have shifted and running backs going earlier in drafts. And so I personally love this a ton if you're at the one or two spot. You grab yourself Jamir Gibbs or Bijon Robinson.

And then you spend the next few picks solidifying at those other positions, come back and you grab a rock solid RB2 and David Montgomery or Dandre Swift. And I think that's a much better start than trying to piecemeal something together like Mello said with his Twizzlers into a filet mignon.

Yeah, I'm not going to try to get better than that analogy because it's it's just so good we're just going to leave it repeat that's it you're 10 minutes into the show might as well just call it a day but the hero rb strategy is also you know for that back end too i want to make sure if you're at the turn and again the first show i did today was about identifying some of these values and these investments i want to make omarion hampton is a great example of that i vomit 12 and i come away with a j brown and amari and hampton i'm very happy with that i feel good about hampton as my rb the The ADP is being dictated right now of some of the unknowns, the fact that he was hurt last year, the fact that people don't, you know, quite want to buy in yet.

But I think that's absurd because when you look at some of the projections across the board, it's projecting much closer being a top five RB for Hampton than it is a top 10. So, I mean, why not take the plunge there? Whereas in the middle, there's so many of those great wide receivers, the Amman Ra's, the CD Lambs, even the Justin Jefferson. So I think is due for a bounceback. I mean, have we forgotten how great? What an all-world talent, Justin Jeff, Jefferson is. Oh, preaching on the choir. Yeah. I mean, what the hell's going on out there? It's like, I want to shake people sometimes and say, do you remember football in 2024? I'm just curious. Because 2025, I get it. It was crap. I get it. I hear you. But let's put it in context, for the love of God. Let's not forget the other four glorious seasons before that. But going back to this strategy, you know, for me, this is the one that I like because it allows me to get the heavy wide receivers as well. It allows me to grab one of those big tight ends if they fall to a spot where I feel the values there. And then I can play the field a little bit on that RB2, especially

in PPR leagues where you can make up grounded RB with some of the guys that might not be the goal line guys, but they are going to get you the points. And I think that's something to not forget within that strategy. Yeah. Back to Justin Jefferson. I think there are nine reasons why we can forget last year.

Also, I think I'm going to retire. Is he a Vikings fan, Mitch? I don't know if I hit a nerve. I wasn't sure. Oh, no, he's a Justin Jefferson Dynasty owner. That's what it is. That's the nerve that was struck. No, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I actually think I'm going to retire after the high praise of the stupid chop jokes. I really appreciate you guys doing this show. I'm going to head out now. But no, I am also a fan of the hero running back strategy. I think Joe, to your earlier point, don't we were talking zero's running back. You do have to be terrible because hero running back can turn into zero running back really quickly with one unlucky injury. So that is the downside. If you're investing high capital in a running back and then not addressing the position for another four or five, six rounds, with the that said though, if it goes right, it can go really, really right because even if you're sacrificing or not getting yourself an edge at the running back two position, you still can get

some guys late to hopefully bridge the gap a little bit. You can more than make up for it at that running back one position, depending on the running back you actually get, and depending on you know, where you're picking in the first round. And then also you're able to still feel they're really competitive team elsewhere. So to me going here, a running back allows for debatably one of the most complete roster constructions you can get. Yeah. Justin made a great point. too Mitch about that to choose that person wisely. Now, I understand Hampton had injury last year, but he's young. All right, he's a new running back.

It's, you got a great offensive mind there in Mike McDaniel, who's going to be calling plays, and you're giving him a real boy, a quarterback for the first time, which is going to be very exciting to see what he can do with a facilitator like that of the football. But it's, you know, in that same range, you're looking at Ken Walker, who, you know, God bless him, incredible running the playoffs, incredible performance in the Super Bowl. But he has a history of breaking down annually and missing time annually. So choose who you decide to deem your hero very carefully because age matters, situation manager, excuse me, matters.

And then also when you start to look at some of the other landscape of the history of their health, all of that should factor into your decision making of whether or not you declare that player a true hero RB. I think if you take Christian McCaffrey as your hero RB, it's like going to a roulette table and just putting all of your chips onto one number and hoping for the best. Yeah, when it hits, it's amazing. you know, I liked it last year. You know, it's funny, going into best ball season last year, he was going at like between 12th and 14th player overall. And I was like, awesome, cool, let's go.

That was like July. And by the time we get, you know, from Independence Day all the way to Labor Day, he was like the sixth player off the board and I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. And look, I was wrong at the end of the day, but it just wasn't an investment I felt comfortable making. And for a lot of good reasons, you know, I think leading up to it. We've been joking about our rankings. We've got Gibbs, Bejohn, and then CMC.

and we're like, are we just cowards for not putting CMC at number one? And yeah, right, thank you. That's fine. It's fine. That's fine. But you know, I'm a coward with you. Exactly. We're all cowards.

