Want to extend your fantasy football season? Looking to add some excitement to the 2024 NFL Playoffs? If you answered yes (and why wouldn’t you), then NFL Playoffs Fantasy Football is a must-try.
Thankfully, The Wolf’s fantasy addiction knows no bounds. He has tried numerous NFL Playoff fantasy football formats and host sites. Below, he tells you his favorite ways and places to play NFL Fantasy Football in 2024.
Check out: The Wolf’s 2024 NFL Playoffs Fantasy Football Rankings & 2024 Week 19 Wild Card Weekend Fantasy Football Rankings
HOW AND WHERE TO PLAY NFL PLAYOFF FANTASY FOOTBALL
Top Option: Underdog Fantasy– Playoff Best Ball Tournaments
No roster-management? A shot at $150K for just $25? Up to $100 Free if you’re a new user (& click here)? Am I dreaming?
Underdog Fantasy is best known for its season-long best ball contests, but they’ve also created an NFL Playoffs Best Ball structure where users draft live against five other people to create 10-player rosters to fill out a weekly starting five: 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR/TE, 1 FLEX.
If you’re new to Best Ball, let me warn you: it’s the most addicting and simply the best way to play fantasy football. You draft your team & the computer automatically starts your highest-scoring players. All of the joys of drafting, none of the headaches and pain of roster management.
Right now, Underdog offers multiple playoff-long best ball tournaments for all types of players and budgets:
- The Gauntlet 3 – $1.5M in prizes ($150K to first!) for a $25 entry fee
- The Little Mitten 5 – featuring $100K in prizes ($10K to first) for only $3!
- The Mitten 3 – featuring $250K in prizes ($25K to first!) for just $5
- The Big Mitten – a smaller-field (900), $250 buy-in with $200K in prizes
Four rounds of competition correlate to the rounds of the playoffs: Wildcard, Divisional, Conference, and Super Bowl. You draft against six other people, who you will be competing against in Round 1.
Each of Underdog’s contests features slightly different Round Advancement styles depending on the total size, but nearly all of the contests see two-of-six advance in Round 1 (besides The Mitten, which is just one!). In The Gauntlet 3, Underdog’s biggest tournament, the Round Advancement is: 2/6 – 2/14 – 1/8 – 400 Seat Final.
Payouts increase with each round you last, up to $150K in The Gauntlet 3 if you finish No. 1 of the final 400.
We’ll dive into Underdog-specific strategy and rules more in a separate post and on some live-draft streams, but here are some key points and best practices:
NFL PLAYOFF FANTASY STRATEGY & BEST PRACTICES (UNDERDOG & ALL FORMATS)
Round-by-Round Advancement (Underdog Specific): Unlike many other playoff fantasy formats, points on Underdog are NOT cumulative each round! Thus, you need a balance of longevity and single-week explosiveness. You’ll need active players from the long-lasting, ideally Super-Bowl-Bound teams if you hope to make a deep run where the big money is!
Team Stacking & Correlation (all NFL Playoff Fantasy Formats): Team stacking and correlation is CRUCIAL. I typically have at least 8 of my 10 players from just 2-3 overall teams (one AFC, one NFC) in hopes they are the ones facing off in the Super Bowl.
If you have 49ers and/or Ravens and their Bye Weeks, you’ll want to round that out with 2-3 players with 20-30 point weekly upside (i.e. Jalen Hurts, Mike Evans, Nico Collins) who can help advance to the next round, even if they are only live for 1-2 weeks.
Schedule Awareness: You must have a strong awareness of playoff brackets, avoiding current or soon-to-be opponents while stacking up the best players on 2-3 total teams. This will help you keep as many potential lineup pieces and high-scorers alive as long as possible, increasing your chances of moving into the Super Bowl round with the life-changing prizes.
Example: if you start a draft with Tyreek Hill in Round 1, you should immediately cross off the Chiefs— their Round 1 opponent. Meanwhile, I’d elevate other Jaylen Waddle, Raheem Mostert, De’Von Achane, and other Dolphins in hopes of Miami upsetting the Chiefs and going on a long run.
I recommend making a bracket to get a sense of which teams will face one another in future rounds, and how far apart a same-conference opponent might be from squaring off with another. For example, if I start with a 49ers stack, the Lions or Cowboys are strong other NFC teams to target, since they won’t meet up until the NFC Championship.
Don’t forget the NFL re-seeds, so the top remaining seed will always face the lowest remaining seeds. As covered in my 2024 Fantasy Football Playoff Rankings, I anticipate a Bills vs. 49ers Super Bowl. However, I also sneaky love the Rams (and their cheap price tags) to potentially go on a deep run. As such, I have two projected brackets:
Based on these brackets, I made my 2024 NFL Playoffs Fantasy Football Rankings. They can be used for all formats, but are largely created with Underdog Bestball Tournaments in mind.
Click the banner below, click here, or download & use promo code RSJ for up to a $100 first deposit match on Underdog Fantasy.
Top Option No. 2: Create & Host your Own “Total Points” NFL Playoff Fantasy League
If you prefer facing off with the people you know, setting up your own NFL Playoffs Fantasy League is incredibly easy and fun, too.
Just like regular fantasy football, you’ll draft actual NFL players and score points based on their performance.
Unlike regular fantasy football, you are NOT matched up with a weekly opponent. Instead, your goal is to score the “most total points” over the entire four-week course of the postseason.
