In today’s free article, Shawn Siegele works through the player analysis and tactical decisions that led to a spot in the FFPC Superflex finals.

As the best time in the fantasy calendar rolls around, we’ve been having a blast around RotoViz headquarters. While members of the staff get ready to compete for best ball tournament championships, we’ve also been inundated with messages from subscribers and listeners who have a shot at glory in Week 17. Maybe one of you will follow in King Kap’s footsteps and win millions of dollars.

Colm Kelly mentioned many of these folks on RotoViz Overtime, and as I write this I’ve been chatting with David Phillippi, who’s been part of the OT community since stopping by for MFL10 info way back in 2013. He’s in the BBM3 finals with a Burrow/McCaffrey/A.J. Brown/Higgins/D. Smith/D. Johnson/Lockett/Kittle/Goedert team. A Jalen Hurts absence and Gardner Minshew blowup would help his chances at the $2 million.

Meanwhile, Erik Hove, who won the contest to co-manage an FBG team with me (an experience I thoroughly enjoyed), reached out and mentioned that he’s got two teams into the FFPC Best Ball Finals. He’ll join last year’s champion and RV superstar Conor O’Driscoll with two teams in the finals. Can Conor go back to back? That’s a question I hope to explore later in the week.

It’s been a wild year in fantasy, and I feel blessed to share it with such gifted writers and podcasters. Mike Beers’ best-ball tools revolutionized the industry several years ago, and incredible best ball minds like Conor and Michael Dubner have helped you stay ahead of the competition.

Our Best Ball Workshops cover a wide variety of formats and are too long to list here, but Michael and Conor both wrote foundation pieces that are perfect for starting your 2023 prep.

The Best Ball Bible: 8 Tactics to Make You a Best Ball Millionaire – Michael Dubner
How to Win the FFPC Best Ball Tournament: The Defending Champion Provides a Blueprint – Conor O’Driscoll

The FFPC Superflex Tournament

Of course, there are strikes and gutters as the Dude would say, and after a three-week run where Ben Gretch and I averaged 195 PPG in the FFPC Main Event, our Hurts-less team crashed back to earth last week. We scored in the 120s and dropped out of the top 150. But we do have a special guest on tomorrow’s Stealing Bananas. We’ll have a member of the Go Bills drafting team that won last year’s Main Event and is now on the (shocking) verge of defending that title.

The good news is that after finishing second to Conor a year ago, Colm and I have another chance at a title this season. Our FFPC Superflex squad advanced to the finals in that tournament with 197 points. (I probably wrote as much about this contest as any individual event this year, so this may be evidence that the fantasy gods know where your heart lies.)

We went into the week disappointed by Hurts’ absence and wondering if Geno Smith or Baker Mayfield could post a magical score, but the other position players more than took up the slack.

Now we face an even greater challenge. Can we win a 33-team final without our first-round pick (Hurts), our second-round pick (Derrick Henry), and our fifth-round pick (Breece Hall)?

No, but we’ll do our best.

How the Best Ball Tools and RotoViz Research Propelled an OT Squad to the Finals

Every year it’s imperative to break down the successes and failures. Determine how to amplify the positives and mitigate the negatives, while resisting the temptation to chase the flukes.

During championship week, we get the enjoyment of putting a microscope to the successes. In this piece, I’ll be going back through the specific Workshops and player-specific arguments (from our published work) that led to this mix of positions and players.

This particular draft took place on July 10th. We had the 1.09.

The 2022 Draft Plan Plays a Central Role

It always feels good when a successful team is loaded with your core guys as opposed to benefitting from a unique blend of one-offs. In terms of the 2022 draft plan, Jalen Hurts, Justin Jefferson, DeVonta Smith, and Jerick McKinnon were all priority targets, T.J. Hockenson, Tee Higgins, (and sadly Breece Hall) were draft targets, and Derrick Henry was a target any time he slipped below ADP.^[1]Drake London was also a priority target, and he got caught up in the nightmare that is Atlanta’s offense, but the last month has been more encouraging. He ranks No. 1 in target share (39.5%) in that stretch.

We also must compete with numerous other members of the priority list. Tyler Allgeier (priority target) is the second-highest rostered RB in the final, and Saquon Barkley’s (priority) playoff recovery has him among the top RBs. CeeDee Lamb (target) and Amon-Ra St. Brown (target) joined Jefferson and Smith among the most represented WRs. The next group included Jerry Jeudy (priority), Jaylen Waddle (priority) and A.J. Brown (priority). Each of those receivers are on at least five of 33 teams.