Before we jump into this next one, though, I'm glad, Joe, that you love this strategy too, because I think Mello and I agree this one's going in our S tier for this episode as one of the best draft strategies for 2026. But Mello, give us our next one, which is honestly a great one as well. Yeah, this is another good one. And maybe you are a little bit of a coward like me. And you want to load up on the. running backs early. Screw zero, screw hero. Let's go robust running back, grabbing three running

backs in the first four or five rounds, completely locked down that running back position. Now, I will say in full point PPR and even half point PPR, it's a little bit less advantageous. One, Joe, you mentioned earlier, just in general running backs, you typically see a higher rate of injury, more injury risk in general. But also, like I mentioned PPR, half point PPR, receivers is a much higher scoring position deeper in your roster, not necessarily at the top, but like a PPR league, I'm much more likely to fill my flex spots with some receivers. So if you're grabbing running back that early, looking at starting, you know, three, four running backs depending on the size of your league and your roster settings, a little bit less advantageous to load up on

running back. But with that said, they are the most sought after assets, especially when you get into this season. You need to start multiple. They get pretty gross and startable pretty quickly. It's not as deep as receiver like we mentioned. So from that perspective, you can never have too many running backs. It's like having too much money. I don't even think it's possible. I don't know. Maybe somebody with a philosophy degree and a higher IQ than me can answer that question for me. But regardless, it's good to have a lot of running backs because worse than the area, if you do need receiver help later in the season, there will be no shortage of potential trade partners who are desperate to get one of your running backs. Yeah, that's a great point. I think this one to me

feels like slightly riskier in terms of like team balance obviously. And just what I would say is if you're going to go after this strategy, I would avoid picking more than one of the onesie positions, tight end and quarterback in those first few picks. And I would make sure you're loading up at wide receiver. Because like the last thing you want is that you're grabbing a bunch of running backs and you get Josh Allen and Colson Loveland. And then your wide receiver one's like Christian Watson.

So I think this is a strategy for people who have a lot of conviction and confidence in their ability to hit the gems later at the wide receiver position. And we've talked about it at nauseam on this show. I think the depth is great at the wire receiver position. You can get the wire receiver one overall Parker Washington so late anyways. So what's the point of drafting them early? Just want you guys to know, it's going to live on the internet forever. How are we feeling about the robust running back strategy, Joe? Is that something you're doing it all in 2026? I'm not an RB robust fellow. Okay. I just, it's not. It's not. not my cup of tea. I prefer the hero or I lock in that one. And then I like to kind of fish around

for some value there with that second running back because my thing is when you, look, it's a passing league. That's where we are right now. I know last year it reverted a little bit back to the running back. And I actually talked about that in the Fantasy Blackbook last year. I was like, look, these last two years, you could see this moving a little bit towards the running back because you're getting a lot of youth and inexperience at quarterback. And you're getting a lot of over the hill guys who can't play anymore, that kind of weird in between. There was supposed to be a group of quarterbacks that were supposed to take us in to this era, and they haven't. The Andrew Lux of the world retired. What was supposed to be at this juncture, the guys who were the Brady's and the breezes,

like they're not there, right? They're all gone. So now you're in a much different span because you're dealing with these guys who are year one rookie starters more often than not when they have the big draft capital. And there's a huge learning curve. I think it's going to be a little bit better this year. I think this year quarterback, and, you know, when you start the quarterback and work your way out, it gives you a much better idea of what the pool is going to be and which offenses you should invest in. But for me, if you go robust RB, you miss out on so much of those wide receivers in a passing league that you end up at a deficit because those are the guys that have these massive weeks sometimes that will just on their own win you a week. When Jamar Chase, you know,

drops 11 catches for 1, 48 and 2 touchdowns, like, it's game over. You know what I mean? Those kind of things are. And it's not that the RBs can't have those days. God knows Jonathan Taylor was scoring touchdowns in a glorious clip last year. We all, it was unsustainable. I know so many people that traded him like in October, and it just kept going and they just hated their life because they just couldn't fathom that it could continue. But I do think you're going to see it revert back a little bit more

and the learning curve go a little bit more. And you're going to see more and more of these RB by committee stuff too, where they just don't know who it is and it's going to be frustrating and fantasy. So missing out on those top tier wide receivers, you better have a plan. And I just don't know if some of those offenses are prolific enough in the middle to get some of those guys. Like maybe Christian Watson can become a wide receiver one, maybe.

But you're asking a lot of things to break right for that to happen. His health, Jordan loves performance, offensive lines, ain't healthy, yada, yada, yada. So it's just a lot you're asking, I think, of that task. I love, I don't know if you know Matthew Betts from the fancy footballers. Sure. I've had him on the show. Matthew is the best. How dare you see other guests behind my back?

We're supposed to tell him Mitch. That's on me. He's great. Matt is fantastic. Something I always love that he says, and this is more best ball specific, but he says you want to minimize the amount of things you need to get right. And I think that was so perfectly put right there. It's like you don't want to need to have nine things break right for Christian Watson to become your wide receiver one, these other things to work out.

