WRITTEN BY: MIKE JOHNSON (@MJOHNSON_86)
Now that we have discussed and established what the Usable Weeks and Points Added concepts are, we can dig deeper into what they mean and how they affect how we play on Drafters. We know that we need to target roughly 2,800 points and we know that the math on that says we need to accumulate roughly 350 points on average per starting position. From there, our thought process needs to be focused on how those points are scored and building a roster that plays on these ideas to optimize our rosters. Said another way, Drafters cumulative scoring Best Ball contests are NOT about having the 20 players who score the most points. Rather, it is building rosters that maximize your draft capital to create the most efficient scoring roster possible from the 20 players you select.
Any golfer or golf fan is likely familiar with what “Best Ball” is in golf. The simplified explanation is two (or more) players are on a team and each plays their own ball on every hole, but the team’s score is just the one BEST score from each hole. For instance, if me and my friend Collin were on a team and I made a birdie (-1) on the first hole while Collin made a double bogey (+2), our team’s score would be -1 at that point. Then, on the second hole, Collin makes a birdie (-1) and I make a triple bogey (+3). At this point, my individual score is +2 and Collin’s is +1….but our TEAM score is -2. This would be us optimizing our scoring. Whereas another team may have both made pars on both holes and each individual is even par (+0) and beating both me and Collin – but their team is even par and two strokes behind our team. The flip side of this would be if Collin and I both birdied the same hole and then made our double bogey and triple bogey also on the same hole. This is a bit of an extreme example, but for our purposes of Best Ball it exemplifies the importance and need to optimize our rosters.
There is value in “solid” players who consistently give us “usable weeks” and keep us afloat. There is also a lot of value in players who can “spike” and give us a lot of “Points Added” in a given week. There must be a balance, however, and the way we build teams needs to be thoughtful and reflective of three things::
- How each of our players scores their points – consistency, variance, floor, and ceiling all being considered
- What parts of the season our players are likely to score the most points (and the least)
- How likely the players strong games are to add points to our team based on the rest of the roster
Usable Weeks
We know we need roughly 2,800 points to have a high placing roster in a Drafters contest, which is about 350 points per position. However, not all positions are created equal. For our purposes we should look at this as needing varied numbers from each position. These are obviously not exact and are mainly for the purposes of thinking through rosters as you build, but here are the rough “target” numbers I think about for each of the eight starting roster positions::
- QB: 400
- RB1: 425
- RB2: 300
- WR1: 475
- WR2: 350
- WR3: 300
- TE: 275
- FLEX: 300
Broken down into weekly averages, these would be our targets for each position::
- QB: 23.5
- RB1: 25.0
- RB2: 17.6
- WR1: 27.9
- WR2: 20.6
- WR3: 17.6
- TE: 16.2
- FLEX: 17.6
These numbers may seem arbitrary and made up, but let me share with you the results from my team that took 7th in the Drafters Main Event in 2023::
- QB: 411.8 (24.2)
- RB1: 399.6 (23.5)
- RB2: 235.7 (13.9)
- WR1: 493 (29.0)
- WR2: 386.2 (22.7)
- WR3: 283.2 (16.7)
- TE: 280.3 (16.5)
- FLEX: 256.9 (15.1)
While it is not an exact science, you can see that all of my team’s production came in a very similar output to the way I think about team structure and what I am trying to achieve. Depending on how an individual season plays out and a team is constructed, there are a lot of different ways to get to the same end goal of 2,800 points – but most likely the point distribution will look roughly like this.
Now, when you are building a team depending on how you allocate draft capital these point averages may shift across the positions. For example, my team highlighted above was a WR-heavy team in a year where “Zero RB” worked out very well due to first round RB injuries and a lot of “hits” at RB in the mid-rounds. That, along with me having the “nuts” at WR by getting Ceedee Lamb and Amon-Ra St. Brown at the 1-2 turn gave a very clear path to my results, as you can see with my RB output being lower than my “target” numbers. While I haven’t run the numbers on all the top teams from 2025, the way the season played out with Gibbs, Bijan, CMC, JT, and Achane all scoring a load of points (all five averaged over 20 points per game on their own) would likely have the scoring output swayed heavier towards the RB position. Regardless, the main point here is you are going to have a few spots that carry the load on each roster and by identifying where those spots should be you can optimize your later picks to add value to your roster.
The way this plays out in terms of “Usable Weeks” is first by identifying the fact that these averages are reached not by equal output, but by highs and lows. Some interesting data points from my 2023 roster::
- My TE position’s 16.5 point average consisted of five weeks of 20+ points and five weeks of single digit points.
- There were 28 instances over 17 weeks of a player scoring double digit points and not counting cracking my lineup to count towards my score: 11 RB, 15 WR, 2 TE.
- There were 9 instances over 17 weeks of a player scoring single digit points and counting towards my score: 3 RB, 1 WR, 5 TE.
- Four players on my roster only had their score count one week out of 17.
