❄️ Hot Best Ball Winter

In this week's P.O. Box:

Trust me, I get it. I also think it's insane that we are drafting best ball teams right now in the dead of winter:

The NFL draft is still six weeks away, the free agency dust hasn't even settled, and we don't know the schedule yet to appropriately stack up Week 17 (which people do sometimes forget is all that matters) and yet here we are assembling fake football teams on the digital gridiron before the flowers have started to blossom.

I drafted my first team of the 2023 season on February 10 at the Underdog Super Bowl house in Arizona. I relaunched my Monday morning "Best Ball Breakfast" stream on February 20. And now, randomly (?), one of the most viewed videos on my channel is a best ball stream from a few weeks ago.

The thirst is real.

I've been asked a few times recently about what specifically has caused best ball to explode in popularity and I don't think there is one main driver, but a few different variables contributing to the perfect storm for non-stop best ball interest...

📅 NFL macro news consumption is at an all time high

My Ship Chasing co-host Ben Gretch said it well in his Stealing Signals newsletter the other day:

"It’s often been said that the NFL is a year-round sport. I’m of the mind that was probably exaggerated at some points in the past decade or two, but that it’s becoming truer and truer with each passing year."

There truly are no more dead pockets in the NFL calendar. The gap between the Super Bowl and Week 1 is now effortlessly filled with tentpole events like the Combine, free agency, schedule release, training camps, and preseason.

📈 Best ball as an NFL stock market

Best ball is the perfect companion piece for this never-ending NFL news cycle and provides an arena for quantifying changes across the league. Could Lamar Jackson threaten to hold out in 2023? Better slide him down draft boards (and ding Mark Andrews while we are at it). Oooo, Rashaad Penny to the Eagles? Time to take him 75 picks higher:

From a content perspective, it's nice to have real-time data points to discuss from a market that is influenced by drafters with actual skin in the game. We launched a new show on the Ship Chasing channel, ADP Chasing, to specifically track these movements on a weekly basis. Over on Fantasy Life you can check real time ADP across a variety of sites. Gone are the days of lazy, ambiguous "buy/sell" analysis. Now you have to actually quantify at what price a guy becomes a value or too expensive.

And as a player, it's very fun to think about an entire offseason of drafting from a larger portfolio perspective. Having multiple contests at different points throughout the offseason allows for pushing specific edges during specific drafting windows. Taking an overweight position on the rookies in the pre-NFL Draft Big Board contest while going underweight on many of those same players in post-draft contests when they get thrust up too high would be a perfectly viable (and likely optimal) strategy from a portfolio perspective.

🐕 The Underdog experience

I am not so quietly an investor and influencer at Underdog so take everything I say with an extremely biased grain of salt, but the Underdog user experience makes drafting fun. The UI is slick and it's easy to rip both fast drafts, or my current guilty pleasure, an ungodly amount of slow drafts (I'm cutting off the screenshot to protect myself from people questioning my sanity):

🕹️ Video games for fantasy players

Ok, it's one thing to draft yourself. And another thing to make content around drafting. But what about the people lining up to watch other people draft? 

When I first started streaming best ball drafts in the spring of 2020 (s/o global pandemic), Underdog hadn't even launched yet and there was no one else streaming drafts. Flash forward to March 2023 and I can literally link you to ten best ball streams from this past week alone.

I used to think it was insane that people would watch Twitch streamers play video games for hours on end, but I get it now. Watching a best ball draft is like watching a video game stream for people who like fantasy and sports. People just like to hang out and drafting provides the perfect vehicle/excuse for doing so. And as a streamer, it provides plenty of fodder to discuss (even if I get off topic and rant about why movies and docuseries are all too long these days).

🏃‍♂️ Chasing Kerrane

And last but not least, at least in our niche circle of the internet, I truly think Pat winning BBM3 has made drafting best ball teams even more enticing. Pat literally showed his work, put it in practice, and then won $2 mill.

Like thinking you could dunk after watching Mac McClung succeed in the dunk contest, Kerrane conquering a massive tournament makes it seem even more attainable for the rest of us. Hey, I know that guy. He drafts like me. That could be me this year.

If this winter is any indication, best ball is going nuclear this summer. Can't wait.

🍳 Why I'm hype on D.J. Moore with the Bears. Apparently this is a minority opinion, but we talked through the new values of Moore and Justin Fields on this week's Best Ball Breakfast.

💀 Kyle Pitts truly is cursed. Of course lmao.

🏌️‍♂️ Should I get into PGA DFS? The Degenerate75 had me on his show to discuss our approaches to making fantasy content and why I need to give the PGA sweat a fair shake.

🏦 Silicon Valley Bank collapse explainer. Peter Jennings and Andy8052 gave us a really good rundown in The Club this week. We also broke down the current NBA playoff picture.

💡 Best ball tips. Starting a new series where I do quick, short-form evergreen best ball tips.

💥 Free agency reactions. Speaking of shorts, I've been pumping them out for Fantasy Life: Aaron Rodgers comes with an entourage, D.J. Moore is too cheap, and drama surrounding the Broncos.

🚢 How do you rank Josh Jacobs, Travis Etienne, Tony Pollard, and Rhamondre Stevenson? This debate came up while we were drafting on Ship Chasing this week.

💪 Is President Biden a celebrity? The Swolecast returned this week and we discussed all the most pressing topics, plus got the scoop on David Kitchen meeting Treylon Burks at church.

🏒 DFS Tips from the hockey world champ. Always a blast talking to the very smart and talented Nerdy Tenor.

👷 How to fix the Buffalo Bills. Put on my GM hat over at Fantasy Life.

Speaking of Kerrane, he announced this week that he left Rotoworld to launch his own site, Legendary Upside. All kinds of free content is already up on the site (he got me more excited about Jordan Addison with this piece), so go dig in:

Another big free agency move this week was Fantasy Life bringing Ian Hartitz into the fold. Very excited to have him on the team. Expect to see plenty more of these type of shenanigans:

The Deposit Kingdom March Madness pool fell between newsletter editions, so I didn't get a chance to promote the contest here in advance, but s/o to Run The Sims for kicking in $500 to first place, as well as some other prizes. Hop in the server so you don't miss out on future free rolls...

If you guys ever have any topics you'd like to see me tackle in the newsletter, or just a random question, feel free to respond to this e-mail.