And so I think that just goes back to what we kind of said at the beginning of this tip is that you need to make sure you have a plan and you need to make sure you're actually getting wide receivers in those spots where you're not drafting running back early because we didn't even include zero wide receiver on this list for a reason. I think that draft strategy is going to completely burn you in 2026. Oh, that, yeah, that's not an option. I don't think that qualifies as a strategy.

Yeah, I've never seen anybody do it, but I guess that's just the inverse of robust RB, where you're going, like, you're trying to look down the trough at wide receiver. And realistically, like, when does that start? I mean, are you starting with Garrett Wilson is your one? or are you pushing all the way down to, I will say this. There is a world this year where at wide receiver 23 DJ Moore

and Terry McLaren bounces back and like maybe you can make it work with a couple of these veteran guys. But I think what's going to happen is people will say, this is the Marvin Harrison here. Okay, we've been saying that a couple times. It hasn't worked yet. This is the Brian Thomas bounce back. Like you've got to have something.

Alec Pierce is the guy that Indianapolis is paying him to be. Maybe. But we don't know. And I think that makes it very difficult to pull off. Joe, I think you missed the report that Marvin Harrison Jr. put on 45 more pounds of muscle this summer. So I think he is a wire super one. If that's all it takes, man. That's all it takes.

I'll get hit the gym again tomorrow morning and just keep packing on that muscle. Yeah, we can probably get you out there for the Raiders at this point. Before we move on to the next one, though, Melo, I think we're in agreement. This is going to go A tier. This isn't as good as Hero R.B. But I think we're feeling pretty strongly about loading up at running back this season. I agree. With the contingency that you should also address receiver early as opposed to getting a onesie.

Like, if you're going through robust running back early, I would not grab one of the highest quarterbacks or tight ends. 100%. This next one, we're cheating a little bit. It's kind of a strategy, but to me it's more of a philosophy. Let's talk about tier-based rankings, which for anyone who doesn't know is drafting based on positional tiers, understanding where you believe there's a drop-off out of position. And if all players from that position have been taken in the tier you're looking at, attack another. position. And I think this one is timeless. This isn't 2026, 2025. This is just a really good mindset to

have when you're in a draft so that you don't go reaching on players and you have to find guidelines on how you actually value these guys because we all know everyone's got a plan until you get punched in the mouth during a fantasy football draft. Yeah, absolutely. Look, for me, this is Fantasy Blackbook 101, right, which is my rankings are quantified. So if you look at it, you know, wide receivers are not a position because everyone's got to have a wide receiver. wide receiver one. Wide receiver one is a position on your roster. Most people are going to have one. So how do you create a roster advantage? Well, what I do is something called relative position value where you're able to look at all those, you know, the top 12 wide receivers,

compare their fantasy points by, what, three or averages, by the previous season, by the projections, it all cooks them in together. And then you see a percentage where the fantasy league average at wide receiver one or RB1 or RB2, whatever that is. And you see the pluses and the minuses. And it gives you an idea of how to stay above that fantasy league average. because fantasy football is simple. It's about me outproducing you on my roster from as many spots as I can on a consistent basis. And if I can do that, I'm going to win more games than I lose.

So that's fantasy blackbook 101 stuff. And I always say rankings are good, tiers are good, quantified rankings and tiers are best. And when you start to see that, you also know where to spend your draft capital and an auction draft too. Why am I overspending on a player that doesn't move the needle, right?

I want to make sure that I get the guys on my roster that are going to move the needle. And to some of these strategies we discussed, robust RB, or if you want to go, you know, a heavy wide receiver, how are you wanting? You're creating a relative position advantage. And then if you're smart enough and you're savvy enough, you can make it up later if you know the right players to take, or you can stay in that fantasy league average at wide receiver three or RB2, depending on where the draft pivoted for you. So yeah, tiers are the best, but quantified tiers are where you can really dominate. Love that. Yeah, I love that too. And just

in general, tiering, I think we're all sort of the lose. to the fact. I think this is common practice, almost common sense at this point in the fantasy community, which is great because the alternative is this kind of like reckless idiotic drafting almost. And the other thing... Which can also be fun. Which, I mean, it could be a good time. He shot out of a cannon today, Mitch. I don't know what got into Justin. I'm running on like four hours of sleep. I think it's doing good things to my brain right now. Honestly, I'm just, I'm like flu game Jordan right now. Um, the other thing I think about... with my tiers and this more so applies in and stake drafts as opposed to auctions but I think some

people are really quick to just take the highest player on their big board it's like oh man I really like you know whoever it is it can be anyone I really like Brian Thomas this year he's still available he's my top player my big board I'm gonna take them but maybe that isn't the best pick if you're looking and you have five receivers in that same tier sitting there and only one running back who's sort of the last guy in that tier he might be the sixth guy in your board. But if you know you can get him here and still get one of those five receivers at your next pick, that's sort of the game you should be playing in drafts. I entirely agree. And I think it should go without saying the way we've all been praising this. This is absolutely in our S tier and a

