Playing in best-ball leagues, like those offered by MyFantasyLeague, the FFPC, and PlayDraft, requires a different mindset than regular redraft leagues. These “draft expert”-type leagues are draft-and-forget in nature, without any in-season management after your league’s draft. No trades. No waiver wires. No bailouts due to injury or suspension. They take the score from each player on your overall roster and optimize your best plays of the week to fill out your lineup.
This stresses the importance on the draft immensely. Selecting the right type of players that have high ceilings is a necessity. Most of these leagues are top-heavy, and you need to target the right type of players to put yourself in the best chance of capturing first place. To do that, I’ll be starting a series on the type of players to target in these best-ball formats to help you hopefully finish with some extra green in your pocket by season’s end. First up on the docket – Quarterbacks. Let’s dive in.
Russell Wilson, Seattle Seahawks
I’m a strong advocate for the late-round quarterback strategy, but in best-ball leagues, I’m not afraid to roll the dice a bit early and grab a player if they present significant upside. Last year, Wilson was injured with ankle, knee, and pectoral injuries and posted career-lows across the board. He’s currently being drafted in the seventh round in MFL10s, and at that point, my roster is usually laden with enough home-run swings at the running back and wide receiver position that I can afford to take a quarterback. Despite suffering through a litany of injuries and poor performances, he was also able to net some very strong outings.
Wilson finished Weeks 1-16 with six weeks as a top-six quarterback. Only Aaron Rodgers (9), Matt Ryan (7), and Drew Brees (7) had more. Wilson has spent this offseason reshaping his body to create a more mobile version of himself. Mobile quarterbacks are a huge positive in these best-ball formats, presenting a secondary path to fantasy scoring. Over the last three years, the Seahawks rank top-five in red-zone scoring attempts per game (4.3). Wilson has thrown 47 touchdowns and just four interceptions during that time span. He’s a mobile fantasy scoring machine that I’m buying heavily at his current seventh-round ADP.
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