The Early-Round Foundation – An Anchor QB, an Anchor WR, and an Anchor RB

Quarterback Tactics Dictate Superflex Leagues

Hurts was QB7 in FFPC Superflex ADP both over the summer months and during August drafts. At those prices, we encouraged drafters to load up and not just in FFPC formats.

The League-Winners: Priority QBs in the Window

These are the QBs we’ve been relentlessly targeting in our draft shows on Stealing Bananas and RotoViz Overtime. They’re drafted in the Window but have the upside to finish as the No. 1 overall scorer in 2022. Jalen Hurts and Trey Lance offer elite rushing upside and now may rank No. 1 and No. 2 in terms of receiving weapons. Especially if training camp reports about Brandon Aiyuk are true, both teams start two elite WRs and a top-six TE.

Of course, any battle for weapons supremacy will require the champion to overcome Cincinnati. Joe Burrow illustrated his extreme upside in Weeks 16 and 17 a season ago.

Unfortunately Lance didn’t make it very far in 2022, but Hurts and Burrow ended up as massive hits. In this draft, Burrow was selected at 1.06 and Lance didn’t make it around to us in the second. As a result, we selected Burrow at 1.09 and then pivoted to Jefferson (and Henry in the third). That’s a difficult decision in superflex, but one that was buttressed by historical results. I wrote about this on three separate occasions, discussing drafts with Colm, Ben, and Blair Andrews.

SuperFlex Best Ball: Rescuing a Weird QB Build

Teams that started with some type of anchor RB/anchor WR/anchor QB and then waited until after Round 7 for their QB2 won at almost 13% last year and generated some of the top scores in the format. This type of build was used infrequently, but similarities in Classic win rates over multiple years hint at sustainability. The 2021 managers were able to post those numbers despite very poor win rates for QBs drafted outside the first eight rounds.

Early-Round Picks and Contrian Tactics

Over the last two years, selecting your QB1 in the first three rounds and then selecting your QB2 after Round 8 has provided an average score 79 points above the baseline. Unfortunately, it’s on a small handful of teams, so we could be looking at a couple of fluky players skewing the results.

We do have more data for the Superflex Classic format, and although there are meaningful differences, we can take a peek at those results for context. If waiting at QB works, we would hope to see evidence of this in a format that’s slightly more favorable to waiting on QB due to the extra roster spots.

FFPC SUPERFLEX CLASSIC (2018-2021)

	Win	Top 2 Percentile	Average Score
All Builds	8.3	2.0	2601
QB2 in 2	9.2	2.3	2630
QB2 after 8	10.0	1.8	2642

Although the number of teams drafting this way is still somewhat limited, the approach enjoyed a win rate above 10% in three of four seasons and a better overall average score than “QB2-in-2.” Now that the Slim version has added two additional rounds to the equation, the formats begin to converge in non-PK/DST tactics.

Zero QB and a Hyperfragile Cocktail of Crazy

The RCE can’t tell us how this build would play out on a mass scale in Slim, but the results fit with the logic of the format. Drafting more QBs late gives you more chances to hit on the type of QB outcome that becomes increasingly powerful within the context of a team that’s loaded at the other positions. QBs with ADPs outside the first five rounds and 300-point seasons are few and far between – Justin Herbert’s 2020 is the only one in the last five years – but contributing seasons aren’t particularly rare.^[2]Josh Allen has an 11.6% win rate in 2018 despite not playing in Weeks 7-11. Imagine how it would have jumped – and what it would have meant for a tournament – if his 42 points from Week 17 performance just a game earlier.

FFPC CLASSIC 2017-2021

Player	Year	ADP	Pts	Win Rate
Sam Darnold	2018	142.9	162.92	16.3%
Justin Herbert	2020	150.8	301.86	14.4%
Daniel Jones	2019	198.8	220.34	14.2%
Kirk Cousins	2020	61.1	281.9	11.7%
Mitchell Trubisky	2018	62.4	258.9	11.6%
Baker Mayfield	2018	135.2	225.06	11.6%
Josh Allen	2018	174.9	171.6	11.6%
Ryan Tannehill	2019	256.1	212.26	10.9%
Derek Carr	2020	78.1	267.14	10.8%
Taylor Heinicke	2021	270.8	221.76	10.8%
Ryan Fitzpatrick	2019	153.7	221.16	10.6%
Taysom Hill	2020	237	155.02	10.2%
Ryan Fitzpatrick	2020	117	153.74	9.9%
Derek Carr	2019	65.4	230.76	9.8%
Andy Dalton	2019	73.8	195.02	9.8%
Matthew Stafford	2019	64.1	172.56	8.9%
Sam Darnold	2019	65.3	185.4	8.9%
Jimmy Garoppolo	2021	123.1	220.76	8.7%
Teddy Bridgewater	2021	115.3	204.68	8.7%

We had a secondary reason to build around a single QB early. Our board had Mayfield (Round 9), Marcus Mariota (Round 11), and Smith (Round 20) as values far above ADP. It would be revisionist to say that we thought Smith would have such a strong season, but we thought he was a mortal lock for the starting role and a good bet to outperform.

