My Most Drafted Players in 2024 Underdog Fantasy Best Ball: 8 Undervalued Players With Massive Upside

These players could bring you to the promised land.

Discovering my most drafted players in 2024 Underdog Fantasy Best Ball tournaments is crucial for identifying potential fantasy football league winners. In the past, I’ve utilized a simple yet effective tracking system in Google Sheets to monitor player exposures after rounds 4-6 in all my drafts.

Here, you can access the detailed data for all 25 of my teams and their player exposures from the Underdog Fantasy Chihuahua tournament.

Each team is labeled based on my draft position and the order in which they were entered into the Google Sheets, formatted as a number followed by a letter. For instance, my first team, led by Christian McCaffrey, is labeled as 1A. This system helps pinpoint the players who consistently show up on my rosters and could be pivotal in securing league victories.

I used conditional formatting as follows for my player exposures:

  • Red = Drafted on exactly one team (or 4%)
  • Gray = Drafted on two teams (or 8%)
  • Green = Drafted on at least 3 teams, but no more than 5 teams (12%-20%)
  • Gold = Drafted on at least 6 teams, but no more than 12 teams (24%-48%)
  • Pink = Drafted on at least 13 teams (52%-100%)

I did not end up having any player exposures highlighted in pink, meaning I did not draft any one player on 13 teams (probably for the best). This conditional formatting was very useful to keep my exposures in check. It likely prevents me from clicking Xavier Legette’s name in every single draft without realizing it.

Feel free to copy this janky formatting for your personal fantasy football teams.

My Most Drafted Players in Best Ball

Here are all the players I drafted on at least 6 (24%) of my 25 teams:

  1. Xavier Legette (40%)
  2. Anthony Richardson (32%)
  3. Braelon Allen (32%)
  4. Malik Nabers (24%)
  5. Amari Cooper (24%)
  6. Jalen McMillan (24%)
  7. Jonathan Brooks (24%)
  8. Rashee Rice (24%)

Here is a quick breakdown of each:

XAVIER LEGETTE, CAROLINA PANTHERS, (ADP 138.3, WR65)

I have already detailed my affection for Xavier Legette here. But, this is more than a simple man crush on Legette; this is a deliberate bet on the Panthers and QB guru Dave Canales. It pays to bet on ambiguity when it works out, and Canales’s resume of working things out speaks for itself:

ANTHONY RICHARDSON, INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (ADP 56.7, QB5)

Speaking of my man crushes… There is no player in the NFL that I believe in more for fantasy football than Anthony Richardson. He is a god among men. I think there is no better bet to make for MVP (+3000). If he remains healthy for the entire season, he is easily the QB1.

Not to mention, he has himself a QB guru in Shane Steichen as his coach too:

BRAELON ALLEN, NEW YORK JETS (ADP 183.2, RB57)

The amount of Braelon Allen I drafted is due to his cost at the time of my drafts. I consistently took him as my last pick in the draft at RB72.

As I write this, I see his ADP is 183.2, and he’s the RB57. And I think this is rightfully so, though this price will likely rise even higher. Why did I take so much, Allen? I thought he was the clear No. 2 option, and he was easily the cheapest of all of the No. 2 options at RB.

Not to mention, I feel really great about Breece Hall and the Jets offense as a whole this year. I think Hall has a legitimate chance to break leagues and be the overall RB1. One avenue to Breece failing is via injury, so on my teams without him, Allen was such an easy click. To simplify, he’s a fourth-round pick on an Aaron Rodgers-led offense.

MALIK NABERS, NEW YORK GIANTS (ADP 26.0, WR18)

Why draft Marvin Harrison Jr. at the 1/2 turn when you can draft Malik Nabers at the 2/3 turn? This is essentially the same argument as Bijan Robinson vs. Jamhyr Gibbs in 2023. I’m inclined to take the cheaper rookie with a similarly elite profile who still offers me the patented rookie second-half-of-season upside.

Whether it’s Daniel Jones, Drew Lock, or Janeil Dones at QB, I really don’t care. Nabers is easily the #1 WR on the Giants, and Mike Clay has him projected for over 1,000 yards. If you follow expert scout Matt Waldman and his Rookie Scouting Portfolio, you know that he had Nabers ranked easily as the WR1 in the class and comped him to Odell Beckham Jr.

