Alright, so folks keep asking me, “Hey man, what’s this whole Best Ball thing in fantasy football?” And you know, I get it. It sounded a bit weird to me too when I first bumped into it a few seasons back. I’m pretty set in my ways with my regular leagues, you know, the ones where you’re tinkering with lineups every Sunday morning, sweating waiver wires on Tuesday nights.
My First Brush with “Best Ball”
So, I was doing my usual fantasy prep, probably too early in the summer, scrolling through one of those big fantasy sites. I kept seeing these “Best Ball” drafts advertised. My first thought was, “Is this some kind of golf crossover?” Honestly, the name didn’t give much away. I’m a busy guy, got a lot going on, and the idea of another type of league to manage felt like a bit much.
But curiosity, she’s a powerful thing, isn’t she? I saw they had some pretty low-stakes options, like five or ten bucks to enter. I figured, “What the heck, I’ll throw a few dollars in, see what it’s all about.” Worst case, I’m out the price of a fancy coffee, and I learn something. So, I clicked that button and jumped into a draft lobby.
The Draft: Familiar, Yet… Different
The draft itself felt pretty normal, you know? Snake draft, picking players, trying to build a solid team. I was grabbing my usual targets, maybe a quarterback I liked, a couple of running backs, loading up on receivers. The draft clock was ticking, people were making their picks. It all felt like any other fantasy draft I’d ever done. I finished up, looked at my roster, felt pretty good about it. “Okay,” I thought, “Now what?”
I looked around the league page for where to set my lineup for Week 1, where the waiver wire was, the trade block. And… nothing. Zilch. Nada. I’m clicking everywhere, thinking the site’s bugged or I’m just missing something obvious. I even logged out and logged back in. Still nothing.
The “Aha!” Moment – No In-Season Fiddling!
It took me a bit, and maybe a quick search on their FAQ (which I probably should have done first, ha!), to realize the big twist. With Best Ball, there is NO in-season management. None. You draft your team, and that’s it. Your job is done.
So, what happens on game day? This is the cool part. The platform automatically sets your optimal lineup after the games are played. It looks at all the players on your roster and picks the highest-scoring guys for each starting spot. So, if your QB3 outscores your QB1, your QB3’s points go into your lineup. If your WR5 has a monster game and your WR1 lays an egg, WR5’s score counts. You don’t have to guess who’s going to have the big week.
That’s why they call it “Best Ball.” Your “best” scores at each position automatically fill out your starting lineup. It was a real lightbulb moment for me. All that stress of choosing between two evenly matched players on a Sunday morning? Gone. Fretting over a surprise inactive? Doesn’t matter as much if you have depth, because the system just slots in the next best guy.
How It Changed My Drafting (Eventually)
Now, understanding this fundamentally changed how I approached drafting in these Best Ball leagues. My first couple of attempts, I drafted like it was a regular league. That wasn’t quite right.
- Depth is King (and Queen, and the whole Royal Court): Because you can’t pick up players, you need to draft more guys. Rosters are usually deeper. If you get hit by injuries, you’re stuck with who you drafted. So, you can’t skimp on positions.
- Upside Over Everything (Almost): Since you only benefit from a player’s good weeks, those boom-or-bust guys become more valuable. A player who gives you three monster games and a bunch of duds is often better than a steady-but-unspectacular guy in Best Ball, because those dud weeks don’t kill you if someone else on your roster steps up.
- Stacking Becomes Interesting: Pairing a QB with one or two of his receivers can be really powerful. If that offense goes off, you’re double-dipping on the points.
- No Need for Handcuffing (Mostly): In regular leagues, I’m always grabbing handcuffs for my top RBs. In Best Ball, while having multiple RBs from good offenses is smart, the specific “handcuff” strategy changes because you’re just looking for total points over the season, optimized weekly.
I remember one year, I was thin at tight end in a Best Ball league. Drafted two, one got hurt early. My weekly TE scores were awful. Lesson learned. Now I make sure I’ve got plenty of shots at every position.
So, What Does “Best Ball” Mean in Practice?
For me, it means a few things:
It means a lot more drafting, which I love, without the weekly time commitment. I can join a bunch of these, get my drafting fix, and then just check in on Sundays to see how my squads are doing. It’s like setting a bunch of “fire and forget” fantasy missiles.
It means focusing purely on player evaluation and roster construction during the draft. There’s no safety net of waivers or trades. Your draft is everything.
It means your best possible lineup, based on actual performance, is automatically started each week. You don’t lift a finger post-draft. You drafted Player X who had a 30-point game on your bench? In Best Ball, if he was one of your top scorers at his position, those points count. Simple as that.
It took me a season to really get the hang of it, to shift my mindset from traditional redraft strategies. But now, I find Best Ball to be a super fun, low-stress way to play more fantasy football. It’s perfect if you love the draft but just don’t have the hours to pour into weekly management for a dozen leagues. You draft ’em, and then the system figures out your best lineup. That’s the heart of it, really.
