Fantasy Football Strategy. Seven Rules For Navigating The Fantasy Playoffs.

Playing fantasy football at this point in the NFL season likely means one of three things:

• You made the fantasy playoffs (congrats!)
• You are trying to avoid your league’s last-place punishment (good luck!)
• You are simply a stone-cold degenerate (one of us!)

Regardless of your situation, optimizing our fantasy football rosters over the next three weeks is more vital than ever to help solidify our general day-to-day happiness for the next year.

This brings us to today’s goal: Seven tips to help managers of all shapes and sizes navigate the deep waters of the fantasy football playoffs.

As always: It’s a great day to be great.

Start your studs – but they better be STUDS

Sure, guys like Garrett Wilson and Drake London are studs, but given their respective QB situations it’s safe to say they haven’t exactly been STUDS throughout 2023 despite their typically excellent individual efforts.

A true fantasy football STUD is someone who checks at least three of the following four boxes with flying colors:

• Talent: Are they a great real-life football player?
• Volume: Is the utilization on hand elite?
• Offensive environment: Does the player operate inside a fantasy-friendly high-scoring offense?
• Matchup: Is the opposing defense particularly adept at slowing down the position in question?

The last variable is the only one that regularly changes drastically from week-to-week without some sort of injury involvement, although it’s not like that factor doesn’t rear its ugly head on a weekly basis as well.

Moral of the story: Guys like Josh Allen, Kyren Williams, Deebo Samuel and Sam Laporta among plenty of others helped get you to the dance — don’t even think about benching them during the next three weeks despite the ever-present potential for a dud or bad matchup.

Matchups are fine and dandy to use as a tiebreaker, but don’t let them overly dictate start/sit decisions featuring talented players with plenty of fantasy-friendly volume inside of dope real-life offenses.

Stay one step ahead in the QB and DST streaming markets

There’s a decent chance you’re already set at these positions considering you had to be at least pretty good to make the playoffs in the first place, but if not: I gotchu.

Tennessee Titans quarterback Will Levis (8) is stopped short of the end zone by Miami Dolphins cornerback Kader Kohou (4) during the second quarter at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami, Fla., Monday, Dec. 11, 2023.

The following three QBs look a lot like the best available streaming options ahead of the next three weeks:

• Titans QB Will Levis (19% rostered in Yahoo leagues): Hasn’t quite replicated his four-TD debut magic, but his 327-yard performance against the Titans was certainly impressive AND showed off a DGAF rushing style that presents untapped fantasy upside on the ground. Matchups against the Texans (27th in fantasy points per game allowed to QBs),  Seahawks (22nd) and Texans again gift Levis the position’s single-easiest schedule over the next three weeks of action.
• Saints QB Derek Carr (39%): Has thrown for multiple TDs or 300-plus yards in all but two of his last nine starts. The potential to get Michael Thomas (knee, IR) and/or Rashid Shaheed (ankle) back for the stretch run would certainly help matters; either way Carr presented low-end QB1 upside ahead of matchups with the Giants (14th in fantasy points per game allowed to QBs), Rams (25th) and Buccaneers (28th).
• Broncos QB Russell Wilson (71%): Has prime dates in Week 15 (Lions, 29th) and Week 17 (Chargers, 26th) sandwiched around a tougher Week 16 spot against Bill Belichick and company. Russ has turned in seven top-12 performances this season and might not be done adding to that total — particularly with the Broncos embracing a slightly more balanced offense in Week 14 following weeks of an extremely run-heavy approach.

And then there’s the DST spot. Some are good enough for fantasy managers to not overly concern themselves with matchups. Think of the Cowboys, Ravens, Chiefs, Browns and 49ers as the poster children of this … although even the Cowboys (BUF, MIA, DET) and Ravens (JAX, SF, MIA) have the sort of schedules in Weeks 15 to 17 to make fantasy managers potentially consider some reinforcements.

As for pretty much everyone else: Matchups are more important to play than pretty much any other position — good thing there are a handful of low-rostered units that look more than capable of helping your fantasy squad during the final three weeks of the season.

My five favorite options ranked by personal preference:

1. Rams (18% rostered in Yahoo leagues): Face the Commanders, Saints and Giants. While this might not be the most complete Rams defense that we’ve seen in recent years, Aaron Donald alone remains more than capable of wrecking a game — particularly when getting to face two of the league’s most sack-prone QBs and either Derek Carr or Jameis Winston.
2. Colts (42%): Matchups with the Steelers, Falcons and Raiders. This profiles as Mitch Trubisky, Desmond Ridder and Aidan O’Connell. While the Colts' defense isn’t what most would call a “good” real-life unit — they rank 27th in points per game allowed this season — they’ve proved plenty capable of exploiting fantasy-friendly matchups in recent weeks on their way to scoring the third-most fantasy points of any DST this season.
3. Texans (70%): Get the Titans twice as well as the Browns. Very much alive in the playoff race, look for DeMeco Ryans to keep his defense playing hard against probably Will Levis and Joe Flacco.
4. Packers (67%): Good spots vs. the Buccaneers, Panthers and Vikings. This should coincide with the suddenly feisty Packers getting much healthier on the defensive side of the ball as well.
5. Falcons (33%): Will go up against the Panthers, Colts and Bears. I’m honestly less of a fan of Atlanta compared to these other squads due to Gardner Minshew and Justin Fields having more upside than most QBs also on this list.

