🚑 Another QB Out For The Year? C'MON

Is your QB healthy? Congrats on the championship…

In today's Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by Underdog Fantasy:

We spent all offseason debating which QB strategy was optimal for drafts. Elite QB? Late-Round QB??

One thing is for certain, though, if you found yourself in the middle of those two strategies, you likely lost your QB for the year.

Seriously, check out this list of mid-round QBs (ADPs via Underdog) who are done for the year…

QB6: Joe Burrow
QB9: Deshuan Watson
QB11: Anthony Richardson
QB12: Daniel Jones
QB14: Kirk Cousins
QB16: Aaron Rodgers

And now after yesterday, we will be including the QB7 to the mounting pile of signal callers who had their season cut short due to injury…

🚑️ Justin Herbert done for the year

The Chargers announced yesterday that QB Justin Herbert is out for the season following surgery on his fractured right index finger.

Easton Stick will take over at QB for the rest of the year for the Chargers, who currently sit well outside of the playoff picture in the AFC with a 5-8 record.

Even with Herbert at the helm, Austin Ekeler and Keenan Allen were the only usable Chargers pieces in fantasy.

With the Raiders on tap on a short week (TNF), our guy Matthew Freedman currently has Ekeler as his RB8 and Allen as his WR17.

It’s a brutal spot for those in the first week of the fantasy playoffs. Those two still project well enough that you are forced to start them, but the floor is very scary.

If you are wondering how to feel about a talented RB/WR duo with poor QB play, just ask a Breece Hall or Garrett Wilson manager what that experience is like.

🪑 The Vikings bench Joshua Dobbs

I’m still surprised they would do this, but the Vikings have apparently had enough of the Joshua Dobbs experience and will now turn to Nick Mullens:

The selling points for Mullens are pretty thin:

• 17 career starts

• Knows the system

• Fully healthy after an IR stint

• Isn’t Joshua Dobbs

We’re still waiting to hear if Justin Jefferson will suit up this week, but he did get in a limited practice yesterday. Alexander Mattison, on the other hand, didn’t practice and looks like a long shot.

With all of the uncertainty, the Vikings are -3.5 point road underdogs to the Fightin’ Jake Brownings:

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The fantasy football playoffs are here. Today, Ian shares some tips on how to take home those championships…

Playing fantasy football at this point in the NFL season likely means one of three things:

• You made the fantasy playoffs (congrats!)

• You are trying to avoid your league’s last-place punishment (good luck!)

• You are simply a stone-cold degenerate (one of us!)

Regardless of your situation, optimizing our fantasy football rosters over the next three weeks is more vital than ever to help solidify our general day-to-day happiness for the next year.

This brings us to today’s goal: Seven tips to help managers of all shapes and sizes navigate the deep waters of the fantasy football playoffs.

As always: It’s a great day to be great.

📝 Start your studs – but they better be STUDS

Sure, guys like Garrett Wilson and Drake London are studs, but given their respective QB situations it’s safe to say they haven’t exactly been STUDS throughout 2023 despite their typically excellent individual efforts.

A true fantasy football STUD is someone who checks at least three of the following four boxes with flying colors:

• Talent: Are they a great real-life football player?

• Volume: Is the utilization on hand elite?

• Offensive environment: Does the player operate inside a fantasy-friendly, high-scoring offense?

• Matchup: Is the opposing defense particularly adept at slowing down the position in question?

The last variable is the only one that regularly changes from week to week without some sort of injury involvement, although it’s not like that factor doesn’t rear its ugly head every week as well.

Moral of the story: Guys like Josh Allen, Kyren Williams, Deebo Samuel and Sam Laporta among plenty of others helped get you to the dance – don’t even think about benching them during the next three weeks despite the ever-present potential for a dud or bad matchup.

Matchups are fine and dandy to use as a tiebreaker, but don’t let them overly dictate start/sit decisions featuring talented players with plenty of fantasy-friendly volume inside of dope real-life offenses.

📝 Dominate the waiver wire – even if it’s just to block your opponent

Unless, of course, your team is already eliminated. There is a special place in hell for any eliminated fantasy manager making free-agency moves without a championship to play for. The obvious exceptions are for leagues that use the consolation bracket to determine future draft seeding or a last-place punishment.

