Will the NFL’s New Playoff Rules Impact Your Championship?

Many dynasty owners are either unaware, or have forgotten due to circumstances in the real-world such as COVID-19, that beginning this season, the NFL is expanding their playoffs to 14 teams from the previous 12-team format. While at first glance the addition of one more playoff team to each conference may not appear to have much fantasy impact, there is the potential for this shift to impact the championship game in many fantasy leagues and much of it has to do with how the top-seeded teams will be impacted.

You see, starting this season, the number two seed will no longer receive the first-round bye that it was awarded in seasons past. Traditionally, these teams could, and often would, try to extend this time off, to allow starters to get healthy and fresh, by sitting their starters in week 17. This had the effect of giving their star players a two-week vacation just as the season was reaching its apex.

With this bye week now gone for the second-seeded teams, I fully expect some coaches of these teams, if not this season, then in the future, to try and artificially recreate this “get right” period by moving back the period in which they sit their starters to week 16, whether that be partially or for the full game, depending on the circumstances their team faces.

Yes, it is, quite literally, the start of the new season and we have all had more than enough fear instilled in us to last a decade. However, it is important to understand, in the past, sitting starters, even partially in week 16, was an extremely rare phenomenon, so it is not really something fantasy owners had to be particularly concerned about. That’s not to say it didn’t happen, but due to the length of time off that a player would be receiving, which effectively amounts to a three-week layoff, there existed a fear from some NFL decision-makers that such a lengthy downtime could actually have adverse effects on player performance.

However, with this new 14-team format, we may actually see some teams attempt to “game the system” by manipulating their likelihood of winning meaningless games in the dual-sided effort to rest their starters while aiming to achieve a more favorable matchup. For instance, if a division winner with the second seed has effectively dominated their division, and in the process has beat the number six seed, one of their division rivals, twice by large margins, a coach might view drop to the third seed as worth the gamble. In doing so he may rest his starters in weeks 16 and 17, letting the cards fall as they may. If his team wins one or both games and they retain the second seed, well his starters will now be fresh for their first playoff game. If they lose one or both games (depending on the tie-breakers with the third seed) they may drop down in the seeding and could get a matchup they feel more comfortable with while still having rested their start players for two weeks. In an effort to keep pace with the one, and possibly two-week bye advantage now presented solely to the number one seed, some savvy coaches may crunch the numbers and view just such a proposition as very appealing.

Furthermore, with more teams making the playoffs, this also means that more of the top teams are in less danger of falling out of those same playoffs. Teams could try to jump out to an early lead in their week-16 matchup and then bench their starters at halftime. While the effect would not be the same as a full week off, coaches may view less exposure to potential injuries as a net positive, especially if week 17 is rendered pointless for their playoff hopes should they hold on to win the week 16 matchup.

Why does any of this matter to fantasy teams? Well, I honestly believe that this year could be a startling revelation for many owners that just because a team has bulldozed the competition en route to their league’s championship game, doesn’t mean that team will inevitably win it all. Using last year’s NFL seeding, the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers were last year’s second-seeded teams. The percentage of fantasy champions that rostered stars from those teams is as follows (from ESPN.com): Patrick Mahomes (35.5 percent, second-highest), Travis Kelce (33.2 percent, third-most), Tyreek Hill (32.1 percent, seventh-most) and Davante Adams (25.5, 14th-most). While these statistics are very likely from redraft leagues, the data is still very likely similar, if not more pronounced, in dynasty leagues.

That said, Kansas City played their starters in week 17 last year because they were in a down to the wire battle with New England for the second seed. Similarly, Green Bay, as well, had to play their starters in an effort to clinch the second seed.

Nonetheless, were the new playoff rules in effect last year, the dynamics of those situations would have shifted dramatically from these teams playing for a first-round bye, to possibly attempting to create such a bye on their own, perhaps even as soon as week 16 since the second-seeded team no longer is awarded that bye those teams were each struggling to clinch. Teams will almost certainly, look for new ways to rest their players if their teams are not on the bubble.

In fact, with few exceptions, only teams playing for a first-round bye played their starters in full in week 17, while teams securely in the playoffs, but unable to clinch a bye, opted to rest many of their starters. If more teams are securely in the playoffs, while half as many byes are now available, what impetus is there for many of those squads to take week 16 seriously? Will there be a race to the bottom, in terms of trying to create more rest for players if the playoff race is increasingly static? Will week 16 become similar to week 17 for fantasy purposes? Time will eventually tell.

However, imagine for a moment, if one or more of the aforementioned Kansas City and Green Bay players sat out part or all of week 16. Perhaps even worse, what if they were questionable to sit out part or all of the game, with no real clarification made available before kickoff? Would the top-seeded fantasy teams have the depth, or feel comfortable with their backups, to swap one or more of these players out of their lineup and still be able to take home the gold?

I ask these questions not to alarm any of the teams currently atop their leagues, but rather as a call to shore up your depth, more now than ever. With the possibility of a COVID outbreak constantly looming over the league like a dark cloud, and now the fantasy playoffs presenting new challenges to dynasty owners due to a change in the NFL’s rules, depth has never felt like such a priority, at least to me. We may, very well, find out this season if even part of what I’ve laid out comes to pass.

Good luck to everyone this season and keep looking forward for opportunities to be prepared for any eventuality!