Lineup Fantasy Football Show - How to Win Your Underdog Best Ball Drafts with Matthew Betz of the Fantasy Footballers

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Matthew Betz of the Fantasy Footballers joins the show to help us talk through our top 10 tips for Best Ball players whether you're a beginner or just want some best ball strategy talk for platforms like Draftkings and Underdog Best Ball! 1:34 - Know Your Bankroll 3:55 - Understand Contest Rules 7:28 - Optimal Lineup Construction 10:53 - Benefits & Risks of Stacking 15:39 - Draft Like You're Right 18:37 - Build for the Playoffs 21:46 - Projecting ADP Risers 28:01 - Prioritizing Upside 30:07 - Diversifying a Portfolio 34:55 - Being Adaptable Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to the lineup fantasy football show. We have a very, very, very special guest. We are joined today by host of the fantasy footballers dynasty podcast, host of the fantasy footballers DFS and betting podcast, but most importantly, the king of the summer of best ball. Mr. Matthew Betts. Welcome in, Betts. Oh, man, I really wish that last statement was true.

If that was the case, I'd be, you know, rolling in all the money from best ball. But that is not the case, sadly. I haven't taken down anything big. What's funny is the best year I had in bestball, and I'll never forget this because of the weight and severity of the moment. I had, I think it was like the puppy maybe. I had a team in 10th entering that, the DeMarne Hamlin game in Week 17 of that year. Oh, man. No way.

And it was like, oh, man, this is crazy. So obviously that situation is way more important than anything else. But I'll never forget that. But yeah, man, thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited to do this. I haven't really, you know, I'm scratching the itch a little bit here when it comes to, like, like the pre-NFL draft bestball, but I'm trying to practice what we preach,

good bankroll management, you know, saving the bullets for what it matters most. But I have done a few drafts here to kind of get things going, but I'm excited to talk some best ball today. It should be a good time. Us too.

We've done the same thing. We hopped on live a few times earlier this like March. And it's fun, but you just feel like you're like, we're not quite there yet. We're not ready to fully unload the clip on best ball. Time is coming, my friend. The time is coming.

Time is coming. And we are here to, to give our top 10 tips. So let's jump right into things and let's kick things off with something Betts just mentioned. Our first tip for best ball this year is going to be knowing your bank rule. I want to start with this because I feel like it's the most

fundamental building block to Bestball. I know we can all get like a little bit excited when we're on Twitter and we're on social media or Discord and people are posting these big wins and they're maxing into the best ball mania. But I think as we look at this as a whole offseason long commitment, it's important that we're pacing ourselves and we're knowing how much we want to be in for.

So to break that down a little bit and put some actual numbers behind it, let's just use $100 as an example for your bankroll for a summer. When you go in with $100, you don't want to be jumping right into it and doing like a $50 best ball draft here in like April or May. You might be testing the waters a little bit, starting with some $5 contests and $3 contests. That way you can space things out. And obviously when you're seeing these contests like best ball mania, it's very appealing because there's that big million dollar prize staring you in the face. But I think when you're starting, you do need to be cognizant of how much money you're dropping into these contests because like I think you guys know you can get best ball fever in the early summer.

It can catch up with you quickly. Yeah, absolutely it can. And there's nothing better than like, you know, when when May gets here, like the NFL draft happens, we're all so excited. May gets here, these contests open and you feel like you're almost chasing your tail. trying to figure out which contests do I enter. Do I just go for Best Valvenia? Do I max enter the draft Kings Millie? Like, what do I want?

Oh, a new puppy dropped. Oh, a new schnauzer dropped. You know, whatever dog you like on a dog. A new contest drop. So the nice thing about understanding this aspect of everything here, knowing your bank roll, is that no matter what kind of player you are, high stakes, mid stakes, low stakes,

casual, very serious, whatever it is, there are contests for you and making sure that you tailor your bank roll to those contests is super important because it is very easy to get a little fomo and just kind of chase your tail a little bit with all these contests opening but sticking to a plan is very very important 100% I was 100% guilty of that going back however many years starting best ball I would just see a new draft lobby open up new contest want to jump right into it without even thinking twice really about what that contest is so I think we've all been guilty of that at different times and that's actually