How bad is this situation really with the Giants? We truly have no idea. I’m betting on the ambiguity here because I think that’s where you can find an edge. More importantly, I’m betting on Malik Nabers’ rare talent.

In a game where Week 17 matters more than anything else, I want to be taking a lot of rookies on my team. Rookies are the only asset class proven to be better in the second half of the year compared to the first half. Not to mention, it’s a nice bonus for me that Nabers and the Giants face off against Anthony Richardson and the Colts in Week 17.

AMARI COOPER, CLEVELAND BROWNS (ADP 41.7, WR29)

Hey, remember that guy who dropped 46 fantasy points with Joe Flacco as his QB in a playoff week?

“But Deshaun Watson is his QB and he stinks.”

I get it. Deshaun Watson is no Joe Flacco. However, in the five games that Watson played >90% of snaps, Amari averaged 96 receiving yards per game and 14.8 Fantasy Points per game in Underdog’s half-PPR scoring format. Remember, these averages are excluding a 46 bomb. For context, Mike Evans was the WR5 last year averaging 14.3 Fantasy Points per game. In these five weeks, Amari ranked top ten (2.96) in yards per route run (min. 75 routes)

Amari finished as the WR18 last year, so why are we drafting him as the WR29? I only ended up with 20% Jaylen Waddle, so I won’t write him up, but I absolutely love stacking him and/or Tyreek Hill with Amari for Week 17. The upside potential in these stacks is rare.

JALEN MCMILLAN, TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (ADP 193.1, WR83)

Since drafting Jalen McMillan, I have reached extreme levels of confirmation bias from early camp reports.

It seems like McMillan is locked into the WR3 role for the Buccaneers. I know that doesn’t sound too sexy at first, but the Buccaneers’ new offensive coordinator, Liam Coen, is coming from the Rams, who utilized by far the league’s highest rate of 3+ WRs dropbacks.

Not to mention, McMillan has a fantastic profile. If it weren’t for his injury last year, it’s debatable whether or not Ja’Lynn Polk would have ever broken out. McMillan was pretty clearly outperforming Polk before his injury.

JONATHAN BROOKS, CAROLINA PANTHERS (ADP 87.3, RB22)

Like Legette, this is a bet on the Panthers offense. The argument for Brooks is pretty simple. Dave Canales turned a third-round draft pick in Rachaad White into last year’s RB7.

And Brooks is far more talented than White.

What’s the best way to help out Bryce Young after a disappointing rookie year? Establishing the running game. And that’s exactly what Canales wants to do.

Very few bellcow backs remain in today’s NFL, and the only projected bellcows are drafted in the first few rounds of Best Ball drafts. Despite coming off an ACL tear, it is feasible that Brooks can be a bellcow back in this offense. The upside potential for a Round 8 pick in Brooks is higher than any back remotely close to him.

The ACL tear does not concern me. If Weeks 15-17 or just Week 17 are all that matters, I want the talented RB who has the chance to hold an 80%+ snap share at the end of the season, and I don’t particularly care about the first half of the season. If I make it to the playoffs with Brooks on my team, I feel extremely good about my chances.

RASHEE RICE, KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (ADP 74.3, WR45)

Imagine a world where Rashee Rice is not suspended, or he gets a very minimal (2-4 game) suspension. In this scenario, you have drafted Patrick Mahomes’ WR1 as the WR45! This guy was in the Top 30 picks when best ball drafts began.

I won’t tell you that this pick comes without significant risk. As Erik points out, he could legitimately be a zero.

If the suspension is anywhere from 6-to-12 games, it’s pretty unlikely many other teams will make it to the final with Rice. In this scenario, you have an unbelievable edge if you somehow manage to make it to the playoffs with Rice on your team.

Again, if we subscribe to the belief that Week 17 is all that matters, Rice should be a priority pick at his current ADP. Upside Wins Championships, and there’s really no other pick that offers Rice’s upside.

For more best ball content, check out The Wolf’s 2024 Underdog Fantasy Best Ball Rankings.

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