Playoff Strategy

For the past few months, we've recommended solid speculative pickups and advised you on which players to start so that you can "win now." But in week 13, it's a whole new ball game. Your focus shouldn't just be on this week; it should be on the next four weeks. As I see it, there are 4 situations you can find yourself in at this point. For those of you in multiple leagues, you probably find yourself in multiple categories.


1) You're already knocked out of the playoffs.
Sorry. Better luck next year. Be sure to do the honorable thing and set your starting line-up. You can feel liberated to focus on your other leagues or just enjoy regular old football games. (I know, it feels weird.)

2) You're locked into the playoffs and fighting for a first round bye. 
You want to think about playoff matchups but getting that first round bye is so valuable that your focus should really be on winning this week.

3) You're locked into the playoffs and pretty much locked into whatever seed you have.
In this case, week 13 is totally inconsequential. So you get to look ahead at your playoff matchups. So pickup the Tampa Bay defense now - it doesn't matter that they have a difficult matchup against Atlanta this week; you're excited about their playoff slate of Washington, Detroit, and Seattle. Or if you've been doing a QB Shuffle this season, pickup Kitna and Garrard now and play them against Washington's generous secondary in weeks 15 and 16 respectively.

4) You're locked into the playoffs, but don't know what seed you'll have yet.
This is where things get really tricky, sneaky, and exciting. This is for obsessive fantasy footballers, which likely includes you if you read this little blog. And it applies to those who want to win the playoffs only, and have no incentive to finish high in the regular season.

Identify the likely range of possibilities for which place you'll finish in, and the likely arrangements of how the other playoff teams will shake out. Then, think about which teams you do and do not want to face in the playoffs. Theoretically, the 1st place team is always the most intimidating and the higher you finish, the better off you'll be because your opponent will have a lower ranking. But of course, it doesn't always work out that way. Maybe a team had Mike Vick and no other QB options so suffered through a few losses while Vick was out and is in 4th place, but all in all has the most intimidating team in week 14.

With all that in mind, it might be advantageous to "throw" your last regular season matchup. For simplicity's sake, let's say you're in a 10 team league where 4 teams make the playoffs in weeks 15 and 16. Maybe the top 2 teams are locked, but you're fighting another team for the 3rd of 4th spot. If the scariest team is locked into the 2nd place spot, then you want to lose so you can finish in 4th and face the less scary 1st place team. Or, maybe you're locked into 1st, but by throwing your matchup, you can elevate a weak 5th place team into 4th and then you get to face them again in the first round of the playoffs.

Of course, if there's any chance that by losing you'll get knocked out of the playoffs, don't tempt fate, even if you feel confident that team X should beat team Y so you'll make the playoffs either way. Just get in.

There are a lot of moving parts, so when I am completely locked into a playoff spot, I like to start guys with later games (Sunday and Monday Night). That way, I have more flexibility so I can see how everything is shaking out and then decide whether it will behoove me to bench those late night players. Basically, check in with the league's matchups on Sunday afternoon and do what you have to do to get the nicest playoff matchup.

Best of luck winning your league! You're so close!

-By Brett Hammon