Underdog just launched an awesome new NFL Best Ball format called “The First Quarter”, and it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The tournament plays out over the first 4 weeks of the NFL season… and that’s it!
What’s even more fun (in my humble opinion) is that it’s *not* total points over those first 4 weeks. You still have 4 advancement stages in this tournament, so every stage of the tournament is one singular week of the NFL season.
Let’s take a quick look at that tournament structure:
Advancement details:
- Week 1 – 2 of 12 advance to Round 2
- Week 2 – 2 of 5 advance to Round 3
- Week 3 – 1 of 4 advance to Round 4
- Week 4 – 374 Seat Final
Well that’s certainly different! There are a lot of fun strategic elements that are very unique to this contest, and it appears to be filling fast, so the people must agree.
Let’s dig in.
Advancement Structure Strategy
Before we get to particular player types, targets and roster construction, I think we need to start with the specific components of the advancement structure that are particularly notable.
At a high level, it’s actually pretty straight forward, even if it’s rather shocking. Week 17 might be all that matters in regular best ball, but in this format Week 1 and Week 4 are all that matter.
We should actually start in the middle – with weeks 2 and 3. With both such high probability (40% and 25%, respectively) of advancing in those weeks, as well as the sheer fact that the pods are so small means we shouldn’t concern ourselves much with those weeks. We need to focus on the two most important, and most difficult, weeks for this format – Week 1 and Week 4.
We need to simultaneously play this like a Week 1 micro field DFS tournament and a Week 4 small field DFS tournament… but with a team we can’t change. There are some particular teams and players I think we can target that help us hit both of those targets with one arrow, but we ultimately just want to avoid the landmines more than try to be overly precise in our guesses on the prime pieces to draft based on matchup and such. But more on that in a bit…
Roster Construction
Just a very quick venting session / pet peeve before we get started here. There are really not *right* or *wrong* ways to build teams here. There are no bye weeks, and weeks 2 and 3 are such small pods that just about anything can happen in this rounds. Can you build solo QB? Solo TE? Only 3 RBs? You bet. Can you also build a pretty standard best ball roster? Of course! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
I think what I’d call the “golden rule” of Best Ball ultimately still applies to construction here in this format. Where you lack quality, draft more quantity. Where you have strong quality, draft less quantity. But with this format being just 4 weeks, the “more” and “less” parts of that equation can vary greatly compared to our normal drafts.
For me, I do still want to lean into the concept of “win the flex” here. Especially with the advance rates in weeks 2 and 3, I do not need to hit the nuts at QB until Week 4. So I don’t want to over-allocate roster spots to that position when I really just need serviceable games until a hopeful week 4 explosion.
At tight end, I certainly LOVE the elites in this format, but it’s also notable that with the overall pool of draftable players shrinking considerably, tight ends in later rounds with locked in roles or real early season upside have lots of value. There are just not that many RB/WR with an early season role and the corresponding talent to be a fantasy asset in the first few weeks of the year, so it’s possible that even if you have a stronger tight end(s), a late option at that position could still be the best pick for you.
Lastly, and most obviously, is the fact that you clearly need real early season RB production. However, that doesn’t mean you have to spend all your early picks on RB. It can often *feel* that way, but the guys who actually end up as the worst picks in this format are the guys we draft very high simply because we know they will have early season production, but we ignore the fact that production is replaceable. We want to spend on early season production that you cannot replace, not just any old early season role. Committee backs will score points, backups do score touchdowns and some of the ambiguous situations will feel a lot less ambiguous after the season starts, so don’t chase the replaceable too much.
Who plays the Bengals?
This is somewhat hyperbole and somewhat pretty freaking real. The Bengals are, in my humble opinion, set to be the “Coors Field” of fantasy football in 2025. The attrition on the defensive side of this football team is jsut insane, but it also makes logical sense. When you have to pay Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and even Mike Gesciki, plus you spend plenty of draft picks on other offensive players (Chase Brown, Jermaine Burton, Erick All, among others including offensive linemen), there’s simply no resources in terms of salary cap space or draft picks to build a good defense. It’s like if you wait until the final 2 rounds to draft your tight ends in best ball. Sure, you may like those guys, and you could get outrageously lucky, but you’re probably just not going to score very many points at the tight position. All that is before we get to the fact Trey Hendrickson, their one awesome defensive player, is holding out for an extension, and it doesn’t seem to be going well.
We don’t want to try to draw too much from preseason games – otherwise that’s how we fall into the trap of Kenny Pickett Steelers stacks a couple years ago – but we also don’t want to stick our head in the sand either. The Bengals defense could have looked like the 85 Bears in the preseason, and my opinion would remain the same, but I think it drives home the point well if we take a quick look at their two preseason games.
Despite playing their starting defense, Tanner McKee, Will Shipley and the Eagles backup offense shredded them in Week 1. Ok, but that’s the Super Bowl champs, and you drafted like 60% Will Shipley, so maybe he and that offense are just still very good, right?
