In the next month or so, we’re going to delve deeply into the Fantasy Football Playoffs. Christmas will be ruined for many due to the inevitable timing of this annual ritual we put ourselves through. That being said, and being a world-class Christmas junkie myself, I don’t want to see you guys suffer through a distraught Christmas time because your fantasy team crapped the bed. I’ve spent the past day making you all an early Christmas gift (download it here).

Let’s go over some of the stuff contained within. For starters, let’s have a little visual aide:

Okay, there it is. The final data all crunched up in a nice, easy to read grid.

Most people know that fantasy football playoff time is a tough time of year. Mostly this is because when fantasy player’s lives are on the line, REAL football players are mostly going through the motions, either because they are so far out of playoff contention that they don’t care or because they are so far into the playoffs that it doesn’t make sense for them to play and get injured during what amounts to garbage time to them. Thus is fantasy life, their garbage time is the time that we’ve struggled and pushed to be a part of.

So, how do we, as fantasy football players, deal with this situation? Well, there’s many lines of thought on this topic. Go with what got you there on the off chance that Peyton Manning plays more than a half before Sorgi comes in and vultures your points. Benching L.T. from the start in favor of the likes of Jerious Norwood with the Falcons in garbage time wanting to play with their new toy.

But, which is the RIGHT answer? Well, I don’t know the definitive RIGHT answer, but I’ve got the stats to help you FEEL like you’ve made the right decision and hopefully push you through to victory.

First things first, I just want to point out that the leagues that I run always, ALWAYS have their Super Bowl on Week 16. Why? Well, look at the production dips in Week 17. The good players score around 40% less than a normal week. That’s awful. Why take the players who got you to the Super Bowl out of the equation for one extra week of regular season? It doesn’t make sense, and if your league has it’s Super Bowl on Week 17, tell your commissioner, write your congressman, whatever, get that crap pushed forward a week next season.

Okay, actually this should’ve been first, but whatever. Let me tell you how I got the figures on this spreadsheet and what they mean. What I did was, before I started compiling players, I went through the regular season standings over the past 5 years (2002-2006) and pulled 2 teams from the AFC and 2 from the NFC who most clearly made the playoffs, meaning their record was so good they knew they were in for a while. Then, I took the two wild card teams from each conference. These guys had to fight their asses off to get into the playoffs, it should show in their fantasy points, I thought. For the last group, I took the 2 teams from each conference with the worst record. These guys had been out of it for a while and were really only playing for fun or to be spoilers, I wonder how they stack up.

After I compiled the teams, I took the starting QB, the two starting WRs, and the starting RB and compiled their fantasy points over the last four weeks of the season over the course of the past 5 years. This should give us a pretty good idea how how the time of year affects the various levels of success in the NFL for us, the fantasy football fools.

Now, we’ll just go over this spreadsheet briefly, because it really speaks for itself once you know what the numbers are all about, but knowing me, I can’t be held silent just because something speaks for itself. For me, Week 14 means the first week of playoffs (which usually mean my Bye week, if you know what I’m sayin’!) This is a good week, probably even the week that would be best suited for the Super Bowl if you could survive on a 11 or 12 week regular season (I couldn’t, so I don’t.) Playoff positions are still pretty much in the air for the real NFL teams, so they’re still giving it everything they’ve got. That shows down the line on the grid. Players are showing some exhaustion in their numbers, but they’re still pretty much even with their averages.

During weeks 15, 16, and 17, we see a pretty steep slope ahead. Numbers start dropping off as playoff spots fill up and players start getting images of palm trees and sleeping late in their heads.

So, what does this mean for us? That means, you teams who have ridden the Patriots to first place and feel like the championship is in your hands already. Brady is due for an average 22.6% drop off in weekly scoring in Week 16. So, if he’s scoring an average of 34.1 per game now, during week 16, he’ll be down to 26.4 (Still pretty damn good, but you get my drift), by week 17, he’ll be down 46.4% to 18.3 fantasy points. That’s if he’s even playing, and the Patriots really should have no reason to let him.

I’m obviously not saying you need to bench Tom Brady during your playoffs, because even my projected 18.3 in week 17 is pretty damn respectable. What I’m saying is that you need a Plan B available. I know you haven’t had a back up for Tom Brady all season except for last week. Why would you need one? Well, you might want to think about getting back ups for your Real Playoff Bound players. Here’s some teams to look at for help in the fantasy playoffs. These are all teams who stand a good chance of being wild card contenders around the time of the fantasy playoffs: Cleveland Browns, Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars, San Diego Chargers, New York Giants, Detroit Lions, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals.

Obviously those are due to change, but, like your Christmas shopping, it’s never too early to beat the rush if you have a little space in your attic to store things away. Go ahead and make some moves now and when there’s a fist fight in the isle over the last Nintendo Wii, you’ll grin and walk on by knowing you squirrelled yours away last month.

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