philosophy you should be using for every fantasy football draft. But Mello, before you introduce our next tip, if you haven't yet, please hit that subscribe button for fantasy football tips all summer long and through the entire season. Also, make sure to go check out fandom NFL to catch Joe and his fantasy football and general NFL content all season long. But Mello, let's introduce our next draft strategy. Let's talk about a new position here we haven't done too much of. That is elite quarterback, spending high draft pick on top three, maybe top five quarterback. We'll talk about it. We'll call it top three, maybe. And for me, I think where this is most interesting is top one, that being Josh Allen, because historically he has given you a huge edge in fantasy quarterback one overall for

the last six years. Even in the years he was quarterback two. there's often a very big gap between him and the quarterback three. So from a forward perspective, ceiling perspective, he has historically been a value pretty much year over year. And from that lens, I'm interested in going early quarterback if I can get Josh Allen at ADP or maybe he slips past it. But the flip side of that is I think 2026 is probably the deepest quarterbacks ever been from a fantasy football perspective.

And I really want to just grab a couple quarterbacks in the double digit rounds and still feel like I have an advantage. But the flip side to my flip side is, If we really got a consolidation of tears here, I still feel confident Josh Allen will be above it. So while everyone else is battling basically, you know, in a negligible range of points, whether they took the third or the fourth or the eighth quarterback off the board, you can still get that advantage with Josh Allen. So maybe you take him. I could see it going either way.

I don't have a problem if someone wants to take Josh Allen at ADP. Once we start going to the quarterback two or three, that's where I'm definitely less interested in going, you know, quarterback super high and I'm probably looking for those later round values. Yeah, I think I'm kind of in that top five. I feel like I'm kind of Josh Allen or bust. I just like so many of those late quarterbacks and it almost feels like the Trey McBride stat of there was more points between the Tide End 1 and Tide End 2 than there was between the Titan 2 and Tideon 27 last year. It just feels like you've got a huge advantage with the top guy. And then why am I spending so much of an opportunity cost to get a Drake May or a Caleb Williams

when I could get similar production later on and grab some of these wide receivers that we're excited about. Yeah, I would echo those sentiments. I would say the adjustments you make is in a standard league for those of you who still enjoy fantasy football in 1997. I hear you.

I'm here for you. I get it. But those standard leagues, those guys that control all the scoring in their offense, Lamar, to a certain extent, Drake May, but obviously Josh Allen, right, J-1 Hertz,

a couple years ago, too, with the 18 touchdowns. That kind of stuff. When you're throwing all the touchdowns and you're scoring all the touchdowns, like that matters in those standard leagues because touchdowns are king. So I would just keep that in mind. If you're going to reach for a quarterback, do it in a standard league. Otherwise, I do agree with the sentiment. I just on fandom NFL today, part of this magnificent seven that I discussed, you know, I had a couple guys each position and one quarterback was Bo Nex.

Oh, yes. It's not pretty all the time, right? Not pretty all the time. In fact, the first half, you probably don't want to watch. You want to go out for a coffee. You want to go play with your kids. You want to just don't watch it. Second half stats will be there, but it's really interesting because when you look at some of the better

projection places, basically they're showing you the exact same year for him, which I think is hilarious because he's like the 15th quarterback off the board. And you're giving you the exact same season where he was basically like, you know, QB9, right? And you're telling he's going to have less passing yards when they added Jalen Waddle and they showed you they want to open up this. Like, that doesn't compute to my brain. So I went on a rant about that in the show today. I encourage everybody to go check that out because whether it's Brock Purdy or Bo Nick, or some of these other folks, even if you carry this notion with you

into Superflex drafts, this is a year where you can very comfortably go Bijon, go Jemir, go, you know, even get to the middle if you want to go chase or you want to go to another elite wide receiver and then start taking quarterbacks after, this is the year to do it. The soft middle this year,

which I like to call it in the Blackbook, is better than ever. You've got the reigning MVP. MVP is the 12th quarterback off the board. The reigning MVP. Now, I get it. He's almost as old as me. I get it, you know, and I'm old.

But it doesn't matter. Like, he's in a great offense with a great coach, with a complete continuity, with an incredible set of weapons. You can't think that, you know, everything's going to fall apart all the time. So, yes, the Bow Nicks, the Brock Purdy's, the Jared Goffs, who every year finishes the top 10 NQB and nobody cares, right? They're all free. So late round QB this year in single quarterback league is absolutely the way to go. And I think anybody who doesn't is nuts outside of the standard leagues. I, it's like if I couldn't have named three more perfect quarterbacks that we've talked about on our show as Bo Nicks, Brock Purdy, and Jared Gop.

But even later, if you think about Baker Mayfield Mitch, right, in Superflex this year. He's coming off two years ago, he was at, you know, scratching 5,000 yards kind of. We're thinking, oh, my God, then you start off last year, MVP candidate, and then injuries happened and everything fell apart. Like, there's just so much. It's just crazy. It's crazy to me. It's very deep. And that's why going back and when you tie the whole stuff.

stuff together, the big picture we're talking about. That's why I'm more optimistic that we're moving back away from the RB stuff, because I feel like QV, healthy, better, more experienced, some of that youth coming through to, things are going to be a little bit different this year. The Cam Ward stepped forward, you know, the Tyler Shuck stepped forward that we saw last year. We're starting to see some of those younger guys start to get more comfortable at the NFL level. A thousand percent.

