Last season was a good year for the idea of spreading out exposure on late-round picks in best ball, with tight ends in this range shining in particular. Tucker Kraft, Jonnu Smith and others shone in this range, as well as several quarterbacks finishing in the top 12 after being drafted late.
The previous season was the year of all years for this idea with Kyren Williams, Jordan Love, Puka Nacua, Brock Purdy, Trey McBride, C.J. Stroud and Jerome Ford all shining in the late rounds. In 2022, we saw the likes of late-round picks Zay Jones & Geno Smith hit. In best ball, where we have no chances to make changes to our rosters, and drafts happen as early as January, spreading out exposure to these late-round dart throws can pay off handsomely.
Best Ball Strategy: Spreading Out Exposure in Late Picks
The late rounds of fantasy drafts aren’t cash-rich, though, with many players in this area of the draft failing miserably. This area of the draft also tends to see the biggest changes in average draft position (ADP) month to month, with players almost in a holding zone. The good news is that we can see them skyrocket up 50 or so picks to a range where we have fewer question marks, while the bad news is that we can see them fall out of being drafted altogether.
Aaron Rodgers, for instance, is being drafted with an ADP of 212 on Underdog, but if he does sign with the Steelers, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him jump at least to the 180 range, where Sam Darnold is currently being drafted. Last year, Jordan Mason went from pick 220 for most of the offseason to finishing around pick 150 after Christian McCaffrey got injured.
Meanwhile, Elijah Mitchell had been firmly drafted 30 picks ahead of Mason for much of the summer, until it came out in the wake of McCaffrey’s injury that it was Mason who would be the No. 1 RB. Further proof that spreading picks out in this range makes too much sense.
If you’re drafting more than a handful of teams, which has become more and more common now, individual player exposure becomes a vital metric to track, particularly when entering a large field tournament with thousands of other teams. Even-weight is 8.3%. We get this by dividing 100% by the number of teams in our draft (12).
As fantasy managers, it’s unusual for us not to take strong stances on players. While we want to take stands for the right reasons, it’s important not to be too heavy on one player unless you’re comfortable taking a high-risk approach to your best ball strategies. This approach has worked for some best ball winners in the past, but many other high-volume best ball players prefer a more spread and balanced portfolio. How much risk tolerance you have is entirely up to you, but at the end of this article, I’ll lay out my typical approach.
Early vs. Late Advance Rates
It can be scary to take aggressive stances in the first couple of rounds, with top-tier talents typically not separated by much, and their fortunes can sometimes be dependent on situation and injuries. For the last two years, we’ve seen massive advance rates come from one individual in the first round.
In 2023, Christian McCaffrey advanced at a rate of 36.2%, almost 20% higher than the base rate of 16.7%. In simple terms, this meant that 36.2% of teams with McCaffrey advanced to the best ball playoffs, where the serious money starts to come into play. In 2024, though, that number was smashed to pieces with Ja’Marr Chase notching a massive 50.6% advance rate. This was the single largest advance rate in the last four years of Underdog’s Best Ball Mania contest.
The trouble comes with trying to decide where to take your stand in the first round. While advancing a large number of the teams to the playoffs gives you more bites at the cherry, we also want to have teams that can differentiate from the crowd. Whether that comes in the form of an early-round elite player or a late-round dart-throw doesn’t matter, but we have to consider how we’ll end up differentiating.
Having conviction in the top talents is not a bad thing, but losing a first-round talent to injury, like Justin Jefferson in 2023, can severely hamper your team. That year, teams with Jefferson advanced at a rate close to one out of every 20 teams. In 2024, McCaffrey teams were severely impacted by a player with the lowest advance rate in the whole competition (4%). Spreading out the exposure here makes some sense.
In the late rounds, it can become relatively easy to become overweight on players, and the importance of tracking this matters. It’s a widely accepted part of fantasy drafts that reaching for players matters far less in the later rounds than in early rounds. Hence, drafters have a habit of getting their guys when the players immediately facing them are not appealing, but by spreading the net further, we increase our chances of hitting on the right combinations to win big. It’s also far easier to absorb the hit of an injury to a late-round pick than it is at the top of your drafts.
In 2023, 92 players had an ADP between 150-220 on Underdog, equivalent to a mid-12th-round pick onwards. This jumped to 133 in 2024, which might be a sign that players used this range to dive deeper and spread their exposures to players not drafted in every draft. These players can give us some perspective on how the late-round picks worked out.
