by The regular fantasy football season may be over, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop playing! If you’ve never played in a postseason fantasy league, now is the perfect time to start. There are countless ways to play, ranging from salary cap options to traditional snake drafts and best balls. Whether you start your own league on a site like fantasypostseason.com or compete in a larger competition like NFC, you’ll find that the postseason can be just as fun as the regular season.
One of the more interesting aspects of postseason fantasy play is that it requires a certain amount of gut feeling when it comes to which teams will advance in the NFL playoffs and make it to the Super Bowl. When establishing your rosters regardless of format, you should always consider how to get the most out of your players based on how far you think they will progress in the postseason. It adds a betting element to the traditional fantasy league and gives it an interesting twist. Trust me you will love it!
Although there are endless ways to play, here are three common ways to play if you want to get started.
Best ball format
This is the easiest way to play if you’ve never played fantasy postseason and are looking for an easy way to invest in the playoffs. With this format, there is no limit to how many people can play in a league. It could be two or it could be 50! No draft, no timer. All each league member does is set a roster that will last for the entire postseason. The catch? You can field only one player per team. Once that team is eliminated, that player is also eliminated from your lineup. My suggested lineup for this format is 2 QB, 3RB, 3WR, 2TE, 2 RB/WR/TE, 1K, 1DST.
In terms of strategy, you can see why you should build your roster around the teams you think will rise. For example, if you think the Chiefs will go all the way, you might want Patrick Mahomes as one of your QBs, but that means you can’t field Travis Kelce. If you’re running Travis Kelce and looking to gain a positional advantage in a thin position, maybe field Jalen Hurts in QB since the Eagles are the current NFC favorites for the Super Bowl; However, note that you cannot use AJ Brown or Dallas Goedert.
Oh, and one more thing to think about. Both Mahomes and Hurts have a bye in the first round, meaning if they’re eliminated in the divisional round you’ll still only have a week of stats from them. In that case, it might be better to consider someone like Brock Purdy, who will play more games – if he makes it to the Super Bowl.
See how much fun this can be?
One and done
The One and Done format means you can only field a player once over the course of the postseason.
In this format, there is no limit to how many players from each team you can field in any given week. However, once they are used in a lineup, you cannot use them again for the rest of the postseason. You should try to get maximum points each week and not leave any points on the table while still having plenty of players available for the Super Bowl. It’s a delicate balance, as you also don’t want to avoid using a stud player just to see his team get upset in an early round.
For example, if you use Josh Allen in the wild card round, you cannot use him again for the rest of the postseason. Instead, you could use Jalen Hurts for your divisional matchup the following week. However, if you play Allen and Hurts in the first two rounds, what happens if you play Bills-Eagles in the Super Bowl? You would get stuck with Gardner Minshew! In this case, I like playing against players who I think will be eliminated early for my original lineup. For example, if you think the Seahawks aren’t going to get very far, you can play Ken Walker and Tyler Lockett in the first round.
You should also look at matchups and see if you can predict future matchups to get the strongest starts each week. For example, the Seahawks have been notoriously bad against the run this season. In this case, you can play Christian McCaffrey or even Eli Mitchell in the wild card round against Walker, although you think his team could be eliminated.
Player Multipliers
This format allows you to replace players eliminated from the playoffs with other available players. However, the players who remain in your lineup and are not eliminated will receive a multiplier for their scored points. For example, if you start Dak Prescott and Chris Godwin in the wild card round and the Cowboys beat the Bucs, Prescott will stay in your lineup but earn double points for the divisional matchup. Godwin could then be replaced in the division round by CeeDee Lamb, with Lamb only accumulating that week’s stats with no multiplier. Should the Cowboys advance to the NFC title game, Prescott will get triple points and CeeDee will get double points for that round. Should the Cowboys be eliminated, you can replace both the QB and WR with players from a team still alive in the playoffs, but the multiplier count would start over. You can also confuse this format by requiring the wildcard lineup to have only one player from each playoff team. After that, you can add one player from each team per round if you need replacements.
I hope this introduction to postseason fantasy leagues has been helpful. Whether you’re playing for money or bragging rights, you’re guaranteed to have a great time.
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