With the NFL Draft less than a week away, it's crunch time for getting in our final entries for the way-too-early best ball contests.

I've recently been putting my money where my mouth is in the high-stakes contests on Underdog, specifically the $250 contest called The Biggest Board.

 

While the scoring and roster settings are no different than the $10 flagship Big Board contest, there is one big difference when it comes to the advancement structure:

  • Big Board Round Advancement: 3/12 - 1/10 - 1/10 - 558 Seat Final
  • Biggest Board Round Advancement: 4/12 - 1/4 - 1/4 - 18 Seat Final

The 3/12 vs. 4/12 advancing out of Round 1 isn't a huge difference, but 25% vs. 10% of teams advancing in Weeks 15 and 16 is significant, as is the 540-person difference in the size of the finals.

These dynamics require some slight strategic shifts, which I'll outline below.

The other fun thing that plays out when doing higher-dollar contests is that you quickly realize which strategies and players you actually have conviction on. It's easy to toss a dart on a $10 entry, but a $250 entry forces you to confront your true feelings and who you actually want to back with cash on the line.

The four takeaways below represent the strategic shifts I've made across three recent drafts in The Biggest Board contest, as well as some convictions that have crystallized for me in the process.

High-Stakes Best Ball Drafting Lessons

Don't Wait On QBs: The Avalanche Is Real & Terrifying

If you've ever drafted on Underdog, you are well aware of a “WR Avalanche”—that's the phenomenon where drafters trip over each other to select as many WRs as possible at the top of the draft. If you aren't careful, you can get buried with a mediocre WR room.

But in 2025 pre-draft contests—even the high-stakes ones—I've noticed insane avalanches at the QB position. And what makes these QB blitzes even scarier is how quickly they can take place.

There's a temptation to look at all of the QBs available in Rounds 9 through 11 and think that you can be patient, but you only get one pick in each round, and they fly off the shelves quickly.

And what makes navigating these runs particularly nerve-wrecking is that there are no QBs who are likely to start all 17 games after Geno Smith comes off the board at pick 160:

 

And because we want to be mostly focusing on 3-QB builds in these 20-round formats, it becomes imperative to stay ahead of the QB avalanche and not get boxed out.

As you can see from my three different QB rooms in The Biggest Board, I've struggled to secure a solid third option due to these wild runs at the position:

None of these QB rooms are bad per se, but the question marks surrounding the third QB on each roster illuminate how quickly the "sure bets" come off the board.

Darnold has bench risk down the stretch, especially if the Seahawks draft a QB. Both Dart and Milroe are now expected to go in Round 1 in the NFL Draft, but they are unlikely to start right away.

Ultimately, I'm okay with these rooms, but I share them as a cautionary tale. Don't get too cute with waiting on QBs in these contests. 

Despite the high opportunity cost of selecting an Elite QB in the first five rounds, it is helpful in that it can facilitate a 2-QB build and reduce the need to force a third QB. 

Prioritize Elite RBs … Within Reason

Because more teams advance in The Biggest Board at every stage, I'm more willing to lean into projectable RB volume as opposed to more volatile Zero RB teams.

In this format, I want my teams to get off to fast starts and don't want to risk a Zero RB squad peaking too late into the season at the cost of making the playoffs.

In all three of my drafts, I prioritized at least two solid RB options in the first 5-6 rounds:

In a regular Big Board draft, I'm much more willing to roll out some true Zero RB squads with a handful of pass-catchers at the top. In these builds, I can target a mix of RB profiles that can benefit from the chaos of the season and hopefully result in a superteam that can traverse the 1/10 and 1/10 advancement gauntlets in Weeks 15 and 16. 

Drafting RBs early raises your floor in a format like The Biggest Board, where you need less ceiling than in the large-field contests. 

Show Slightly Less Rookie Love

On a similar note, I'm not selecting quite as many rookies in The Biggest Board as I am in The Big Board.

As we highlighted a few weeks back, the winning Big Board team last year had 10 rookies on it (a truly absurd amount).

But traditionally, rookies need time to develop into meaningful fantasy contributors. If you layer in the rookies correctly, you can sneak into the playoffs and then enjoy a supercharged team when the production starts spiking. Ricky Pearsall is the perfect example of this as a guy who barely produced for the majority of the 2024 season but delivered a spike week in Week 17.

In The Biggest Board, I still want to target rookies because they represent the best asymmetric upside, but I'm doing it in moderation.

I have some Big Board teams with 8-10 rookies on them, but my Biggest Board teams have 4, 5, and 6 rookies on them, respectively.

It's a small shift, but I think a meaningful one when strategizing for a much smaller contest.

Avoid The RB Landmines In The Mid-Rounds

One thing that really crystallized for me when doing the high-stakes drafts is how terrified I am to touch any of the mid-round RBs before the NFL Draft.

Because this 2025 rookie RB class is so strong and so deep, we are going to see nearly half the backfields in the entire league get reshaped in some form or another.

When I looked at the top landing spots for rookie RBs last week, I counted up to 13 spots where a rookie would see a legit value bump and path to fantasy relevance.

The flip side of this coin means that there are 13+ backfields where the incumbents could lose significant value. 

I've found myself continually passing on guys like Rhamondre Stevenson (ADP 96.5), Isiah Pacheco (109), Brian Robinson (111.8), and D'Andre Swift (117.2) because I think it's a virtual lock that they all get legitimate competition added to their backfields that will submarine their value.

Because of this, I've mostly taken a barbell approach to the RB position, where I lock up starting RBs at the top of the board and then round out the room with a bunch of rookies. This is similar to my TE strategy, where the goal is to avoid the midrange, where the outlook is murky and the upside is questionable.

If you'd like to see one of the high-stakes drafts unfold in real time, I streamed one the other day on Youtube. 

Good luck in your final drafts.