the perfect segue to the second tip I would like to give. And that is understanding the rules and just understanding the contest that you're entering. And I know that might sound like super common sense. But I think especially for beginners, it's something to really be mindful of and think about. You get caught up with these large prize pools like you mentioned the best ball mania contest. That's one of underdog's biggest contests. And yeah, you want to jump. jump right in, you want to unload as many drafts as you can into a big contest like that, as much as it might suck to hear, is the odds are really heavily stacked against you in a tournament like that, particularly if you're a beginner and particularly if you don't plan on maxing out

your possible entries, because large contests like that, they often have up to 250 possible entries per person. That's where you're getting your heavy hitters, your pros that really have a statistical edge to begin with probably over your average drafter, but especially when they're drafting with such high volumes, it really is hard to win a tournament like that. So especially if you're a beginner, especially if your bankroll like we talked about with that first tip is a little bit lower. Maybe you start with some smaller contests, smaller pools, smaller maximum number of entries. That will probably give you a better chance. You'll start to get that statistical edge back a little bit. And then just the last point I want to make with these contests. And this, again,

probably sounds like common sense, but I do need to call it out. Make sure you know the actual scoring, the actual roster sizes of any contest. That will greatly dictate your drafts, just knowing typically you'll see half point ppr, two running backs, three receivers, that kind of thing. Make sure you take a look at those rules before you enter. This is such a good one because I completely agree. And you mentioned pros and the ability to have 150 plus entries. And not only do they have access to so much more data than a lot of casual players,

but then when you have that ability to make so many variations, that is, like you said, such a statistical edge. And then what you said was scoring and roster construction is so funny, because I still remember entering a Superflex underdog with a friend of ours a few summers ago, and he had no idea, and he just couldn't believe why so many quarterbacks were going off the board in the first round, and he didn't have a quarterback in, like, round eight,

and I was like, that might have just been $5 down the drain. Nice little donation there. Yeah, on top of that, just to kind of speak more to the contest stuff, understanding the advance structure too can be really, really helpful and can sometimes dictate how you draft. Like if you play in some mid to higher stakes smaller field contests, there are some that exists where it's like, you know, four of 12 in the first round get through and then it kind of goes from there. Whereas like the larger field tournaments, it's almost always two of 12. And then if you're on draft kings, like one of 12 each of the playoff weeks is so hard to advance.

So you always hear people in the best ball space talking about week 17. correlation but I've started to kind of my mind too to like hey in those super top heavy contests where you also have to compete in weeks 15 16 maybe getting a little bit of correlation stacking there is something that I'm not going to build my entire draft round but if it's on the board and it's available you know why not because advancing one of 12 obviously a lot harder than four of 12 or whatever your contest is so yeah definitely read everything I know it's so easy as soon as the contest drops to just hit enter but understanding like what you're actually doing is is is very important.

That's a fantastic point. And one that I didn't even have down in my notes, that is a great, great call out. All right, ready for number three? I'm ready. Let's do it. All right, optimal lineup constructions or roster construction. This is one that, you know,

there's so many little niche points of best ball where it's like, you know, the Week 17 stacking and the, you know, ADP values. And there's like all these little things that you can kind of point to build a good roster ranking sets, all these things. But at the bottom line of it, if you don't have like the skeleton in place, the foundation in place, honestly, a lot of that other stuff means next to nothing. So when we talk

about optimal lineup constructions and the kind of way I think about it is just like, how many of each quarterback running back wide receiver and tight end should I be drafting? And there's never a specific yes or no right or wrong answer to this question. But there are some pretty good outlines, rough parameters that we should follow. And there's a lot of data over the years now that we have best ball around for so long. That does support, you know, you don't need four quarterbacks. You don't need just one quarterback. Like, you need probably two or three.

It's kind of been trying to be optimal. Somewhere in the running back range of five on the lower end up to like eight, if you've only taken late round stabs, stuff like that. Wide receiver, you want at least five, but sometimes up to nine. And then at tight end, you know, generally speaking, two, two. There's some folks out there that advocate for the four tight end build if you're going very, very late. But like somewhere in that two to three, maybe in a small instance,

of drafts for tight ends. And just to understand, like you said, kind of like how many roster spots you have available, how do I allocate my draft picks to those positions? But really, if you take it one step further, understanding like ADP allocation to those positions is super important. So for example, a quarterback, you know, if you're taking Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson,

one of the first two or three quarterbacks off the board, presumably this summer, you probably don't also have to hit Jalen Hertz two rounds later, right? Like you're banking on Josh Allen to be your guy, Lamar Jackson to be your guy. So that probably is going to be a two-quarterback build where you say, hey, when I get to around 14, you know, Kyla Murray is sitting there, new starter for the Vikings, hopefully. He's sitting there.

