The normal fantasy football regular season might be over, but the 2025 NFL postseason is here, so fantasy football can continue. If you’ve never played in playoff leagues, give it a try! Whether you’re new or have participated before, this is a primer on strategy and format types, plus my playoff rankings with projected points per game, so you can develop your own draft strategies.
Playoff Draft (and Hold)
You know this one, even if you haven’t played it. It’s like seasonal, but you draft a playoff squad. Often, these are small leagues (six teams), and there is a mix of strategies — targeting players with great upside and/or matchups, and predicting who will go deepest into the playoffs. Obviously, it will be hard to have a full team without some truly fringe players in this format. Sometimes, pivoting away from the favorites is a smart strategy (or sometimes forced on you due to draft position). Going against the grain, you can load up on a specific team or two, and if they go on a surprise run, you’re golden. This is where stacking — even if you’re forced into a team you might not love — becomes a significant strategy to get an edge. Many sites also incorporate bonus points for advancing into the next playoff round(s), adding an extra level of strategy.
One-and-Done
You can pick any player, any week, but you can only pick them once. So, if you took Christian McCaffrey this week, you wouldn’t get to use him ever again, even if the 49ers make the Super Bowl. It’s kind of like DFS in that you want to target the best matchups and upside. But unlike DFS, you have to plan ahead, hoping you’re correct about which teams advance. Targeting great fantasy players who are likely to get eliminated is a major part of the strategy. MyFantasyLeague.com is generally best for this and Draft-and-Hold formats, even though it’s not the most user-friendly site.
Rolling Team with Bonus
You select a roster before the playoffs, and your players get bonus points the longer they advance. You could take someone on a bye because they will receive more bonus points than those teams playing the first week, especially if they make the Super Bowl. This playoff contest is the most crucial for picking the correct Super Bowl teams … especially if you gamble on a bye team making it, since players from those teams won’t accrue first-round points. NFL.com doesn’t do this one anymore, but NFFC has a version here.
Bracket Draft
Not sure what to call it, as this came from a reader (Steven J.), and I’m a fan of the format … if not that name. Also, this is the most manual-intensive, as I haven’t found a site to automate most of it, but anyway … the format is in the name. It’s a playoff bracket of sorts, and the advancing managers draft each round. So, you start with eight teams (I prefer even numbers, ha) or seven, as Steven said, and the top six (or five) advance; then two more are eliminated in the divisional round, and so forth until the Super Bowl. So, you get to draft a bunch — always our favorite thing in fantasy football — and you’re not stuck with a team of potentially eliminated players, injuries, etc. I like it, Steven!
NFL DFS
World of its own. You know how to play and what to do, or you don’t like it (or can’t legally play it). I don’t need to go into much detail here, but if you haven’t attempted it and can, give it a try. I recommend sticking to single-entry games if you are playing low-level or don’t have much DFS experience.
Fantasy Football Playoff Rankings
NOTE: To make it super duper crystal #bankickers clear, these are how I’d rank players, period. Given all of the formats, it’s a catch-all, if you will. Playing a Draft and Hold would have you skip certain players in favor of those you expect to play more games. A one-and-done approach would have you picking some with better matchups who are still likely to lose, etc. So, feel free to jump in the comments and talk about your picks, favorite formats, or just ask questions!
ALSO: J.K. Dobbins and Terrance Ferguson are in the ranks as if they are returning/playing.
Fantasy Football Playoff Projections
This is a per-game projection for the playoffs. You can use this sheet to calculate the total points a player might score based on how many games you predict they will play (Column F: GP).