Week 2 they head to DC to playt he Commanders, and the Commanders proceed to break the brains of the entire fantasy football community with big play after big play – including a Jacory Croskey-Merritt touchdown to skyrocket his ADP to the moon. No Jayden Daniels, McLaurin, Ertz, etc.
When you combine just how bad this defense appears to be with the fact that they have an elite offense who will put the ball in the hands of Joe Burrow and his elite weapons to try to outscore teams, you just have an absolute fantasy goldmine.
So who do the Bengals play in those 4 games in this contest?
- Week 1 – @ Cleveland Browns
- Week 2 – Home vs. Jacksonville Jaguars
- Week 3 – @ Minnesota Vikings
- Week 4 – @ Denver Broncos
Other Juicy (& not so Juicy) Week 4 Games
We often talk about how you can’t predict defenses for Week 17 in our regular best ball bubble. That’s true! And frankly, we shouldn’t worry too much about the defenses in this format either. However, I do think with the final here being so close to the start of the season, we can take a look at the projected extreme ends of the defense curves. I do think we can pinpoint the very bottom and very top defenses a bit more accurately at the start of the season, so it’s at least somewhat worthwhile to look at the finals games to try to pinpoint who we may want to target for matchup purposes.
Setting aside the fact we want to target the Bengals, here are a few other fun Week 4 games:
- Saints @ Bills – The Saints are absolutely going to be a defense we want to pick on, and the Bills should be able to name their score here, which in turn could create elevated volume for Kamara/Olave/Shaheed types.
- Panthers @ Patriots – If the Panthers defense does not improve, this will continue to be one of the best spots for fantasy points (TreVeyon SZN), and the Panthers offense should also be improved to help create some shootouts.
- Eagles @ Bucs – The Eagles have a strong defense, but we know the Bucs can score, and both sides should be super condensed given the injuries to Godwin/McMillan.
- Jaguars @ 49ers – Yes please. Two defenses I expect to be quite bad paired with two of my very favorite stacks in Best Ball.
- Ravens @ Chiefs – Two good defenses, but anytime you have Lamar against Mahomes, fireworks can ensue.
- Packers @ Cowboys – The Cowboys defense is stinky, but we know they can score with a healthy Dak and the addition of Pickens.
And here are a couple maybe not so fun games in Week 4:
- Vikings @ Steelers – Every Steelers game should be gross, and the Vikings defense can create nightmares for opponents.
- Titans @ Texans – My belief is that the Texans have one of the best, if not the very best defense in the entire league. Playing at home against a mediocre at best Titans offense, plus the Texans league worst OL probably doesn’t create a super appealing game environment.
Player Targets
This is certainly not an all-encompassing list of player targets, and if you’d like to use our custom rankings designed specifically for this tournament (and downloadable), you can find them here. You just need a Spike Week Premium subscription to access.
- Christian McCaffrey (& the 49ers) – I have been lower on CMC than market this year, but his early season role is undeniable. The Niners have been bitten harder by the injury bug than any team in the league, both to other playmakers in the pass game and to CMC’s backups at RB. They have a great schedule, which also helps Ricky Pearsall and George Kittle.
- Tank Bigsby – Quite a step down from CMC, but Tank is one of those RBs who has a very real role for his team at the start of the season, and he also plays better in Underdog’s half PPR scoring. The Jags also have an elite schedule, playing the Panthers, Bengals and 49ers in 3 of their 4 games.
- Dylan Sampson – Even if you think Quinshon Judkins will eventually take back this role, it’s impossible to deny Sampson’s early season role with Judkins missing all of training camp (and still currently unsigned!). Sampson has been working with the starters, was rested with the starters in week 2 of the preseason, and he’s an exciting talent after winning offensive player of the year in the SEC last season. Flacco is the starter at QB, which is good for the Browns offense, and they play the Bengals in Week 1 when it’s 2/12 advance.
- Mike Evans – Evans is another older player who some may have concerns about as a 3rd round pick in regular best ball tournaments, but it’s wheels up here. Jalen McMillan is out, and it looks like Godwin will be as well. We saw what Evans did last year in this type of scenario, and the emergence of rookie Emeka Egbuka isn’t enough to offset the lack of other surrounding target earners here. They’ll definitely need to score some points in the Week 4 final against the Eagles offense, too.
- Broncos WRs not named Courtland Sutton – There’s nothing inherently wrong with Sutton in this format, and he is a fine pick in his own right. But I think it’s important to highlight the fact that the Broncos just traded Devaughn Vele to the Saints. Vele was a starting wide receiver for this team, and a huge reason why it was a bit murky on who (or if) to draft the likes of Marvin Mims, Troy Franklin and Pat Bryant. We all expected Sean Payton to rotate all these guys just enough to annoy us and suck the fantasy life out of them. However, when we remove Vele from the equation, there are a ton of snaps, routes and targets that open up for one or multiple of these guys to be difference makers in this offense. I don’t think their prices will adjust enough for this new monster ceiling, especially when we consider they get the wonderful Bengals matchup in the Week 4 final (and it’s the Monday Night Football hammer!).