Quarterback
Eighteen quarterbacks were drafted in these rounds — three finished inside the top 10 at the position for the second straight year, and a further four finished in the top 24. Six quarterbacks drafted in this area averaged over 15 points per game, a slight dip from seven in 2023, but still a notable improvement from 2022, when only three did so. Five of the 18 had 12+ top-24 weekly finishes, with three of the 18 having eight or more top-12 weeks.
Running Back
A total of 33 running backs were drafted between picks 150-220. An increase from the 2023 numbers of 27. In 2023, Kyren Williams was the standout in this range. In 2024, Bucky Irving continued to provide late-round dynamite, with four top-eight weekly finishes from Week 10 onwards.
Irving was the only back in this range to average double-digit half-PPR points per game (PPG) in this range, with a further six the only ones to average over six PPG, leaving 78% of the running backs in this range below that mark.
At the running back position, we can define a usable week as a top-36 finish, with the option of slotting them into your Flex position, in theory. Eight backs (24%) had at least six usable weeks last season. This was a downturn from 2023, when 29% of running backs had nine or more usable weeks.
Wide Receivers
A massive 48 wide receivers were found in this range, a huge increase on the 29 from 2023. Four finished inside the top 48 of wideouts in points per game, but there was no Puka Nacua to be found, with Adam Thielen the best of the late-round receivers.
At wide receiver, a usable week can be defined as a top-48 weekly finish, as we start three plus a Flex. In total, 170 of the top-48 finishes came from this range, with Wan’Dale Robinson leading the way with 11. Only two wideouts averaged double-digit points, while another seven averaged over seven.
Tight End
For the third straight year, late-round tight end was a productive strategy, with Jonnu Smith (TE4), Tucker Kraft (TE8), Hunter Henry (TE12) and Zach Ertz (TE13) all significantly paying off their draft costs. This followed 2023, when Cole Kmet, Trey McBride and Jake Ferguson all finished as top-12 tight ends, a year after Evan Engram, Taysom Hill and David Njoku did so in 2022. Outside of the four names previously mentioned, only Cade Otton had six or more weeks as a top-12 option in 2024.
This provides further insight that the most volatile position in fantasy football, tight end, might be the one that is the most important to spread out exposure to.
Final Thoughts
When we see the numbers laid out like this, it becomes obvious how tricky it can be to hit on players in the later rounds. Each year will feature players like Bo Nix, Bucky Irving or Jonnu Smith, occasionally even the likes of Kyren Williams and Puka Nacua, but there will also be the likes of Jonathan Mingo, Malachi Corley and Trey Sermon, who sit as deadweights on your bench for much of the season. Taking a methodical approach to this area of the draft might lead to some busts, but it can also help us land tournament winners, too.
The most sensible approach is to spread your exposure depending on the rounds you’re in. The earlier the pick, the more potential it has to ruin a team if you’re hit by injuries, suspension or poor performances. Depending on the number of drafts you do, these numbers can look quite different, but I like to stick to this approach if you’re participating in over 100 drafts:
- Rounds 1-3: 15% max
- Rounds 4-6: 20% max
- Rounds 7-10: 25% max
- Rounds 11-14:30% max
- Rounds 15-20: 35% max
When players get to these levels, it doesn’t always mean it’s time to stop drafting them, but these levels act as a trigger to look at that player’s situation. Are you comfortable taking an aggressive stand on them? Have you been overdrafting them? If another player were added to that skill group, how badly could that impact this player’s performance?
Even when we’re entirely positive that Devontez Walker is cheap in the 20th round and that this is his year, there are so many unknowns at this point in the draft. Taking as many shots as possible at different players will be a more sensible choice. It can become easy to miss out on players like Kyren Williams, Puka Nacua and Bucky Irving by being too focused on certain other late-round fliers, but we can avoid this by spreading our exposure a little thinner.
As your rosters with those players progress, it becomes easy to regret not taking slightly more of them at such a low price. We can let our roster dictate late-round picks and choose players who will stack well with your quarterbacks. If you were in on C.J. Stroud in 2023, it made sense to draft a very cheap Tank Dell; likewise, in 2024, drafting Bo Nix made Marvin Mims an easier click. It’s worth periodically examining who you have very little exposure to, assessing the situation and deciding whether or not to pursue those players you’re underexposed to more aggressively in the future.
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