DraftKings NFL Best Ball: Favorite Fantasy Football Draft Picks In Each Round

DraftKings is hosting a $15 million NFL Best Ball DFS contest with a $1.5m top prize and another $1m to second place. In addition to the latest DraftKings promo for new users, DK is also offering a free ticket to this Milly Maker after your first $20 entry to all users. I fired up my first draft for 2024 recently and drew the 1.06. Here are my favorite fantasy football picks in each round from that spot.

Favorite NFL Best BALL fantasy football draft picks

1.06: Lions WR Amon-Ra St. Brown

Assuming Christian McCaffrey, CeeDee Lamb, and Tyreek Hill are the first three choices in every draft this year, Amon-Ra St. Brown would be next on the list for me, even over Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase. His 330 PPR points last year trailed only those top-three picks. He’s an absolute full PPR machine with continuity at quarterback and offensive coordinator. Plus, the Lions play the 14 dome games this season and another in the beautiful Bay Area for a potential Week 17 NFL Best Ball Championship.

2.07: 49ers WR Deebo Samuel

In NFL Best Ball tournaments, you better find ways to stack multiple weapons in games that project to be high scoring in Week 17. The Lions at 49ers is a prime candidate. If you’re going to outscore a large field of other DFS players, you need to chase ceiling outcomes.

So I’m stacking right away with Deebo Samuel. I would not fault anybody for taking Brandon Aiyuk instead here, but at the time of publish, Aiyuk’s “hold-in” for a new contract and/or demands to be traded are ongoing. So there’s a bit of uncertainty still with Aiyuk.

3.06: Lions TE Sam LaPorta

Are you starting to see that I believe the Lions’ offense is going to crush this year? Round 3 is pretty expensive for drafting your TE, but if it adds to your stack and he was the overall TE1 last year AS A ROOKIE, perhaps it could work out again in 2024.

You might also be wondering why I haven’t drafted a RB yet. I’ve had the most success in DraftKings NFL Best Ball going with a Zero RB strategy, since scoring is full PPR. In Underdog half PPR drafts, I’m more inclined to go Hero RB. Overall, I just think it’s easier to find later-round RBs in this era that you can project for decent volume. And since it’s best ball, you don’t have to figure out which weeks to start them in like your home leagues.

4.07 Chiefs RB Isiah Pacheco

After an embarrassing late-season loss to the Raiders, Andy Reid streamlined his offense to get more touches to his best players. From that point forward, Pacheco finished the season with touch counts of 25, 25, 16, 28, and 24. In the 13 games prior to that, Pacheco did not have a game with 24+ touches and only touched the ball more than 20 times in three of those 13.

If that late-season volume returns, you’re getting a bell-cow RB in a Patrick Mahomes offense with the potential for monster touchdown production. Including the postseason, he also caught 4+ passes in eight games last year.

5.06 Saints RB Alvin Kamara

Saints head coach Dennis Allen has already publicly warned Kendre Miller to get healthy or risk being cut from the team. Kamara may be getting older, but he doesn’t have any real competition in this backfield, and Taysom Hill is the only threat for goalline work. That risk, though, is mitigated in full PPR by Derek Carr’s willingness to dump it off to Kamara a ton. Only Breece Hall had more, but Kamara is going in Round 5 and Hall is going in Round 1.

Kamara is a slam dunk pick for me in DraftKings NFL Best Ball right now at current ADP. For those that go RB earlier in drafts, I’m starting to draft a lot of Chiefs WR Rashee Rice in Round 5 with speculation growing that his suspension could get pushed to the 2025 season.

Favorite Picks in Rounds 6-20

The stack I really like in the middle rounds of NFL Best Ball drafts is the Jaguars vs. Titans matchup in Week 17. With Tennessee planning to open the offense up this year and throw a ton, this is a sneaky pick to be high-scoring for Best Ball championship week. PFF also projects the DL and secondary to be average, at best, for the Titans, giving the Jacksonville pass game a chance to explode.

• Round 6: Packers WR Christian Watson
• Round 7: Jaguars TE Evan Engram
• Round 8: Jaguars WR Brian Thomas Jr. or Packers QB Jordan Love
• Round 9: Lions QB Jared Goff (just plan at your appropriate QB stack based on ADP)
• Round 10: Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence or Titans RB Tyjae Spears
• Round 11: Packers WR Dontayvion Wicks
• Round 12 & 13: Two of Packers RB MarShawn Lloyd, Vikings RB Ty Chandler, Dolphins RB Jaylen Wright
• Round 14: 49ers WR Ricky Pearsall
• Round 15: Patriots WR Demario Douglas
• Round 16: Rams WR Demarcus Robinson
• Round 17: Titans WR Tyler Boyd
• Round 18: Browns RB D’Onta Foreman or Steelers QB Justin Fields
• Round 19: Jets WR Xavier Gipson or Raiders RB Dylan Laube
• Round 20: Chiefs RB Deneric Prince

DraftKings NFL Best Ball Rules

Keep in mind DraftKings scoring is full PPR with 1QB-2RB-3WR-TE-FLEX for the starting lineup. For those new to NFL Best Ball fantasy football, the format is simple. You draft, and you’re done. No trades or in-season roster moves. Only your highest-scoring lineup is scored each week.

DraftKings NFL Best Ball Schedule

• Round 1: Weeks 1-14 (Top 2 Advance From 12-Man Draft)
• Round 2: Week 15 (Top 1 Advance From Re-Seated 12-Man League)
• Round 3: Week 16 (Top 1 Advance From Re-Seated 12-Man League)
• Round 4: Week 17 (1021 seats)

DraftKings NFL Best Ball $15M Millionaire Top Prizes

Every player that reaches Week 17 will win at least $1000. Here are the payouts for the top-10 finishers:

1. $1.5 million
2. $1 million
3. $715,600
4. $500,000
5. $400,000
6. $300,000
7. $250,000
8. $200,000
9. $150,000
10. $150,000

NFL Best Ball Promos & Biggest Prizes

• DraftKings: NFL Best Ball $15M Millionaire [$1.5M to 1st]: $20 entry fee
• Underdog Promo: Best Ball Mania V [$1.5M to 1st]: $25 entry fee & use code THELINES for $250 deposit match
• FanDuel Promo for NFL DFS: up to $100 deposit match (no promo code required)

• Join TheLines.com’s free sports betting Discord — with over 4,800 community members and our staff sharing bets daily.

Deposit matches are new user promos.

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