Mello, I think we put this one in our B tier. I think if you can get the right guy at the right cost, mainly if you can get Josh Allen, then I think it's worth it to start building your team around him. But otherwise, we're trying to hit a lot of those later quarterbacks versus, I love the way you put that, the soft middle. We just called Bo Nix, or no, Caleb Williams is expensive Bo Nix. And that's been the take we're living on. Yeah, with better nails. Yeah. No question. We're not saying anything about Bo Nix's nails. No. No, that's true. I haven't seen them. I don't know what they are. So on to our next draft strategy. Let's talk about team or quarterback stacking.

which is drafting pieces from the same team, most commonly a quarterback with a pass catcher, like, for example, Drake May and A.J. Brown. We, like, recently discussed this in an episode talking about Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase. And so I think that this is very circumstantial. I think it makes sense when you're drafting a pocket pass in quarterback like Burrow because you're taking the shot on him outperforming his ADP, and in that shot, you're expecting the Bengals offense to all come along with him because he's not going to be doing it all on the ground, like, say,

a Jalen Hertz or a Lamar Jackson or a Josh Allen. And so this is a great bestball strategy. If you're watching this video for bestball, put this in the SSS tier. You should be stacking your quarterback with receivers. But when I look at redraft, I sometimes think it can do a little bit more harm than good because people get all excited about stacking a quarterback with a receiver. And there's so much data behind the fact that if you've reached too far past ADP to make it happen, you're hurting yourself more than if you just drafted two guys from separate teams.

Yeah, for me, I think this one is circumstantial, as you put it. If it falls in your lap and it makes sense, cool. Right. It's not something that I'm trying to do just, you know, I have to get this pairing. I have to get this group. It's not necessary what you have to do. I'll give you a great, for instance, two years ago, it worked out very well. Jake Sealy from the athletic friend of mine.

We used to have a radio show together for a couple of years, and he runs the Flex League Championship, right, where all the experts come drafts like me and Eisenberg and Jake and all these. It's great. It's fantastic league, really tough. I'm a three-time champion, by the way. I got the belts up there just to prove it. But one of those championship years, right, it fell into my lap and Superflex. Lamar Jackson and Derek Henry, which is a little bit odder of a pairing. We go, oh, why did you do that? Because I control literally all the scoring the Ravens. Because either Lamar is scoring a touchdown by passing or running, or he's handing it, or he's handing it off to Derek Henry and he's scoring. That's it. That's pretty much all the

touchdowns save the occasional pick six. That's pretty much the Ravens' offense, those two guys. So think outside the box with it too. I'll say another interesting pairing like in deeper leagues this year are Superflex like Tucker Kraft and Jordan Love. Like that's a pairing that's a kind of sneaky one. So not all of them are premium necessarily. Some of them are kind of the under the radar ones

where you should start to understand how certain offenses work. A deeper league too, if you really want to take a shot at tight end, I think Chigua with Jaden Daniels is a really interesting one. That's really interesting one. He's shown you his proclivity to go to the tight end. Zach Ertz, another guy, years old, right? The last two years was very effective. Why? Because young quarterbacks

prefer to check down sometimes and not take too much risk and just feel more comfortable throwing a ball the tight end. Chigakanco younger, bigger body. You can make the argument, and especially the cost factor is, if you're wrong, who cares? But I think it's not just about the premium versions like the Derek Henry Lamar. It's sometimes those lesser ones, too, that you're not thinking about that actually make a lot of sense as well, that sometimes if the value just comes to you and presents itself and it's a good offensive ecosystem, then I think it's a good idea. Absolutely. First off, we love Chigacanquo propaganda on this show. We're- It is. I came to the right place. We are big distributors of Chigua. You're crushing it.

Yeah, I mean, Stacking's fun. I mean, forget strategies. It's just kind of fun. It's definitely better in best ball. I think we're all on the same page there. Yeah. It can strike terror in your league mates. I know I've like woken up in the middle of the night, cold sweats, knowing I have to play Patrick Mahomes and Tyree Kill on Monday night football the next day. And it's just a scary thing. but the only thing I'll add about stacking too is particularly I'm talking redraft here, not baseball. But people talk about, oh, it's all upside and sure there's a downside if the stack doesn't hit.

But it's not only necessarily lowering your floor. It can also sort of cap your ceiling, particularly if you are taking multiple weapons in the same offense and starting multiple weapons in the same offense, even if you have the quarterback. Because at the end of the day, especially in redraft, like I said, you're setting your lineup.

