Underdog Fantasy just launched their first SuperFlex tournament of the 2025 NFL Best Ball Season. One of the greatest parts of this still new game of Best Ball is that we are continually getting new formats and tournament types, and often times those are where the greatest edges lie.
For SuperFlex specifically, I think that probably could not be more true.
With any new strategy game, it’s likely that we can find some rather large edges just in our understanding of the game and the rules, so long as we take the time to really diagnose the game and be thoughtful about it. I believe that to be true for a variety of reasons with SuperFlex on Underdog, but before we get to that, we need to quickly go over the format and scoring.
At least for The Puppy but SuperFlex on Underdog, the tournament is still a traditional playoff format Best Ball tournament. Meaning, we need to finish in the top 2 of our 12 team league from Weeks 1-14 to advance to the playoffs. Then, we need to navigate through random playoff pods in Week 15 and 16 by finishing at the top each week in order to make the final in Week 17. Once in Week 17, we need to finish rather highly that week to make significant money.
But the roster format is a bit different for Underdog SuperFlex.
Starting Lineup:
- QB
- RB
- RB
- WR
- WR
- TE
- Flex
- SuperFlex
You’ll notice if you have played other Underdog contests that they have removed 1 starting WR position in order to add the SuperFlex spot.
The other key difference is that these drafts are 20 rounds compared to the normal 18 of typical Underdog drafts, like Best Ball Mania. Player scoring is still the same – half point PPR, with no bonuses.
Now that we understand the minor differences in the format, let’s get to the good stuff.
SuperFlex Best Ball Strategy on Underdog Fantasy
It’s SuperFlex, Not 2 QB.
If you entered a SuperFlex Draft on Underdog, you would probably assume it was a 2 QB format based on how these rooms are shaking out. Heck, you might even think it was a 3 QB format.
I know it feels like SuperFlex is basically 2 QB, but there are some pretty dramatic differences, especially for Best Ball tournaments. Sure, we know that QBs on average are going to score more points than the skill position guys, especially our 3rd or 4th highest scoring RB/WR in a given week. We are definitely looking to utilize a QB in the SF spot. But that doesn’t mean we cannot survive if our QB2 or QB3 are not scoring for us. Particularly on Underdog, where they don’t just add a SF spot, but they remove a WR in the starting lineup to add the SF, AND they make the draft 20 rounds, there’s more flexibility here than we might think.
We all want to be able to find multiple strong producing QBs that can give us an edge week in and week out, but that also doesn’t mean we have to only focus on that position with all of our early picks. As you’ll see in a second, the QB position is very chaotic and solid scoring can come from lots of different unexpected places. So when we combine that with the fact that we still *can* use RB/WR/TE in the SuperFlex if QB2 isn’t going perfectly, then we should hopefully feel a little more free to try some uncomfortable things.
I promise your team is not instantly dead if your QB2 is not a total slam dunk. You have 20 roster spots and you will not be taking zeros in the SF spot. You might be able to stay afloat with strong RB/WR/TE production anyway, and we see cheaper QBs have solid enough years constantly.
Jordan Love, Brock Purdy, CJ Stroud, and Sam Howell were all late round QBs in 2023. They all averaged at least 16 fantasy points per game with Love finishing as the QB5, Purdy QB7, Stroud QB9 and Howell QB19. Or you could even stumble upon this year’s Joe Flacco, who was the QB2 in the most important Best Ball Weeks of the year (Weeks 13-17), behind only Lamar Jackson.
The QB Position has a TON of Chaos
As we’ve evolved with fantasy football and best ball over the years, the idea of the season being chaotic has become more and more accepted by the market. For the most part, the industry has a better grasp on something like the simple fact that running backs get hurt frequently. But you know what position also has a ton of chaos that certainly does not seem to be accounted for in these SuperFlex drafts?
Quarterback.
In 2023, we saw 66 different Quarterbacks start NFL games. That’s more than 2 per team. We saw tons of injuries, players getting benched, trades and more. We even saw players get benched and then thrown back into the fire. This is an extraordinary amount of chaos and turnover at a position where only one player is on the field for a team and they do not rotate (like running backs do).
