The NFL Draft isn’t quite here yet, and while it can become easy to be hyper-focused on that very significant event in the fantasy football calendar, what comes afterwards is equally exciting: 2026 best ball contests. Before that happens, though, we have time to consider what the ideal best ball roster construction looks like for 2026.
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Fantasy Football Best Ball Roster Construction Strategy
2025 Winning Lineups
Average draft position (ADP) and player situations change dramatically year to year, but that doesn’t mean our thought process can’t start with a look back at how 2025 worked out.
The Underdog Best Ball Mania VI overall winner, drafted by Sam Sherman of Ship Chasing, deployed a classic Hero RB strategy to win a cool $2 million.
Sam drafted Derrick Henry in the second round (2.04) and used four more early picks on wide receivers: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Tetairoa McMillan and Chris Olave. He also drafted George Kittle in the fifth round. Sam drafted three quarterbacks between rounds 9-15 and took his second tight end in round 16.
Sam’s build was a 3/6/7/2, and was balanced nicely throughout. All three quarterbacks were stacked, but not overly aggressively:
- Brock Purdy + George Kittle
- Bryce Young + Tetairoa McMillan + Adam Thielen
- Tyler Shough + Chris Olave + Juwan Johnson
Thielen was traded to the Vikings and eventually found his way to the Steelers, slightly nullifying that stack, which Sam had drafted on June 1st. However, as a 14th-round pick, it wasn’t too costly. It’s also noteworthy that Sam had two rookie wide receivers (McMillan and Luther Burden III), but otherwise didn’t go overboard on the unknown players, despite expectations being high.
The DraftKings best ball winner had a 3/6/9/2 build, carried to the championship by Trey McBride‘s dominant end-of-season performance. This team took Bijan Robinson in the first round before a mix of McBride, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, George Pickens and DJ Moore before adding D’Andre Swift and Najee Harris.
We don’t know the date this team was drafted, but it’s fair to assume this was another typical Hero RB build. With two more rounds than Underdog, stacking tends to be a bit more prominent on DraftKings among the hardcore drafters. Here’s how this team’s stacks shook out:
- Caleb Williams + DJ Moore + Luther Burden III + D’Andre Swift
- Dak Prescott + George Pickens + KaVontae Turpin
- Kyler Murray + Trey McBride + Trey Benson
The results of those stacks, much like on Underdog, weren’t perfect, but the takeaway should be that betting on team stacks is good, and don’t be afraid to add running backs to your stack. This team featured only two rookies. Burden and DJ Giddens, who was a non-factor.
2026 Roster Goals
On the surface, leaning towards 3-QB Hero RB builds with one elite tight end and then waiting for a second tight end would be the skeleton key based on 2025’s success.
Anyone who has played fantasy football for more than one season is aware that things change drastically year to year. In the last few years, we’ve seen Zero RB teams win millions of dollars, and we’ve also seen dual running back teams have equal success, so remaining fluid seems wise.
Quarterback
In early contests, quarterbacks get pushed up in ADP, before eventually easing back as the summer rolls on. This is due to the uncertainty around some situations, causing drafters to be thirsty for known quantities, and we’ve seen it happen for several years now. Nevertheless, we don’t want to get left behind at the position.
Typically, if we’re drafting a quarterback early — within the first six rounds/72 picks — we might want to draft just two.
Early 2026 Best Ball Quarterback ADP
| Player | ADP |
| Josh Allen | 29 |
| Lamar Jackson | 50 |
| Jayden Daniels | 63 |
| Joe Burrow | 64 |
| Caleb Williams | 68 |
| Jalen Hurts | 69 |
| Drake Maye | 71 |
If all seven of the quarterbacks above go by this point in the draft, seven teams in your draft room have a quarterback, which forces them up the draft board elsewhere. If your opponents are taking a quarterback early and still loading up with three passers, it could benefit you to try to thread a needle with only two.
The benefit of this would be an additional spot for a running back, wide receiver or tight end. The downside would be one fewer team stack that could help your team pop as you navigate the ever-tricky playoffs. If drafting a quarterback early, stick with two. Or at least make the second and third selections both late picks, so you’re not spending significant draft capital on the position.
Running Back
For the last two years, the running back reemergence has been particularly important for fantasy football. Young studs like Jahmyr Gibbs and Bijan Robinson have broken out, while veterans continue to be underpriced and pay off for those believing in their health.
The trouble is that most platforms still prioritise wide receivers, giving them one more spot than the running back position. Typical roster settings in best ball: 1-QB, 2-RB, 3-WR, 1-TE and 1-FLEX.
With these typical starting lineups, you could need as many as four wide receivers in any given week, compared to a maximum of three running backs. Generally, we want a minimum of five running backs and no more than seven.
Both of last year’s winners had six running backs. Over the last four years on DraftKings, that’s been a consistent number. On Underdog, the number has fluctuated between five and six. Even in 2023, when a Zero RB team won Best Ball Mania, they stopped drafting running backs once they had six.