I'll tack him on as my quarterback too, and I'm done because I've invested so much capital in Josh Allen. So understanding how to draft around those parameters, I think is important. But again, the rough outline that I generally follow, two to three quarterbacks, somewhere in the range of five to eight running backs, five to eight or nine wide receivers, and two to three tight ends. Yeah, I think it's so easy to get caught in a draft and things are moving fast and now the play clocks at 20 seconds. We were already dealing with that at the beginning of this spring, like a whole lot faster, a whole different game than the 30 second clocks on underdog. And like for me, I like having a moment in the draft, like a tier cut off where I say, okay,

now we're probably going three quarterbacks. If I didn't get a guy here and I don't have a Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson, I wasn't able to even get like two middle guys. And same thing with tight ends. So I do think this is like one of the more important tips, I would say, in all of best ball is just making sure that you're constructing a team that actually makes sense. And I think that this is actually going to go directly into our next two tips as well. But Mello, you have any more points to add in? No, nothing of substance really. I think you covered it well. I think especially though for beginners going in, your roster construction on your best ball team is probably going to be significantly

different, or at least could be significantly different than what you might draft in a draft league like your home league. So just keep that in mind and be cognizant of that. But I think you guys covered all the main points. Let's move on to tip number four, the benefits of stacking and the risks of stacking. I think this might be like the biggest buzzword in all of bestball in the past two to three years. Stacking your quarterbacks with pass catchers and even sometimes their running backs

has been proven to be an extremely successful strategy in bestball. But specifically when you can get these players at or pass their ADP, When you take a chance on a quarterback, you're making an investment in that offense. And in order for that investment to pay off, odds are you'll need to elevate a few of those pass catchers along with them. As with any great strategy, though, there's always risk involved. So we want to warn you not to reach too far on your stacks because you might have gotten Josh Allen and now you're so excited to go pair his new weapon DJ Moore with him.

But you don't want to go and grab DJ Moore a pick or a round ahead of where he's being picked because they've actually found that reaching too far for a player in a stack is going to be worse off for you than if you just didn't stack that quarterback at all. Yeah, I think something else to consider with stacking too, which obviously the power of stacking is very, very important. And it is something you should be targeting, although not reaching. But I think beyond just not reaching, I think there is potentially such a thing as overstacking. I'm curious to get both of your thoughts on that as well. I've been in draft before, though, where it seems like every skill player, every pass catcher for my quarterback is falling,

and then all of a sudden I'm at my fourth, my fifth, my sixth weapon, maybe. And at that point, you might run into a little bit of a diversification issue, but curious on both of your thoughts as well on over stacking. Yeah, to me, this one comes down to cost relative to your stack. And we did have some data in this. It's all happened in front of me,

but we did a show on the ballers DFS pod last summer about this. The sweet spot is kind of in that like three to five, generally five at most, teammates paired together. If you understack, let's just say you have a single stack. It's Josh Allen and DJ Moore or something like that. When you get to the playoff weeks,

if that does happen to get through, you kind of need that stack to go off. Whereas let's say you also paired him with Dalton Kincaid and maybe whoever Buffalo's RB2 ends up being, you kind of have more bullets in the chamber that, hey, if the bills just explode for three weeks in a row, you have more opportunities to hit those pieces. At the same time, if you zoom out over 14 weeks

to look at the advanced structure, here. Like if you take multiple pieces from an offense and that offense hits, you have again more pieces, more access to that team if they are successful and outperform their ADP. The thing that I mentioned though about the cost relative to the stacking

is like I remember a couple years ago the bears, you know, were the hotness with like the Keenan Allen year and everything when they signed. Caleb Blames the first overall pick. It's like man, there's no way this can go wrong. Yet every single player on Chicago of note was basically going in the first like

nine rounds of your draft. And it's like, if you take four bears in the first nine rounds, they better be a top five offense. Otherwise, relative to cost, that offense is probably failing. And that is kind of what ended up happening. So from a game theory standpoint, too, like, the way that I approach some of this stuff is like, if I'm going super late, you know, like, credit they have a good example right now. Like the Texans are kind of one of those teams where it's like Nico goes super early. Nobody wants to touch Stroud right now based on what's happened recently. There's ambiguity on like tank Dells health and other ancillary pieces and then nobody wants Dulton Schultz because he's boring. It's like, well, if I took Nico and I can get C.J. Shroud