Also in 2023, 43 different QBs averaged more than 10 points per game in standard scoring (no minimum games threshold). Here are a few names from that list of 43 that were not perceived as NFL starters before the season:
- Joe Flacco
- Jake Browning
- Josh Dobbs
- Jeff Driskel
- Nick Mullens
- Taylor Heinicke
- Easton Stick
- Carson Wentz
- Gardner Minshew
- Aidan O’Connell
- Tyson Bagent
- Will Levis
- Andy Dalton
- Mitch Trubisky
- Zach Wilson
This list doesn’t even include additional multi-game starters like:
- Tyrod Taylor
- Bailey Zappe
- Trevor Siemian
- Tim Boyle
- PJ Walker
- Dorian Thompson-Robinson
It also does not include players who did start games but got benched or hurt (long term) like:
- Kirk Cousins
- Aaron Rodgers
- Joe Burrow
- Anthony Richardson
- Deshaun Watson
- Desmond Ridder
- Ryan Tannehill
- Mac Jones
- Daniel Jones
- Kenny Pickett
In 2024, that number took a dip… down to 59 starting quarterbacks over the course of the season. The Cowboys, Dolphins, Giants, Raiders and Saints all had 3 different starters. The Browns had FOUR different starting QBs.
You get the point. It’s chaos. But in these drafts, most drafters do not treat it like a chaotic position at all. I’m not saying you need to draft a bunch of backups or “risky” QBs, but what I am saying is that we know for a 100% certainty there will be chaos at the position. Just because you feel comfortable with your QB position does not mean those QBs will not be impacted. And vice versa.
And that’s before we even get to anything about whether the QBs you drafted are actually scoring enough fantasy points to help you win, which, ya know, is sort of important in this game.
Winning The Flex Still Matters, Not Just the SuperFlex
Clearly the ability for a QB to fill two spots in your starting lineup is a big deal, but as we mentioned at the top, the SF is not only for QBs. You’re not taking zeros there if you do not have a 2nd QB scoring points, or scoring enough points to count.
And a QB cannot count in the flex, that is reserved for RB/WR/TE. A RB or WR can fill 4 spots in your starting lineup and a TE can fill 3. A QB can fill 2.
I’m not trying to downplay the boost you can get from having two high scoring QBs hitting your lineup. It’s important. But we also shouldn’t forget about the flex, and the importance of having RBs, WRs and TEs who are separating.
Just by being out there on the field at the QB position, you are likely to score some reasonable amount of fantasy points. 48 QBs scored 10 points per game in 2024, including the likes of Mason Rudolph, Tyler Huntley and Aidan O’Connell. So it’s not enough just to have QBs scoring points if we spent a lot of draft capital on them. And that’s because of the trickle down effect to the flex, which subsequently trickles down to RB/WR/TE.
The more you spend your draft capital and roster spots on QB, the less firepower you have to fill 2 RB spots, 2 WR spots, 1 TE spot and a flex spot. If you don’t spend much draft capital, it can make more sense to spend more roster spots because we probably going to be forced to take backups or players lacking job security. If we have quality, we don’t need a large quantity. If we lack quality, we can try to make up for it with quantity.
Finding the right balance at QB is what allows us to build the overall best portfolio of rosters, which is our goal. You’re going to have some drafts go awry, but this game is about building the best collection of 20 players to try to take down the tournament given a particular draft room, not just about making sure we don’t get sick to our stomach looking at our QB2 (or QB1!) on that specific team.
And I find that thinking about it through the lense of “winning the flex” helps me with that. Our SuperFlex opponents seem to be more worried about “not having an embarrassing QB2” than creating a high upside portfolio of teams that can benefit from the absolute chaos of the NFL season and hit a lucky blend of players on one standout team that brings us home all the money.
If you focused on this last year, you could have drafted a QB room with some combination of of Mayfield, Darnold, Nix or maybe even Jayden Daniels and other late round picks that did not feel comfy when you left the draft, but gave you a clear path to winning. The combination of their upside and the fact that you were assuredly going to be dominating the flex with all your opponents spending all their early picks on mediocre QBs, while you had players like Ja’Marr Chase, Saquon Barkley, and Jahmyr Gibbs.
Our Opponents Aren’t Correlating
This one will be pretty short and sweet. Because of the Walking Dead like infestation of QB thirst in these drafts, there is far, far less correlation and stacking going on. The only thing on anyone’s mind seems to be feeling ok about their QB room. That means that some stacks are just extremely difficult or impossible to achieve (like Dak / CeeDee), but it also means that despite how powerful stacking is in Best Ball, our opponents are ignoring it more than ever.
