Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2001

Toughing out the playoffs

NFL teams that clinch always a threat to rest players, making things complicated for fantasy playoff teams

By Andy Hanacek, Associate editor

Just about every fantasy football league is either in the first or second week of its playoffs this week. While most owners out there have begun scouring "Baseball Weekly" for their summer baseball leagues, there are a select few (myself included, in two leagues) who must play on. My problem with playing on is this: As if fantasy owners didn’t have enough to concern themselves over this time of the year, now we have to worry about whether our players are going to start in real life.

Folks who never make the playoffs never realize this problem — I haven’t made the playoffs in any league in a while, so I had forgotten just what a pain making them can be.

The last two weeks I talked about patience as your main strategy. Whether it was during the season, making transactions, or now in the playoffs, you’ll be tempted to tinker with your starting lineup and possibly overanalyze things. Those are things you certainly must not ignore.

Now, add to that one more thing: I call it "Will he play?" anxiety. Typically this time of the season, that anxiety is caused by NFL teams clinching divisions, home-field advantage and playoff berths early. But my easiest example comes from a combination of an injury and a clinching.

I have this problem in my two playoff teams (mentioned last week, Plantar Fasciitis and the Battlefield Generals). The Generals made the playoffs and won last week’s wild-card matchup in an upset to head to the semifinals. Plantar opens its playoff clip against the Purple Fantasy Eaters, who won their wild-card matchup last week. Both of my teams have RB Jerome Bettis.

Reports out of Pittsburgh originally said Bettis would probably play against Detroit this week, based on the fact that head coach Bill Cowher said the same thing after Sunday’s win over the Ravens. But Cowher has since repealed his statement, apologizing to the media that he may have been misleading.

Basically, I don’t like the looks of this one. On the Generals, I’m basically stuck. It’s a 14-team league with a 17-man roster. So, just about all of the starter-worthy backs are gone, including Bettis’ backups, Chris Fuamatu-Ma’afala and Amos Zereoue. I have no choice but to start RB Eddie George, who’s been disappointing but is playing the weak, weak Raiders run defense. But then there’s the Skip Hicks question: How much will he take away from George? Is he worth signing? This is something I’ll have to wrestle with in the next few days.

On Plantar, I’ll have to try to get Fuamatu-Ma’afala off waivers, and then I’ll likely start him along with hot-hand RB Antowain Smith. I have Corey Dillon, who will start if I don’t get Fuamatu-Ma’afala, but I feel really, really uncomfortable with Dillon, who has never scored a touchdown against the Ravens.

So what is a fantasy owner to do when the real players are getting some downtime to rest up for the real playoffs? Hardly anyone has their league’s Super Bowl in Week 17 anymore because of this phenomenon, and it occasionally ruins the seasons of some of the best fantasy teams. I guess that’s why the payoff at the end is so sweet if you win.

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2001 - 2002 Season