and I can get, you know, R.B2, Woody Marks or whoever you think it is and then tackle on Dalton Schultz late. It's like I'm not investing a ton of capital into this team. Maybe I want to play the scenario out in my head where it's like, oh, the Texans do bounce back. Their offense is awesome. And therefore, you know, three or four of these pieces kind of come along for the ride, especially considering that they're cheap versus a team like right now the Eagles all go super, super early. Yeah. Like I don't know that I want to leave my draft, assuming AJ Brown is still an eagle, with Brown, DeMontas Smith, Sequin, and Jillyn Hertz. It's like you're asking so much of that stack at that premium cost.

As a pro-Jaden Higgins podcast, I'm so excited that you brought up the Texans and their cheap pieces, and that was the perfect example. We are very pro-Jadden Higgins. And I actually love the Texans example, too, because I think that same year, if my memory, memory serves me right. I think it was 2024. The Texans were another team that they were way over inflated in best ball drafts. It was Stroud's second year. And then you had dig signing there, obviously with Nico as well. Tank Dell was being talked about like a huge breakout. And you compare the values of those guys then versus now. And they're so significantly cheaper now. You can still

get that stack. And we could see the breakout this year that people thought they'd see in 2024. So I do think that's something to be very mindful of. And as long as you both already, I'll jump into my next tip, which I do think is somewhat related. All these tips are great. All these are very important. I think this one for me is up there, maybe Mount Rushmore of one of my favorite tips. And that is draft like you're right. And I know that sounds super simple, but it truly can be so impactful in all of your drafts. This is not redraft. This is not dynasty. This is a whole different format where you only get one shot in each draft. So you should treat every pick that you make like it is the correct pick. There's no reason to shoot for a median result. Shoot for the top

and assume that every pick you made is going to shoot you to the top. So to illustrate what exactly that means, let's say you take Bejohn Robinson in the first round, you should be operating under the assumption for the rest of your draft. He will be incredible. He will not miss any time. He will play every week. He will be in your RB1 spot every week will be one of the top scores in all of fantasy football. And that way you can address other positions and other needs as opposed to grabbing his handcuff in case he goes down or grabbing multiple running backs the next couple rounds in case he has some down weeks. Because the reality is, although that might raise your floor a little bit, if Bejohn gets hurt or if Bejohn's disappointing, you're SOL anyways. You will not be

advancing anyway. So there is no point in hedging those bets. I think going back to the conversation around stacking, it's similar as well. If you take a quarterback, you're investing in that offense as a whole. So it makes sense to take his receivers later on. You're picking like your previous picks were correct. So I think that's something super important to keep in mind as you're going through your drafts. 100%. This one is ironically bets, I think listening to you and Borg a few summers ago,

this was one of the tips that's always stuck with me and just such a mentality in the way I draft my best ball drafts. And Mello, a great wording there of not worrying about median results and always looking for a ceiling and making sure that you are getting like the highest possible ceiling for your team because we talk about like sure you can make it out of the regular season but then you're going to need to be the best of the best to keep advancing in the playoffs and so getting a team that comes in fifth place isn't going to do you anything you've got to make sure that you've constructed a lineup that can be the best possible scoring team yeah this is this is so important i think

the unfortunate thing that nobody really like wants to hear about best ball is you should expect almost all branches to lose. It's kind of just the reality of the situation. That's the game we play. It's super top-heavy. If you're in any tournament, you know, if you don't get to the finals,

like you're probably not making a ton of money back. So the expectation is not like a redraft league where it's like, hey, if I get the fifth seed here, I can take in the playoffs and make noise. The expectation is you will lose. And that stinks, but that's the reality.

So when you do hit that 90% to outcome, if you are the team that advances to 15, 16, and then maybe week 17, you want to have your team optimized to perform well in that scenario. So just drafting as if you're correct and not playing for safety is so, so important. And kind of speaking to that, too, like the next tip here, building for the playoffs is, it's kind of an interesting conversation because you don't want to, you know,

what's the saying? Put the cart before the horse. You don't want to over-emphasize week 15, 16, 17. But the, like I said, the truth of the matter is if you're playing in any sort of tournament, oftentimes these contests are so top-heavy that, yes, it's good to advance the team. team and get your money back. But the truth is, like, realizing your edge and your EV will not happen unless you advance teams in the playoffs and then get to week 17 and just hope you run pure. So when I think about that, I'm not over emphasizing those matchups, but I am considering them.