Those guys are locked in. And there's only one ball. So you can sort of cap your upside if you're relying on multiple weapons to have a big explosion game when really only one of them can have the ball at a time. That's a great caveat to mention

is like double stacking, triple stacking is great in best ball. I would not recommend it in redraft. I would slide this one right into the C tier. I don't think this is a great one, but again, it's circumstantial if it falls to you. Like, why would you not take great value

to get two guys in an offense you believe in? But Mello, let's jump into this next one. Let's talk about the tight ends and let's talk about elite tight end. Basically the same thing as elite quarterback, but just the tight ends. You're taking a top three tight end or so early in your draft. And it actually does have a pretty good historical track record of being a league wing strategy if you are right about who that elite tight end will be. And that is obviously the much harder part.

That's the hard hitting analysis. You have to draft good to win. If you're right. If you're right, you do good. I mean, tell me where he's telling lies. Yeah. In the words of CM Punk. I don't.

I don't say anything wrong on this show. That's how I keep my professional credibility. Not so far. I got to be honest, man. You kind of cautioned it today. But you look at years past, you have like Travis Kelsey, obviously, would go very high every year. And more often than not, it was a very good pick. He'd hit on ADP and it'd be a good strategy.

I mean, just last year, if you drafted Trade McBride in the second or third rounds, that was a tremendous league winning strategy. Going into 2026, I think it's still something I am interested in because of how confident I am in both Brock Bowers and Tran McBride. Obviously, the situation with McBride in Arizona is a little bit scary, but we saw what he did last year. He can afford a dip in production and still be very, very elite.

Brock Bowers in this Raiders offense with Clint Kubiak, he's talking about it on the show. I am super hot and bothered by the upside that's there. So it's something I'm interested in doing definitely, but it's not necessarily something I'm going out of my way to do because if you're taking one of those. top couple of tight ends, there's really good running backs and really good wide receivers on the board too. Yeah, for sure. To me, this is like the top two guys. I don't, I don't want to spend the elite tight end pick for where he's going right now on Colson Loveland, even though I think he's absolutely the tight end three. I just think Brock and Trey present the actual difference making upside and the

league winning upside that I'm willing to take the shot on because I think for this to work, you need this guy to separate from the pack significantly. I got a question for before you mentioned. It just popped in my head. Absolutely. After my big love letter to Colson Loveland on the show today. Of those three, who's got the best and most of McBride, Loveland, and Brock Bowers, the most solidified and stable quarterback situation? It would be Colson Loveland and Caleb Williams, but I would make the argument that

Frey McBride did not have a great quarterback situation last year. He didn't. He didn't. He didn't. And asking for the repeat of that, could be asked. asking a lot. Now, like, I love trade pride. I love them in college. He's a great human, too. He's like one of these guys, like, if you don't root for trade McBride, something's wrong with you. Like, if you love football, Trent McBride's a dude. I think the nice thing about Loveland is that he's not going ahead of the other two, but I think he's got an equal chance to outperform both of them. And I think what's so interesting about that is it's, and I, again,

this is something I mentioned on my show today on fandom NFL, which is if you, there's like a, a flare gun that goes off in your draft when that first tight end goes off. And it's like, okay, if you want one, it's coming soon, so you better figure it out. Right. Now, when that is, is great, because if you're in Loveland like me or you're into Tyler Warren or Tucker Crout, you start to have an idea of, okay, this is the range now where I've got to pay attention and close attention. It could start as early as round two.

It could start as late as round three, depending on the league you're in and the people you're drafting with. So to me, this is the one that is the most dangerous philosophy. And you also have to come to terms with the fact that your wide receiver room might look a little different. Yeah. But you have to understand. One of those tight ends is acting like your wide receiver 1A.

Yes. Because that's how good they are. So you have to come to terms with that and understand it and know your limitations and know what you're good at in terms of drafting analysis in order to make this work. This is a strategy that wins you a league. But if you're not careful, it can set your roster back to. So you better really have your you know what together in order to pull it off. And again, watch the flare gun.

That's what you watch for in every league. Yeah, that tight end run happens quick. It does. It does. And you don't know exactly when because every draft is like a snowflake. They're all a little different. So whatever that value is, whatever, like, you've got to see it.

Look, if they all run in round two, well, okay, that's not where you want them, that's fine. But if it gets in round three and then all of a sudden you see, like, you know, Trey McBride go early and then there's a wait before, you know, Brock Bowers because there's uneasiness about the quarterback situation. Look, I love Brock Bowers. He's incredible player.

But again, I love Mendoza. I'm thinking good thoughts, but I don't know yet. Kirk Cousins. I think I know where we are at the stage with our cousins. We should hopefully know. We should. And there's Colston Loveland, and they showed their hand. To me, the Bears showed exactly who they want to be in the future.

We'll see what Luther Bird is. We'll see what Romo Dunezai is. I think I know what Colson Loveland is every week. Melo, we are going to slide this one into our B tier. I think Joe put it perfectly. This is a high risk, high reward, but it truly can be league winning if you hit on the right elite tight end. Let's get into a strategy we alluded to earlier.