The selections of Mayfield and Mariota didn’t pay off in such an extreme way, but the latter had a handful of startable performances despite the low-volume passing attack, and the former illustrated the value of QBs who fit into that “permanent recycle” bin. His bizarre competency against Denver could have made all the difference in advancing if some of our other players hadn’t hit.

Smith and Mariota will both add their names to the above list of late-round QB picks with contributing SF seasons.

Finishing Out the Triple-Anchor Start

Justin Jefferson Is a No-Brainer But Derrick Henry Remains Controversial

The argument for Jefferson at almost any price in almost any format is more or less self-explanatory. He came into the season with historically good numbers across his first two seasons and would get to play in an offense that brought over some of the elements that launched Cooper Kupp to superstardom.

The selection of Henry is more controversial, but we argued for him on multiple occasions. When diving into his gaudy projection according to the Range of Outcomes tool and the historical context that supported it, I was surprised to discover how much I wanted him on at least a few teams in 2022.^[3]I’ve compressed this to cut down on reading time, but if interested, the original has more graphics and info.

Henry has never been a priority RV target with his rush-heavy profile and expensive price tag. We were bailed out by his injury a season ago, and that perception of an older, non-pass-catching back with injury risk has now created a buying opportunity in redraft.

Henry owns the No. 2 projection in the ROO, and his “high” projection is almost 2.0 points above backs like Mixon and Dalvin Cook. His matches are littered with names like Adrian Peterson, Marshawn Lynch, Todd Gurley, Elliott, Chubb, and DeMarco Murray, but it’s obviously difficult to find similar players. Henry has been historically good despite minimal receiving work (until those numbers almost doubled last year).

If we look at Year 4 to Year 6, his per game rushing numbers trump all of the greats from this century.

Shaun Alexander and LaDainian Tomlinson provide some context on Henry’s sky high rushing TD numbers. Averaging over a TD per game for a multi-year stretch is difficult but not impossible.

Although only two of these backs were league winners in Year 7, it’s worth noting that five of them carried at least 19 times a game. And Henry is a better pure rusher than any of them. (Edgerrin James was never the same after the injury that ended his third season, but he still managed 3,874 yards from scrimmage and 23 TDs across his sixth and seventh seasons.)

It’s difficult for a back to sit at the highest EP levels without elite receiving upside, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. When we look at RB workloads from the past two seasons, only three backs played in at least 20 games and averaged more than 18 Expected Points (EP). All of them will be 27 or older. (Only five other backs averaged even 16 EP, and three of those backs are inefficient players.)

2020-21 EP LEADERS

Player	EP	FPOE	ruEP	ruFPOE	reEP	reFPOE
Dalvin Cook	18.9	1.6	13.7	1.6	5.3	0
Alvin Kamara	18.7	3.2	9.5	1.4	9.3	1.8
Derrick Henry	18.3	3.8	15.2	4.1	3	-0.4
Joe Mixon	16.7	1.1	11.6	0.2	5.1	0.9
Austin Ekeler	16.5	3.3	7.5	1.1	9	2.2
David Montgomery	16.4	0.1	10.2	0	6.3	0.2
Ezekiel Elliott	16.1	-0.9	10	-0.6	6.1	-0.3
Jonathan Taylor	16.1	3.7	11.7	3.1	4.4	0.6

While Cook (-0.7 FPOE) and Alvin Kamara (-0.6) declined in 2021, Henry was again spectacular before his injury.

In order to create an epic RB season, a back must post an EP number in the 18-20 range, and he must have the talent level to have a 4.0 FPOE season in his range of outcomes. Henry has demonstrated both of these elements. He offers collapse and injury risk, but that’s true for almost every early-round RB pick (especially in 2022 with the advanced ages of backs going in the first three rounds).

In this case, the ROO foreshadowed the eventual outcome. After Austin Ekeler and Christian McCaffrey, the position lacked other early-round options other than Henry. Cook and Kamara continued to struggle from an efficiency perspective and their EP numbers deteriorated. Mixon again failed to live up to his EP. By contrast, the Titans star dropped down from the 18 EP tier but stayed above 16 EP and again added more than 3.0 FPOE/G.

