Last year, we debuted a new competition at SportsLine that mixes NFL futures betting with standard Fantasy football drafts to pit 12 of our experts against each other to determine who was the best NFL futures bettor of 2023. And we got a definitive answer, as SportsLine model analyst Mackenzie Brooks dominated the competition by finishing up nearly seven units, two units higher than second place.

How did she do it? Picking 10th out of 12 teams, Brooks took a risk with her first win total (worth three units), taking the Chargers to finish Under 9.5 wins at +100 odds, then took a bigger risk in Round 2 by taking the Texans to finish Over 6.5 wins (her two-unit play) at +110 odds. Hitting both put her up 5.2 units, and she also hit Aaron Jones Under 6.5 rushing touchdowns in Round 3 as her one-unit rushing prop, Cleveland to make the playoffs at +115 in Round 5 as her one-unit make/miss playoffs bet, the Rams going Over 6.5 wins at -105 in Round 7 as her one-unit win total, the Chiefs as her 0.25-unit Super Bowl winner at +600 in Round 10 and C.J. Stroud as her 0.1-unit Offensive Rookie of the Year play at +850 with her next to last pick. Even after subtracting the missed plays from the rest of the draft, it was an impressive performance from the on-air voice of the SportsLine Projection Model.

Did reading through those draft results pique your interest? If so, we've laid out below how to put together your own SportsLine NFL futures fantasy draft, designed for 12 bettors to go toe to toe in predicting the NFL season. Our group of 12 this year includes the returning champion Brooks as well as SportsLine experts Will Brinson, Thomas Casale, Eric Cohen, Larry Hartstein, Bob Konarski, Jason La Canfora, Josh Nagel, Sia Nejad, Dave Richard, Alex Selesnick and R.J. White.

All readers can see the first round of our SportsLine NFL Futures Fantasy Draft, which began on July 22. Full results can be found below as each round is completed, along with my analysis of each round.

SportsLine NFL Futures Fantasy Draft format

General rules

• Up to 16 managers can participate
• 16 rounds in the draft
• Each manager will build a 12-unit portfolio with predetermined unit sizes for each slot as laid out below
• Pick one sportsbook to use for odds, and use the current odds when each pick is made (to avoid stale lines)
• At the end of season, calculate each bet for each team using the relevant unit size as a win or loss (ex. winning a 3u win total at a -150 price gives a team +2 units, losing the same pick is -3 units)

Win totals

• 3u win total
• 2u win total
• 1u win total
• 0.5u alt win total
  

All NFL teams are available to be selected for one Over and one Under in this group (whether standard or in the alt category). So there are 64 possible "picks," which is why the draft has a 16-manager maximum. When a manager makes a selection, they must designate which slot the pick is going in immediately (aka, Yahtzee rules) or they get the highest unit slot by default.

Playoff wagers

• 1u Make/miss playoffs
• 0.5u Division winner
• 0.25u Super Bowl winner

All NFL teams are available to be selected once per category. That means if a team is selected to make the playoffs, it can't be selected by another manager to miss the playoffs and fill that slot on their roster.

Stat props

• 1u Pass yards/TD total
• 1u Rush yards/TD total
• 1u Rec yards/TD total

Each player can be used once per category, so if a team selects Patrick Mahomes' Over in pass TDs, Mahomes is off the board for all pass yards and TD props for the rest of the draft.

Awards

• 0.25u MVP
• 0.1u Offensive Player of the Year
• 0.1u Defensive Player of the Year
• 0.1u Offensive Rookie of the Year
• 0.1u Defensive Rookie of the Year
• 0.1u Coach of the Year

Players can only be selected once per category, but the same player could be drafted twice to fill one MVP slot and one OPOY slot, for example.

2024 SportsLine NFL Futures Fantasy Draft results

Round 1

Just like last year, everyone jumped on the available win total they liked best with their first picks. The top five finishers last year all had successful three-unit win totals, so it's crucial to fill that slot with a winner. Doing so in Round 1 is crucial as the availability of only 64 over/unders for 48 slots means you don't want to be forced to make a pick you don't feel strongly about by waiting until later in the draft to fill the three-unit slot.

Last year we saw two different sides of one team's win total taken in Round 1 with the Jaguars, and here we see it twice. I jumped all over the Jets Over 9.5 as my top pick as I think the roster around the quarterback is elite and the backup QB position was strengthened with Tyrod Taylor. Even if Aaron Rodgers isn't effective in his return from an Achilles tear, having him out there running the offense in real time is a major boost from what they dealt with last year. La Canfora disagrees strongly enough with my take to make the Jets Under his top play. We also saw Early Edge stalwarts Hartstein and PropStarz go head-to-head on the Texans win total here as well.

As for the other picks, Cleveland was my next favorite Over, so I was sad to see Nagel take it off the board. The Falcons Under was also among my top picks heading into the draft so I feel like Brooks has a winner there (surprise, surprise). After watching the Eagles collapse to lose my three-unit win total last year after I went for a relatively aggressive -105 play, I decided to put more of an emphasis on taking a win total in Round 1 that the market thinks has a good shot of hitting, otherwise I may have slotted that Falcons play at +115 as my top pick over the Jets, which will only pay out two units if it cashes.

Results for the rest of the draft will be added below as each round completes, and you'll also be able to find everyone's full roster once the draft is over along with some analysis about the results.

Which team will be the first to be selected to win the Super Bowl? And which player will be the top MVP pick among our experts? ... Join SportsLine right now to see the results of the SportsLine NFL Futures Championship!