Be aware of Mother Nature

Lucky for you, Fantasy Life resident meteorologist Chris Allen (he’s not actually a meteorologist) wrote a badass article on all the fantasy implications of bad weather earlier this year.

Five key takeaways from Chris:

• “Since 2018, there have been 1,311 regular-season games, and only 48 (3.7%) have recorded wind speeds over 20 mph.”
• “Teams in the full sample averaged 62.6 offensive plays on a non-windy day. Their mean dropped to 60.9 plays at 20+ mph. Two attempts (likely) won’t alter our fantasy matchups, but the wind has been a factor in how some teams have approached their playcalling.”
• “Passers experienced an average 1.6 percentage-point drop in CPOE across the 34-point sample. Of course, there are some major dips (Baker Mayfield, Week 6 — 2020), but the trend doesn’t paint as dire of a picture as we’ve come to think.”
• “While unplanned, scrambles are highly efficient as QBs turn a would-be sack into a positive gain. Six of the seven signal-callers who averaged more than 16.0 fantasy points in 20+ mph winds were top 10 in total scrambles during their respective seasons.”
• “In short, good passers stayed good. At least for fantasy purposes, they did.”

Weather, like matchups, is a fine enough tiebreaker; just realize it remains only one piece of the puzzle — not something that needs to function as the be-all, end-all rule to fantasy start/sit decisions.

When in doubt, follow the utilization

I’ve mentioned matchups and weather being useful tiebreakers, but don’t get it twisted: 50/50 start/sit decisions should generally go to the player expected to see more fantasy-friendly volume.

But Ian, how am I supposed to know what player has the best available volume?

Easy: By using the Fantasy Football Utilization Hub! Dwain “The Rock” McFarland breaks down his biggest takeaways every week, but you can also see team-by-team data for yourself with the game log tool and can compare individual players in the player comparison section.

Guys like De’Von Achane and Brandon Aiyuk have certainly proven capable of consistently making big things happen in fantasy land without the benefit of elite weekly volume; just realize that in the year 2023 it’s impossible to score fantasy points without the football, so learning towards the guys 

Dominate the waiver wire — even if it’s just to block your opponent

Unless, of course, your team is already eliminated. There is a special place in hell for any eliminated fantasy manager making free-agency moves without a championship to play for. The obvious exceptions are for leagues that use the consolation bracket to determine future draft seeding or a last-place punishment.

Otherwise? Get after it — and Fantasy Life’s (free!) Waiver Hub tool is here to guide you along the way with customizable recommendations based on your league settings.

Do yourself a favor and pay particularly close attention to Fantasy Life’s recommended stashes. Each of Rico Dowdle, Tyaje Spears and Jordan Mason appear to be quite literally one injury away from obtaining the sort of lead-back role that could quickly elevate them into the position’s top-15 overall options for at least one week down the stretch.

Adjust expectations relative to what teams have to play for

The New York Times has a cool path to the postseason tool that gives every team’s percentage chance of making the playoffs, winning their division and clinching a Round 1 bye.

Naturally, late-season motivation can go one of two ways:

• Extra rest can be earned by clinching the No. 1 seed early. This possibility is most present for the 49ers (74% chance) and Ravens (54%).
• Eliminated teams won’t stop playing games, but personnel patterns could theoretically change with nothing else to truly play for.

Currently, the Jets, Patriots, Titans, Raiders, Chargers, Giants, Commanders, Panthers, Cardinals and Bears are the only 10 teams with a sub-10% chance of making the playoffs. The Patriots and Panthers are the only two teams officially already eliminated.

Sometimes eliminated teams will actually lean more into individual players down the stretch; guys like Ezekiel Elliott and Chuba Hubbard figure to continue seeing plenty of volume despite their respective teams having nothing to play for at this point.

Still, be especially wary of rest and injury murmurs surrounding anyone on a team without anything to play for this late in the season. NFL teams might not outright tell us what their plan is, but the more fantasy managers can read between the lines to help determine potential traps — the better.

Talk smack to your friends after you eliminate them

Maybe even refer them to the week’s sheesh report to remind them of just how badly things went! Just a thought!

Best of luck this week and beyond! Don’t be afraid to make a great start/sit decision.