How To Win A Fantasy Football Championship: The Best Fantasy Football Playoff Strategies

Can you believe it's already the fantasy playoff season? In some ways, it still feels like the season just started, but here we are in Week 14. If your league's playoffs don't start this week, they likely start next week. The fantasy playoffs are, in many ways, an entirely different beast than the rest of the season. Let's take a look at some best ways to maximize your chances at a championship at this stage of the season. 

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Fantasy Football Playoff Strategy

Matchups Matter

During the season, and especially before the season, too much stock should not be put into a player's strength of schedule. For one, it is almost impossible to predict which matchups will be favorable with any certainty more than a week or two in advance. The NFL is constantly changing, and when a single injury (especially to a star quarterback, as we've seen plenty of this season) can change the entire outlook of a matchup, trying to predict how a game will play out months in advance is pointless.

However, paying attention to matchups becomes much more important in the playoffs. Obviously, this is partially because maximizing your score every single week is more important, as most fantasy playoffs are single elimination. But it is also much easier to actually tell in advance which matchups are worth targeting (or avoiding). We have nearly a whole season's worth of data at our disposal ... and only a week or two in which the constantly changing nature of the NFL will attempt to render it all immediately useless. Don't get too cute and bench the studs who got you into the playoffs just because of a below-average opponent, but make sure to check matchups with every decision you make over the next few weeks. You can use the FantasySP Strength of Schedule Tool to help with this, as it identifies which teams have more favorable matchups the rest of the way.

Use Your Bench Wisely

Matchups are extra important in the playoffs, but they matter during the fantasy regular season as well. The place where the optimal fantasy football strategy changes most dramatically during the playoffs is how you manage your bench slots.

During the season, you will usually want to have solid backups at most if not all of the traditional fantasy positions: quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and tight end. But in the playoffs, those backups aren't helping you. If Josh Allen gets injured in Week 15, having Geno Smith ready on your bench won't save you ... you were probably already eliminated when Allen went down anyway. The same applies to flex plays that don't crack your best starting lineups. Who these players are may vary depending on your league size and format, but they're generally wide receivers: Curtis Samuel or Gabe Davis types. These players are handy to have when bye weeks and injuries strike during the regular season, but they aren't doing you any good sitting on your bench in the playoffs. 

An extra corollary to this is to not be afraid to drop players just because they have a big name or you drafted them early. This is always good advice, but it applies more than ever in the fantasy playoffs. During the regular season, a high-pedigree player likely still has more upside than most waiver options, and it might be worth holding them to see if they turn it around. But there's simply no time for that in the fantasy playoffs.

For an example, let's look at Terry McLaurin. In shallow leagues, he's likely not in any playoff lineups, as he is averaging just 8.6 fantasy points per game and hasn’t scored double-digit Half-PPR points since Week 8. But he is still rostered in 97% of leagues. Should he be? The Commanders are on bye this week, and you likely can't trust him in Week 15 against the Rams coming off an absolute goose egg last Sunday. Even if he performs well against the Rams, would you start him against the Jets or the 49ers (again, matchups are key!) in Weeks 16 or 17? If not, he's not worth holding. McLaurin's case is debatable, but this is a process you should go through with every player on your bench, even those you would never have considered dropping in Week 1.

So, if you aren't holding traditional backups or struggling "stars" on your bench, what should you use those slots for? In my opinion, there are two optimal uses for your bench in the fantasy football playoffs:

The first is to hold players you are very confident you will want in your lineup in a later playoff round. This is where matchups, again, come back into play. When deciding whether to hold a player on your bench, check if they happen to have a good matchup at a time when one of your usual starters has a bad one. This is especially important for positions that are more impacted by others than matchups, notably defenses. I often will have two or even three defenses on my fantasy rosters heading into the playoffs. The Chiefs, for example, have a bad matchup this week with the Bills but will then face Bailey Zappe, Aidan O'Connell, and Jake Browning in Weeks 15, 16, and 17. That makes them worth holding.

The second group of players to hold on your bench in the fantasy playoffs are players who could force their way into your lineups in certain circumstances. Almost always, these players are handcuff running backs. This year, it's guys like Elijah Mitchell, Kenneth Gainwell, Rico Dowdle, and Tyjae Spears. You almost certainly don't want them in your lineups right now, but if any of the running backs in front of them were set to miss time (knock on wood), they could become must-start options. Just look at Zack Moss, who is looking like a league-winner now that Jonathan Taylor is sidelined. 

Don't get me wrong, this strategy is riskier than just continuing to hold the same "solid" bench players that have helped you out at times throughout the season. But we play to win the championship, and shooting for upside is how you do that. If worst comes to worst, and one of your starters is injured but you manage to advance regardless, you can probably still find someone comparable to the backup you dropped on waivers ... if not the exact same guy. We often overestimate how much everyone else is waiting to pounce on our TE2 or WR5 if we let them go. 

The Bottom Line

Fantasy football is, above all else, a game of luck. But adjusting your approach to the playoffs can be the difference between hoisting a trophy and being an also-ran. Of course, none of these strategies apply to all leagues or formats. If your league is hoarding quarterbacks to the extent that the best option on waivers is Zach Wilson, maybe don't drop Geno Smith for a handcuff. Trust your judgment, trust the fantasy gods, and hopefully you will find yourself on top.