We previously found that it may be best to wait until August to enter the NFL DRAFT Best Ball Championship, but there are some benefits to drafting at the beginning of the offseason. Teams that draft in August tend to post higher average scores. However, teams that draft earlier in the offseason can take advantage of facing opponents with lower scores, which may help you get more teams into Round 1 of the Best Ball Championship Playoffs.
To explore the best roster construction for early best ball drafters, we will use the Fanball Roster Construction Explorer, as it provides at least two benefits over the DRAFT RCE in this case: 1) The Fanball RCE allows us to split out the data by draft month, which is useful for seeing how roster construction success can change over the course of an offseason and 2) BestBall10s go back to 2015 (as MFL10s), while DRAFT only goes back to 2017. The directionality of the results from BestBall10s should align pretty well with DRAFT.
After looking at many of the popular fantasy football roster construction draft strategies as well as the strategies outlined in Shawn Siegele’s Best Ball Workshop, I found one roster construction strategy continuously provides the highest advantage, even in the early offseason.
Follow The Onesie Position Advice
Siegele’s Best Ball Workshop work shows there are specific rounds in drafts that present windows of opportunity to optimize your onesie (QB and TE) positions:
- 2-QB (and 3-QB) Window: QB1 in Rounds 6-11; QB2 in Rounds 8-12 (QB3 in Rounds 8-12)
- 2-TE with Early TE: TE1 in Rounds 1-4
- 2-TE (and 3-TE) with Late TEs: TE1 and TE2 in Rounds 9-15 (TE3 in Round 9-15).
Using Siegele’s QB and TE Windows for BestBall10s, I have shown that drafting 3-QBs or 3-TEs in their respective Windows has been a winning strategy on DRAFT. However, we should usually avoid drafting six onesie positions on the same team, and you may consider limiting your roster to just four onesie position players.
After looking at different roster constructions month-by-month (including onesie positions, zero-RB, heavy-RB), the one that sticks out the most as continuously being a winning strategy early in the offseason is …
