3 Bounce-Back QBs

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In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Happy Head:

Everyone wants access to the Eagles, Bengals, Bills, and Chiefs offenses in best ball land, and for good reason. They all offer elite QB play and proven skill players that can rack up fantasy points.

However, the top pass-catcher and QB stacks can be difficult to land without reaching in the early rounds.

Trying to set up these stack options is still a worthwhile cause, but I rarely reach to complete the Kelce/Mahomes, Brown/Hurts, or Diggs/Allen pairings. Instead, if the QB makes it past ADP, then wheels up.

Ultimately, we won’t always land these combos, but THAT IS OKAY as long as we have a backup plan. In fact, by not taking a QB early, your team should have one more strong WR/RB/TE. That can be a positive – especially if we can find a less expensive QB with the upside to offset the elite options.

In order to identify these QBs and which ones lend themselves the most to stacking, we can focus on a few things:

• Bounceback candidates: QBs who had a bad 2022 but recently demonstrated 22-point-per-game (PPG) ability

• Team environment: QBs with multiple weapons (stacking partners) that we can target at various points in the draft

• Schedule bonuses: QBs that play against other high-end offenses that can force shootouts

Using these criteria, names like Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert immediately pop, making them fine selections in Rounds 3 and 5, respectively. However, that is still a tad rich. For this exercise, let's focus on three names in Round 7 or later in Underdog best ball drafts.

🧝 Deshaun Watson

Watson was a bust, averaging only 15.1 points per game after returning to action in Week 13 last year. However, he will only be 28 this season and delivered 23.8 and 22.0 points per game in 2020 and 2019.

Rumors have swirled about the Browns' interest in throwing the ball more since the combine. Since then, they traded for Elijah Moore and took Cedric Tillman out of Tennessee with their first selection (Pick 74).

Even if you don’t have Cooper, you can often come away with one of Moore or Njoku – and sometimes both in the two rounds after Watson. If you only have one Cleveland pass catcher after Round 9, you can tack on another in DPJ or Tillman later.

🍃 Aaron Rodgers

Many will assume Rodgers is washed after his 15-PPG performance last year. However, you only have to turn back the clock to 2020 to find a 24.5 PPG season, which he followed up with 21 PPG in 2021.

Garrett Wilson is an ascending star with top-six upside, and we have seen Rodgers eat with only one primary target before. No one will confuse the rest of the supporting cast for superstars, but Allen Lazard offers a WR3 profile, and multiple other pieces go LATE in drafts.

With Rodgers, the preference is to pair with Wilson. However, there are occasions where the Wilson drafter has another QB, and Rodgers slides. Don’t be afraid to grab him and stack the later options if other structural options don’t fall your way.

😘 Russell Wilson

Wilson struggled through a finger injury in 2021 and face-planted in 2022 with 16 PPG. But in 2020, he registered 23.7. Sean Payton consistently dialed up high-scoring offenses in New Orleans with Drew Brees and will now look to work his magic with Wilson in Denver.

The Broncos receiving unit wasn’t very healthy in 2022. After losing Tim Patrick in the preseason, Jerry Jeudy missed two games and was questionable for three more, while Courtland Sutton sat out two contests and was questionable for two.

There are a ton of ways to build out Wilson stacks. Marvin Mims was a star performer in the WR Rookie Super Model, and Greg Dulcich is a great upside TE option.

Additionally, the Broncos reside in the AFC West with two of the biggest shootout offenses in the Chiefs and Chargers. Denver picks up matchups against the Lions and Vikings in the NFC North, who project as high-scoring units by oddsmakers.

Read on for a special treat from Pete regarding why exposure matters in best ball PLUS a sneak peek into our new Best Ball Hub. I guess that would make him Sneaky Pete?

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Fantasy Life’s Best Ball Hub is officially LIVE and to help you dive in, Pete is here to explain why reviewing your exposures is key to becoming a successful best ball player… Read on for a lil tool preview (just between us though, ok?)

If you only draft one team each year, you’ll have 100% exposure to every player on that team.

In some ways, that can be incredibly fun because you know exactly who and what you are rooting for all season long. But that also means you only get to do one draft, and I think we can all agree that drafting is the best part of fantasy football.

Thanks to the rise of best ball–a format that allows us to draft without having to worry about setting lineups, doing waivers, or making trades–we can literally draft hundreds of teams without any additional time needed on the back end.

But with great power comes great responsibility.

If you are drafting more than a handful of teams, you are essentially building a fantasy portfolio. And in the same way you wouldn’t want an investment portfolio filled exclusively with aggressive growth stocks or conservative value stocks, you’ll want to be cognizant of how you are building out your fantasy portfolio.

That’s where Fantasy Life’s Best Ball Hub comes into play, an entirely free tool to help you review and manage your teams on the fly while drafting teams all summer long.

Here are four reasons why knowing what you are doing across a multitude of drafts is paramount to becoming a better fantasy player…

✍️ 1. Learn from mistakes

In a macro sense, how can we expect to get better if we don’t critically review what we’ve done previously?

In the same way a public speaker would watch back the tape from a presentation or the way a team would review a film from the previous game: It’s impossible for us to spot our mistakes and improve if we don’t apply a critical lens to what we’ve done in previous drafts.