The point here is that your lower scoring positions have a lower threshold for what it takes for a player to give you a Usable Week and your higher scoring positions have a higher threshold for players to give you something of use. If you are weaker at a position, the steady guys with more predictable roles have more value. If you are stronger at a position, your later picks at that position need to have higher theoretical ceilings to have a chance to contribute. If you have a contending roster, you have likely hit on most of your early picks anyways so you are going to end up with at least a couple of roster spots who basically give you nothing.
Points Added
Circling back to the golf example from early in this article, we can look at some specific players to discuss how these concepts can be put into practice::
- Jordyn Tyson, WR, NO – Tyson continues to drop in ADP as his hamstring injury appears to have him set to miss the first several weeks of the season. On the surface, many people may see this “value” as being the perfect target for teams that are weaker at WR through 10 rounds as he could bring it all together in the second half of the season. In reality, his profile on Drafters is much better suited for teams that are already very STRONG at WR. This is counterintuitive for most, but let me explain. We know he is likely to miss several weeks and with the Saints Week 8 bye, it is possible that the first time we see him is Week 9. A team that is weaker at WR is hurt much more by all those zeros he takes early in the season. If this was DraftKings or Underdog, Tyson is a perfect addition to those weaker WR rooms because they don’t have to score 2,800 points over 17 weeks….they just need to beat 10 other teams during the first 14 weeks and then get the right spike weeks and some pod luck late. Should Tyson’s talent shine and he goes off during the second half of the season, he could put up the type of numbers that could move the needle on Drafters teams that are already loaded at the position. Compare him to someone like Khalil Shakir going in the same range right now. Shakir never scored 21 PPR points in a game last season, but he had nine weeks of double digit points. In a weaker WR room, his score is counting at least a few times. In a stronger WR room, he’s probably not adding much to the roster. In summary, when we are building our rosters for Drafters we should be doing the opposite during the second half of drafts from how we build on DK and UD. If you are especially strong at a position, take the biggest swings at that position later in the draft because in order for that roster to be in contention you will need those early picks to have hit – which means your threshold for Usable Weeks and Points Added will be higher. Likewise, if you build in a certain way and have a specific position that is weaker you should give extra value to more secure roles who can just give you “solid” weeks somewhat consistently.
- Zach Charbonnet, RB, SEA – Charbonnet is on the defending Super Bowl champions and is a trusted and beloved player in the organization, but is also coming off a torn ACL that will keep him out the first few weeks. Whenever he does return, he will join a backfield with first round pick Jadarian Price and whichever RBs the Seahawks give work to while Charbonnet is out. Last season he scored over 20 points only once and this year coming back from an injury can we expect that number to grow? On DK or UD, he’s a great later round RB pick to add to weaker RB rooms. On Drafters, the missed time hurts those rosters a lot more. As a side note to this, Jadarian Price is a far better pick on Drafters than he is on DK or UD for exactly these reasons. His chances of being really good early in the season carry more weight on Drafters and the chances of losing work to Charbonnet down the stretch don’t hurt him as much. His industry consensus ADP’s are in large part built around the idea that he may actually lose value during the “money weeks” on these other sites.
- Ray Davis, RB, BUF – Similar to Tyson, his best fit is actually on teams that are very strong at his position early in the draft. Why? Because these teams are do not really need him to give them Usable Weeks early in the season and are likely to be weaker at WR, which means they will use RB in the Flex more often throughout the course of the season. Again, similar to Tyson he is a perfect fit for a “Zero-RB” or “Hero-RB” build on DK or UD because those teams can just be “pretty good” most of the season and then if he gets his chance later in the year that could put them over the top….but on Drafters the distribution of his production output is likely to hurt their chances of reaching the top of the leaderboard. Put him as your RB4 on a team with something like JT, Barkley, and Breece taken in the first four rounds and all of a sudden if James Cook gets hurt in Week 9 you have essentially added another elite player at the position who can actually move the needle and add points to your roster. On a weaker RB team if that injury happens that deep into the season, the roster is likely already too far behind to catch up.
The main thing to wrap your mind around with these concepts is that this is a CUMULATIVE SCORING contest. You are not trying to raise your floor or create a bunch of “pretty good” teams, then using game stacks for the later weeks to try to swing variance in your favor during the playoffs. You are trying to optimize for a 99.9 percentile outcome over the course of 17 weeks. This means thinking through things somewhat unconventionally and being willing to accept risks that wouldn’t make sense in other contests. If you win your 14-week pod by 300 points on DK or UD, you still start over at 0 in Week 15. On Drafters you need to optimize for upside while not digging yourself holes you can’t come back from. On DK and UD my main goal is advancing as many teams as possible and being very “solid and sound” in my constructions, then letting the chips fall where they may in the playoffs. On Drafters, I am actively trying to lower my rate of cashing teams with my approaches and roster constructions because I am doing it in a way that increases my chances of creating a true super team that can challenge for 2,800 points.