The hero wide receiver, also known as the anchor wide receiver. We went through this with the running back position, but taking a singular wide receiver in the first round to solidify your wide receiver one so that you can spend the next few picks building depth in other positions. I don't prefer this to HeroRB, mainly just because of the scarcity of the position. And I think if you do this,

you kind of have to rip running back, running back afterwards. And I think it can be a really good approach if you grab a guy like Jamar or Puka or JSN. And I think it's a good year to do it because these guys, you're able to get JASN. I've been seeing him slip to like sixth or seventh after such an amazing year. You know what, Mitch? I'm having this weird PTSD year over year about JSN that I had about James Cook last year

where everybody, all these really smart people in the industry, my colleagues, my friends, even. I can't draft James Cook. And I kept saying why. They've changed nothing. Where did they change? Like, tell me what they brought in that makes James Cook less valuable. And I'm listening to it. Well, he can't repeat the touchdowns.

Well, you don't have to quit him. Can he give me 80% of them? Well, guess what? I had James Cook everywhere last year and I was very happy I did because it came at such a discount and I feel like we're doing that same thing

so let me get this straight there's no other really great wide receivers there and the run game is possibly worse I'm sorry the only knock what's the problem is Clint Crudiac leaving town

and that was enough for me It is what they elevated from within in the play calling so it's not like it's a new body there you know what I mean it's like they hired from outside they promoted from within so

JSN discount sign me up I'm good I'm with you. I don't think he should be anywhere close to outside the top three receivers. Whether you have met two or three to me is a moot point. Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at too, because I've been, as the coward, we keep talking about here today. I am nervous about Clint Kubiak leaving too. We've seen coordinator changes, you know, really adversely affect people's output or their production. With that said, me being concerned isn't me saying fade JSNB because I'm still taking him top five in any draft.

So with that said, as it relates to the strategy of hero-wide receiver, if I can get one of those top receivers and feel really good about that and then still grab a couple of running backs before you hit the running back dead zone, as some people call it. Again, it's not something I'm going out of my way to do, but if the draft falls that way, it is a great way to get really great upside, get your elite receiver who can have a game-breaking type of performance.

You see these top receivers do every so often, and 30, 40 point a week, while still getting solid production and investing solid draft capital at the running back position as well. Absolutely. Do you, I'm torn on this. Is this A tier or B tier? I think we let our guests decide this one. Yeah.

Um, I'm going to go B tier. B tier. All right. Is that cool? I'm with it. That's absolutely okay. I'm with it. We had a coin flip there.

We needed someone to make the decision. I mean, it's hard because like I said, I'm such a wide receiver diva myself. I just want to, you know, and most leagues are PPR now, you know. So there's more easier birth for the running back situations, more depth on these guys you can get. You know, so again, if you don't have some elite wide receivers, it's tough. And look, for those of you hit on JSN last year, that's awesome. That doesn't happen every year where you get somebody that kind of discount. Well, Joe, I have a feeling you're going to love this next one because this is robust wide receiver.

We call this the Joe draft strategy here. I don't know. It feels like you guys are not going to like it as much as I do from some of these conversations, but we'll see. Spoiler. I do like it. Probably not as much as you, but if you haven't caught on yet, it's just drafting receiver heavy early. We'll call it three receivers in the first four or five or five, five, five, five, rounds. Completely locked down that receiver position. This draft strategy, I feel like has been all the rage the last few years, at least compared to what it was maybe five, ten years ago. People the last couple years have been acquiring or accumulating wide receivers early in drafts, like at some sort of life-saving medication. and ironically it's like it would have been the right thing to do maybe five, 10 years ago. But like you mentioned, Joe, like we've seen teams start to shift more run heavy offenses, at least compared to what they were a few years prior to that. And we've seen these two tight-end sets and the game shifted a little bit.

So it really hasn't worked out at least to the extent that people had hoped for the last couple of years. And now we're seeing these running backs start to get drafted a little early again. and people starting to prioritize running back again because there's such scarcity at the position. But like we've talked about with a couple of these strategies, sometimes you do want to zig while other people zag. And if you're able to load up on wide receiver early,

hit on some of your picks later at running back and some of these other positions. I think that is a fine strategy to take. With that said, it's obviously risky if you're fading running back by loading up on receiver early. And with that said, the one thing I would definitely recommend if you're going a robust wide receiver is to wait on your onesies. I'm probably not grabbing one of the first few tight ends or quarterback

because if I'm really going truly wide receiver heavy early on. Yeah, I feel like I have a general rule. I want to leave round five with two running backs. And so I fully agree with that. I agree that it's a good strategy and it's a strategy it was working for a few years there. Last couple years, obviously, that pivot because of the experience of the quarterback. Again, it's something that I tried to drive home for people in the black last two years was like, hey, quarterback's ugly a little bit, you know, especially that bottom

group, especially in Superflex. So that means the ripple effect is scoring is not going to be what you think it is necessarily. You're going to see some reversions or you're going to see some, you know, back to basics kind of football. And you saw a lot of that the last two seasons. I do think that swings back a little bit. That being said, I don't think this pool, the way it's lined up in ADP, at least, in the consensus, really lends itself to building a good roster that way. So I think it's more of a C this year than what you guys do. But it, it's, you know, It's also a, if the value falls to you and it makes sense, again, you're creating a relative position value advantage.