Winning the Race to the Flex – Undervalued Megatalents at WR

Because the Superflex format removes a traditional flex as opposed to adding an additional starting spot, receivers are not as all-powerful in this format. That’s one of the reasons we drafted both Henry and Hall. The Hall injury still stands as the most disappointing development of the fantasy season, but it’s imperative to build rosters with the depth and upside to withstand a key injury. In this case, the selections of Higgins and Smith allowed the squad to flourish even after a potential league winner went down.

Tee Higgins and DeVonta Smith

We’ve been consistently above the market on both players, preferring to prioritize talent and de-emphasize situation. Talent gives you a wide variety of paths to achieving the high-end outcome, while “situation” requires the environment to be both accurately assessed and to stay static throughout the chaos of an NFL season.

Teammate injuries allowed both players to go off in stretches. Higgins averaged 18.8 PPG during Ja’Marr Chase’s absence.

When Dallas Goedert was healthy across the first 10 weeks, Smith languished at 12.7 PPG, although he still posted five individual weeks with at least 15 points. Once Goedert went down, the Eagles remembered that Smith won a Heisman trophy, earned a strong enough grade from their scouts to justify a top-10 selection, and then set Philadelphia’s rookie receiving record. He vaulted to overall WR4 from Weeks 11-16.^[4]I argued (semiseriously) on Ship Chasing and in other venues that this was a 1a/1b situation with A.J. Brown. The younger member of the tandem edged Brown in air yards and almost matched him in points over that span.

The weekly range of outcomes for Higgins and Smith shifts with everyone healthy, but last week’s combined 58 points reminds us of their immense upside. The value of being the 1b is that randomness or defensive attention can always lead to a lesser performance from the superstar just when it matters most.

The Next Deebo Samuel? How Chasing Elite Talent Led Us to DeVonta Smith

My annual Discount Series focuses on opportunities to exploit broken pricing (for example, the opportunity to create young upside through Waddle instead of Michael Pittman). In the case of Smith, I broke down similarities between the 49ers’ 2021 league-winning star and Smith. Although Smith’s performance hasn’t been to the level of Samuel’s season, this most recent run illustrates the upside we were seeking.^[5]As was the case in the Henry section, I’ve compressed this to make it more palatable in a long post. The Aiyuk portions have been edited out for ease of reading. I encourage anyone interested to check out the full post.

We know from a variety of pieces in Blair Andrews’ Wrong Read series that we should be chasing, not avoiding, elite performances.

Emphasizing rookie year production and efficiency has long been a part of generating elite win rates from RotoViz draft plans.

Samuel was so inexpensive last season because drafters ignored his previous accomplishments after the injury-plagued sophomore campaign. Fantasy managers are now allowing Smith to fall in a similar fashion. . . marginalized due to the arrival of A.J. Brown.

Using the Advanced Stats Explorer to compare Samuel, Aiyuk, and Smith over their final eight games as rookies, numerous similarities pop out.

	Routes	Targets	Targets/Route	Yards/Target	Yards/Route
Deebo Samuel	225	48	0.21	12.0	2.6
DeVonta Smith	201	44	0.22	10.3	2.3
Brandon Aiyuk	278	74	0.27	8.0	2.1

Smith … brings some additional encouraging peripherals. He was a serious target earner despite an average depth more than 14 yards down the field. Smith ranked No. 15 in air yards a season ago, and the only player to finish ahead of him on fewer targets was Courtland Sutton.

Consider that for a moment. Smith won the Heisman trophy in 2020, was drafted No. 10 overall, and then went on to finish No. 15 in air yards on a team that tied for last in pass plays per 60 minutes. He’s now being selected as the WR39 in fantasy.

Smith isn’t Brown, but the size of the gap is being exaggerated by the difference in their experience levels. Even elite rookies have historically earned a jump in Year 2, while on average, veterans struggle to maintain volume. The following visual from Blair Andrews’ Wrong Read No. 63 looks exclusively at WRs with at least 100 points the previous season.

This dynamic doesn’t play out in every instance, of course, but Blair’s work help us grab a huge value here. Smith was not able to maintain the gaudy 10.4 yards per target, but his targets per route jumped to 25% even playing alongside Brown. Since the Goedert injury, he’s skyrocketed to 9.9 YPT, 0.27 TPR, and 2.63 yards per route. While concerns remain about the overall pie in Philadelphia, he ranks 11th in total routes during that span.

At the Last Possible Moment, Hockenson Finally Jumps to Superstardom

If there’s one thing a RotoViz drafter knows, it’s that elite TEs are the key to best ball. Sometimes you have to go with your own board, and Hockenson was one of our targets from the very beginning of draft season.

