ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through the Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: What is your favorite fantasy playoff challenge?
SCOTT PIANOWSKI
My friend Michael Salfino runs a contest where you set a starting lineup however you like every week, with the understanding that you can use every player just once for the entirety of the playoffs. It warps your mind, but in a good way. And it's totally fair, since everyone has access to the full player pool. There's even a head coach slot; you get 10 points if the coach you pick wins his game. It's a fun, strategic league, that forces you to think about today and the future weeks. Highly recommended.
An FSWA award-winning writer (with nominations in four sports) and podcaster, Scott has been with Yahoo Sports since 2008. On the rare occasions when the computer is turned off, he enjoys word games, poker, music, film, game theory, and a variety of condiments. He lives in suburban Detroit.
DAVID DOREY
I play in several postseason contests, but my favorite that I always do is rtsports.com's Fantasy Championship Postseason Shootout. Pick any players you want and ride them as far as they go in the playoffs. But -- no more than two from any NFL team. Lots of fun and strategy.
Dorey co-founded The Huddle.com in 1997. He's ranked every player and projected every game for the last 23 years and is the author of Fantasy Football: The Next Level. David has appeared on numerous radio, television, newspaper and magazines over the last two decades.
IAN ALLAN
We do one as an add-on for our regular league. It’s the same 12 guys. We draft almost everyone from all of the playoff teams onto rosters. There are no positions and no starting lineups. There are no “games”. Instead, you just get points for everyone on your team. The longer they stay in the competition, the more points they add to your final score. And whichever team has the most total points at the end of the Super Bowl is the winner. Different from the regular in-season game, but it’s fun.
Allan co-founded Fantasy Football Index in 1987. He and fellow journalism student Bruce Taylor launched the first newsstand fantasy football magazine as a class project at the University of Washington. For more than three decades, Allan has written and edited most of the content published in the magazines, newsletters and at www.fantasyindex.com. An exhaustive researcher, he may be the only person in the country who has watched at least some of every preseason football game played since the early 1990s. Allan is a member of the FSTA Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.
SCOTT SACHS
I enjoy both DraftKings and FanDuel playoff contests. The first weekend especially has a lot of games going on so there's not much drop-off in options from a standard week during the season. I also receive a weekly invite from a group with a 20-man contest each week, so creating contests with your league or a group of friends is another fun way to keep fantasy competition going through the playoffs.
Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, offering LIVE Talk & Text consulting. He has multiple league championships including 2 perfect seasons. Scott is a past winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll and a 2-time winner of the Experts Auction League.
SAM HENDRICKS
I do a fun one for my local league that I commish in. Each owner gets one submission of a full lineup right before the NFL playoffs start. But you can only have one player from any NFL team. So if you take Aaron Rodgers you cannot have any other Packers (no Davante Adams). And once a team is out of the playoffs you cannot replace them. So kinda like a draft and forget contest for the NFL playoffs but with only one player from any NFL team. To make the NFL Super Bowl interesting any player in the Super Bowl gets double fantasy points on your fantasy roster. So strategy wise it is better to have a QB in the SB. Lots of strategies when deciding whom to pick and how many games they may or may not play. To be fair I think I copied this from the Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC) 10 years ago.
Hendricks is the author of Fantasy Football Guidebook, Fantasy Football Tips and Fantasy Football Basics, all available at ExtraPointPress.com, at all major bookstores, and at Amazon and BN.com. He is a 25-year fantasy football veteran who participates in the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) and finished 7th and 16th overall in the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC). He won the Fantasy Index Open in 2013 and 2018.
ANDY RICHARDSON
Two that I like. One is RealTime Fantasy Sports, you pick your entire roster before the playoffs start, and hope you lock in on the proper teams who advance. I won a league one year when C.J. Anderson carried Peyton Manning and the Broncos to the Super Bowl; few thought Denver would be there. I enjoy the strategy of having the right balance of players from teams who play the most games, although it's changed some with only one bye per conference. I also do one with friends where you can only use each player in the playoffs one time, so there's the strategy of using or saving great players depending on how far you think they'll advance.
Richardson has been a contributing writer and editor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and www.fantasyindex.com since 2002. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections and various site features, and he has run the magazine's annual experts draft and auction leagues since their inception. He previews all the NFL games on Saturdays and writes a wrap-up column on Mondays during the NFL season.