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Nick Mariano's must-avoid fantasy football draft picks for 2024 best ball formats. These are his potential busts and overvalued players for 2024 best ball.
Fantasy football best ball drafts and contests continue to grow and grow each year. The number of tournaments and strategies deployed surrounding the format is exploding, which means we must stay sharp! Social media is filled with best ball builds and screenshots of different approaches. It's everywhere!
But before you can win these leagues, you need to understand the format. And beyond that, you need to know the players to target and those to avoid. Best ball is a format where you draft a team and let it play out. No trades, no pickups, and no setting lineups. Each week, your optimal lineup is set. This means whoever scores the most points on your team is tallied until you have a full lineup. Some leagues add up each week's score and that's it, while others advance top scores after ~14 weeks for a new "playoff contest." Know your settings!
Best ball is a format that rewards high-scoring players, meaning you want to chase upside. Not just yearly upside, but weekly as well. A big week will have a greater impact on your end-of-season scores. While you know to target upside, what players should you avoid in this format?
Editor's Note: Identify fantasy football draft busts, overvalued ADPs, and key players to avoid so you can draft with confidence this season.
Type of Players to Avoid in Best Ball
Let's focus on the player types to avoid at first rather than specific player takes. Since best ball is a format that automatically sets your optimal lineup each week, your goal is to score as many points as possible in each week. Players with high floors and consistent "median" outcomes are fought over in redraft leagues, but an inconsistent player with high ceilings can spike in this format. The games where that player goes off -- we will call them spike weeks -- are more useful throughout the season.
In redraft, you may find it comforting to have a player that can score 10-12 fantasy points per week. But best ball will often see that player outscored by others on your roster. This is not a hard rule and 10-12 PPG will come in handy, but a BB roster filled with them is unlikely to win a week. Lowering your team's spike potential is suboptimal, especially if you're entering top-heavy tournaments.
Quarterbacks to Fade in Best Ball
Fade is a tougher word to throw around at the quarterback position in best balls, where almost every starter is drafted out of necessity. One can’t venture out with a 1QB build. Those with top-tier QBs will be comfortable drafting just one backup while teams that wait will likely end with three QBs. (Be sure to cover your QB1's bye week!) This gets expanded in contests with a 2QB or Superflex format.
Today’s NFL is so pass-friendly that it’s difficult to find QBs who lack passing volume or rushing upside. Compiler QBs can come in handy for certain builds but typically lack the firepower for true spike weeks. Jared Goff only topped 25 points in a week twice, for instance. The QB12 averaged 18.5 points in standard tournament play (4-point PTD) per Hayden Winks, which Goff topped 6-of-16 times.
Let’s give a brief overview here to begin. Patrick Mahomes also had that rate, but we feel better about his range of outcomes in 2024. C.J. Stroud was 6-for-14, Trevor Lawrence was 5-for-15, and Matthew Stafford was 4-for-15. Names further down the list were Geno Smith (3/14), Derek Carr (2/16), Bryce Young (2/15), and Will Levis (1/9). But we do not draft off of 2023 stats. (And we don’t like to include Week 18!)
Players' ages and situations change through roster churn and coaching shifts, and market perception shapes different ADP environments. Mahomes no longer has to rely on MVS's banana hands to haul in the deep ball. Stroud gets a Stefon Diggs infusion for Year 2 as he continues to develop. Lawrence swaps out Calvin Ridley for Brian Thomas Jr. while Zay Jones turns into Gabriel Davis. Stafford is another year older but hopes to have Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp for a full run.
Who do you believe in? Out of those QBs, Goff, Stafford, Smith, and Carr are the signal-callers I have the fewest of thus far. Goff can sneak in when he falls if I've taken Amon-Ra St. Brown or Jameson Williams, but there's a reasonable ADP for all of them! Many say Smith loses the job to Sam Howell by the fantasy playoff weeks. Most BB formats need those final weeks to bring the best.