How we allocate those six running backs largely depends on how you start your draft. Ideally, we want one or two running backs inside the first six rounds based on current ADP, and then end up with five to six total. Or we ignore the position and go Zero RB until round six and then end up with a volume-based approach of six, or a maximum of seven if we’ve pushed it even later for our first running back.
It’s easier to assign volume to the running back position if we’re going lighter at quarterback or tight end than the typical allocations of three. The simple rule of thumb is: You can either draft running backs early or draft a lot of running backs, but you can’t do both.
Wide Receivers
As previously mentioned, the wide receiver position is the one we’re typically going to end up with the most of, simply due to roster requirements. In 2024, we saw poor results from second-round wide receivers. Last year, CeeDee Lamb, Malik Nabers, A.J. Brown, Tyreek Hill, Justin Jefferson and Ladd McConkey all disappointed for one reason or another.
It can be a hard pill to swallow versus the running back position, where if a player’s healthy, the volume of touches tends to make it tough for them to fail as spectacularly as Jefferson, who saw the sixth-most targets but averaged only 9.4 half-PPR points, making him the WR37.
Last year’s winners took different approaches, with Underdog’s prize going to a seven-receiver team, while a nine-receiver team won everything on DraftKings. Over the last five years, DraftKings winning teams have had a minimum of eight receivers, and the vast majority of finalists were either eight- or nine-wide receiver teams. On Underdog, where drafts are 18 rounds rather than 20, the highest advancing teams have been seven-receiver teams.
After two years of wide receivers being pushed up draft boards and then failing to deliver in the same way they did in 2023, when Zero RB dominated, we’re starting to see running backs get pushed up slightly more. As previously mentioned, there is a real quarterback thirst in the top 72 picks.
This, in turn, is pushing depth wide receivers slightly down draft boards. Whether you can trust them is another issue, with more and more teams turning to fewer wide receiver-heavy formations. But we need volume for our roster one way or another.
Typically, you want to draft at least seven receivers, even if you start a draft double-tapping the position. If you do start wide receiver-heavy, you can ease off around round 10 and return to the position later on (round 15 or later). If you ignore the wide receiver position in the first three rounds, it’s safe to say you’ll likely want at least eight wide receivers in total.
Tight End
What do we do with the toughest position in fantasy football? That’s the question everyone wants to know. Currently, just Trey McBride and Brock Bowers go in the second round. Colston Loveland is the only other tight end with an ADP inside of the first 60 picks. For varying reasons, there is a glut of tight ends available between picks 80 and 150 that look to be strong bets to make this year.
Early 2026 Best Ball Tight End ADP
| Player | ADP |
| Tucker Kraft | 88 |
| Kyle Pitts | 97 |
| Sam LaPorta | 100 |
| Oronde Gadsden | 111 |
| Dalton Kincaid | 117 |
| George Kittle | 123 |
| Jake Ferguson | 128 |
| Dallas Goedert | 138 |
| Travis Kelce | 139 |
| Brenton Strange | 146 |
| Isaiah Likely | 146 |
| Mark Andrews | 148 |
It’s fair to point out that some of these players are dealing with major knee injuries or facing the inevitability of Father Time, but it’s also fair to point out that there are some very reliable touchdown scorers in this group. At the tight end position, scoring seven touchdowns will almost always assure you a top-12 finish.
If we’re taking a tight end early (Bowers, McBride, Loveland), it might be best to bypass most of this area of the draft and concentrate on quarterbacks instead, as you’ll likely not want to double-dip on both onesie positions early. You could also add some running back or wide receiver depth instead.
You’re putting most of your eggs in an elite tight end, so pair that with a pure punt at the position. Whereas if you’ve waited, then double-dipping within this range and then adding a rookie or late-round dart throw makes sense. A tight end room of Tucker Kraft, Dallas Goedert and Eli Stowers would tick a lot of boxes, for instance.
Rookies
As we touched on at the start of this article, neither of last year’s winners went particularly rookie-heavy in their rosters. This has been a common theme over the years, with typically no more than three or four rookies on a roster.
It can be easy when you’re on the clock to take the mystery box of a rookie pick, hoping they turn into the upside you think your roster needs.
The reality is that many rookies don’t hit, and having too many lottery tickets on your roster pushes you into wishcasting territory, even though rookie upside continues to be worth betting on. It just comes back to making a smaller bet, rather than going crazy with it.
Ideal Roster Construction
- QBs: If going with one quarterback before round six, stick at two and wait to draft your QB2. Otherwise, draft three.
- RBs: No more than two in the first four rounds. No more than seven in total.
- WRs: Ideally 4-5 by round 10. Then take correlated/stacked bets later.
- TEs: If going elite, punt the position. Otherwise, double-dip within picks 75-150, and then take a dart-throw late.
- Rookies: No more than four.
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