The skill that actually wins Best Ball Mania: finding outliers on purpose. Building on the BBM-winner study, we break down what makes a good pick — a guy who gets you INTO the playoffs, or one with the ceiling to WIN a playoff week — and how to hunt "small miss, big hit" profiles instead of drafting off median projections.

Key ideas: ADP is just a price sheet (and it's wrong every year). Use Understanding ADP to know what each finish is worth — QB10 ≈ 299 Underdog points, and Trevor Lawrence (UD QB10) already cleared it at 338. The Josh Allen opportunity-cost case (why I'll be ~6%). Then position by position — where outliers actually live:
• QB: the 30%+ guys hit rounds 4–9; solid value 2–17
• RB: top-heavy (Jonathan Taylor 48.8%) but outliers into R17 — don't fall behind
• WR: big wins early, but solid value everywhere R1–18
• TE: one outlier ever (Kelce); most value comes late — mid TE then load R12–18

Next episode: my stands & fades. Everything's on the site.

Understanding ADP: https://millymakermaniac.com/adp-study/
OG Maniac ($50/yr for life): https://millymakermaniac.com/ogmaniac/

What actually wins Best Ball Mania? I reverse-engineered every BBM champion from Underdog's official pick-by-pick data and found the same fingerprints on almost every winner. Here are the 5 truths every champion shared — with the receipts.

1) An elite advance-rate anchor. Every champ had at least one 28%+ player — JSN 39.6% ('25), Ja'Marr Chase 50% / Burrow 39.6% ('24), CeeDee Lamb 34.6% / Mostert 42.6% ('23), Tyler Lockett exactly 28% ('22), Jonathan Taylor 43% ('21). Most came in the first four rounds — you have to hit early.

2) Mid-to-late-round value in bulk. Every team stacked value late — Kyren Williams 15 rounds of value in Round 18, Mostert 12 in Round 13, Chase Brown 6, Chris Olave paying off 2nd-round value from Round 6. Titles are built in the back half of the draft.

3) Zeros don't kill you. 4 of 5 champs carried 2+ players who never hit the lineup (Renfrow — a 7th-rounder!, Sony Michel, Ty Chandler, Adam Thielen). Only 2023 had zero zeros. Don't fear the contingent handcuff.

4) Regular-season duds become playoff heroes. Brock Purdy 12% reg-season advance → must-have in Weeks 16 & 17. Jonathan Taylor 11% → 36% Week 16. Amari Cooper 11% → dropped 46 in Week 16. Tom Brady 8%. The guys who limped through the year won the chip.

5) Teammate stacks in the playoffs. Across all 5 winners, only ONE playoff week lacked a 2+ teammate stack (2023 Wk16). The 2024 Bengals stack — 4 in Wk15, 2 in Wk16, 3 in Wk17 — carried the whole run. Stack 2–4, QB optional.

The big takeaway: hunt outliers in BOTH phases — a regular-season stud to get you in, plus low-owned playoff heroes to win the single-week shootouts. Small miss, big hit.

Full breakdown + every tool is on the site:
Road to the BBM Championship: https://millymakermaniac.com/road-to-bbm-championship/
Tournament Winners & Losers: https://millymakermaniac.com/best-picks/
Stacking Study: https://millymakermaniac.com/stacking/
Same-Team RB Duos: https://millymakermaniac.com/rb-duos/
OG Maniac (first 100 subs — lifetime, never more than $50/yr): https://millymakermaniac.com/ogmaniac/

Like, subscribe, and send this to your best ball bros. Go get a bag this season.

Ep. 11 — QB Rankings 16-20: Malik Willis Is My Biggest QB Stand of Best Ball 2026

Podcast Description

Part 4 of the Best Ball QB Rankings — closing out the top 20 with the sneaky-important QB3 tier. Four of these five guys have finished QB6 or higher in their career, and the fifth (Malik Willis) put up 32.5 DK points in his ONE 2025 start.

