Loading ...Jan 11 2021
NFL Playoff Challenge:- Wildcard Week Recap and Week 2 Precap
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Monday, January 11, 2021. Wildcard weekend is over and the action was wild as usual, so there’s a good bit of Monday morning quarterbacking to conduct today. Among the surprises were the Steelers spotting the Browns a 28 point first quarter lead, setting up for Big Ben to set new playoff records for pass attempts and completions in a game.
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The Steelers defense completely falling apart was as surprising as the high flying Seahawks offense not being able to move the ball against the Rams. So the two wild card surprise winners provided some great fantasy points for the contrarians, and punished people who made conventional picks.
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In the NFL Playoff challenge, the list of week 1 leaders is full of surprises for most of us, except at quarterback where the only big surprise was Heineken, who hasn’t played much this year. Without going over all of them, here’s the leaderboard.
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If you’re in the NFL Playoff Challenge, chances are you did not have anywhere close to the Best Lineup pictured above. But rue not. Note that 3 of them lost in week 1, and 4 of them will probably lose next weekend in the divisional round. That leaves 1 that should move on, but that’s not guaranteed.
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We’re in this for the long haul, so I’m happy to have Josh Allen at QB, Kamara at RB, Diggs and Thomas at WR, Tyler Bass as pillow fighter, and the Saints Defense. All are playing week 2 for 2x whatever points they earn. As advertised last week, we stacked up on Bills and Saints and got some decent points.
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Unfortunately for the Bills and Saints, they have the toughest games next weekend, as the Bills will have their hands full with double threat Lamar Jackson and the Saints have to stop playoff perennial Tom Brady. There is no guarantee either will advance, and if they both don’t, this team is over.
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The reason being, if you insert new players in week 3 for the conference championships, you get no multiplier bonus whereas the winning fantasy teams are earning 2x and 3x points for all their players. You will have basically no chance to win unless it’s maybe just 1 player.
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So if either the Bills or Saints were going to lose, they should have done it in week 1 so I could load up on Packers and Chieves this next weekend. As it is, I must stick with the crew and hope the 2 seeds both win and play at least a 3rd game for 3x points. I only have 2 slots open, 1 RB and 1 TE, of players not advancing.
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The TE slot poorly filled by Marc Andrews in week 1 was a placeholder for Kelce next weekend and hopefully 2 games after that. The RB slot was slated for Aaron Jones but will require some consideration since they drew the best defense in the playoffs for next week. Not to mention KC faces the worst defense of any remaining playoff team.
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In the NFL playoff challenge, you can reload with whatever player you want at any position. But keep in mind any active player you remove, you will miss out on 2x their points this weekend and possibly 3x their points the next week and 4x if they reach the superbowl. So it takes some strategizing.
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If you have Allen or Brees, you have to keep them. By design, I don’t have the conundrum of having to replace Lamar Jackson, but if I did I would reluctantly replace him with Mahomes and sacrifice the 2x. If you lost players in week 1, here’s the recommended restocking list.
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Quarterback:
P Mahomes
A Rodgers
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Running back:
A Jones or Edwards-Helaire? See below.
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Wide Receiver:
T Hill
D Adams
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Tight End:
Kelce
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Defense:
Packers
Chieves
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Pillow Fighter:
H Butker
M Crosby
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Most of this is straightforward, and don’t consider another TE besides Kelce in this league, but the RB situation is difficult. Obviously in a DFS situation you would try to squeeze in both Jones and Helaire if possible, and should be possible in a Sat-Sun contest for both days. However, the initial outlook for Jones isn’t great.
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Next up for Green Bay is the Rams, who allowed less than 90 yards total to RB’s and only 2 TD’s total for the high flying Seahawks. Next up would likely be the Saints, who allowed less than 50 yards total rushing last week including the QB runs, and gave up the 2nd least amount of rushing TD’s in the NFL (behind Tampa). If GB survives those contests, Jones would finally get a good matchup.
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Edwards-Helaire on the other hand, has a patsy matchup next weekend with Cleveland, who may have only allowed 52 yards on the ground last week, but they also had a 28 point first quarter lead. They allowed the second most TD’s in the NFL during the regular season. Next up would preferably be the Bills, who allowed a playoff-team high 21 rushing TD’s, but the Ravens can be run on also.
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So you can see my mind is not made up on the issue, given the evidence. Jones gets more yards and a twice as many TD’s on average, but has bad matchups. Helaire has cake walks and a higher probability of actually playing multiple games whereas Jones will need a lot of Rodgers just to get past the Rams.
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In fact, at this point, it’s tempting to dump all the other Bills and replace them with Mahomes, Tyreek Hill, Kelce, and Helaire. Because the Chieves road back to the Superbowl is looking the most solid of any team remaining, and 3 games are the most probably.
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But then if the Bills win again, you will feel foolish for not getting 2x points and then 3x the next week whether they win or lose in the Conference final. Then if they make the Superbowl and you dumped all your Bills, you’ll have to find a high bridge.
You might think, what’s the big deal, it’s just a trip to the Superbowl on the line? But you can’t even get into that game for less than 2 grand nowadays, and very few people can get in. Hotel and airfare, that’s another 2 grand. It has some good monetary value, even if you don’t want the once in a lifetime experience yourself.
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Next weekend’s matchups:
LA Rams at Green Bay: Good for Rams, bad news for Packers
Baltimore at Buffalo: Good for Baltimore RB’s including the QB, neutral for all others
Cleveland at Kansas City: Good for both teams
Tampa Bay at New Orleans: bad for running backs, good for others
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We’ll see what these teams are made of, but statistically the Ravens look really good on paper despite their inferior record. They have the highest point differential in the NFL, meaning they blew some teams out, and allowed the second least amount of points, behind only the Rams.
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2nd in point differential are the mighty Saints, who did it without Brees for 4.5 games. Behind them in PD are the Packers, Bucs, Bills, then Chieves, in that order. Not surprisingly, all 6 of these top PD teams are in the second round of the playoffs, which is why PD is a good indicator.
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Joining them are the offensively challenged Rams with the best point defense in the league. And the Browns, who actually have a negative PD and don’t have any business being in the playoffs in the first place. They should get annihilated by the Chieves but will put up a few points in doing so.
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The only lock of the week is the Chieves -10. The other 3 favorites should also win but on historical average, 1 of them always loses in the Divisional Round. The most vulnerable, for reasons above, appears to be the Bills. But they’ve won 7 in a row and had the #1 strength of schedule among playoff teams in their 13 win season.
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Stay tuned for more NFL updates on this channel, and good luck!