And what I mean by that is like, if I have, you know, two players that are very close in rankings, you know, most of the time I go with player A, but maybe this time I go with player B, if I know the the week 17 matchup and I know I've got the quarterback on the other side of this, what if I just kind of stack the scheme up like we would in DFS and hope it goes bonkers and kind of hope I have the right pieces around it. It's something that I will do. Again, it's not the way I go into a draft, but if I'm in a draft and the board falls that way, I will usually break ties to those playoff matchups. And the other thing, too, like, it's really fun when the schedule comes out. You know, everybody makes it a big guilla. It's super fun. The charter social media account always wins

that battle every year on Twitter. It's so good. But the week 17 matchups come out, and we all kind of eye the matchup we think is going to go off. You know, a couple years ago, it was like Sincey in Kansas City, and there was a couple, like, gross matchups that you're like, I really can't see the Jets in Cleveland in a snowstorm in December shooting out in week 17. And what do you know on a Thursday night? That game goes absolutely bonkers. So I used to like try to prioritize the matchups I love for week 17, but I'm just opening my mind to like, I don't know, who knows what's going to happen in three weeks, let alone four months, right?

So let's just open our mind to like maybe these games do shoot out and kind of go crazy. So correlating when you can, but not necessarily over emphasizing the correlation is kind of how I put it. Yeah, I think that's perfectly put. And I actually believe it was on your show. One of you two had mentioned that you often look at it as a tiebreaker when looking between stacks or players. And that is stuck with me because I don't want it to be the driving force to why I'm drafting players. But if you are stuck between two quarterbacks or two stacks in a certain draft, like it can be a, okay, yeah. I could see this path in weeks 15, 16, 17 for one quarterback versus another.

Yeah, I think striking the balance is really important, too, because early on when I started best ball drafting, I didn't pay attention to it at all, even a little bit. And then eventually I got to the point where I was 100% overdoing it. Like, just intentionally targeting players on teams I thought would be on high-powered offenses, playing other high-powered offenses in Week 16 and 17. So I think I'm a little bit better at striking that balance now, But I do think that's something important to think about.

It should be on your mind. It should be a consideration. But there are other much more important considerations as well. Absolutely. Let's move on to our seventh tip, Mello. We've been preaching this a little bit. This is for the real sickos who are drafting in March, April, May specifically. But we've been trying so hard to project potential ADP risers.

And I think this is like it works throughout the whole off season, but because of how many different situational changes there are at this time of the year. it's most important right now. Ambiguity can be one of the most beautiful things in finding value in fantasy football. And a great example of this was last summer Mello, you were telling me all about how badly you wanted Keenan Allen because he hadn't signed anywhere. And Keenan Allen was going in the last round of your best ball drafts. Next thing we know, Keenan Allen signs with the chargers. We see his ADP shoot up a couple rounds overnight. Now, that example is not going to be the case every time that we're going to have a star veteran wide receiver with no place to go,

and it's a pretty good assumption that he is going to get signed by a decent team. However, I think there are times that you can look for this still this offseason. A young receiver going into their last year of a rookie deal as the subject of trade rumors, what if he gets dealt to a better offense with a better quarterback? Look at George Pickens last year was a phenomenal example. His ADP absolutely shot up for good reason once he moved to Dallas, and obviously he exceeded those expectations. Another great one is a rookie running back stuck behind a veteran with some injury concern rumblings.

