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2022 Fantasy Football: Best-ball draft strategy for picks 1-4 on DraftKings

Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) celebrates after catching a touchdown against the Los Angeles Rams in the first quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

Drafting from the early position is an advantage in 2022, but we can short-circuit a great start if we lose focus after the first few picks.

This week, I drafted 27 best-ball teams on DraftKings in an effort to put my draft strategies and tier articles into an actionable format.

In this article, I will walk you through my strategy for tackling picks No. 1 through 4 by walking through a recent draft round by round. Some of the key concepts we will cover:

    • Roster construction goals
    • When to be aggressive vs. ADP
    • When to wait for value vs. ADP
    • Stacks and correlation
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DraftKings Best Ball Overview

Starters: 1QB, 2RB, 3WR, 1TE, 1FLX (RB, WR, TE)
Scoring: PPR with 3-point bonuses for 300 yards passing, 100 yards rushing and 100 yards receiving
Teams: 12
Roster spots: 20

The contests have a top-heavy payout structure that requires advancing through multiple rounds to ultimately play in a final week, similar to a DFS contest.

Round 1: Weeks 1-14, top two seeds out of 12 advance
Round 2: Week 15, the top seed out of 12 advances
Round 3: Week 16, the top seed out of 12 advances
Round 4: Week 17, 969-team pool for $3.5M Millionaire ($1M to first) and 135-team pool for $300K Play-action ($30K to first)

TEAM SUMMARY:

DraftKings $300K Play-action: Pick 1
Position Player Team Pick ADP
Starting Lineup QB Kyler Murray ARI 72 62
RB Jonathan Taylor IND 1 1
RB Travis Etienne JAX 25 34
WR Keenan Allen LAC 24 27
WR Marquise Brown ARI 48 41
WR DeAndre Hopkins ARI 73 82
TE George Kittle SF 49 49
FLX Michael Thomas NO 97 79
Bench QB Justin Fields CHI 121 129
RB Cordarrelle Patterson ATL 96 88
RB Darrell Henderson Jr. LAR 144 142
RB Ronald Jones II KC 145 134
RB Tyrion Davis-Price SF 169 167
WR Tim Patrick DEN 120 132
WR Jalen Tolbert DAL 168 170
WR Odell Beckham Jr. 193 186
WR Wan'Dale Robinson NYG 216 201
WR Zay Jones JAX 240 224
TE Logan Thomas WAS 192 188
TE Brevin Jordan HOU 217 209

Build: 2QB, 6RB, 9WR, 3TE
Quarterback-receiving stacks: 2 (MurrayBrown, MurrayHopkins)
Super-Stack 12 Options: 50% (ARI, LAC, SF, LAR, KC, DEN, DAL)
Week 17 Stacks: 5 (ARI-ATL, IND-NYG, JAX-HOU, LAC-LAR, KC-DEN)

ROUND-BY-ROUND ANALYSIS

Round 1 (Pick 1): Jonathan Taylor, Indianapolis Colts

Targets: Taylor (1), Christian McCaffrey (3), Justin Jefferson (4), Cooper Kupp (2)

If McCaffrey is healthy the whole season, he will likely outscore Taylor in PPR formats. However, gaining exposure to Taylor is a priority, and it is tough to do without the No. 1 selection.

Round 2 (Pick 24): Keenan Allen, Los Angeles Chargers

Targets: Saquon Barkley (21), Leonard Fournette (22), Javonte Williams (27), Tyreek Hill (23), Keenan Allen (26), Tee Higgins (29)

While Hill was in consideration, Allen made the most sense, leaving a potential stack with Justin Herbert open in the fourth round (which I don’t have yet). The Chargers play a juiced schedule with seven 50-point games and two more matchups against 10-win teams (Broncos and 49ers).

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