2024 FFPC Playoff Challenge Strategy

Please note: For full rankings, projections, expected games played, and more, please visit FFPC Playoff Challenge Rankings and Projections.

The NFL regular season is over. We’re on to the playoffs — but that doesn’t mean it’s time to stop playing fantasy football. Many fantasy platforms offer playoff challenges, and there’s a massive edge for fantasy players willing to put in the time because most of the industry is so focused on standard season-long formats. With that being said, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to these tournaments because they all have such unique rules and lineup requirements. ETR’s Justin Herzig wrote a stellar article last year explaining how you should attack playoff best ball drafts on Underdog. Today, we’ll go in a different direction and hone in on the FFPC Playoff Challenge, perhaps the most well-known playoff fantasy tournament around.

HOW DOES THE FFPC PLAYOFF CHALLENGE WORK?

There is no draft or salary cap for the FFPC Playoff Challenge. You simply pick from a pool consisting of every player in the NFL playoffs to fill the following 12 roster spots:

• 1 quarterback
• 2 running backs
• 2 wide receivers
• 1 tight end
• 4 flex spots (RB, WR, or TE)
• 1 defense/special teams
• 1 kicker

The scoring is PPR and TE-premium (you get 1.5 points per reception for TEs). QBs score one point for every 20 yards passing and four points every time they throw a touchdown. Defenses get one point per sack, two points for each forced turnover, 12 points for a shutout, eight points for allowing 1-6 points, and five points for allowing 7-10 points. Kickers get three points for every field goal of 30 yards or less and 0.1 extra points for each additional yard thereafter.

There is no changing your team once the contest starts. Rosters lock when the ball is kicked in the first Wild Card game. Fantasy points scored in the Super Bowl are worth twice as much as points scored in other rounds. Whichever team has the most total points when the clock hits zero on Super Bowl Sunday wins the grand prize. But here’s the big catch: You can only pick one player per team. That means if you pick Patrick Mahomes, you cannot also pick Travis Kelce. With 14 NFL playoff teams and only 12 roster spots, each entry will have two NFL teams not represented on their FFPC squad. Since you also have to have a defense and kicker — two positions that are highly unlikely to lead their team in fantasy points — you are basically fully fading two teams and soft-fading (D/ST and K) two other teams.

The FFPC Playoff Challenge costs $200 to enter and boasts a $500,000 prize to first place with more than $1.4 million in the overall prize pool. For more info on how the contest works, check out the FFPC website.

Now that we’re familiar with the rules, let’s get into some tips and tricks on how to attack this format.

IDENTIFYING LEVERAGE OPPORTUNITIES

Like with DFS, the entire playoff challenge strategy revolves around finding leverage. There will be a chalk player for each team, and you have to decide whether to take that player or go in a different direction. You’re unlikely to win submitting an all-chalk lineup (and the payoff if you are right isn’t as good), but you’re also nearly certain to not win if you go contrarian for every team.

Predictably, the field typically latches onto the best players on the best teams. This year, Lamar Jackson and Christian McCaffrey will be extremely highly owned. Both are elite fantasy players at their respective positions on the best teams in their conference. While the 49ers have other borderline elite fantasy options in Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle, and a respectable QB option in Brock Purdy, the lack of other elite RB options in the playoffs makes McCaffrey a difficult player to fade. Jackson is also a difficult fade simply because the Ravens are clearly the best team in the AFC but lack other high-end fantasy weapons. Since the Super Bowl round is worth twice as much as every other round, nailing the two highest scorers in the season finale is paramount. The two teams with the bye week have one fewer game to accumulate points, but they also have the best odds of making the Super Bowl most years (and that’s particularly true this season with SF and BAL unanimously power-rated as the two best teams in the league by a sizable margin). That means the No. 2 seeds in each conference project for the most total games, but that gap can be made up because the top seeds have a better chance of making the Super Bowl and hitting that 2x points multiplier.

Historical data indicates the field sometimes latches too heavily onto the top option for a team. In the 2023 version of this article, we discussed the difference between Davante Adams‘ and Aaron Jones‘ 2022 ownership, even though both players were projected highly. For teams with multiple viable high-end fantasy options, it may be worth sacrificing some projected points in exchange for leverage over the field if the less likely outcome hits. Perhaps you take Cooper Kupp over Kyren Williams or Raheem Mostert over Tyreek Hill, for example, knowing the field is likely to lean in the opposite direction.

The field may also be overconfident in certain game outcomes; last year, the Jaguars were a fairly popular fade or soft fade, even though they were only 2.5-point underdogs to the Chargers. They ended up completing a massive comeback and earning a second playoff game. It’s difficult to gauge exactly what the field will do in this contest since ownership projections aren’t as sophisticated as they are for DFS, but it’s worth comparing sentiment in the fantasy community to money lines for the Wild Card round to check whether the public is overly certain that one team will be an easy out.

FIGURING OUT WHICH TEAMS TO FADE

With 14 teams in the postseason and only 12 players per roster, each entry in the FFPC Playoff Challenge is hard-fading two NFL teams. Everyone also has a defense and kicker, which is essentially two other teams you’re fading because D/ST and K are extremely unlikely to be their team’s highest-scoring player over a multiple-game stretch. It’s not a total death sentence if your defense and kicker win a game, but ideally you want your higher-scoring positions to be going deeper into the playoffs. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some fade candidates:

• Pittsburgh (currently 10-point underdogs, +400 money line)
• Green Bay (7.5-point dogs, +295 ML)
• Miami (4-point underdogs, +175 ML)

The Buccaneers, Rams, and Texans are also dogs in their Wild Card games, but those teams are at most 3-point underdogs. Still, all of these teams make sense as potential fades or as defense/kicker spots. The Dolphins (i.e., Tyreek Hill) still seem fairly likely to be used on many teams despite being somewhat decent underdogs. Pittsburgh and Green Bay will likely be the two most-faded teams.

If you have confidence in one of these teams winning or sense the market is getting too confident in them losing, these teams can also provide pretty strong leverage opportunities — if you’re right that they win a game.

LEVERAGE EXAMPLES

Below, we’ll briefly run through what we view as the optimal play on each team along with a leverage option. Note that there are multiple viable leverage plays for some of these teams, but we tried to pick one for each.