Biggest headline: Malik Willis is my #1 QB stand of the entire best ball season at 20% target exposure. He's the Justin Fields comp — if Justin Fields could actually throw. Miami's $45M-guaranteed contract says they believe he's their guy for the next 4-5 years, and the Dolphins' scrappy underdog script sets up perfectly for QB-friendly point totals.

Inside the episode:

• The best-ball-vs-redraft ranking philosophy — why I want exposure to guys I'd rank lower in a redraft
• Kyler Murray + Kevin O'Connell + Jefferson stack — the fresh-start motivator
• Bo Nix year-3 leap case — 12% target (up from 2%) with Waddle and Pat Bryant as core stacks
• Full Malik Willis deep-dive — advanced metrics from his lone start, contract analysis, injury-risk vs bench-risk debate
• Jordan Love's concentrated pass game — why Watson, Kraft, Reed, and Matthew Golden all bump up
• Baker Mayfield's bounce-back case + why Chris Godwin is my biggest WR fade of the year
• Playoff schedules for each — where the Week 15-17 shootouts live

Rankings tool, Boom Game History, Stats Hub, Player Compare, and Team Pages with playoff schedules all live at millymakermaniac.com. Previous QB Rankings episodes cover 1-5, 6-10, and 11-15.

Part 3 of the Best Ball QB Rankings. This tier is where builds get won: pocket passers you stack instead of draft naked, injury-upside plays, and one QB with a top-3 playoff schedule that nobody's paying enough for.

Inside the episode:

• Why Trevor Lawrence over Brock Purdy at QB11 — cleaner health profile + top-3 playoff schedule
• Bhayshul Tuten as the single biggest Jaguar stand of my portfolio
• Purdy's 93rd%ile success rate + 96th%ile TD rate — and why the 49ers-stay-healthy outcome is only 10-15% likely
• The Matthew Stafford rule: Puka teams only, never naked — why last year was the ceiling
• Jaxson Dart at QB14 as a legit Week 16-17 game-stack piece (@DET / @DAL)
• Theo Johnson as a 20th-round Dart stacking dart-throw
• Jared Goff as the best pocket-passer stack in fantasy — the 15-20% 40-TD outcome case + the Gibbs/Amon-Ra/LaPorta stack tree
• Why you almost never draft Goff naked

Rankings tool, Boom Game History, Stats Hub, Player Compare, and Team Pages with playoff schedules all live at millymakermaniac.com. QB Ranks 1-5 and 6-10 already up in the earlier rankings episodes.

Next episode wraps the QB series: QBs 16-20 (late-round upside tier).

Part 2 of the Best Ball QB Rankings — QBs 6 through 10 for 2026. This is the tier where the season gets won: any of these five can hit 40+ TDs and bring a full stack of pass-catchers with them. Target exposure numbers, stacking partners, and playoff-schedule math for each.

Big headline: Justin Herbert is my single biggest above-market stand of the offseason. 25-30% target exposure, walking into a Mike McDaniel offense with Alt and Slater back healthy and a completely rebuilt interior OL. He's already had a 5,000-yard, 38-TD season with worse weapons — I think the MVP outcome is 30-35% likely.

Inside the episode:

• Why Dak Prescott is a DK preference (300-yard bonuses) but Underdog fade
• The Lamb + Pickens ping-pong stack construction
• Jalen Hurts bounce-back case (Sean Mannion + tush push rushing TDs returning)
• Patrick Mahomes' 42% career boom rate — the highest of any QB in NFL history — makes him a 20% target even coming off ACL
• Why Caleb Williams is the ONE fade of the top 12 — Ben Johnson won't let him cook
• Full playoff-schedule walkthrough on every QB (weather, dome, defensive matchups)
• Late-round stacking darts: Tyquan Thornton, Charlie Kolar, Jayden Blue, Trey Harris

Rankings tool, Boom Game History, Stats Hub, Player Compare, and Team Pages with playoff schedules all live at millymakermaniac.com.