2021 was almost Hockenson’s breakout season. He averaged 16.4 PPG through Week 8 before multiple nagging injuries sapped his explosiveness. A finger injury finally ended his season after Week 13. Despite those travails, his peripherals fit with the star group. Diving into the fantastic Stealing Signals tool, we see that his route percentage and targets per route run (TPRR) stack up with the best.

Player	Route%	YPRR	TPRR	YPT	AYPRR	wTPRR
Darren Waller	79.1	1.85	0.26	7.1	2.5	0.64
Mark Andrews	78.5	2.33	0.26	8.9	2.7	0.66
Travis Kelce	78.5	1.99	0.24	8.3	1.9	0.56
TJ Hockenson	78.5	1.60	0.23	6.9	1.8	0.53
Kyle Pitts	77.8	2.09	0.22	9.4	2.5	0.58
George Kittle	74.8	2.58	0.27	9.7	2.1	0.62

Hockenson’s yards per route trails because the yards per target (YPT) component was much lower. His catch rate was fine, but the before-catch (1.8 air yards per route) and after-catch (3.3 yards after catch per reception) elements were both sluggish. Considering how the injury situation and QB play limited his upside, Hockenson could easily take another step in 2022.

In Monday’s recap, I examined how the mid-season trade to Minnesota unlocked his fantasy potential.

The Late-Round Contributors

I won’t bore you with the entire second half of the draft, but our main contributors were the aforementioned late-round QBs, Christian Watson (WR59) and Jerick McKinnon (RB60). We had high hopes for Noah Fant (TE17), Trey McBride (TE26), and Tyquan Thorton (WR91), but they failed to contribute even though Fant is surprisingly on five of the remaining teams.^[6]Our rookie RB selections of Isaiah Spiller and Tyrion Davis-Price busted to the point where we’d be happy to get 5.0 points in the RB2 slot in the finals.

Sometimes all you need is that one true smash.

Jerick McKinnon: Zero RB Candidate Jumps to Tournament Breaker

After McKinnon displayed his perfect fit for the Kansas City offense during last year’s reality playoffs, he was a shoo-in for the Zero RB Candidates Countdown.

It may look like we’re shopping the bargain bin, but price is the key to putting together elite rosters across formats and across multiple seasons. We want inexpensive receptions and inexpensive athleticism. Sure, there are elite athletes in the first couple of rounds of drafts, but the less you can pay for unusual attributes, the better.

From his Week 18 emergence to the Chiefs’ elimination in Week 21, McKinnon was the most productive RB in football. Here’s how he compared to other backs with at least three games in that stretch.

K.C. finally found in McKinnon what Edwards-Helaire hadn’t given them. Despite not scoring a rushing TD, he averaged over 16 PPG for a four-game stretch. McKinnon gives you a cheap way to play one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses.

The Chiefs tried to force Clyde Edwards-Helaire and Isiah Pacheco, but McKinnon provides the lateral agility, vision, and big-play threat to complement their unstoppable passing attack, especially with his natural receiving ability. As he was for playoff contests a year ago, McKinnon has just hit another multi-game streak where he’s been the most valuable RB in fantasy. From Weeks 14-16 he outscored every other back by at least 10 points, besting McCaffrey, Henry, Ekeler, and Barkley.

Good luck to all

Good luck to our competitors this weekend and to everyone in the RV community in all of your contests. Hopefully it was helpful to break down the thought process behind our selections and look at the interaction between tools, evidence, research, and tactics. The final couple of paragraphs are self-indulgent, so feel free to skip those, but I want to close by wishing everyone a safe and holiday season as we close in on the new year.

What If Everybody Stays Hot

It’s difficult to envision a scenario where we can win this weekend, but stranger things have happened. We’re the only team with Mayfield, McBride, and Thornton, so I wouldn’t mind if they put up some serious points. Geno Smith faces the Jets’ lockdown passing defense, so it’s probably even more likely that a big game would come from Mayfield. The Cardinals get Colt McCoy back, and that presumably helps McBride, who is averaging 4.4 targets per game over his last five. Thornton might be an even longer shot, but he did finish ahead of Brown and D.K. Metcalf with 97 air yards last week.^[7]He turned that into 8 actual yards.

This would be the tournament-winning outcome.

* Evans caught a 26-yard pass in Week 8 and an 8-yard score in Week 13. Maybe put them together?

Although McKinnon, Hockenson, and Jefferson are heavily represented, we aren’t covered by our opponents. If my quick perusal of Colm’s spreadsheet is correct, only a single team has even three of our proposed starters (not counting Evans). The most likely score and overall finish is much lower, but it never hurts to dream.