Let’s aim a bit higher. Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts cleared 18.5 points in at least 75% of their games. Lamar Jackson was down at 56% (9/16) but did lose J.K. Dobbins early and Mark Andrews missed most of the second half of 2023. Folks are buying back in even as Derrick Henry’s massive TD-vulture frame steps into a Ravens' uni. Todd Monken spoke about a reduced workload for Jackson in the red zone on the "Coaches and the Mouth" podcast:
"...When you have an athletic QB in the red zone, it gives you an extra tool. You do not need to go wildcat, you’ve got the wildcat via the QB which adds an extra element. That is a part we were using way too much early on in the year. We went to London and played the Titans there, and we kicked [a lot] of field goals, we got down there [in the red zone] and I used Lamar too much. Coach after was like, guys, that is not good enough, that cannot be us where we just rely on Lamar in the red zone, we’ve got to be better than that."
Jackson's red-zone usage nearly halved following that game and Henry's addition feels extremely unlikely to reverse that trend. Baltimore is invested in keeping Jackson at 100% and Henry can take a more efficient battle in the trenches. I know I hated on PPG before but it's notable that Jackson hasn't been flashing that No. 1 upside of late.
Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson FPG by year since 2019. pic.twitter.com/LhOmKOTQg2
— Football Insights 📊 (@fball_insights) June 7, 2024
Running Backs to Fade in Best Ball
Josh Jacobs is going inside of the fourth round of most best-ball drafts despite joining a Matt LeFleur-led offense that platoons its running backs. That price tag sits within the third round on NFFC and FFPC. It’d be one thing if Jacobs crushed in 2023 but he didn’t! Coming off of a massive 340-carry season with a league-leading 1,653 yards, Jacobs went from 4.9 yards per carry to a lowly 3.5 YPC in 13 games.
Jordan Love has a deep WR room while MarShawn Lloyd and AJ Dillon loom. Is he going to get more work than Isiah Pacheco later in the fourth round or Joe Mixon over a round later? The same attitude could be applied to Travis Etienne Jr. in Jacksonville.
Head coach Doug Pederson signaled fewer touches for ETN to maintain his form. At least his competition is less talented than Jacobs’ backups, as Tank Bigsby and D'Ernest Johnson are dwarfed by Lloyd and Dillon. But Etienne’s ADP demands a second-round pick in recent NFFC and FFPC drafts.
"I think there are things Tank could have provided that we maybe didn't give him opportunities to or maybe we're quick to give Travis another rep.."#Jaguars look to take pressure off of Travis Etienne, get Tank Bigsby rolling in '24
Read: https://t.co/yheKtGFzNx via @jaxdotcom
— Demetrius Harvey (@Demetrius82) May 29, 2024
James Cook has an early ADP of 38 in NFFC/FFPC drafts while it’s around 50 on Underdog and DraftKings. This is a man who has four rushing touchdowns in 33 NFL games. Yes, Buffalo got him involved in the passing game last year (44-445-4) but he’s effectively the RB2 behind Josh Allen.
Ray Davis and Frank Gore Jr. step in with Ty Johnson behind Cook, creating a more imposing group than Latavius Murray and Damien Harris. Cook also had four fumbles, which led to some doghouse benchings. He’s going earlier than names with far less competition for key touches, let alone the history of iffy ball security.
Others in early-middle rounds that the data flags as potential fades to consider are Kenneth Walker III, David Montgomery, Rhamondre Stevenson, Brian Robinson Jr., and Chase Brown.
Wide Receivers to Fade in Best Ball
As discussed elsewhere, wide receiver ADP in best ball formats will re-frame your understanding of inflation. Underdog and DraftKings demand a premium pick for WRs versus the NFFC and FFPC.
Things will change but early June sees players like Brandon Aiyuk hold an ADP of 18 between UD and DK versus an ADP of 30 on FFPC/NFFC. Mike Evans (23 vs. 38), DeVonta Smith (30 vs. 45), and Zay Flowers (38 vs. 56) are good examples. We are providing a basic blueprint but each format has its own wrinkle. This piece will proceed with a lean toward the UD/DK pricing but the ordinal rank of the WRs is fairly stable, even if the price relative to other positions is fluid.
At least Evans topped 20 points in half-PPR four separate times in 2023 (and he had 19 in a fifth game). A grand total of 10 WRs topped 20 points in four or more games. CeeDee Lamb had seven and Tyreek Hill had nine (!) but this can help identify laggards. This is best ball. We want those spikes, we live for the spikes. I recognize 20 is an arbitrary number but it’s a nice round one that easily illustrates a “boom” week. Those who drafted Noah Brown got those big games in Weeks 9-10 to vault them!
