Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

Is your fantasy football season over? Think again! All sorts of leagues are drafting this week for fantasy playoff leagues and we're here to help you out with the smartest picks for the rest of the postseason. Guys like DeAngelo Williams and Julian Edelman could be incredibly risky plays (due to injury concerns), but they could also pay off with a win if all goes well. Here's how we weigh the risk/reward of all of the available fantasy players from now until the Super Bowl..

Yes, the regular fantasy season has come to a conclusion for 2017 - but we're certainly not resting on our laurels with all of the exciting playoff football still ahead of us! Although postseason fantasy leagues can be set up in a variety of ways, my personal favorite is going with a single draft that accumulates points throughout the playoffs. In this case, the optimal strategy is to determine which teams you think will play the most games and draft accordingly.

I've had success in the past picking no more than 4 teams and trying to only collect players from those squads. Looking at the available teams this year, I would shy away from the Chiefs and Titans (since the winner will end up against the Patriots), and I don't think that the Bills, Falcons, Panthers, or Eagles will win their first games. That leaves us with the below teams:

AFC

New England (1)

Pittsburgh (2)

Jacksonville (3) Wild Card

NFC

Minnesota (2)

Los Angeles (3) Wild Card

New Orleans (4) Wild Card

So my suggestion is to choose 3 or 4 of these teams that you think have the best chance of making it to the Super Bowl (or, at the very least, of playing multiple games in the playoffs) and try to draft players from those teams exclusively. Stacking up players from a team that makes it to the Super Bowl is usually your ticket to some postseason fantasy winnings. It's possible that all of the wild card teams could lose in the 2nd round, but keep in mind that if you do end up picking players from a wild card team (New Orleans, for example), they will have the advantage of playing an additional game over the higher ranked teams with a bye in the first round.

You may rank the top playoff teams differently, but I would urge you to adopt a similar philosophy to the above in how to build your postseason fantasy team - you have to take a chance in order to land on top! Best of luck and we'll see you all next year for more fantasy insights, strategies, rankings, and podcasts.