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Underdog Best Ball NFL Playoffs: Tournaments are live as postseason draws near
By Adam Spencer
Published:
Underdog Best Ball season is wrapping up for the 2023 NFL campaign. Teams have been advanced to the quarterfinals, which take place during Week 15 of the regular season. Week 16 will be the semifinals, with the finals being decided in Week 17 of the NFL calendar.
But if you’ve missed out on the best ball regular-season fun, there’s still a chance to win big before a Super Bowl champion is crowned!
Underdog Best Ball NFL Playoffs tournaments are now live on the app! Get in on the action now and root for your squad to roll to a win to rack up some major prize money.
Ready to get started on Underdog today? Use our exclusive Underdog Fantasy Promo Code SOUTH when you sign up and you’ll receive a first-time deposit match of up to $100!
Underdog Best Ball NFL Playoffs
As of Dec. 13, there are 4 Underdog Best Ball NFL Playoffs tournaments available on the app. Here’s a look at those contests, with a wide range of entry fees:
The Gauntlet is the same price point as Best Ball Mania IV, the popular regular-season tournament. With the $25 entry fee, it has a massive prize pool of $1.5 million. That’ll be a popular tournament to enter, but there are plenty of other options for those with smaller bankrolls. Let’s discuss one of those now:
The Mitten
This figures to be the most-popular Underdog Best Ball tournament for the NFL playoffs. With a $5 entry fee, it is very affordable, unlike The Big Mitten, which is for players with bigger bankrolls. But the prize pool is also larger than The Little Mitten, which features a $3 entry fee. A total of $250,000 is up for grabs in The Mitten this year.
Here’s a look at the prize pool for The Mitten:
- 1st place: $25,000
- 2nd place: $12,000
- 3rd place: $10,000
- 4th place: $7,000
- 5th place: $6,000
- 6th place: $5,000
- 7th place: $4,000
- 8th place: $3,000
- 9th place: $2,676
- 10th place: $2,500
- 11th-15th place: $1,000
- 16th-20th place: $700
- 21st-50th place: $500
- 51st-100th place: $200
- 101st-200th place: $135
- 201st-372nd place: $100
- 373rd-744th place: $20
- 745th-3,720th place: $9
- 3,721st-18,600th place: $5
Here’s the first team I drafted for The Mitten:
If the Lions and Dolphins make it to the Super Bowl, I’ll be sitting pretty!
My one concern with that team is that I may have loaded up too much on the Lions. Drafting 5 players from any team is perhaps not the best strategy, as that’s half of my roster. If the Lions lose in the wild-card round, I’ll need the other 5 players to score well every remaining week with no exceptions.
I’ve drafted other teams since the squad I posted above, and I’ve diversified my team selection a bit more. We’ll see which strategy pays off in the long run!
Underdog Best Ball NFL Playoffs strategies
1. Be wary of the No. 1 seeds
As mentioned above, the first round of these best ball tournaments takes place during Wild Card Weekend. Let’s say the Philadelphia Eagles snag the No. 1 seed in the NFC by sweeping the last 4 teams on their schedule. If you have a stack that features QB Jalen Hurts, WR AJ Brown, RB D’Andre Swift and TE Dallas Goedert, you’re getting 0 points from those guys in the first round.
That puts a lot of pressure on the other 6 guys on your roster to have big games in the wild card round. If you do go after a stack for a likely No. 1 seed, you’ll want to make sure you avoid drafting players from the team you think will earn the No. 1 seed in the other conference.
2. Aim for players on teams that will be around for the long haul
Think the Vikings will sneak into the playoffs in the NFC? Taking a shot on Justin Jefferson makes sense, but building a Minnesota team stack probably doesn’t. Could the Vikings make a deep playoff run? Sure. Is it likely with their QB situation? Absolutely not.
The 49ers, on the other hand? They look like a juggernaut when their top offensive players are healthy. That looks like a team that will be around until the NFC Championship Game, if not the Super Bowl. Grabbing a couple of players from San Francisco makes a lot of sense, as you’re likely to get more playoff games from the 49ers than you are the Vikings.
Underdog is one of our favorite apps like PrizePicks. Ready to get started drafting Underdog Best Ball NFL Playoffs squads today? Use promo code SOUTH when you sign up and you’ll earn a first-time deposit match of up to $100!
Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.