Otherwise? Get after it – and Fantasy Life’s (free!) Waiver Hub tool is here to guide you along the way with customizable recommendations based on your league settings.

Do yourself a favor and pay particularly close attention to Fantasy Life’s recommended stashes.

Each of Rico Dowdle, Tyjae Spears and Jordan Mason appear to be quite literally one injury away from obtaining the sort of lead-back role that could quickly elevate them into the position’s top-15 overall options for at least one week down the stretch.

⭐️ Two players on the rise. Are they fantasy playoff STARS?

👨‍👩‍👧 Now this is a good Girl Dad. Get ‘em hooked on fantasy football early.

🐬 An update on Tyreek Hill. We’ll be monitoring this closely.

📺 QB replacements for the fantasy playoffs? We’ve got you covered.

🏆️ Is Brock Purdy the MVP? These debates are going to heat up shortly.

🤔 Will Jonathan Taylor play again this season? Shane Steichen weighs in.

📊 Who says veterans can’t break out? These vets still have value.

📈 Updated chances to earn a Top 3 pick in the 2024 draft. Can the Commanders sneak in?

✍️ A short week for the Chargers filled with injuries. How do they stack up on Thursday?

🤢 Another triggering Patrick Mahomes stat. Um, what???

🖼️ The playoff picture is WIDE open. No, seriously.

Just because we are in our fantasy football playoffs era doesn’t mean we can’t talk Buying & Selling. The season isn’t over quite yet and Cooterdoodle is here to walk us through some playoff buy-ins. 

Whether you clinched a playoff spot(yay) or you’ve been eliminated (sorry), this pertains to you. This is playoff SZN, baby! Let’s get into some aspects that I can buy into, and others that I’m totally ready to sell.

🛒 BUY

🧼 Squeaky Clean Slate

Playoffs are a beautiful time for mid managers. That’s what the kids call something that’s neither good nor bad. And if you look at the teams that squeaked into your playoff bracket, I’d be willing to bet that 2-3 of those teams are mid, at best.

BUT, now that the playoffs have begun, the slates are clean. It doesn’t matter if Rob’s 7-7 team barely made it through. He’s in. And he has just as good a shot as anyone to climb his way to a championship trophy.

It’s the NFL. And we’ve seen how matchups can go awry when there’s a ‘clear winner’ in sight against a pretty mid team.

Don’t count anyone out… until they’ve been eliminated.

🛍️ SELL

📢 Loud Losers

If you learned anything at all from Week 14, you probably learned how painful it is to watch someone lose loudly. Cough Patrick Mahomes cough.

We talked about this last week. Sports (and life) aren’t always fair. And sometimes you just need to take your “L” and go home.

I think every single fanbase can agree that the referees have made bad calls or no-calls(whodat) at some point or another. But it happens. And whether you agree with the location of Kadarius Toney’s head, shoulders, knees and toes, we can all agree that the conversations following the Bills/Chiefs game felt... well, uncomfortable.

So as fantasy football players, let’s learn from this.

If you lose, don’t blame your league’s scoring. Don’t blame a real-life human player. Don’t blame the refs. Don’t call up your league trying to get them to see things your way. (And maybe don’t hold a press conference referencing Travis Kelce’s legacy.)

Lose quietly. Move on. And if there truly is an underlying issue present that needs to be addressed: Propose a vote to change it during the offseason.

​​🛒 BUY

📝 Time to Tweak

Every year as leagues move into their playoffs, your mind should be aimed towards league activity. That is: How do I keep my league active? This can be tricky, but if your league mates were losing interest before playoffs even approached, this is for you.

While it’s still fresh in your mind, reflect on any bad blood that was shed this season that could have pushed anyone away.

Were your league mates disgruntled with any particular scoring situations? Did your method of waivers cause unwanted stress? Were some league mates inactive or… “forgetful” in setting their lineups? Were there whispers of collusion?

It’s time to take inventory and start determining how to make your league stronger next year. Here are a few quick fixes to consider:

1. Waivers Styles

2. Trades Deadlines

3. Playoff Scheduling

4. Dropping the Hammer & Giving the Boot

5. League Punishments