It sounds strange, but the conference championship games and Super Bowl are kind of like the preseason.
Okay, that does sound strange. How could the most important games of the year be anything like the least important ones? Well, it's not the games themselves but how we weigh them in our minds and when we put on our fantasy thinking caps. Just as I suggested you not put much weight into what you see in August, I think the same can be said for late January and February.
These three games, the conference championships and the Super Bowl, will stick with you for a long time. They're important, but when we see them, remember them and talk about them, we'll make them more important than they really are. For fantasy purposes, anyway. Those performances could affect how we draft. Clutch wins mean something, and we'll remember that when choosing our own teams. And that can really hurt our fantasy prospects in 2015.
The playoffs, like the preseason, are totally different than the regular season. In both cases, players sometimes show up big, and other times they do nothing. But those games don't always reveal too much about what to expect when the regular season starts (or rolls around the next season).
It can hurt you if you remember a great performance and select someone too early, but the opposite can also burn you pretty badly. I recall Peyton Manning's first playoff game with the Broncos. Remember how Baltimore pulled one out of the hat at the end, and won it in double overtime?
There were some amazing plays in that game. But you know what I remember? How bad Manning's passes looked. There was no zip. His arm looked shot. It was a long game in a long season, and he was tired. I decided right then and there that I was going to avoid him the following season.
Well, I didn't consciously make that decision. I do try to take my own advice. I just saw it and filed it for later. But what I really did was think about it during the off-season, and that was the last image I had of Manning. That last bit of data outweighed all I had seen that year. And when draft time came around the following year, I didn't have him on any of my teams.
Guess how that worked out for me? Manning had a career year, set all the important records, and I watched other teams set weekly high scores. I remember hoping to avoid the pieces of Denver's offense each week. I remember trying to make trades and getting laughed at repeatedly. In the one league where I was able to pry him away from his owner, I won the title. That wasn't me being shrewd or smart. That was an owner trading someone he should have never traded. I got lucky.
I also re-learned my lesson. No matter what I see in January, I'm not going to magnify it several months later. Just like the pre-season (which I don't really watch, to be honest), those performances aren't going to move the needle for me very much. I know they happened, but I can't afford to adjust draft strategy based on a couple of games, no matter how important or irrelevant they might be.
Look, I suspect we're going to see some good games this weekend. Maybe the Super Bowl will be good, too. So please, enjoy them as a football fan, but try to take your GM hat off during the contests. I can tell you, from experience, that watching with a fantasy focus can hurt you next summer. And if you're playing playoff fantasy football, good luck this week.
Have the playoffs already given you some insight into your 2015 strategy? Have you had success making decisions based on playoff performances? Share your thoughts below.