Players Whose Value Changes in Redraft vs. Best Ball

Redraft and best ball fantasy football are both season-long formats, but the strategies needed for each differ vastly in some areas. For those who aren’t familiar, best ball is a format where you draft your team and the platform automatically fills your lineup with your highest-scoring players after the week ends. There is no waiver wire, no free agency, no trades, nothing — just draft and check back in January.

Because of that, certain player archetypes are far riskier in best ball because you can’t drop them in-season. On the other hand, some players are ideal late-round redraft picks because you can draft them in August, see what happens leading up to the season, and potentially either drop them before Week 1 or right after Week 1 after you see how they’re utilized. Roster spots are valuable in redraft, and there will almost certainly be some waiver-wire darlings early in the year. It can be tricky to know whether you should hold onto a player you drafted with late-season upside or drop them for the new toy who popped off in Week 1. On the flip side, some players are better in best ball — low-upside veteran plays who will provide usable weeks but don’t have the power to win you your redraft league, as well as players with unpredictable weekly scoring due to their play style. Today, we’ll run through the players whose value changes the most in redraft vs. best ball.

BETTER IN REDRAFT

Jordan James and Kaelon Black

Christian McCaffrey is now 30 years old. He stayed healthy in 2025 but played only four games in 2024 due to Achilles tendonitis and a knee sprain, and he has 2,284 career touches. The San Francisco offense is guaranteed to be efficient as long as Kyle Shanahan is calling plays, meaning whoever ends up backing up McCaffrey could find themselves in a pretty valuable role. The problem: We don’t know who that’s going to be. James essentially redshirted as a rookie after being picked in the fifth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, but he was a superior analytical prospect to Black, who was a surprise pick in Round 3 this year. Black didn’t even get an NFL Combine invite and totaled just 12 targets across his final two years of college, but he did win a national title at Indiana, and the 49ers reportedly had him as their RB2 in the class. This battle will go deep into August, but whoever wins it is worth a roster spot given the immense contingent upside.

DJ Giddens and Seth McGowan

Like the James-Black battle, both Giddens and McGowan are enticing based on their contingent upside. Jonathan Taylor is one of the highest-usage running backs in the league — 323 carries last season — but it’s unclear who’s second in line if he goes down. Giddens played sparsely as a rookie after getting fifth-round draft capital, even getting healthy-scratched for much of the year. Still, he flashed legit big-play upside at Kansas State (6.6 yards per carry in his final season, 50 receptions over his final two seasons combined). Meanwhile, McGowan was a journeyman prospect (five college programs in six years, 24 years old as a rookie), but perhaps the decision to add him signals a lack of faith in Giddens. It’s too early to tell who wins this role, but it’s worth taking a flier on either late, and you can simply drop them if it becomes evident they lost the RB2 battle.