If you're like me, 16 or 17 weeks of fantasy football just isn't enough to satisfy the hunger of an NFL season. Lucky for us, there are playoff fantasy leagues out there. If you're new to this idea, this article is going to cover the ins and outs of how the leagues work (at least the type that I think is the best type). We'll be starting some leagues for Fake Teams members and you can also use these leagues setting to get your buddies involved on your own leagues.
The league rules are pretty simple. The entire playoffs serve a one mega week and it's every team for itself. The most points scored over the entire playoffs is the winner. The trick is that there are absolutely no transactions and no bench on your team. Therefore, it would certainly behoove the owner to draft players that will be play in multiple games. Once your player is eliminated, he can no longer accrue points for your team. In other words, even though Arian Foster is arguably the most valuable player in fantasy, he isn't a top-five pick because the Texans are very unlikely to win more than one game (and probably not even that). On the other hand, Aaron Rodgers is the no-brainer top pick since he's a fantasy superstar and the Packers are the odds-on favorite to make it to Indy.
The roster will be: 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 RB/WR/TE, 1 TE and 1 kicker.
As for the scoring:
| Number of Passing TDs | 4 points each | |||
| Passing Yards | 1 point for every 25 | |||
| Pass Interceptions Thrown | -3 points each | |||
| Passing 2 Pointers | 2 points each | |||
| Number of Rushing TDs | 6 points each | |||
| Rushing Yards | 1 point for every 10 | |||
| Rushing 2 Pointers | 2 points each | |||
| Number of Receiving TDs | 6 points each | |||
| Receiving Yards | 1 point for every 10 | |||
| Receptions | 1 point each | |||
| Receiving 2 Pointers | 1 point each | |||
| Number of Field Goals Made | 3 points each | |||
| Extra Points | 1 point each | |||
| Fumbles Lost (to Opponent) |
-2.5 points each |
As you can see, it's your run-of-the-mill PPR league (with a slightly higher penalty for turnovers). Another interesting factor is that the leagues that I'll be organizing will have 12 teams in them. That means there will be at least 24 backs owned on rosters, so there will be some players that are barely going to touch the field that will be on a team for the entire postseason. The draft will be run just like your normal snake draft and the last couple rounds are always a ton of fun for guys making picks based on total hunches or speculation (James Starks was a fantastic late-round pick last year). Of course if you're not up for the deep-league factor, you can organize your own league with fewer owners or even slimmer rosters. I'm a proponent of deep leagues (as you can probably tell based on some of my articles over the course of the season).
As I tend to do, I'll be covering the rankings of how these players should be valued for the draft in an article next week once the seeds are assigned. You're not going to want to miss that, especially if you're new. Plus we'll be posting some of the draft results next week, too.
So how do you get down on this action? It's pretty simple. Post your interest in the comments below and I'll send you an invite to one of our leagues. That means you have to be a member of Fake Teams to join. It's totally free and it's just a way to interact with us and get into some fun arguments. We don't send you junk mail or anything and there really is no catch (check out Kenny's article on other reasons to join here).
I'm also going to get a couple leagues together that will have a small buy-in of $10-20 (100% of the league dues will go to the prize pool, meaning there will be no money from the league going to anyone outside of the winner and 2nd-place finish on the money sent to me through Paypal).
If you have any other questions please post them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter @MikeSGallagher. Good luck and I will enjoy crushing each and every last one of you over the next month and change!