Best Ball Exposure Review

We made it!  Football season is here!  For degenerates who have been drafting NFL best ball teams non stop since February, it feels like crossing the finish line of a marathon.

With over 900 drafts in the books, I thought it would be interesting to review my final exposures and offer some notes.

 

I love that my highest owned player is Jalin Hyatt (43% on UD and 33% on DK).

 

The NY Giants rookie is my most rostered player by a fairly wide margin. Late round WR is my favorite spot to take a big overweight position in best ball. I want to take stands that can lead to big wins if they hit, but small losses if they fail. If a 15th round pick, at a position where I’m generally drafting 8 or 9 players, busts or gets injured, it’s not going to kill my advance rate. Hyatt only needs to have a couple spike weeks during regular season and one in the playoffs to be major win, relative to cost. His big play skill set is perfectly suited for this format.

Hyatt’s ADP has been a roller coaster that I have been riding for months.  He was going around the 12th round in the pre-draft contests.  Most pundits had the Biletnikoff winner, who lit Alabama up for 207 yards and 5 TDs, mocked as a 1st or 2nd round pick.  He fell to the 3rd round, off a relatively unimpressive combine and concerns that his production was boosted by a gimmicky Tennessee offense.  He began to slide in best ball drafts as well.  The dip continued as the Giants signed slot receivers such as Parris Campbell, Jamison Crowder, Cole Beasley, and Sterling Shepard to compete for targets.

When Campbell dominated early camp practices, it was speculated that Hyatt wouldn’t see the field early in 3 WR sets. The rookie dropped to the point where he could be had in 18th round of best ball drafts.  I kept buying all the way down.  Then a funny thing happened.  Hyatt started dominating training camp practices.  Beat writers swooned.  The steam really got heavy when he made a sweet move up the seam for a 33 yard touchdown in the second preseason game against Carolina.

Hyatt closed with a seemingly fair ADP of 157.3 (14th round) on Underdog.  I do think his snaps will be limited to start the season in a crowded WR room, but Brian Daboll will have a package of plays specifically schemed up for him.  If Hyatt succeeds in these limited opportunities, he should have a more full time roll when the money is decided in the fantasy playoff.

 

I certainly don’t love my Jonathan Taylor exposure (17% on UD and 19% on DK).

 

I made what looks like a big mistake buying heavily in the 2nd round.  It seemed like he was being discounted because running quarterbacks like Richardson usually don’t check down to the RB much.  Passing game involvement was never really the reason you drafted Taylor to begin with.  In the 2021 season, in which he was the league winning RB1, he only caught 40 balls.  If new head coach, Shane Steichen could make Miles Sanders a valuable fantasy asset with Jalen Hurts at QB, I had little doubt he would be able to do the same with a still 24-year-old JT.

A major story of this offseason was the elite running backs that were unhappy with their contracts.  Ekeler, Saquon, and Josh Jacobs all found compromises that allowed them to report to the team and be ready for week one.  I figured that Taylor would do the same.  I didn’t account for the lunatic Indianapolis owner inflaming the situation and making it more personal.  When the trade request happened and he slipped to the 3rd round, I continued to buy.  If he got traded great, if not, I figured he’d report to the Colts with his tail between his legs.  I certainly didn’t predict a 4 week stint on the PUP list to start the season.

I did grab Taylor in the 8th round of a DK draft this morning, on a team which already had CMC and Saquon.  At that price point, I think the potential reward vastly outweighs the risk.  I can only hope that over the next month cooler heads prevail and Taylor either comes back to Indy renewed, or gets traded.  That said, I am not optimistic.

 

I’ve drafted a fair amount of Garrett Wilson (12% on UD and 15% on DK) and Tony Pollard (8% on UD and 15% on DK), but I’m concerned it’s not enough.

 

Let’s start with Wilson.  As a 22-year-old rookie he totaled 1103 receiving yards catching passes from Zach Wilson, the corpse of Joe Flacco, an injured Mike White, and some dude name Chase Streveler.  You don’t need to be Pat McAfee to know that Aaron Rodgers represents a major upgrade.  With Corey Davis’ surprise retirement and Alan Lazard nursing camp injuries, it became only more apparent that Wilson would be a target hog.  In Rodgers’ only preseason drive, he connected with the Ohio State product 3 times, including a beautiful over the shoulder touchdown.

If Wilson has the full Davante Adams roll in an Aaron Rodgers offense, you could make the argument for taking him above any WR not named Jefferson or Chase.

I think most people assumed that Dallas would sign another running back to compliment Pollard.  We believed they’d bring back Zeke, sign Dalvin Cook, or add one of the dusty free agent types like Lenny or Hunt.  None of the above happened.  The season kicks off in a matter of hours and Pollard’s only backups are 5’5″ Deuce Vaughn and the immortal Rico Dowdle, who has 7 career rushing attempts.  Neither has any chance to vulture 12 touchdowns, like Zeke did last season.

Tony Pollard has long been one of most efficient backs in the NFL, if he finally has a bell cow role, he might just be a league winner.

 

Good luck to everyone who is celebrating the start of the NFL season tonight!  If you are playing the Showdown slate tonight, Geek, Bobby and DFSUpNorth give the best breakdown in the biz.

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