What if it's more serious than we think? Woody Marks and Joe Mixin last year kind of embodied that. We haven't been the biggest Woody Marks guys this season, so obviously we're not going down that road. But looking at last off season, his ADP skyrocketed in the late summer and became an absolute steal. Another guy was like, Jacori Kroski Merritt. I know that one didn't work out. But if you look at the value, you could have gotten, you know, a little bit after the draft in April and May versus when all that buzz out of camp came in the summer. So I think this is not only looking for situations,

but also just having some conviction in guys you believe in, because if the guy has the talent, odds are they're going to make something of whatever situation they're in. Yeah, just to add on to that too, like there's some examples where like an injury happens in camp to the RB1 and it's unfortunately season ending or they're going to be out several weeks. You obviously can't predict those things, but like RB2 will then shoot up. Those are situations that you can't really predict. There are some situations where, you can kind of like forecast some stuff happening. One example that comes to mind right now,

like we don't know what's going to go on with AJ Brown, but there's enough rumors where it's like, we were drafting Devontas Smith kind of at this spot anyway last year. I'm like, I didn't get with this price anyway. It's like, what if AJ Brown has actually moved? Then Devontas Smith probably is a second round pick, I would think? Maybe like two, three turn kind of guy. So trying to bake into like your range of outcomes on certain players

in terms of their potential to rise, I think is really important. The other thing on this is kind of, understanding like the cyclical nature of rookie ADPs. Like right around now as we approach NFL draft, like rookies are on everybody's mind. It's the front and center of the NFL because the NFL draft, obviously. And so rookies tend to kind of be like hot and heavy. They're exciting.

They're the hotness. You want them. And then there's like this lull in like the middle of summer where like rookies tend to kind of fall back. And then as you get closer to the season, I'm going to get camp hype from preseason and stuff like that. Then you see rookies kind of start to shoot back up. So kind of like understanding the ebbs and

flows of rookie ADP. A couple of examples from last year like, you know, Trayvion Henderson shot up. Honestly, I don't even know why. I think it was just people who were excited about him. The last like, yeah, just hype. Like the last like two and a half weeks, like he was up to like a third round pick on drafting as I recall. And it's like, I don't know if I want to chase that.

Like I like him, but I don't know if I want to chase that. One of the benefits of drafting throughout the entire process is you can get best prices on players and not feel like you're backed into a corner of having to chase that player. Another example is a Mechaabuka, who have course had camp pipe from like the moment camp started till week one, he was like a ninth round pick at one point on draft kings. He closed, you know, right in the fourth round, basically. Yeah. So just kind of understanding those ebbs and flows, I think is really important.

We also see, we kind of get like stuck in sneak bit on certain players. Like, if you guys, the Condre Lambert Smith little moment in time that happened last August. Yeah. It was like, how can you not take him here on the 15th round? Like, you have to, right? And it's like, guys, the only thing on TV right now is Prece's. And of course he's shining. And of course he's shining. So being able to kind of understand and filter the noise on rookies, I think is really important, too, when it comes to these ADP risers and followers. As a Jacori Kroski Merritt, Truther, aka a Bill Lever, I fell for some of the hype last off season. I'm trying to be better this year. I do, too.

I don't even know if it was just hype. Like, the team legitimately gave him a chance. Yeah. It just kind of, like, he didn't really take it and run away with it. And he's a great example. It's like there was already some, like, Ben Standig does some great work covering the team. There were some reports where it's like, hey, you know, Brian Robinson may not be on this roster. And people were like, hold on, what are you talking about?

And then, of course, like three or four days later, the trade happens. So if you have that little window of timing to be like, look, JCP is probably a pretty good pick here in the 18th round anyway. What if he does get dealt and then he's the starter? Now you're looking at a guy who goes in the seventh round. And so understanding when to stop chasing rookies, I think is also very, very important. Or not just rookies, but in general. very important because the bet you're making on a player in round 18 is vastly different than a bet you're making on that player in round 7

or something like that. So I got my bill exposure last year in like early August. And by the end of August, I was like on the do not draft list. I don't want round 7 price, JCP compared to everybody else in my contest that hasn't been around 18, 19, 20. I think we do two really funny things as drafters. And JCP weirdly last year, I feel like is kind of an example of both. One is, you're right, we chase how.

especially for rookies, but really just players in general, anytime you get camp hype, I think sometimes drafters have a tendency to overreact to it. And the second thing we do is, and this one's kind of funny, it's more often for veterans or older guys, is we know a move is going to happen. It almost seems inevitable, but we refuse to pump them up in ADP until it does. Like Keenan Allen, you mentioned, was such a good example of that. Stefan digs last year as well. Everyone knew he would sign somewhere, but then he finally does and his ADP shoots up.