It's not terrible. Just you have to have a plan. That's all like everything else. It's kind of like to Justin's point. Absolutely. All right, we're going to slide that one in C tier. Speaking of value, perfect segue into our final draft strategy, ADP arbitrage, which is in like layman's terms like the best available approach.

You're just picking players each round based on who's fallen the most past ADP and kind of often ignoring. your positional needs. Before I give my actual opinion on this, I just want to say I find this is the least fun strategy of all and fancy football. I just don't think you have any conviction on anyone

and you're just kind of like clicking the highest button in your draft the whole time. And I don't know. I feel like it takes part of the fun away from it. But I actually don't think it's the worst strategy because I think consensus ADP gets sharper and sharper every year. And if you're consistently getting values

below where they're going in drafts, like you're bound to hit on some guys. I just, it's not a strategy. I would ever rely on to win my draft. I think it's one that you implement at certain times because you're noticing guys falling too far past their ADP. I wouldn't do it blindly because the rankings on some sites are better than others and worse than others.

Yeah. So that's the other thing. I would say if you have your guys and if, let's say, like, if you can leave the first five rounds with, you know, five of your top 50 guys, then that's good. So getting your guys is important more than it is necessarily the ADP arbitrage of it. If certain players that you don't love,

I mean, I'll give you, for instance, it was a couple of years ago when Josh Jacobs was still playing for the Raiders. I remember nobody wanted him in this draft. And he kept falling and falling and falling and I can't. And I was like, you know what? I love Josh Jacobs, but he shouldn't be there anymore. And I price and force. And that was the year he went bananas for the Raiders. And I was glad that I did it because I think at certain points, you just have price enforcing to a degree is important with players that have his track record, regardless of the fact you like them or don't like them.

But just kind of clicking the top guy off the board every time isn't a strategy. that's just kind of lazy fantasy, especially site to site, you're going to find different rankings and different issues. So if you don't work on your own rankings, it can be a lot trickier. So don't love it, but to the degree of getting the best player, screw whatever the positions are, that I am for, because the draft is for one thing, acquiring talent on your roster and as much of it as you can, and they can figure out the rest later. Yeah, yeah. I think, especially like you said, if you have your convictions and you're actually getting your guys, and especially if you're getting them at a discount. I think there's definitely high upside there. If you're truly going after your guys,

I don't have a problem with that. But like you said, too, you don't want to just be clicking top guy on the board because he's eight picks past what some consensus rankings or some jerk like me online said is the right guy to take. That is probably what I wouldn't do. I think, ironically, though, if you're truly mindlessly just taking best available, I certainly don't think that's a winning strategy, but I also think it might be the best strategy for not losing because consensus is typically solid enough where you're not going to have your convictions and then be so wrong that you're terrible. So if you're just in some degenerate home league and you're trying to avoid like getting a tattoo or eating 74 hot dogs in a week or something

discussing like that, by all means, do what you got to do. But I just don't like it as a winning strategy. Shout out our guy. O.C. Some of those things are rough, man. Do you play in leagues like that, you guys? We had a buddy in college eat 74 hot. hot dogs, yeah. It was awesome when we were all living like 10 feet from each other. Yeah. And you could like come over and he's just eating hot dogs. I don't know. Well, I mean, I don't think it's as good to live after that close to him. Yeah, you can ask him. Um, but I think if you are blindly doing ADP arbitrage, this to me is a D tier. If you're using it selectively and taking guys you have conviction on, I think it's circumstantial and it can be a good

strategy. But those were 10 of the best draft strategies for 2026 in fantasy. football. I want to give a huge thank you to our very, very, very special guest, Joe, for tuning in. Make sure to check out fandom NFL. And Joe, do you have anything left to plug before we get out of here? No, I plug the hell on it. Look, this was super fun. I'm so glad you guys asked me to come on and I appreciate you reached out to me, Mitch, last week too. Absolutely. It's great to meet Justin. Incredible work today by you. It's all downhill for here the rest of the season. It most certainly is. But you know what? Like, it's great to see folks like, you know, and I started in this business, gosh, I mean, almost 17 years ago now, right? And, you know, everything from

Sirius XM radio all the way through all these different companies over the years and stuff like that to see what it's become and to see folks like you out there with their own channels and stuff like that. It's inspiring. It's awesome. It's kick ass. And I'm just so proud to see what the industry's become with a lot of smart people doing their own thing because it wasn't an option years ago. And now look at me. Old guys got to start his own thing. So go check out fandom NFL. Go buy a fantasy black look. Check out the RPV ranking. on Amazon and keep watching shows like this because Mitch and Justin know what they're doing and it's a great show.

That's the best out show ever. I appreciate it so much show. Before we get out of here, as always, Mello, do we miss anything? I'm definitely done for the day. All right. We'll catch you guys next episode.