Underdog Best Ball Rankings - June
For those of you who read my May Best Ball Rankings article, I’ve slightly tweaked my process to be more actionable based on an article I read by Jakob Sanderson. Jakob uses a target exposure vs the field process that is both simpler and easier to action than the weighted difference method I used in May. I’ve implicitly used Jakob’s format in my mind before, but specifically using it ahead of time while ranking vs ADP is great preparation and should allow us to more effectively use rankings while drafting.
Additionally, I’ve changed my ADP vs Rank difference column. It now reflects a percentage difference, instead of a raw one, as that better measures how strong the difference is. Practically, this means that earlier ranking differences are much more impactful, which is what also matters when focusing on ADP value.
As for the my actual drafting and ranking process, it largely remains the same. I like to rank players where I think they *should go*, not with factoring in dynamic considerations like roster construction, correlation, and leverage. However, each of those strongly factors in to how I draft, as does ADP value and the context of the specific draft I’m doing. All this is to say, don’t draft directly off of my ranks, because I’m not even doing that. As I wrote in May, I use a weighted average of my rankings with a few others that I trust, as I strongly believe that a consensus of experts is better than my individual ranks. I would encourage each of you to do the same.
Additionally, you’ll notice that I’m rarely above or below 0.5x or 1.5x the field. I strongly believe that diversification is good for both floor and ceiling in best ball tournaments that have a playoff gauntlet format (like Best Ball Mania and even the newly released sprint), which we now have evidence to support. As an extreme example, if you show up to the Best Ball Mania finals with a 4th round Tank Dell, but someone else has 18th round Tank Dell, you almost certainly will have the worse projected team. I tend to stick around ADP early and become progressively more aggressive as the draft goes on. By round 15 or so, ADP ceases to matter at all. You’ll notice this in my ranks, as I’m perfectly fine reaching a round to ensure I get stacked pocket passing QBs like Kirk Cousins, Aaron Rodgers, and Matthew Stafford. Pushing them to or beyond ADP provides minimal benefit with significant downside. At that point, just complete the stack.
So, with that out of the way, please see my updated ranks for June below, as well as some analysis below on players I am much higher/lower on than consensus.
Cheers and best of luck drafting!
Players I’m Higher on than ADP
Wide Receivers
I wrote about many of these wide receivers in my Comparing WR Talent to ADP article. Nico Collins and Tank Dell featured prominently.
To summarize, each was phenomenal in 2023, ranking 2nd (Collins) and 10th (Dell) in an average ranking of PFF Receiving Grade, ESPN Receiver Rating, and YPPR. Stefon Diggs finished 35th. Each of their ADPs remain depressed due to the arrival of Diggs, but they probably shouldn’t be. The Texans are signaling they want to throw more, which boosts their floor, and each has massive contingent upside if any of the big three gets hurt. While Stroud’s ADP is aggressive for a pure pocket passing QB, the depressed ADPs of Collins and Dell are ideal to target. And if you get sniped on Stroud, good. You now have a Texans stack with two underpriced receivers with a chance for even more week 17 upside.
In that article, I also wrote up Brandon Aiyuk (as a similar bet to Nico Collins), Deandre Hopkins (as a #stillgood vet), Dontayvion Wicks, Josh Downs, and Dionate Johnson (as better players than current ADP indicates), as well Jermaine Burton in my May rankings article (talented rookie that fell due to off-field issues).
Tight Ends
You’ll notice that there are three tight ends on this list, and each of them is an elite tight end. George Kittle also fell just short of this list, with a difference of 111%. I wrote earlier this year that tight end spike weeks are a playoff skeleton key, and how the vast majority of those spike weeks come from the early tight ends. This years crop of elite tight ends is arguably the deepest and most talented we’ve had in the history of best ball. Bottom line, I want one of these guys in every draft, and I want to make a strong directional bet on elite tight end as a whole this year.
Quarterbacks
As a position, I’m higher on quarterbacks vs ADP. Largely that is because of stacking, as I think it’s usually worth sacrificing a small (~5%) of ADP to ensure to get your stack. For example, if I take Chase at pick 3, does it really matter if I take Burrow at pick 70 or pick 75? Unless there is a glaring ADP value or necessary roster construction pick, it probably doesn’t matter. As I mentioned earlier, that’s especially true with the pure pocket passers, which is why Aaron Rodgers and even round 5/6 turn pick Joe Burrow make the list. However, I do have some strong takes Lamar Jackson, Anthony Richardson, and Kyler Murray.