There are some players who struggled but the pain was rooted in observable reasons (injury, bad QB, injured bad QB?) that are ostensibly fixed for 2024. Garrett Wilson is the poster boy for this, as he didn’t even top 16 half-PPR points in a game, let alone 20. But Aaron Rodgers appears to be healthy and Zach Wilson can’t hurt the Jets’ receivers anymore. Garrett W. is not a fade for me.
But what if I told you another WR was going within the first 20 picks who didn’t have any games above 20 and had the same QB deal? Sadly, Chris Olave is once again tied to Derek Carr. Olave missed Week 15 but still finished as the WR19 with 187.8 half-PPR points. One can’t even lean on Jameis Winston as the gunslinger backup anymore. Olave also didn’t top 20 in 2022, but going from Andy Dalton to Carr provided a glimmer of hope. Alas, Carr is who he is.
😵💫Derek Carr’s TD% since 2021 is a lackluster 4.3% | ranks 22nd among qualified QBs.
Which is below the league average (4.5%) in that span.
🛑This makes me hesitant to draft Chris Olave over some of the other WRs in his ADP range w/ a higher TD upside.
💭Just something to…
— LaQuan Jones (@RealDealFantasy) June 7, 2024
DK Metcalf only had one game above 20 but he sure made it count, putting up 34.4 in Week 13. If you want to impress your friends with random trivia, Metcalf’s only game above 20 in 2022 also came in Week 13. He’ll have to earn it this year, as the Seahawks face Sauce Gardner and the Jets this time around. Even when Geno Smith was amazing in ‘22, the spike weeks were sporadic. Tread carefully. (Tyler Lockett also had one in ‘23 and a pair in ‘22.)
Tight Ends to Fade in Best Ball
We’re kicking off 2024 TE action with Sam LaPorta, who was tied for the most games with over 15 half-PPR points with six. And he did so as a rookie! The natural progression from that is for folks to envision growth beyond Year 1. I am not a fan of taking him earlier than Travis Kelce, which is the going rate on Underdog, NFFC, and FFPC. Kelce is going three picks ahead on DraftKings.
Trey McBride had 79 targets between Weeks 8-17, which tied him with Evan Engram for second place behind David Njoku’s 92. If only we had another Joe Flacco run in the cards for Njoku! We’ll get back to that later. While Engram only got 538 yards out of his looks, McBride had 621 and two touchdowns. If you believe McBride remains the clear No. 2 option behind Marvin Harrison Jr. then you’re okay here. I’m not convinced but I’d rather pay up a few picks than wait a bit for Dalton Kincaid.
Kincaid is not a bad player, but this draft slot is projecting significant growth for his role. And I can’t fathom taking him over Mark Andrews, which is how ADP is breaking on UD and DK. Kincaid’s season-high score for an individual game was 13.6, making him one of only two TEs without a game above 15 last year.
The other is Kyle Pitts, whose situation has drastically changed. Kincaid still has red-zone maverick Josh Allen, but he’ll hope to absorb much of the playcalling that went to Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis. That’s a bigger leap to take than what it’ll take for others who have already proven they have that 8-10 TD range in their bag.
While we love what David Njoku did down the stretch with Joe Flacco, we can’t ignore the poor numbers when Deshaun Watson was starting. Watson’s six games came in Weeks 1-3, 7, and 9-10. Njoku only scored 39.5 total points for an average of ~6.5, topping 10 once.
An optimist would say Watson didn’t have a chance to get in a groove, suffering a rotator cuff injury in Week 3 before an eventual season-ending fracture in the arm was found after Week 10. We learned Njoku and CLE playcalling can supply spike weeks but Flacco is a notorious slinger. Not only did Watson not provide a glimmer of that in 2023, but he’s also coming off of a major injury to the throwing arm. And Jerry Jeudy is a more capable No. 2 WR to vie with.
Per Mary Kay Cabot #Browns David Njoku met Deshaun Watson out to throw in LA this week
Njoku’s per gm avg in the 5 gms w/ Watson
-5 targets/4 rec/35.2yds11 gm avg w/o Watson
-8.8 targets/5.5 rec/64.1ydsThe chemistry has to improve in 2024
pic.twitter.com/K3dkwuE8EO— Mac🦬 (@tha_buffalo) March 19, 2024
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