Drafting More Hyper Fragile Builds in Best Ball this year

July 30, 2024

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Megan Shoup

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I wrote last week about Double Anchor RB or Modified Double Anchor RB builds. I outlined why I love build structure so much here. I can see on my Best Ball Overlay Portfolio Optimizer that I have a high percentage of these builds.

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But when I take multiple running backs early, there’s another build structure I can do. I can draft four early to mid-round running backs that have a high projectable volume and then stop at four RBs. This is called a Hyper Fragile RB build.

I outlined this build in this tweet about a recent Hyper Fragile team I drafted and loved!

I’ve heard ppl say/tweet drafting 3RBs to start is paying rake.

But I love the hyper fragile build this year with RBs prices!

I still got WR room I’m comfortable with getting 3 scores from weekly… pic.twitter.com/XrGVgf7Bbq

— Megan Shoup (@megs08DFS) July 27, 2024

Benefits to Hyper Fragile RB Builds:

The goal of Hyper Fragile RB builds is to dominate the room with your RB scores. You have an opportunity to get multiple league-winning RBs on the same team. Also, you’re looking for your RB to hit your flex as much as possible with this strategy.

The risk is you need these RBs to stay healthy since you’re drafting less of them. But if the early RBs stay healthy and do what is expected of them this season, this could be a successful strategy that is underutilized by the field. In fact, the field is doing quite the opposite, usually drafting Zero RB builds and still sometimes drafting a lot of WRs.

The other benefit to this strategy and the Double Anchor RB strategy is we are getting discounts on RBs by a round (or two or three rounds). For instance, we’re able to draft RB Isiah Pacheco in Round 4, and his projection is better than almost all the Round 2 wide receivers.

It’s often heard in best ball content to “not draft scared”. Well this is a good way to not draft scared and get major leverage if it hits!

Wide Receiver Pacing:

Zero RB fans will say that you’ll fall too far behind the WR avalanche this year if you address RB early. But you can still keep pacing with the WR-heavy rooms. As you can see from this draft, I still kept this pacing:

-3 WR by Rd 6

-5WR by Rd 10

-7 WR by Rd 13 as @HaydenWinks mentioned in his recent article

-8 WR total

Quarterback Stacks:

I also still love all my QBs in this build and draft. I got all 3 QBs at falling value and all stacked! I will need some late-round TE heroes. But I’ll take that at the most volatile position. And I think it’s possible with these 3 TEs in the last 3 rounds to cobble together some spike week TE scores.

I do think when drafting Hyper Fragile, it’s best to not do elite QB or elite TE builds. But with QB value this year, I still feel very confident in QBs that I can draft rounds 7-15. I also usually draft late-round TE builds with Hyper Fragile structure. But you could draft a TE in the 6th or 7th round and then just draft two TEs and draft 9 WRs.

I will be mixing up my RBs I combine in these Hyper Fragile builds, as well as my QB stacks and late-round TEs.

Summary:

As I mentioned in the Double Anchor RB article…

Bottom line…we have no idea what the 2024 NFL season is going to give us. But the field is drafting as if all or most of the early RBs are going to be injured or not have success. If the early RBs stay healthy and crush their ADPs, then the double anchor RB, modified double anchor RB builds, or Hyper Fragile RB builds will likely be very +EV.

But again, I can’t predict the 2024 NFL season, so I will be mixing in different build structures to my portfolio. But this is my case for why I’m mixing in more Hyper Fragile RB builds than I ever have before.