It’s never too early to start drafting. DraftKings best ball contests are live, with over $1 million in prizes available. If you’re not ready to stake real money, our fantasy football mock draft simulator tool can give you a flavor of how the drafts might play out, and in a much quicker way than real drafts.
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Fantasy Football Mock Draft
DraftKings Settings
DraftKings is full PPR, with two starting running backs, three starting wide receivers, one quarterback, one tight end and one FLEX spot (TE/RB/WR). The main scoring tweak is that 100-yard rushing or receiving performances and 300-yard passing performances are awarded three bonus points.
We can adjust the Draft Wizard settings to make quarterbacks go slightly higher than usual, as this tends to occur in DraftKings best ball tournaments.
Early Rounds
The Draft Wizard assigned us pick seven, where we will likely be targeting the third tier of players. At the top, Ja’Marr Chase, Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs tend to be the top options, with a second tier of Puka Nacua and Jaxon Smith-Njigba behind them.
In this draft, Gibbs fell slightly, with him and Christian McCaffrey going before us. There aren’t many running backs who stand out at this point, so the choice comes down to Amon-Ra St. Brown or CeeDee Lamb. Both have their positives, but it’s hard to deny that St. Brown has less competition around him for targets. With 105+ targets in each of the last four seasons, that volume is too hard to turn down.
Amon-Ra St. Brown's third straight season with:
???? 100+ catches
???? 1200+ receiving yards
???? 10+ TDs pic.twitter.com/UEg1fBY60y— PFF Fantasy (@PFF_Fantasy) January 5, 2026
In round two, we could have taken Saquon Barkley or Ashton Jeanty, but the chance to get Trey McBride is too appealing. There were only 18 instances of a tight end reaching 100 yards in 2025, and McBride was the only tight end responsible for three of them. His individual week potential is monstrous on DraftKings thanks to the scoring bonuses.
In round three, we go back to wide receiver with Tee Higgins, who, as long as Joe Burrow is healthy, will continue to be a solid play. In the next two rounds, we take Derrick Henry and Travis Etienne. In actual drafts on DraftKings, these players might be gone by this point, and we should be comfortable with either in the third round of drafts. However, with four quarterbacks and two tight ends already gone, it has provided us with some value.
In round six, we take DK Metcalf, who is coming off a career-high 7.2 yards after the catch per reception, the fourth-highest among wide receivers with 50+ targets. We pair Marvin Harrison Jr. with Mertcalf in round seven. Harrison has had a tumultuous start to his career, but stacking him with McBride makes some sense if Arizona can be better under the new coaching staff.
Middle Rounds
By the eighth round, our running back room could do with a little attention, so we take a shot at two underpriced veterans in Rico Dowdle and Aaron Jones. Dowdle gives us some more correlation with Metcalf. We might not want to go all in on the Steelers’ offense, but both players provide value. Jones is returning to Minnesota, and while Father Time is catching up to him, he’s a much better running back than Jordan Mason.
In round 10, we get our fifth wide receiver, which is generally a good target to aim for on DraftKings, as we’ll start at least three every week, and four if one finds their way into our FLEX spot. Josh Downs is only one year removed from a season where he averaged 13.1 PPR points per game and no longer has Michael Pittman ahead of him. Downs might not be an every-down player, but he still earned plenty of targets last year and had a targets per route run rate of 0.24, the highest among Colts players. Even in a down season, he earned 84 targets.
Average Separation Score vs. Targets per Route Run through Week 16
Never let them forget how good Josh Downs is pic.twitter.com/BTW4whTJVI
— Fantasy Points Data (@FantasyPtsData) December 23, 2025
Now we have five receivers, an elite tight end and four running backs. We’re positioned well to play the board however it comes to us. Rachaad White‘s average draft position (ADP) will likely rise from this spot. For now, he’s a fine pick in round 11, regardless of how little the Commanders opted to pay him. With only Jacory Croskey-Merritt for competition (unless they draft Jeremiyah Love), White could be very relevant in this PPR format.
We double-tap quarterback in the next two rounds with Patrick Mahomes and Kyler Murray. Mahomes occasionally falls due to his ACL injury, but as long as we build around him well, we can focus on having a strong late-season team when the best ball money becomes our focus. Murray correlates with Aaron Jones nicely and has always been happy to check down to his running back. In round 14, we add Travis Kelce to build out a small Chiefs stack, which has potential for plenty of spike week volume.
Late Rounds
We want to finish this kind of build with at least six running backs, as we only took two in the first seven rounds. We also likely want to aim for at least eight wide receivers, given how many we can start each week.
With Mahomes and Murray, adding a third quarterback will make sense in case Murray doesn’t earn the starting quarterback job in Minnesota. We finish up with Chris Rodriguez Jr., Isaac TeSlaa, Tory Horton, Sam Darnold, Elijah Sarratt and Chig Okonkwo.
Draft Wizard Insights
The Draft Wizard gave us a B grade, which is probably fair. At times, we reached for players ahead of ADP, but that’s OK at this time of year. Valuations fluctuate massively with news dropping thick and fast. We correlated all three quarterbacks and built out good position groups. This is a team that could be plenty of fun late in the season.
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