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

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 (Murray–Brown, Murray–Hopkins)
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).