NFL Playoffs Best Ball: DraftKings NFL Best Ball $3M Playoff Millionaire Strategy, Stacks and Targets
The NFL Playoff field is officially set, and that means that our playoff best ball strategy must evolve. The window is closed for speculating on teams that hadn't officially made the playoffs yet, like the Steelers and Panthers. There's also no longer any mystery as to who the top seeds are in the AFC and NFC, and the entire drafting population is aware of the Wild Card Round matchups along with the paths for each respective team.
In this article, we'll steer our attention to the DraftKings NFL Best Ball $3M Playoff Millionaire contest. My guy, Mario Puig, wrote up a great DraftKings Playoff Best Ball primer last week and a lot of his strategic points still hold true even if we've had some material changes as far as the player pool and ADP are concerned.
I'll break down the basic roster construction details and rules, along with strategies to employ with specific examples.
Here's a snapshot of the current DraftKings Rankings/ADP highlighting the top 50 players.
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DraftKings NFL Playoff Best Ball Rules
- 6-Player Draft Pods
- 12 Rounds
- Fast Drafts (30-second pick clock)
- Starting Lineup: 1 QB/ 1 RB / 2 WR / 1 TE / 1 Flex / 6 Reserve
- Top team advances from each pod each round until we get to the Super Bowl, which is an 816-seat final.
DraftKings Playoff Best Ball Strategy
The end goal is very straightforward for this DraftKings best ball tournament. You need to have enough points each week to advance all the way to the final, and also enough players active in that Super Bowl round to give you a chance at having the top scoring lineup when it counts the most.
Getting to the final is all well and good, but if you have just 2-3 players active, you're just not going to be able to compete with the teams with full lineups.
With that in mind, you have to draft in a way where you have strong exposure to one AFC and one NFC team. Stacking with 2-3 players from each of those teams is going to give you a major leg up if you get the Super Bowl matchup right.
Like any NFL fan, you probably have your expected Super Bowl matchup. If you look at the Super Bowl odds at DraftKings, you'll see the Seahawks and Broncos as the favorites from each conference, with the Rams and Patriots trailing closely behind. If you can get a full stack of Seahawks and Broncos, more power to you. However, most drafts won't give you an easy path to loading up on favorites. And there's the additional wrinkle where neither of those teams will give you points in the Wild Card round, so your remaining players will have to do some heavy lifting this weekend in order to unlock your top-seeded stacks.
This means you have to put your Super Bowl expectations aside and take what the draft gives you. Maybe you don't think the Texans can make it to Super Bowl Sunday. But if the draft board is giving you opportunities to load up on Texans players, you'd be wise to take that opportunity.
In the end, the ideal roster should have enough Wild Card round juice while also having players from both conferences on teams with legit Super Bowl aspirations. Again, making that happen is tricky, so don't be overly rigid. Just keep your eye on the prize and aim to have a roster that you could see having 5-6 players available to you on Feb. 8.
ADP Values
Quarterbacks
- Trevor Lawrence, ADP 22.3: The Jaguars are arguably the hottest team entering the playoffs. Sure, the Texans' win streak (9) surpasses the Jags' lowly eight-game streak, but Houston had to scrape by teams like the Raiders and Titans in that stretch. Jacksonville, meanwhile, blew the doors off of most everybody in their season-ending streak. That includes a 35-6 drubbing of the Chargers and a statement 34-20 win in Denver. Lawrence is playing the best football of his career right now and is guaranteed at least one home game. Getting him at QB6 feels like a solid value, especially when you consider how easy it is to stack up Jaguars as your draft progresses.
- Caleb Williams, ADP 44.6: Williams is another first overall pick who is taking the leap to stardom at the right time. With the Bears as the No.2 seed, there's added value in Williams because he's guaranteed two home games, assuming Chicago advances. Now, Round 3 against the Packers will be a challenge this weekend. Then the Bears would either play the Eagles or the winner of Rams vs Panthers. Maybe it's a little tough to envision a QB leading his team to the Super Bowl in his first playoffs but things are as wide open as they've been in a long time. If you're able to grab Williams as your QB2 or QB3 in the 8th round, that's a nice value.
- CJ Stroud, ADP 52.3: It's not flashy; Stroud was QB 20 on the year and rarely popped for more than 20 DK points during the regular season. That being said, the Texans can make a serious run thanks to the defense. The ADP is simply too low for a starting quarterback on a team that could absolutely make a run through a wide-open AFC bracket.
