With any game we play, we must adjust our strategy to the rules and scoring. Most of the content we have produced thus far has been specific to Underdog and similar half-PPR, 18-man roster structures, driven by the availability of data from last year’s Underdog contests. While we do not have that data available from DraftKings, we must rather use what we learned from other formats and think about how we can convert it to the DK structure and scoring.
In this article, I will dive into how I am adjusting my strategy for DraftKings Best Ball tournaments. This game is by no means solved, and I personally am continuing to adjust my strategy as I complete and analyze more drafts, learn from others, and evolve my thinking. I’ll take it position by position and provide insight into how I’m thinking about roster construction and players in that group.
Before jumping into each position, it’s important to think about things structurally. In DK drafts, we have two extra roster spots, full-PPR scoring, and bonuses for 300 passing yards and 100 rushing or receiving yards. Thinking about how we can capitalize on those two extra positions while also building lineups that favor pass catchers will give us a substantial edge in these drafts.
Quarterbacks
There are three key ideas that drive my DK drafting strategy for quarterbacks: 1) Quarterbacks make up a lower percentage of team points compared due to the full-PPR scoring, 2) The gap between running quarterbacks and passing quarterbacks is mitigated with the 300-yard bonus, and 3) The extra roster spot makes three-QB strategies less cost prohibitive.
To the first point, quite simply, there is more overall scoring when using full PPR vs half PPR and the QB is the only position that does not benefit from that extra half-point per reception. RBs, WRs, and TEs all benefit, but the gap is most extreme with the highest-scoring players at each position (i.e., the top 10 WRs last year scored on average 49 more points in PPR than half PPR while the 41st-50th ranked WRs only scored 28 more). We should inherently want to spend less draft capital on a position that has a lesser impact on our team’s overall scoring.
To the second, while I strongly va
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