In reviewing player exposures and overall team constructions–both things you can do easily with the Best Ball Hub–it’s easy to quickly review the decisions you are making in drafts.

Example: I mix in a variety of TE strategies when I draft, but I am partial to Elite TE builds. Even if you miss out on Travis Kelce, I believe there are only a handful of TEs who can realistically pop off for 25-plus points in a given week, something that is incredibly powerful in the playoffs when you are trying to separate from the field at an otherwise weak position.

While I have strong positions on Kyle Pitts (13%), Mark Andrews (13%), George Kittle (9%), and T.J. Hockenson (9%) in Best Ball Mania IV, I recently realized in the Hub that I have only 2% Darren Waller:

As the cheapest of the aforementioned Elite TEs, this is a major blind spot in my portfolio, and I plan to use this info to course-correct going forward.

😎 2. Big exposure stands should be intentional

One of the big debates in the best ball space is whether you should take big stands on specific players. I’m personally more of a “Portfolio Bro” who tends to smooth out my exposures because I try to let every draft come to me as opposed to forcing specific player selections, but there isn’t a “right” or “wrong” way to do this.

Going heavy on a single player–say, taking Derrick Henry in the third round of every draft because you are excited he plays the Texans twice in the fantasy playoffs–is simply a matter of risk tolerance.

If you think your edge in drafts is selecting a grossly mispriced player, it’s perfectly acceptable to hammer that edge.

What you want to avoid, however, is making big stands unintentionally.

Example: Marvin Mims is my most drafted player in Best Ball Mania IV. This is an intentional stand I’m making:

I think he’s way underpriced relative to the other rookie WRs with worse college production profiles, like Jonathan Mingo and Rashee Rice.

On the flip side, I recently noticed I’m at 20% Khalil Herbert, 17% D’Onta Foreman, but only 9% Roschon Johnson. I like Herbert–and I really like the ambiguity of this Bears backfield with all three backs going after pick 120–but I’d prefer to flip my Herbert and Johnson exposures so I’m more overweight on the cheaper of the two backs.

This is how I’m also playing the Dolphins backfield: (11% Devon Achane, 22% Raheem Mostert, and 16% Jeff Wilson).

Reviewing these exposures revealed an inadvertent pattern in my drafting–lazily selecting Herbert in a flat ADP zone of the draft–and not being more intentional with how I’d ideally like to play the Bears backfield.

You can start diversifying your best ball portfolio on Underdog Fantasy and get a 100% deposit match of up to $100 for signing up here!

😤 Trouble in Bills camp? Please don’t let this… turn into a thing.

🚀 It’s just mini-camp. BUT this tracks with last year’s performance.

🔥 Your best ball cheat code. Did we mention that it’s free?

💉 This breakout candidate is taking it slow. Should we be concerned?

🥇 Another team to host DeAndre Hopkins. He would be the WR1.

⚗️ This new duo is putting in the work. The chemistry is building.

📽 He’s grinding Michael Thomas’ film. Coach likes it.

👀 He is fun to watch, Mina. Even more fun to draft in Round 2!

Fantasy Life senior analyst Ian Hartitz is breaking down all 32 NFL teams over the course of the offseason. Let’s take a look at the Titans, who have some young pass-catchers with breakout potential…

🕺TE: Chigoziem Okonkwo (Ian’s TE13), Trevon Wesco (TE75)

The Titans were getting Chiggy with it in 2022 (I’m sorry).

Seriously though: The fourth-round rookie was arguably the team’s most consistent pass-catcher all season long. While Okonkwo never played more than half of the offense’s snaps on just two occasions last season, he worked as one of the league’s most-efficient TEs in just about any metric:

• PFF receiving grade: 84.6 (No. 2 among 47 qualified TE)

• Yards per route run: 2.61 (No. 1)

• Yards per reception: 14 (No. 1)

• Yards after the catch per reception: 7.8 (tied for No. 2)

• Targets per route run: 26.2% (No. 2)

• Passer rating when targeted: 125.1 (No. 7)

Draft capital aside, Okonkwo profiles as a poor man’s Kyle Pitts: Essentially a WR who is designated as a TE inside of a run-first offense. The former player has the QB advantage for now, although the latter also seems more cemented as a big-time contributor in 2023 and beyond.

The Titans consistently went out of their way to design both screens and shot plays for Okonkwo last season, and he made a habit of picking up more yards than what was there. Hell, the man even had a package of plays where he lined up at RB.

I truly believe Okonkwo’s high-end efficiency is backed up by far more film evidence than what Albert O truthers were working with this time last year.

The departure of Austin Hooper could lead to more of a full-time role for Chiggy in 2023, but if not he’s still a reasonable dart with middling TE2 ADP as the likely No. 2 pass-game option in this offense.

One of only a handful of TEs with a feasible chance to lead their team in targets, Okonkwo warrants borderline TE1 consideration even if you’re more comfortable deploying a “first or last” mindset at the position.

The overall pass-game volume involved is a bigger issue than Okonkwo’s demonstrated receiving talent; don’t be surprised if the rising second-year TE manages to boom in a major way on at least a few occasions in 2023.