Running Backs
RB values are a little harder to come by. The obvious workhorses get snatched up early, and then there's a swath of backs that might be one-and-done. Again, we need to be a little agnostic on a team's Super Bowl chances. If you're leveraged on teams that are on bye this week, those active RBs in the Wild Card round are still very important.
- Zach Charbonnet, ADP 45.6: You've probably seen the meme stat that Charbonnet (159.4) and Kenneth Walker (160.9) basically had the same fantasy production this year. Even with that in mind, Charbonnet is going almost two rounds later than his backfield counterpart. Charbonnet is a little more touchdown-dependent than Walker, but that risk is baked into ADP. He could be rocket fuel for teams that make it past the Wild Card round.
- Josh Jacobs, ADP 30: Here's hoping the week off in Week 18 gets Jacobs closer to 100 percent. At full-go, Jacobs projects for a top-five workload among running backs playing this weekend. The ADP is reasonable, as he can likely be drafted as your FLEX or first reserve option. Getting at least two games would be ideal for Jacobs drafters, but he should help you advance to the second round regardless.
- Blake Corum, ADP 45.2: Corum is slightly ahead of Charbonnet in ADP thanks to the assurance of playing in the opening round. And as a 10-point favorite, no less. Corum has less of a claim to the Rams' backfield than Charbonnet does in Seattle, but the former Michigan running back finally got himself on the fantasy radar down the stretch. He had double-digit carries in all but one of his final five games, and he was injured during the one game where he fell short. Corum's a very nice addition to any team with some Rams pieces already built in.
- Others: Kenny Gainwell (ADP 56); Bhayshul Tuten (ADP 65)
Wide Receiver
- Kayshon Boutte, ADP 54.73: The Patriots obviously have a lot of good things going for them. A minimum of two home games (assuming a WC win) and an elite quarterback are chief among them for our purposes. The Patriots spread the ball around a lot, which means it's not just the top two options who can make a splash in a given week. Boutte is a downfield specialist with a 16.7% aDOT, and with Drake Maye's prolific downfield accuracy, the LSU wideout still managed a 72% catch rate. Boutte is a good pick in a vacuum and a great pick if you've already invested in Maye. We might not see a huge target game for him, but big plays happen when Maye looks his way. Kyle Williams (65.7) also makes sense with Mack Hollins currently on IR.
- DJ Moore, ADP 52.33: Moore runs a little hot-and-cold, which explains the depressed ADP. Hesitance about the Bears' Super Bowl chances aside, Moore might be the best option in that passing game right now outside of Colston Loveland. It's hard to gauge what version of Rome Odunze we'll see in the postseason, and Luther Burden is going roughly two rounds ahead of DJM. Moore is a good bargain target, especially if you have nabbed Caleb Williams a round earlier.
- Pat Bryant, ADP 66.1: Bryant started to come on strong late in the season and became a reliable target for Bo Nix. Now, Denver's passing game is a crapshoot once you get beyond Courtland Sutton, but if you're looking for a secondary piece of a Broncos stack, you could do worse than Bryant. He averaged 4.2 catches for 45.8 yards over his final five games and had six red zone targets.
- Others: Konata Mumpfield & Xavier Smith (last round stacking pieces only); Cooper Kupp (64.2)
Tight Ends
Don't sleep on tight end in this contest. You have as many starting spots allocated to TE as you do RB (flex spot notwithstanding). There are a lot of good tight ends in these playoffs, even with no Travis Kelce. And oftentimes, you don't even need to spend a premium pick to get one. Here are some of my favorite TE values
- Hunter Henry, ADP 25.8: Henry is an extremely reliable target for Maye, and given that it's tricky to sink an early pick into Stefon Diggs right now, he's also a great value in the fifth round.
- Brenton Strange, ADP 41.5: Strange is still undervalued by the market despite being well past his midseason injury and turning in consistent fantasy production. He averaged 11.1 DK points in his final seven games with a healthy mix of targets (36) and touchdowns (3) in that sample. He can work out as your first tight end selected and would give you a loaded TE room if he's your second.
- Terrance Ferguson, ADP 66.4: This is more of a last-round dart if you already have some Rams. Still, Ferguson flashed down the stretch in Week 16 and 17, and the Rams use as many three-tight end sets as anyone in the league. This makes Ferguson's floor a little murky, but at the same time, the market may be overly confident in its projection for Colby Parkinson (39.5) and Tyler Higbee (58.4).
Full ADP
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