3 tips for fantasy football playoff success

The following is an excerpt from the latest edition of Yahoo's fantasy football newsletter, Get to the Points! If you like what you see, you can subscribe for free here.

For many of us, the fantasy playoffs have finally arrived. It’s winning time. If you drop this week’s matchup, title hopes are dashed and your seasonal fantasy journey is at an end.

As we plunge into the first of three critical weeks, here are a few key strategic reminders:

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1. 🧐 Don’t give a second of thought to matching up your lineup with your opponent’s

Please remember that these teams are only facing each other virtually, not in reality. There’s actually nothing you can do to contain Josh Allen in your fantasy football matchup; you cannot personally game-plan to stop him. And no, it will not “negate” any of Allen’s fantasy points if you start Amari Cooper or Khalil Shakir.

One of the most common ways in which fantasy players over-manage this time of year is to proactively start the receivers tied to an opponent’s quarterback (or vice versa) because they believe it will somehow cancel or nullify the other team’s points. We are begging you not to think this way. There is never a valid reason to bench an obviously superior option in a must-win scenario. We cannot play defense in fantasy football. We simply need to start the players likely to score the most points, just as you’ve been doing all season.

Let’s also remember that the top-scoring quarterbacks in fantasy — Allen, Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts — are at the top of the leaderboard in part because they can pile up points on the ground, independent of their receivers. There isn’t a single thing that you — a fantasy manager — can do to limit them or mitigate the impact of a huge performance. You need to set the best possible lineup and hope it outperforms your opponent’s squad. That’s the game.

However, we’re not recommending that you completely ignore the other side of the matchup, because…

2. 🥊 If you're a significant underdog, it’s OK to take a few big swings on high-variance players

Sometimes, you need to think more about best-case scenarios than the most-likely scenarios. That is to say, occasionally we need the ceiling of Jameson Williams or Jerry Jeudy over the floor of, say, DJ Moore. Projected points certainly aren’t everything, but, if the forecast is particularly lopsided, we would encourage you to get bold — not reckless, mind you, but bold.

3. ⛔️ Adding a player to prevent an foe from acquiring them is good business

We encourage it. It’s perfectly fair and reasonable to scout the needs of an upcoming opponent, then get a step or two ahead of them. You are of course not required to immediately start a player you add from the free-agent pool. Those bench spots are yours to use as you see fit, toward the ultimate goal of winning the league.

At Yahoo, we take seriously any violations of fair play involving collusion or disruptive behavior because nonsense like that will wreck a league. But a manager picking up a running back they’d prefer not to face in the playoffs isn’t disruptive; it’s common sense. It’s simply a winning move made in the best interests of their team.