Fantasy football strategy, rankings, and podcasts

Here's looking at you! By virtue of reading this, I must assume that you have made it to the second round of the playoffs in your league(s) and are looking for some advice to get to the championship game! Well, I won't disappoint - let's jump straight into the good stuff. Some of my picks for this week are: Matthew Stafford, Mike Davis, Marquise Goodwin, Robert Woods, and Jack Doyle. Best of luck in Week 15, see you back here again next week!

Week 16 for most of us is championship week - the pinnacle of fantasy football and the summation of all of your hard work on research, drafts, pickups, starts, and sits throughout the season. Make it count! Don't go into this final battle unprepared! Through the rankings below, I've provided my analysis of this week's match-ups to help you in making some of the tough decisions that may be ahead for your team(s) this week. Best of luck! Players expected to perform at an above-average level this week include: Alex Smith, Samaje Perine, Kerwynn Williams, Devin Funchess, Mike Wallace, Jamison Crowder, Ricky Seals-Jones, and the Chicago Bears. 

Thanks for reading drinkfive.com this year! This week's installment of the rankings brings us to the end of the line. Week 17 is used in some fantasy leagues to determine the champion, so we're still here to help out in those circumstances. Good luck, all! Great plays this week include Blake Bortles, Giovani Bernard, Golden Tate, and George Kittle.

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.