Fantasy Football Playoff Rankings: Go After the Players on Super Bowl-Worthy Teams

The NFL's regular season may be over, but that doesn't mean our ability to play fantasy football is! We've got tips and rankings to help you excel in your fantasy playoff league.
Fantasy Football Playoff Rankings: Go After the Players on Super Bowl-Worthy Teams
Fantasy Football Playoff Rankings: Go After the Players on Super Bowl-Worthy Teams /

What, you thought the fantasy season ended with the regular season? The NFL playoffs bring a different brand of fantasy game that places a premium on the teams that will play deep into January and all the way through to the Super Bowl. There are two key tenets for any playoff fantasy draft.

1. Prioritize players on teams that you believe will play multiple games: The more games a team plays, the better its players will be. Is Latavius Murray a better running back than LeSean McCoy? Of course not. But McCoy and the Bills are significant underdogs against the Jaguars in the Wild Card round, while the Vikings are legitimate Super Bowl contenders. Two or three games of Murray is better than one game of McCoy. That line of thinking has to be the foundation of your playoff fantasy draft strategy.

2. Quarterbacks are more important in playoff fantasy leagues than they are in the traditional, regular-season version of the game: This is simply about supply. During any given week of the regular season, there are 26-to-32 quarterbacks active, many of which are attractive for fantasy purposes. There are only 12 active quarterbacks during the playoffs, and at least four of them are going to play just one game. You do not want to get stuck with Tyrod Taylor or Marcus Mariota, if you can avoid it. A quarterback who goes to the Super Bowl is the best player you can have in a playoff fantasy league.

For the sake of transparency, I've got the Patriots over the Steelers in the AFC, and the Saints over the Vikings in the NFC. As such, you're going to see players from those teams toward the top of my rankings, with a few Rams and Chiefs—other teams I'm confident will get at least postseason two games—mixed in for good measure. With that, let's get to the SI.com 2018 fantasy playoff rankings.

2017 Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyProsECR ™ - Expert Consensus Rankings


Published
Michael Beller
MICHAEL BELLER

Michael Beller is SI.com's fantasy sports editor and a staff writer covering fantasy, college basketball and MLB. He resides in Chicago and has been with SI.com since 2010.