by Russ Bliss


Now that the regular season is over, what do we do as fantasy fanatics looking to squeeze every last bit of enjoyment from our favorite hobby?

We start a Fantasy Football Playoff's League! Many league management sites have incorporated the playoffs and created a fantasy game to play in during them. That wasn't always the case.

13 years ago, I created my own and wanted it to be unique in that it required weekly roster management decisions, plus allowed a large group of people to play. I also wanted it to be a test of prognostication skills in which two teams were going to eventually end up in the Super Bowl. It didn't take long for me to see that it had to be a total points league and not head-to-head style. After all, it had to handle 50 participants.

So I eventually came up with this:

Each roster consists of:

4 QB's
5 RB's
5 WR's
4 TE's
4 K's
4 D/ST's

Each owner picks whoever they want to fill their roster and points are accumulated for every player on it each week. But as each week passes, each owner has to drop 1 player from each position. So after the wild card weekend, and before the divisional round, each roster would then consist of 3 QB's, 4 RB's, 4 WR's, 3 TE's, 3 K's, and 3 D/ST's. After the divisional round is over, and before the championship games for each conference are played, another player at each position must be dropped. After the championship games, and before the Super Bowl, another player at each position gets dropped so the roster going into the Super Bowl consists of 1 QB, 2 RB's, 2 WR's, 1 TE, 1 K, and 1 D/ST.

If you chose wisely, you should have a full complement of players at each position that are still playing.

This also prevented teams from stacking up on just the 4 teams that had the bye during wild card weekend. Since each team has to drop a player at each position after the first week, if a team took only players from the top 2 seeds in each conference, they would get no points the first week, and would still have to drop someone they hadn't got any points from yet. Conversely, if you loaded up with players who all played the first week, and more than one at a position had their team lose in the first week, you had to carry dead weight on your roster since you only drop one each week. There is no picking up free agents or replacing players each week.

When I first created this league, I had to do it with pen and paper. Now there are multiple sites that can handle it. It keeps everyone involved and allows us to enjoy fantasy football all the way thru the Super Bowl.