So targeting guys like that where you know something's going to change before something does actually change, I think is a pretty good strategy late in drafts. And that brings me to our eighth tip here, which I do think is related. And that is prioritizing upside, which I think that's important in any format pretty much, regardless of whether it's redraft or dynasty or best ball or whatever you're playing. But more so than any other format, best ball, is really where you're. need to prioritize upside because upside is king and i get it i play a ton of redraft and dynasty and i like mixing in those safe guys i like those safe floors to mix in with my risky picks so i feel like i have some sort of stability or safety on my team maybe you're in a redraft league where you're trying to avoid getting a tattoo or spending 24 hours in a waffle house i get it i've been there but that's not

best ball this is best ball where upside is king and grabbing that mediocre running back on a mediocre offense who's probably going to finish between the RB12 and the RB22 doesn't really move the needle all that much especially when you look at how high those guys are often going in drafts but that rookie or that second year running back who could be a backup could do absolutely nothing for you but also could explode down the stretch take control of the job and be the RB8 or the RB9 that's a game changer that's somebody that actually can make you advance in your tournaments and could actually win you money. So those are the guys I'm targeting.

Sure, they're riskier. They could flop. They could be terrible. But to be honest, it doesn't matter. We talked about it earlier. Like, there's no difference between finishing fifth or six in your pool and finishing dead last.

But there's a huge difference between finishing fifth or six and finishing first or seconds you actually get to advance. So make sure you keep prioritizing upside. We talked about it earlier. Betts, you mentioned. Like, the sad truth is

not all your time. teams. In fact, most of your teams will not advance, which by the way, that made me feel really good. It made me feel like I'm doing a really good job in my drafts. But when you do advance, you want to give yourself a chance. So make sure you prioritize upside. I'm just here to give you the cold hard truth, man. Unfortunately. That's going to be our next episode, top 10 harsh truths about best ball. I love that. I wish people understood, you know, I wish people knew. Next one here is just talking about a portfolio approach and diversifying your portfolio. And so if you're somebody that only drafts

five or six teams every summer, this probably won't apply to you. And there's a lot of people that do that. That's cool. Get your guys. Like, have fun with this, right? Of course. But if you are somebody that's like, hey, I'm going to max BBM or I'm going to max the puppy or whatever it is, you're throwing hundreds of bucks at this,

maybe even four figures at this, you can really get in trouble or have a huge reward. If you're only trying to take on like a handful of players that are your guys for the year, And the unfortunate thing with best ball is you can be right often and it doesn't mean a thing. And so when I think back to this, there's multiple examples where it's like stuff you can't predict, right? A season ending injury to somebody in week nine and your team looked amazing. You had 35% of this player.

He was kind of your flag plant for the year. You took him everywhere. Okay, you're right. But then you get to week 10, it doesn't matter. So you can't control that stuff. And obviously you can't predict it. there's other stuff where it's like, you know, I remember the Rishi Rice here where it's like, is he going to get suspended? Is he not going to get suspended? Unfortunately, we might have that

same conversation this summer, but this was a couple years ago. And because of the uncertainty, he fell to like round eight at times when it was like really uncertain, round nine at times. And I truthfully was hammering Rish Rish Riz. Like I had an unbelievable amount. The first three weeks of the season, I'm a genius. I'm going to want all the money. Look how smart. This is great. And then what do you know, season ending injury doesn't matter, right? So best ball is so cyclical And like you kind of have to have a team that Has these mixed and matched

Match components to it where some guys hit early Some guys hit late some guys sustain all year And you kind of have this like ability to have spike weeks Throughout the season If you're only putting all your eggs in one basket on a few different players If that guy says healthy and he smashes You will probably have a pretty good year If that guy gets hurt or disappoints

You'll probably have a very terrible year So I've taken more of a portfolio approach personally where we think we know it's going to happen in July. We think we know it's going to happen in August. But the reality is like the NFL is the Wild Wild West. As soon as games kick off in week one, chaos pretty much ensues from week one to week 17. And nobody can really predict some of that stuff. So if you are able to invest across several different players, several different teams,

give yourself multiple outs to hitting the right outcome on the right team and the right contest. You know, you won't necessarily have all of those teams perform well, but you might have one or two teams perform really well and kind of make your entire season if you're able to hit it big. So I do try to take that portfolio-based approach, not go super heavy on one or two specific guys to really spread out exposures

and try to get some different teams, different exposures, different quarterbacks, different stacks, all that sort of stuff. Yeah, and just referencing back, you were talking about Bill earlier and how you had loaded up so much when he was a 17th, 18th round pick. Even if you're not necessarily seeing a guy rising in ADP

