Ranking The Top-9 Strategies For 2026 Best Ball (Episode 981 with Adam Levitan, Pete Overzet, Justin Herzig)

**Adam Levitan** (0:15)
Hello, and welcome to episode 981 of the official establishtherun.com podcast. My name is Adam Levitan. I am one of the co-founders here at ETR, and best ball summer is heating up. It is time to talk some high level strategy. For this, I am joined by two of the sickest best ball virgins I know.
First up, our own Justin Herzig, winner of Best Ball Mania 1, and a bunch of other best ball stuff. Herzig, how's it going today?

**Justin Herzig** (0:45)
Doing well, doing well. I love this episode each year because it let us kind of take a look at the meta of this year, gets ahead of where the EDP is going, all that. So excited to chat through these strategies.

**Adam Levitan** (0:55)
Also joining us, one of the oldest friends of the show. You used to know him as Pete Manzanelli, aka The Manz. Now you know him as the preeminent thought leader in the best ball space. YouTuber, Peter Overzet. How's it going today, buddy?

**Pete Overzet** (1:10)
Yeah, and I know when you say YouTuber, it's a pejorative, but the young people will find that as a compliment. Yeah. Now, excited to do the show. I listen to this one every year, and I do think it's a pretty unique landscape compared to what we've seen in previous years. There have been some macro trends that have forced us to rethink some of these macro strategies. I'm excited to talk through it.

**Adam Levitan** (1:32)
Couldn't agree more, and we'll get into that for sure. On today's show, we are going to rank best ball strategies for 2026 Everyone throws out things like Zero Running Back, Elite Tight End, Hero Running Back, but which are the best for this year specifically?
Before we get into it, do you need to note that Best Ball Summer is officially live and it's massive. DraftKings has the $25 buy-in best ball, $3 million to first, $2 million to second, $1 million to third. So absurd, our uploadable rankings for that contest and all other best ball formats are indeed live as part of our best ball product, which is $59.99. Head to establishtherun.com for details.
All right, let's get into the rankings here and we have a new one on top here, Herzig. This has never topped our rankings before. For this year though, number one strategy for best ball, we have Robust RB, hide your eyes, hide your eyes, young bros out there, Robust RB. And I would define Robust RB as two running backs in the first three rounds or even three running backs in the first five rounds. And like, I want to be clear, this was a very contrarian strategy for the last few years. And I actually thought that Robust RB was a really sharp strategy on the underdog the last few years, where the scoring system heavily favors running backs, tight ends. Yet wide receivers are the ones that were flying off the board early. It is very, very different this year, Herzig. On DraftKings, there are 16 running backs going off the board in the first three rounds and 12 in the first two rounds. So I agree that this is the best strategy for this year. My concern is that this is what everyone is doing this year. So how do you balance those two things, Herzig? Do you agree, Robust are the top strategy for this year?

**Justin Herzig** (3:27)
Yeah, I mean, it's been a while. In BBM1, that's seven years ago, hyper fragile. So two kind of in that early three, three and early five was definitely my go-to strategy. In the following year, it was too early and then wait. It hasn't been since that BBM2 that we've been looking at the running backs taking that many this early. It's been far more valuable to me. If you missed out on wide receivers in past years, you couldn't make up for it with quantity because so many of these wide receivers were going early on. This year, if you look at the data, running backs are going earlier than we've seen. It's not just at the top, but as you get into those later rounds, too. It kind of gets that spot of if you miss out on them early, you're then trying to make up for them with quantity. But in today's game, you have less pass catchers, you have more war courses.
Maybe running backs aren't even getting injured as much and there's something to that. Actually, players are getting stronger, so that waiting on running backs isn't as valuable. When I look at the landscape for this year, you have 17 running backs going in the first three rounds. Then you get into the guys like Givante and Bucky and Scadabout, where there's legitimate question marks. But just before that, you still have really quality. Breeze Hall, Travis Etienne, like strong running backs. I do want to have two in those first three rounds.