It’s over, you poured your essence into fantasy football. Your tears and soar eyes ransacked by the blue light of your screen have broken your spirit. You ask, what is left for me to do with my life? Well fear not loyal fantasy football fan NFL.com has your answer. I’ve never been a big fantasy guy but have always loved playing what they call the playoff challenge. Every week you have a chance to pick a fantasy roster, no budget, no strings it can be as top heavy as you want. Each week your roster resets but if you stick with a player on a team that makes a playoff run you get exponential increases. So for example if you pick Tom Brady and he goes to the Super Bowl and you stick with him, you get two times the points in the conference game and three times the points in the Super Bowl. Ok, now that you’re on board let’s set the perfect lineup for wild card weekend.
QB: Jared Goff. Goff is the obvious choice for QB especially because the game is in LA so the cold won’t be a factor. Expect the Rams to continue to throw the ball. The safe pick is Alex Smith if you want him, however the Chiefs will most likely be a run heavy team in cold Kansas City. You could also go Drew Brees but you run the risk of the run game in Nola being leaned on.
RB 1: Todd Gurley. This is a pretty obvious pick, Gurley has torn apart defenses all year and is fresh coming off a week of rest. The Falcons defense is nothing to be worried about in the running game.
RB 2: Kareem Hunt. This pick is purely matchup dependent. The Titans defense is not nearly as good as the Panthers is. Hunt will get more touches than Kamara as well. You could go either way, I trust Hunt more.
WR 1: Tyreek Hill: Hill has had a fantastic season, even when the Chiefs were in a slump Hill was putting up numbers. I expect that to continue into the playoffs. You also have a good chance of getting double points off of him in the divisional round.
WR 2: Julio Jones. This is a high risk high reward pick. If you want to play it safe take a Rams wide out, if you want to take a risk that could land you with 60 plus points during division weekend take Jones. If the Falcons use him properly he’ll go off and as a result the Falcons could win this game.
TE: Travis Kelce. Listen Kelce is the best tight end in the wild card round. You could take Gronk and go with no points this week from TE, the upside to that is you don’t have to choose between two times the points from Kelce or the normal amount of points from Gronk.
Defense: Buffalo Bills. This is by far the most out there pick. Only one percent are starting the Bills defense. I’m not necessarily starting the Bills D, I’m starting Blake Bortles throwing 3 interceptions. The Bills have the most potential to upset this weekend and force a lot of turnovers.
K: Matt Bryant. You could take any kicker, except Sam Ficken, that guys a tire fire. I’m taking Bryant because the kicking conditions in LA will be the best of any game, the other safe pick is Will Lutz in the super dome.
So with that, what are you waiting for, go set your line up.
http://playoffchallenge.fantasy.nfl.com/entry?entryId=5055555