throughout the summer, you might just notice you've drafted a lot of them in you know June, July and then in August, maybe you don't have to keep drafting the guy. Even if you love them, you've drafted 20, 30 lineups with him and you kind of have your exposure and it's time to move on to some of these other guys that maybe you're not quite as excited about, but have just as much upside as the guy you've been drafting so much. Yeah, for sure. And I think one way to keep yourself in check with this, it's kind of wild, like how auto draft we get where it's like, you're not really auto drafting, but you know, you get to 17, round 18, you're like, you're like,

are my guys, these are the guys I take. Yes. And before you know it, you look back 10 drafts later and you're like, I took that guy eight times. Like, did I actually want to do that? Or was it just a habit of like, that's who I saw on the board? So I tried to check in on my exposures probably like once every like two or three weeks, like if I'm drafting a bunch in June July. And just like I ask myself, like, do I actually want this? Like, do I actually want 20% of this player or did it just happen because he's highest in my ranks and it happens to fall that way to me often?

Or is it just like a happenstance type of thing? So the worst thing that can happen is like you get your exposure and you're like, I don't really want that. You know, so just making sure that you're drafting the way that you're actually trying to, I think is really important. I love that auto draft thing because I do it too, especially the last round of drafts. I have my convictions on guys. I think they have such upside. But then all of a sudden it's like, yeah, I'm at 50% exposure. And it's like, what the hell am I doing?

Because even if I'm right, which I'm clearly not always right, but even if I am one injury could, you know, potentially ruin the rest of the Cs. And so definitely got to keep an eye on the exporters as you're drafting throughout the summer. Bonus tip to avoid the underdog highway hypnosis in rounds 17 through 20. Yep. Let's jump into our final tip. I think this one honestly applies to every format, but best ball as well. And that's just to be adaptable. I think we all have a plan until we get punched in the mouth.

And that 20 second clock starts moving really fast when things are unexpected in a draft. And you may have gone in thinking, I'm doing a three-quarterback build, but there's Josh Allen right there. And he's like five picks past ADP and you want to go grab him. Or maybe you were thinking of building a stack with Burrow and Chase and all of a sudden, Burrow goes off the board. And I think the most important thing is never be set in like, this is absolutely what I'm going to do. And always have contingency plans while you're drafting and make sure that you're prepared for the worst, basically, as you're going through your drafts. And don't get too set in your ways on what you want to see happen. The other thing too about if you do a lot of drafts, like right or wrong, good or bad,

ADP kind of sets up the way it is. And unless we get like major injury news, for the most part, it kind of stays stagnant in some ways where it's like, this guy goes to two, three turn. I know this guy generally goes around seven. I know I can get this stacking around 16, 17, 18. Like you kind of know the board in general for part of the dead period, like May to like mid-July, probably. and so if you are drafting those windows like you said being adaptable like I'm shooting for the stack oh I didn't get it it's okay I know what I have in my back pocket I know what goes later so I know how to kind of back plan this thing is super important and kind of knowing like what we do with the best ball primer is trying to look at like stackability of each team and trying to understand you know where does quarterback or wide receiver two go for this team okay where does wide receiver three go where did their tight end go so I know that hey if I take this quarterback I have multiple outs later to stack them versus like a team that goes superiors super early. Like if you miss out on, you know, you took a quarterback and they don't,

you don't get their pass catcher. And there's like nobody going late, you're kind of stuck. So just trying to understand and know the board and kind of know what you have access to in different pockets of the ADP landscape, I think can be helpful too. Yeah. And I think it's especially important to have at least some sort of sense of that in those fast drafts where you have under 30 seconds and it's going really quick. Slow drafts obviously a different conversation. But just being open-minded and flexible with your approach, I think is really important, especially when that clock is ticking down. You don't want to be panicking and just taking the top guy on the board

because you don't know what else to do. Absolutely. All right, boys. I think we covered everything. I think so. I think so. All right, well, thank you everyone for tuning in. Thank you to Matthew Betts for joining the show.

Our first ever guests, by the way, I can't think of anybody I would have rather had as our first guest on the show. Make sure to check out bets on the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty podcast as well as the Fantasy Footballers DFS and Betting Podcasts. And we will catch you guys next episode.