Fantasy Football Fact or Fluke: Your guide to playoff decision-making in 2024

Just like that, we’re on to the fantasy football playoffs. One day, we have plenty of time to manage our roster, absorb a loss or two, and the next, we are right in the pressure cooker of fantasy sports.

People respond very differently to high-pressure situations.

Some of us are calm and collected, maybe more so than under "normal" circumstances, rationally getting the things done that need to get done. Others become almost deterministically detached from the outcome, taking no action at all. Still others will panic, like a proverbial chicken with its head cut off, doing a lot of stuff but without a clear or logical plan.

In addition to our innate personalities, our decisions around the fantasy playoffs can be drowning in bias. A cognitive bias is any deviation from a rationale and logical judgment. Though they get a lot of bad press, biases aren’t all negative. Some serve us extremely well, allowing us to make very accurate first impressions or to trust that events that have occurred repeatedly or recently are likely to continue. It’s the ones that lead us to falsely inflate the importance of certain kinds of data, while ignoring others, that can get us in a bad spot. Many biases exist simply to protect our fragile egos, which is not going to help us win fantasy championships — they just justify our losses.

In this week’s edition of Fact or Fluke, we’ll go over some of the decisions you’ll have to make over these next three weeks and how to avoid succumbing to cognitive bias. As with so many things in life, knowledge is power. Just knowing when and how you’re most likely to unwittingly make a biased decision can help you prevent it. Whether you’re on bye this week or facing an uphill battle after just sneaking into the playoffs, we’ve got some advice for you!

Channel the personality of the calm and collected manager.

Avoid adding and dropping and re-adding free agents all week like the panicked, headless chicken. But also, don’t just tune out and let the chips fall where they may. Nothing in fantasy football is predestined. Even if you’re off this week, set your Week 15 lineup like you normally would so you can see how you’re stacking up to your leaguemates’ playoff rosters.

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Be methodical.

Start by focusing on depth quality. You’ve got a great starting roster, but is it injury-proof? Matchup-proof? Take note of the close, high-scoring games by checking the betting lines. Look for rushing/passing mismatches. If one of your key starters goes down in Week 15, are you prepared to fill his spot with someone in a plus matchup (by DvP) or on a team that carries a high implied total?

Through Week 14, the highest-scoring offenses are Detroit, Buffalo, Baltimore, Washington, Tampa Bay, Cincinnati, Green Bay, Philadelphia and Minnesota. With Washington and Baltimore on bye last week, there’s a chance some of their second-tier players were dropped.

The most generous defenses are Carolina, Dallas, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Cleveland, Atlanta and the L.A. Rams. For fantasy points allowed, it’s Jacksonville, Carolina, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Dallas, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, Indianapolis and L.A. Rams. Lots of overlap there, as expected.

The best running back matchups are Carolina, Jacksonville and Buffalo.

The best wide receiver matchups are Minnesota, Atlanta, Baltimore and Jacksonville.

For tight ends, the best matchups are Las Vegas, Kansas City, Cincinnati, Carolina, Tampa Bay and Indianapolis.

Game script matters.

If you haven’t already, now is the time to dig into Week 16 and 17 game flow opportunities. Even though predicting game script is an imperfect process, you can make best guesses as to which teams might be in a position to run out the clock the whole second half and which others might be in full-time pass mode, playing from a deficit. That then informs which RBs or WRs you prioritize adding.

Make sure you have the best defensive unit you can get for the next two weeks. Turnovers and points allowed are the best indicators of fantasy success, but looking at the ratio of sacks and sacks taken in a given matchup can also be a valuable guiding statistic.

The teams with the highest takeaway rate are Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Green Bay, Houston and Buffalo. In terms of points allowed to opponents, the stingiest defenses are the L.A. Chargers, Detroit, Denver, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Minnesota. Sack leaders include Denver, Houston, Baltimore, Minnesota and L.A. Chargers. If yours is one of the 33% of leagues in which Denver was dropped, snap them up for a Week 15 tilt with the Colts.

This is a time for you to cut dead weight.

Players you’ve been carrying just in case they get back to that early season windfall of fantasy points. They’re on your bench, their time is up. Even if they do go off again, it won’t help you. Players like Raheem Mostert and Alexander Mattison are still rostered in 40-48% of Yahoo leagues. That third QB or extra kicker? He’s not necessary anymore.

There are several cognitive biases that relate to holding onto things that are no longer serving a purpose.

It’s why our basements and garages and closets fill up with stuff that we just can’t seem to part with. You’ve probably heard of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, Endowment Effect and of course, FOMO. All are based in the idea that a part of ourselves is tied up in any investment we make, and when that investment goes bad, it means that we were wrong.

By investment, I don’t mean stocks exclusively, though it certainly applies to financial management, but it could be a pair of shoes, a piece of wall art, a nifty lawn and garden tool and so on. My mother has a painting on her wall that I helped pick out for her and it’s awful in her space. It doesn’t work at all with the rest of her decor, but she can’t bring herself to admit that her daughter made a terrible mistake in choosing it for her.

The thing is, it’s very liberating to admit when we were wrong with our past choices and donate or throw out the things that no longer work for us. If your goal is to win your fantasy league, you have to be willing to be brutally honest about your roster. ADP does not matter. Name fame does not matter. Touches, matchup and game script matter now.

Spend time examining your potential opponents’ rosters.

What did they have to do to survive the Week 14 byepocalypse? Have they left holes in their depth chart that you can take advantage of? Blocking your opponents’ ability to get backup running backs or the best available tight end gives you a slight edge, but it’s the move I give least priority to. Improving your own roster is always the better play.

If they have the "obvious guy" for Week 15 — that’s the Patrick Taylor Jr. or Braelon Allen — go for the guy behind the guy. Israel Abanikanda for the 49ers and Isaiah Davis of the Jets are the big names to consider. Everyone loves a rookie like Xavier Legette, but the boring veteran, Adam Thielen, is the guy, with just over 100 receiving yards per game and 21 targets over the last two weeks. He’s available in almost half of leagues with Dallas on tap this weekend.

The bottom line is to be very intentional with your fantasy decisions over these next few weeks. Every popular waiver wire add is not for every manager. Really consider what your team needs to get stronger, then try to create that strength in the most strategic way possible. Changing things up for change’s sake is rarely the right choice.

Good luck this week!