Especially in a format where we can start 2 QBs, think about the power of just a basic QB/WR stack. Now factor in that we only have to start 2 WRs, and that becomes even more powerful. Then, we add on the fact our opponents are doing it even less? Yahtzee.
I’m seeking out stacks as much as I can, and I’m particularly looking to achieve lesser owned options if possible. If I can get my hands on Hurts + AJ Brown, I’m in.. But we can achieve lesser owned options deeper in the draft as well.
If we draft some of the elite WRs in murky QB situations or just with cheap QBs, we can set ourselves up to better deal with the QB thirst in a really high upside way. We know it’s hard to come by cheap, solid QB production. But if Drake London and Brian Thomas Jr. are going to be good early round WR picks, there’s a higher likelihood that the QB from their team is going to be useful for fantasy. It’s a way that we can manufacture cheap QB production through our roster building. You can even look to Malik Nabers or a superstar with an uncertain QB situation like the Giants to drive some extra juice from cheaper QBs. It’s not ever going to hit perfectly because nothing does, but we know that when it does hit, it can have outsized returns and benefits to that team.
Lastly, while there are some debates about having two QBs from the same Week 17 game in traditional Best Ball, it adds more upside in this format. If you had the Broncos and Bengals week 17 game stacked up in this tournament last year, you were sitting awfully nice.
RBs are more valuable and WRs are less valuable… but maybe not how we think
You have probably already hear this idea if you’ve been looking at any content or on twitter.com around the Puppy But SuperFlex on Underdog. And it’s true, RBs are more valuable here. We gained a roster spot they could technically fill, and we removed a WR position in the starting lineup. Meanwhile, WRs are less valuable because we removed a mandatory WR spot, moving from 3 to 2, and now a spot they are eligible to fill is much tougher for them to fill with UD scoring.
But if RBs are more valuable, that means that ALL running backs are more valuable. It’s not just the studs. This is a boost to the likes of Jordan Mason as it is to Bijan Robinson.
And if WRs are less valuable, ALL wide receivers are less valuable. Which funny enough, actually makes the super elite options at the position even MORE valuable.
Think about it, we only HAVE to start two wide receivers. They are obviously options for the flex (more on that in a minute), but in a dream world we are filling our SF with a QB if we can get lucky with health and hit on QBs. In a market where WRs have been priced through the roof and we know how impossible it is to find late round, tournament winning upside at the WR position, that only decreases the value of “punting WR”. CeeDee Lamb becomes less valuable than the elite QBs, but that doesn’t mean CeeDee isn’t a monstrous edge over teams relying upon Josh Palmer and Jakobi Meyers to provide useful spike weeks for their team to succeed.
But where I think it’s most important to consider the RB/WR positional value changes is not in where we draft them necessarily, but how many of that position we draft. Despite these drafts being 20 rounds, I have yet to take more than 7 WR on a SF team. I am not the perfect example because I am drafting a lot of zero RB, so I am pretty loaded up with 4-5 early superstar WRs. But this might be where I think our biggest edge is, and how this all comes together.
We all agree QBs are more valuable in this format, but we see the market driving the “QB Dead Zone” up too high. We all agree RBs are more valuable in this format, but that means ALL RBs are more valuable and they can fill an extra roster spot in our starting lineup. Meanwhile, we start one less WR, but it’s even easier to get an absolutely loaded WR room with 4-5 players who all go in the first 4-5 rounds of a traditional Underdog draft. You can even get those 4-5 players alongside an elite TE and one earlier QB, sometimes even two QBs!
But you have to be able to stop drafting WRs. Once you have your 5, 6 or 7 strong options (with some level of nuance to this for stacking/correlation purposes), we don’t need to keep jamming WRs. That’s where we use the rules of the game to our advantage. That’s where we can embrace the QB chaos we outlined above. That’s where we can dedicated more roster spots to the position we all agreed is more valuable in this format, running back, and we can get even stronger options with the QB thirst happening in these drafts.
We just have to be willing to embrace some of the QB chaos, and we have to actually utilize the “RB more valuable, WR less valuable” in the way that makes the most sense for creating winning Best Ball teams that are loaded for the fantasy playoffs and Week 17.