This makes the quality of the team equally, if not more, important than that of the actual players for obvious reasons: the more games played, the more chances to rack up points. One-and-done players become roster dead weight.
Thus, the top picks are the highest point producers on teams with the highest likelihood of 3-4 games played.
IDEAL NFL PLAYOFF FANTASY LEAGUE SETTINGS
League size: Six people
With only 14 NFL teams to select talent from, playoff fantasy rosters can thin out very fast with more than six owners. Fewer teams are acceptable, but just like 12 versus 10-team leagues in regular fantasy, this doesn’t require as much skill and carries a JV Stigma.
Scoring: Keep it consistent with your regular season scoring. For me, I prefer 1/2 PPR & 4-point passing TDs.
Players accumulate total points for as long as they last. Some leagues do bonuses or multipliers based on how deep into the playoffs a player lasts. For example, Player Y’s points may be 1.5x for the Conference Championship Week and 2x for the Super Bowl. For what it’s worth, I don’t prefer multipliers.
Rosters: As mentioned, the drop to only 14 teams shallows out the player pool. Rosters should be adjusted, with our top recommendation being:
- 2 QBs
- 2 RBs
- 3 WR or TE
- 1 Flex (WR / RB / TE)
- 1 K
- 1 DEF
For hosting and customizing your own NFL Playoff Fantasy Football League, we recommend MyFantasyLeague. They go step-by-step, and I had the RSJ Expert League up and running in 15 minutes.
OTHER OPTIONS FOR NFL PLAYOFFS FANTASY FOOTBALL
1. One-and-Done Leagues
You can pick any player, any week, from any team but you can only pick them once. You pick a new roster weekly from whichever players you have not yet chosen. The most total points at the end of the playoffs decide the winner.
So, if you take, say, Stefon Diggs this week, you wouldn’t get to use him again, even if the Bills go the distance.
As such, picking talented fantasy players who are likely to get eliminated early is crucial. Tyreek Hill, Nico Collins, Mike Evans, Jalen Hurts / AJ Brown, and whoever you see losing between the Rams vs. Lions all fit the bill in 2024.
MyFantasyLeague hosts these style leagues under “Contest Style.”
2. One Player Per Team League
You pick one, and only one, player per team to fill out a 14-position roster (1 per playoff team), such as:
- 2 QB
- 2 RB
- 3 WR
- 1 TE
- 4 FLEX (W/R/T)
- 1 DEF
- 1 K
You get the player for as long as they last, with the most total points winning. If you see a team making an early exit, you should burn the DEF and K spots.
Note: The FFPC hosts a high-stakes ($200) variation of this format with the following 12-man roster: 1-QB, 2-RB, 2-WR, 1-TE, 4-Flex, 1-K, 1-D (Flex can be RB, WR or TE). This means you completely punt two teams. They also 2x all points for Super Bowl squads. Learn more here. The Grand Prize is a whopping $500K!
Note: FPPC is also now offering a lower-cost, higher-field tournament. For $35, you can get a shot at $100K!
3. High Stakes Playoff Leagues
I only know of two potential options: the FFPC Playoff Challenge and the NFFC Post Season Hold ‘Em.
FFPC Playoff Challenge:
The FFPC is my preferred variation, as it’s a bit simpler and follows the aforementioned “One Player Per Team” set up.
They offer two options: a $200 buy-in for a shot at a $500,000 Grand Prize (vs. 6,250 entries), or a $35 buy-in for a shot at a $100,000 Grand Prize (vs .12,500 entries).
The rules and scoring are clearly outlined here.
NFFC Post Season Hold’em:
I’ve never played this, but will likely dabble this season.
These settings are a mix of the above variations, described as follows:
The NFFC Post Season Hold ‘Em Tournament will begin with the first wild card games and continue through the final playoff game. Points will be accumulated throughout the playoffs and the team with the most total points wins the grand prize.
All other prizes will also be paid based on total points. Each week the number of points an NFL player earns for you will be multiplied by the number of consecutive weeks he has been on your roster, rewarding fantasy players who correctly can predict top players on this year’s teams that compete in the Championship game. Players with first-round byes automatically earn twice their total points during Week 2 of the playoffs.
Like most playoff fantasy leagues, the incentive obviously lies in finding teams that could go on major streaks given the multipliers. However, unlike other leagues, you get to “reset” each week and start a new squad based on the remaining talent pool.
The NFFC offers a $150,000 Grand Prize for a $200 buy-in (1750 field size), as well as a $50 “Mini Hold ‘Em” with a $50,000 Grand Prize (2,300 max entries).
4. NFL DFS (DraftKings or FanDuel)
Pretty obvious. You already know how to play (salary cap) and what to do. Just like the regular season, the appeal is the one-week nature and huge prize pools. Use The Wolf’s Week 19 Wild Card Weekend Fantasy Football Rankings to help you dominate NFL Playoffs DFS this coming weekend!
SUMMARY
Clearly, there are tons of NFL Playoff fantasy football options to keep that fantasy itch scratched all postseason. At minimum, we love setting up a six-man league with friends to keep all the things you love about fantasy alive: a draft, trash-talk, side bets. All the goods.
Still, plenty of other unique variations, such as best ball and high-stakes action, exist. Try a host of them, and squeeze every last fantasy football drop out of this year. Make sure to dominate using The Wolf’s 2024 NFL Playoffs Fantasy Football Rankings.