By Chet Gresham – @ChetGresham
Follow @walterfootball for updates.
Published Jan. 2, 2018.
Fantasy rankings for the playoffs are always tough, because the odds of getting the winners correct throughout the playoffs are about nil for even the sharpest of sharps, but that’s what you need to do if you want to pick players who will play the most games for your fantasy teams.
In the AFC, it’s impossible to not like the Patriots against whoever comes out of the wild-card round, which likely will be Kansas City, and then the Steelers will likely take on Jacksonville for the Roethlisberger five-interception-game rematch, in which I like Pittsburgh, and then the seemingly inevitable Pittsburgh/New England AFC Championship. Of course, an upset is in no way out of the question, but the AFC seems the most likely to go along with their seeding.
The NFC on the other hand looks like a churning bowl of jambalaya that we just threw a bunch of scraps into, with no regard to taste. First off, the No. 1 seed Eagles lost their MVP, and possibly the league’s MVP, when Carson Wentz went down, and since then, Nick Foles has not looked the part. Any team in the tournament can beat the Eagles, but they also can pull out victories with defense and the ground game. We also have a bunch of similarly talented teams in New Orleans, Carolina, L.A., Atlanta and Minnesota, that on any given Sunday can probably beat each other on a neutral field. Thankfully for the lower-seeded teams, if they win, they take on the Foles-led Eagles, while the higher-seeded team heads to Minnesota.
I like the higher seeds to win in the wild-card round mostly because they get home games, and for the Rams, I think they are a better-coached team than the Falcons. That would put the Rams back in Minnesota where they lost already this season and the Saints heading to Philadelphia. There is nothing easy about picking those two games, but I’m going to be somewhat contrarian here and pick the Rams and Saints to play in the NFC championship and the Rams winning to take on the Patriots for a Super Bowl rematch. I have little faith in that actually happening, so would feel okay hedging with picks of players I like over number of games they’ll actually play, but my thoughts on how these playoffs will turn out have to guide me somewhat.
Quarterbacks
- Tom Brady
- Ben Roethlisberger
- Jared Goff
- Drew Brees
- Case Keenum
- Alex Smith
- Cam Newton
- Matt Ryan
- Blake Bortles
- Marcus Mariota
- Nick Foles
- Tyrod Taylor
Running Backs
- Todd Gurley
- Le’Veon Bell
- Dion Lewis
- Alvin Kamara
- Mark Ingram
- Leonard Fournette
- Kareem Hunt
- Latavius Murray
- Devonta Freeman
- LeSean McCoy
- Derrick Henry
- Christian McCaffrey
- Rex Burkhead
- Tevin Coleman
- Jay Ajayi
- Jerick McKinnon
- James White
- Jonathan Stewart
- T.J. Yeldon
- Marcus Murphy
- Corey Clement
- LeGarrette Blount
- Mike Tolbert
- DeMarco Murray
Wide Receivers
- Antonio Brown
- Brandin Cooks
- Michael Thomas
- JuJu Smith-Schuster
- Robert Woods
- Tyreek Hill
- Julio Jones
- Chris Hogan
- Cooper Kupp
- Adam Thielen
- Stefon Diggs
- Keelan Cole
- Devin Funchess
- Dede Westbrook
- Mohamed Sanu
- Marqise Lee
- Rishard Matthews
- Sammy Watkins
- Alshon Jeffery
- Danny Amendola
- Ted Ginn
- Martavis Bryant
- Nelson Agholor
- Allen Hurns
- Kelvin Benjamin
- Albert Wilson
- Corey Davis
- Deonte Thompson
- Eric Decker
- Torrey Smith
Tight Ends
- Rob Gronkowski
- Travis Kelce
- Kyle Rudolph
- Vance McDonald
- Greg Olsen
- Delanie Walker
- Zach Ertz
- Charles Clay
- Tyler Higbee
- Austin Hooper
- Marcedes Lewis
- Josh Hill
Kickers
- Stephen Gostkowski
- Chris Boswell
- Wil Lutz
- Sam Ficken
- Harrison Butker
- Josh Lambo
- Kai Forbath
- Matt Bryant
- Graham Gano
- Jake Elliott
- Ryan Succop
- Steven Hauschka
- New England Patriots
- Los Angeles Rams
- Jacksonville Jaguars
- Minnesota Vikings
- Pittsburgh Steelers
- New Orleans Saints
- Atlanta Falcons
- Kansas City Chiefs
- Carolina Panthers
- Philadelphia Eagles
- Buffalo Bills
- Tennessee Titans
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