Best Ball Journal: General Washington, AJB & The Duke

This article is part of our Best Ball Strategy series.

I always find it interesting to see which players other people are drafting. Actually, I even find it interesting to see who I've been drafting, because sometimes I lose track of my past actions and manage to surprise myself.

I knew I liked A.J. Brown but kind of assumed everyone else viewed him similarly, which meant I wouldn't end up with too many shares. As it turns out, Brown is on 35 percent of my best-ball teams on Drafters.com, tied with Julian Edelman for my second-most-rostered WR. (Edelman, on the other hand, I knew I'd be heavy on).

On the other end of the spectrum we have DK Metcalf, an incredible talent who I thought I was pretty excited about. Well, I apparently haven't been that excited, because he's rostered on exactly zero of my 40 teams. Metcalf isn't a bad pick by any means, but he won't end up on your fantasy teams if you're ranking him below both Courtland Sutton and Terry McLaurin and also regularly draft Devin Singletary (43 percent) in the fifth round.

I mostly play best ball for entertainment and to hopefully win a little extra travel money for the upcoming year, but there's also the added bonus of getting practice for standard redraft leagues. I now have a better idea about which type of roster builds I'm likely to end up with from different draft spots, and I know which players I hold in high/low regard relative to other fantasy drafters at large.

Anyway, this isn't sponsored content so I'll save you the longer spiel, but I will say Drafters.com is pretty cool if you're a fan of reasonable rake and good customer service. I've largely been playing 12-person leagues, so you might say that any player who is 8.5 percent rostered or higher is someone I like enough to draft them more often than the average person would. Below, I'll list all the players that show up on at least four of my 40 teams.

Quarterbacks

I definitely favor the "late-round QB" approach, but I'll draft Jackson in Round 3 if D.J. Moore, Chris Godwin and Allen Robinson have all been taken, and I'll pick Watson in Round 7 or 8 if the likes of Edelman and Tyler Boyd are gone.

Otherwise, I'm usually grabbing two of Burrow/Minshew/Newton/Tannehill/Jones/Bridgewater in the middle rounds, followed by TyGod as my QB3. Apart from Goff — who I expect to breeze past 600 pass attempts — every QB in my crosshairs offers some degree of rushing potential. Taylor, with his 203.6 ADP, is an absolute lay-up pick compared to the Washington/Miami/Chicago QB disasters that represent our alternatives in the 200s. Are people scared of Justin Herbert, or did they forget how much Taylor can add on the ground?

Notable Fades

• Drew Brees (5%) - This is interesting because I have Brees ranked as my QB7, which is as high as you'll ever see him. I'm basically just avoiding all the signal callers in that range, as I don't see a huge difference for fantasy purposes when I compare this group of QBs — Brees (ADP 100.6), Josh Allen (83.2), Matt Ryan (90.6), Tom Brady (93.5), Carson Wentz (99.0) — to the likes of Jones (120.2), Newton (131.8) and Burrow (138.2). Plus, I can usually grab Newton or Burrow shortly after there's a drop off at every other position, which usually happens around pick 135.
• Patrick Mahomes (2.5%) - I have the Super Bowl MVP ranked at No. 28 overall, which isn't too far from ADP (24.9) but for practical purposes means I essentially never draft him. You simply won't find many drafts where Mahomes is still on the board after Jackson, OBJ, Robinson and Moore all have been taken.
• Ben Roethlisberger (0%) - It's kind of strange for someone with James Washington at 53% rostered to never be drafting his QB. Then again, I only have four combined JuJu/Diontae shares, and Washington's ADP is 186.7, so the general theme is that I'll only invest in the Pittsburgh passing game when doing so is cheap. I prefer Goff (ADP 142.2) over Roethlisberger (137.6) as my statue QB in the middle rounds, in large part because the Steelers seem more likely to field a good defense and running game. I worry Ben will lose more than 100 pass attempts from his 2018 career high (675), and I'm also not sold on the idea of a 38-year-old QB returning from major elbow surgery. He may be mediocre at this point.

Running Backs

My love for Duke Johnson truly knows no bounds. Realistically, he'll never be a 20-touch player under coach Bill O'Brien, even if the only other options are undrafted scrubs and special teams guys. But I do think Duke has solid-RB2 upside in the event of a David Johnson crash and burn. We could also see Duke getting a handful of targets and a handful of carries each week even if David is healthy, so it all seems like a pretty sweet deal at ADP 133.0.

Keep in mind that I'm playing 12-team leagues with payouts for first and second place — rather than large tournaments — so it isn't necessarily bad to go for a floor play like Duke over a ceiling play like Chase Edmonds in the same ADP range. If we're talking about one of those tournaments where you essentially need a perfect team, I'd rather go with the guys who would be the best bets to see a lot of carries AND targets if the starter in front of them were to miss time, i.e., Edmonds, Tony Pollard, Latavius Murray, maybe Alexander Mattison.

The likes of Duke and Boston Scott should outscore those guys early in the season, but the 20-touch-per-week scenario probably doesn't exist. Of course, you know the guy who has Duke Johnson on 59 percent of his best-ball teams is still harboring some slim hope that the #FreeDuke movement finally picks up steam in Year 6.

Elsewhere, I've consistently been drafting Singletary (ADP 57.6) in Round 5 for RB-needy teams, while I'll usually go McLaurin/Sutton if I already have two running backs. There have even been a couple instances when I picked up Devin the Dude in the sixth after passing on him in the fifth. I understand some of the hesitance to draft Singletary, but at some point it feels like his never-ending ADP plunge is overkill due to fear/groupthink. The 4th/5th round seemed like a reasonable landing spot to account for both upside and downside scenarios.