Episode 9 drops next: QBs 11-15.

First rankings episode of the season — my top 5 quarterbacks for Best Ball 2026 and the exposure, stacking, and playoff-schedule framework that goes with each. I'm above market on all five, which is a stand, so I walk through the reasoning tier by tier.

Inside the episode:

• Why Josh Allen at QB1 is worth an 8% exposure target even at the brutal ADP — Joe Brady's promotion, defensive regression, and the new-stadium narrative
• The Lamar bounce-back case: 30%+ career boom rate, Declan Doyle unlocking the offense, and why Lamar + Zay is the highest-advance-rate double-stack of the season
• Joe Burrow as my 15-20% target QB — 50-touchdown outcomes, 2nd-best playoff schedule, and the Bengals quad-stack build
• Jayden Daniels year-3 leap — the new OC, motion, McLaurin targets, and the JAX Week 17 game stack
• Drake Maye as solid-but-not-elite QB5 — how the schedule flip and playoff slate cap his ceiling
• How to make sure you leave every draft with at least one top-12 QB
• Why I'm above market on nearly every QB in the top 12 (Caleb Williams is the exception — covered next episode)

Rankings tool, Boom Game History, Player Compare, and Team Pages with playoff schedules all live at millymakermaniac.com.

Episode 12 drops next: QBs 6-10.

Taking another shot at $3 million on the DraftKings NFL Best Ball $20M Millionaire — drafting out of the 11 spot and building one of the heaviest stack-driven teams I've done this season. Ashton Jeanty and De'Von Achane anchor the running back room (both above-market stands I walk through in detail), Justin Herbert leads a five-deep Chargers stack with McConkey / Trey Harris / Gadsden / Njoku, a Patrick Mahomes + Xavier Worthy mini-stack rides the Week 17 game against the Chargers, and we close it out with a full Browns stack: Shedeur Sanders, Quinshon Judkins, Cassey Concepcion, and Denzel Boston.

Inside the episode:

• The full Player Compare walk-through on Achane vs. Saquon, Walker, Chase Brown, and Hampton — and why boom rate, EPA per touch, and yards created per carry make him the easy pick
• Why Jeanty as RB12 last year behind a broken Raiders OL is the buy — Kubiak, the new center, and Colt Miller returning
• Tyler Warren as a top-12 TE 40 picks behind Brock Bowers
• The case for a Browns offense scoring 21+ points in real games — and why Shedeur winning QB1 unlocks the whole stack
• Stacking philosophy when your two best QBs face each other in Week 17
• Late-round dart throws: Sean Tucker, Tez Johnson, Chris Brazzell

The full DraftKings $20M Millionaire structure walk-through is in here too — round-by-round payouts, advancement rules, and why this format rewards top-heavy stacks. Rankings, team pages, and tools at millymakermaniac.com.

Another $2M Best Ball Mania draft on Underdog, this time out of the 9 spot. I'm going Hero RB around De'Von Achane (above market — 34% boom rate is too loud to ignore), stacking a wide receiver room four deep with CeeDee Lamb, Zay Flowers, Ladd McConkey, and Christian Watson, and then pivoting hard into a full Miami game stack with Malik Willis, Greg Dulcich, and Malik Washington when my Dak and Herbert stacks both got sniped.

Inside the episode:

• Why Achane belongs above Saquon, Kenneth Walker, and Chase Brown
• The Jonathan Brooks stand at 105 and why I'm higher than the room
• How I ended up on naked Mahomes — and why I'm fine with it
• The Malik Willis case: tape, athleticism, accuracy, and a Miami offense people are sleeping on
• Tyler Warren as a top-12 TE absorbing vacated Pittman targets
• Late-round RB logic: Woody Marks, Zach Charbonnet, Sean Tucker
• Fading Saquon and Derrick Henry one more time

Full roster, full reasoning, full board reactions. Rankings, team pages, and the Player Compare tool live at millymakermaniac.com.