With the fantasy football regular season coming to an end, it is time to rest turn our attention to the playoffs. FFPC, Underdog Drafters, and DraftKings launched NFL Playoff Best Ball tournaments, so it’s time to put your regular season winnings to use. Michael Dubner provides a Playoff Best Ball Rankings Model.
*This is an update to the original Playoff Best Ball Model published on 1/4/2022*
Know Your League Rules
FFPC, Underdog Drafters, and DraftKings all have their own unique league and scoring settings. I will not discuss the nuances of each, but this model can assist you with each format if applied appropriately.
How to Win Playoff Best Ball Tournaments: Projections vs. Game Theory
Because teams are eliminated each week, players do not play the same number of games. The most important thing to keep in mind during Playoff Best Ball roster construction is to correlate teammates so you have the best chance of having players score the most points in the Super Bowl. While the site you play on will impact the number of possible players you can potentially roster in the Super Bowl, scoring the most possible points in the Super Bowl remains your goal across all formats.
Even if we assume ADP perfectly reflects projections (which they don’t, see below model), it is far more important to optimize correlation in order to field a Super Bowl roster.
With that being said, projections still matter and can help guide our rankings and identify ADP inefficiencies.
Projection Methodology
*Below I will detail my Rankings Model methodology. Feel free to skip to the end for the results.