Regarding Lamar, I’m not sure people realize how poorly he ran last year. By EPA, the Ravens had the 2nd-best defense in the league, which slowed down the pace of the game and led to fewer called passing plays. The Ravens finished with the 6th-slowest pace and the lowest passing rate in the league. Additionally, the Ravens faced injuries to their entire offense, losing Mark Andrews for half the season, Rashod Bateman and Odell Beckham for multiple games, multiple offensive lineman throughout the season, and nearly their entire running back room. Lamar stayed healthy, but his supporting cast was decimated. Looking to 2024, the Ravens lost nearly their entire defensive coaching staff, 5 defensive starters, while maintaining roughly the same level of talent on offense, with Andrews and Bateman returning to full health and Derrick Henry replacing Gus Edwards. Bottom line, the Ravens will almost certainly throw more and play faster in 2024, and Lamar will likely have a better offensive supporting cast around him. He should be in the QB1 tier with Josh Allen and Jalen Hurts.
Anthony Richardson is a similar bet (improved situation) to Lamar, but ones I feel less strongly about, as some questions about his talent and health remain. Richardson was awesome to start last season, leading the NFL in fantasy points per dropback. However, that performance was only over a four game period, and now he’s coming off a throwing shoulder injury. That said, if healthy, I expect him to dominate with a supporting cast that is arguably one of the best in the league. Michael Pittman finished 18th in the combined WR talent ranks last season, while Josh Downs finished 48th, despite playing with Gardner Minshew all season. Adding in rookie X receiver AD Mitchell and the return of a fully healthy Jonathan Taylor to an offense led by Derrik Klassen’s 8th-best playcaller in the league should give Richardson all of the support he needs to flourish. Richardson is my favorite 4th/5th round QB pick when I don’t already have a stack lined up, especially given my stance that Downs is heavily underpriced.
Like with Lamar and Richardson, Kyler Murray enters 2024 with an improved situation. Trey McBride was a grown-ass man at TE down the stretch last year, and the Cardinals completely revamped their other weapons, adding one of the best WR prospects ever, a flashy rookie running back to complement success rate star, James Conner, and have multiple competent secondary/tertiary options at wide receiver with Michael Wilson (51st in combined rank), Greg Dortch (52nd), and Zay Jones (83rd). With Kyler back at full healthy and the horizontal raid of Kliff Kingsbury gone, he should easily return to his pre-ACL fantasy production levels, but at a roughly two-round discount his 2022 ADP. With McBride as an elite tight end target and Harrison as good as any other second round pick, I expect Kyler to be among my most-owned QBs in 2024.
Running backs
One lone running back made the list, which is not surprising given my opinion on the WR-heavy ADP environment and my approach to the position. I view the WR-heavy environment as much more efficient than with the old days of the RB dead zone, which I wrote about last year. Because it’s more efficient, it’s extremely difficult to ski uphill against the avalanche of early WR picks, limiting the number of detours we can take in the first 7 or so rounds. Secondarily, I view the RB positionally rankings as mostly efficient through the first 7 rounds, leading me to usually just take whichever RBs go after ADP in the specific draft I’m in. However, there are multiple RBs I’m significantly ahead of vs ADP after round 7, and none more so than Ty Chandler.
Chandler is a locked-in RB2 on a team with a older, often-injury RB that is led by one of the best playcallers in the league, surrounded by a talented pass-catching group, and a rookie QB. It’s a great situation for Chandler, who finished slightly above average in Next Gen Stats success rate last season. While he isn’t exciting, the fact that he goes beyond multiple other RB2 or even RB3s on their own team doesn’t make much sense to me. He should either rise to that level, or the other guys should fall.
Players I’m Much Lower than ADP on
Wide Receivers
I wrote many of these up in the Comparing WR Talent to ADP article last week, including Davante Adams (26th in combined rank), Stefon Diggs (35th), and Cooper Kupp (50th), as each significantly declined last year. With minimal discounts to their 2024 ADP, I’m largely out on them. Tyreek Hill and Mike Evans are similar a bet, in that they are older players that I’m essentially betting will moderately decline this year, and I want to be slightly underweight the field at their current ADPs.
I also analyzed Hollywood Brown, as a WR who was never a true #1 option, declined significantly last year, and now faces a crowded pass-catching room that is at least as talented, if not more talented, than he is. I’m willing to take him on Chiefs stacks, but he’s a mostly avoid for me.
Romeo Doubs and Jerry Jeudy are two receivers I’m simply struggling to get om board with, mostly due to the fact that WRs behind them on ADP might just be better than them. I don’t have a super strong take on Wicks (20th in combined rank on a small sample) vs Doubs (32nd with 150 more routes), but the 20 pick gap in ADP makes zero sense to me. They should probably go right next to each other, meeting somewhere in the middle of their current ADPs. Until then, I’ll just continue drafting Wicks. After the flippening occurs (and it probably will), I’ll start drafting Doubs.