Other recurring themes include Ekeler (ADP 17.6) in Round 2, White in Rounds 7/8 (ADP 82.6), Cohen in Rounds 8-10 (ADP 98.5) and Thompson (ADP 197.3) and Armstead (ADP 199.1) as RB6 options. The passing-down backs give you a better floor in the middle and late rounds, and while I wouldn't care about that in a standard redraft league, it does matter in a best-ball format with no trades or add/drop. 

A lot of the bigger, ground-based backs being drafted in the same range as Thompson — including his aforementioned teammate Armstead — could just be headed for goose egg after goose egg. I've only been drafting Armstead because I still think there's some chance of Leonard Fournette being traded, either in the next few weeks or during the season.

Notable Fades

• I only have five combined shares of Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley, which essentially just equates to suboptimal luck with draft position. Given that I have CMac & Saquon ranked 1-2, I'd expect to have one or the other on at least 16.7 percent of my teams (rather than 12.5 percent) if I did a larger sample of drafts. Oh well.
• I have zero shares of Le'Veon Bell, David Johnson, Chris Carson, Leonard Fournette, Clyde Edwards-Helaire (oops!), Jonathan Taylor, David Montgomery and Mark Ingram. The only RBs I've touched in Rounds 3-5 are Singletary and Conner (ADP 36.2).
• I'm at zero percent on Jordan Howard (ADP 91.8) and 20 percent on Matt Breida (ADP 98.6). Not interested in the early down bruiser on a team that can't block or play defense.

Wide Receivers

I'm unintentionally a bit more diversified at wide receiver, where it generally seems easier to make arguments for or against a large number of players. The obvious exception is General Washington, who happens to be kind enough to indulge my idiocy.

Anyway, I also have better arguments for drafting Washington, for those of you who find it pathetic that his tweet response was the most exciting moment of my day/week/month/year/life.

Apart from the JW love, I'm loaded up on a slew of receivers going in Rounds 3-9. I often find myself with five WRs through my first nine picks, or sometimes even six. There's kind of a drop off once Shepard, Slayton and Crowder are gone, which is when I'll usually start to draft the Dukes and Lataviuses of the world. I do think this partially unintentional strategy has left me light on some receivers I kinda like, including Golden Tate, Jalen Reagor and Breshad Perriman.

Notable Fades

• I have zero shares of Julio Jones (16.0) or Davante Adams (10.7). Not because I rank them outside my Top 5 at wide receiver, but because I'm always drafting Kelce, Kittle or Ekeler in Round 2. And the rare times I've taken an upper-echelon WR, it was Tyreek Hill (ADP 14.0) to kick off a Chiefs stack, or DeAndre Hopkins (ADP 20.5) when he slipped to the third round or very end of the second.
• I have 13 shares of Gallup (ADP 67.4), one of Amari Cooper (ADP 28.5) and zero of CeeDee Lamb (ADP 96.2). I didn't realize I was such an extremist on the Dallas pass catchers, but apparently that's the case. The Gallup-Cooper thing doesn't surprise me given the too-large gap between their ADPs; I'm just not quite sure why I faded Lamb across the board? I guess it's because the rookie goes in the same range as Crowder/Shepard/Slayton, three guys I really like relative to ADP. Anyway, Lamb is one of my favorite WR prospects of the past decade, so I won't be shocked if he challenges Gallup or even Cooper for target supremacy by the second half of the season.
• I also have zero Jerry Jeudy shares (ADP 107.8), while Laviska Shenault (12.5 percent, ADP 175.5) has been my top rookie pick. For what it's worth, Shenault has been a recent riser, and I'm pretty sure most of my shares were acquired well after his current ADP. I also have two apiece of Reagor, Henry Ruggs and Justin Jefferson, plus four of Brandon Aiyuk.

Tight Ends

You may have figured out by now that I'm generally enthusiastic about the Jacksonville offense, with Minshew, Thompson, Shenault and Eifert all becoming regular subjects of my attention in the late rounds. Part of that is optimism on Minshew, and part is an expectation that OC Jay Gruden and a lousy defense will create the right recipe for prolific passing volume. Plus, Thompson and Eifert are talented players who already have history with Gruden, and the sketchy medical records seem fully priced in when you're drafting them around the 200th pick overall.

I have either Kelce or Kittle in 47.5 percent of leagues, but the number was actually higher — easily above 50 percent — before my Ekeler love fully developed. Originally, I had Kelce and Kittle behind Kenyan Drake but ahead of Ekeler. Now, I'll take both Drake and Ekeler over the tight ends.

Notable Fades

• I have zero shares of Zach Ertz, succumbing to my perpetual fear that THIS will be the year when the Eagles finally have enough weapons to avoid peppering their tight end with 8-10 targets per game. Ertz is a good player, but I wouldn't really call him a superstar so much as a guy who keeps getting huge volume out of necessity. I'm also a little worried about Dallas Goedert poaching a few of the snaps and routes in single-TE formations. However, Ertz's ADP (45.6) does account for some of the downside risk, so maybe I should've been drafting him instead of Sutton/McLaurin with some of my fifth-round picks. Oh well.
• I have only one share apiece of Darren Waller (ADP 63.7), Hayden Hurst (84.8) and Rob Gronkowski (107.6). I think Gronk will split snaps with O.J. Howard, and Waller has tougher target competition than he did last year, playing in what likely will be a balanced/run-oriented offense. Hurst I still like as a breakout candidate, but I liked him in the 100s, not when he's going ahead of December 2019 legend Tyler Higbee (ADP 88.9).