Lineup Advice: Week 17 – Championship Edition

Jeff Haverlack Posted On December 26, 2023

Week 17

And here we are!

I hope you all got what you were looking for this last week, whether it be a trip to the championship game, or better draft selection. There’s reason to be excited by both.

Remember that once you reach the playoffs, anything can, and does, happen. Win or lose, it’s not much of an indication as to the strength of your team, especially this year. Injuries have been brutal and I’m already tracking multiple material events from this past week of games. It many cases, it’s a war of attrition.

While week 17 is the final game for most leagues, I’ll still be back for one more week of fun in week 18. Many leagues use that final week as a pool-play week while some still determine the championship in that final week. I’m not a fan of using the last week of the season to determine a championship but, if you were going to, it could be as a multiple week playoff which essentially tests the bench of the league’s top-two teams. Of course, the issue is that between top players sitting or playing only partial games, it’s just not a great way to determine who the champion is in fantasy. It’s hard enough when we know who is starting and how long they’re going to play. If there’s any consolation this year, it’s in the fact that there’s a record number of teams still fighting for the playoffs with two weeks remaining. That should keep things very competitive for this week.

We’ll wrap up this final (as it stands currently) season of Lineup Advice next week, which gives me another week to figure out how to exactly say “goodbye.” We never know what the future will hold so I’m not a huge “goodbye” kind of guy. I know I’ll still be kicking around various corners of the fantasy space and I’ll still be available for interaction in some form or another.

But as the old saying goes: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Until then, good luck this week!

Team Tracking

Of my 10 teams that made the playoffs, six are advancing to the championship game. I thought it was going to be eight. A bad beat (142.25 to 142.20) thanks to Courtland Sutton’s zero points (concussion) was the difference in one. I knew I should have started Devin Singletary for the guaranteed touches but kept Sutton in. As it turns out, that last 1-yard rush by McCaffrey late in last night’s game, after they had basically taken him out, was the difference in the other game. Deebo Samuel had a poor game which ended my bid there. I can’t complain.

With six teams making the big game, that’s 42.9% of my teams. Based on how things were looking mid-season, it’s a shockingly high figure. To be honest, I don’t think my teams in the finale are as strong as they should be. It’s just an indication of how this year has gone. That said, I’ll take it.

Let’s get to the advice!

Lineup Advice Rules & Format

DLF continues to see growth in our membership and each year I continue to wonder how I’m going to keep up with all of your questions while also holding to a level of service and quality you’ve all come to expect from me. I’ve been VERY happy with my level of accuracy but, for that to occur, I need your help. Each question can take up to 10 minutes for me to research as I research up to a dozen different variables and trends. I do everything I can to get my answers correct. For that reason, I need you to read the following rules and guidelines to help me maintain efficiency:

Please don’t ask me to set your entire lineup
Put “TNF” as the top line for any question involving Thursday Night Football games
Please also make sure to tell me who YOU would be starting if not for my advice. It helps me to understand your gut feeling(s).
Include your scoring format (PPR, Non-PPR, etc.)
Keep your questions as brief as possible – Story questions add a lot of time
I prioritize questions involving the earliest (Thursday, etc.) games first. If I skip over your question, don’t worry, I’ll be back to it.
It’s easy to miss responses to my responses in thread. When in doubt, always post a separate new question

Lastly, I work very hard to get my advice correct and I do not mail it in. When I’m wrong, I feel every incorrect answer so, go easy on me! That said, the DLF community has been absolutely fantastic to work with which is why I’m still doing this after so many years.

Have a great week! Have an even better season!

Author
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Jeff Haverlack

Co-Founder at Dynasty League Football

Appreciative husband and proud father who poorly attempts to balance family life with his passion for creating the largest, most helpful and most impactful fantasy community on the planet! DLF was created for the community and we're committed to each member within it! Hope anyone playing this great game will call DLF home in some way!

You can find Jeff on Twitter at @dlf_jeff

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