Jerry Jeudy is probably better than I give him credit for, given that he finished as a low-end WR2 in combined rank (59th) last year, while Elijah Moore was 84th. His current positional ADP is exactly WR59. But… he faces substantially more target competition than last year, and the Browns passing game isn’t something I’m particularly excited to bet on. All said, he probably will rise slightly in my July ranks, but remains mostly a correlation play only for me.
Quarterbacks and Tight Ends
I’m not super out on anyone at these positions, but that’s mostly because being far behind ADP in the late rounds doesn’t impact the percentage as much. Broadly speaking, I don’t like the tight end or quarterbacks in the last 2-3 rounds, as I’ve hopefully finished at each position by then. I will note that Daniel Jones, Russell Wilson, and Gardner Minshew seem like particularly bad picks, as there’s a significant chance that each is not the starter in the playoff weeks.
Running backs
Let me say that I would very much like to be in on Derrick Henry and Saquon Barkley. Both are going to team explosive offenses, and each has the potential to score a bunch of touchdowns this year. The issue is that neither is going to catch many passes, but goes significantly ahead of other running backs that do. Each goes more than a round ahead of Travis Etienne, Isiah Pacheco, Josh Jacobs, James Cook, Joe Mixon, and Rachaad White. Each of those backs in very likely to catch more passes than Henry and Barkley. Each of those backs is very likely to maintain a clear lead rushing role for his team. So, the bet is simply that they score many more touchdowns than the other guys. Henry probably will, given he was still good last year and has an improved environment, but he is also likely to be next-to-a zero in the receiving game. Saquon will probably need to score from distance (even if the Eagles do decrease their tush push rate this year), but he is still very capable of doing that, even if he struggles with consistency. All said, I don’t want to have zero of these guys given their one-week spike potential, so this will be a rank to revisit later this summer. For now, I’d mostly holding off and hoping their ADPs fall.
While I want to be in on Saquon and Henry, but I don’t like the price, I very much do not want to be in on Josh Jacobs. In my May ranking, I was willing to overlook Jacobs inefficiency and lack of explosiveness, as the Packers paid him lots of money and he seemed primed for a clear bellcow role. While unexciting, Josh Jacobs in a bellcow role on a good offense seemed perfectly fine for a 2/3 turn pick. Well… it turns out that Matt LeFleur was both caught off guard by the Jacobs signing, and still intends to use a rotation in 2024, stating, "Philosophically, no matter who the runner is, typically we'd like to platoon those guys, whether it's two guys or three guys. I just think it allows the running backs to stay fresh throughout the duration of the season.”
The market has already reacted to this news, with Jacobs falling to the mid-fourth round. However, my stance is that he hasn’t yet fallen enough, and I now prefer many of the RBs going behind him, as well as a slew of other guys at other positions. Assuming he falls to the 5th, I’ll likely begin mixing him back in, especially as part of correlation plays.
As for two other veteran backs on this list, I think it’s curtain call for Austin Ekeler and Nick Chubb. Ekeler was among the worst rushers in the league last year in Rush Yards Over Expectation and Success Rate, and is very unlikely to get the goal-line work with Brian Robinson there. In the receiving game, Ekeler still had some juice last year, finishing as roughly the 12th-best receiving back in the league. However, Jayden Daniels will probably throw less to running backs than average, leaving Ekeler without many high value touches on the ground or in the air. Ultimately, I view Ekeler as more of a handcuff to Robinson with contingent upside, rather than as a clear RB2 with spike weeks coming from his receiving role.
The case with Nick Chubb is more complicated. Simply put, if Chubb returns to his previous form by week 8 or so, he’s probably one of the best picks in the tournament. Unfortunately, he is extremely unlikely to do that. Chubb suffered a multi-ligament tear to his knee (same one as in college) that comes with a more difficult and longer recovery. Chubb required two surgeries on the knee, with the second not coming until mid-November. Assuming Chubb requires a normal 9-11 month recovery before returning, he’s a potential PUP list candidate to start the season. Upon returning, he’ll face an uphill battle to regain his explosiveness and stay healthy while playing, as we saw with Javonte Williams last year. Ultimately, I’m almost always avoiding Chubb at his current ADP. If/when it flips with Jerome Ford in the late 120s, it may be time to revisit his ranking.
Excellent article! Thank you for the updated rankings.