Last week I mentioned how the best use of your time right now is to figure out what information matters and what doesn’t. The less you have to consider leading up to the draft, the more time you have to focus on what matters. And I don’t think bye weeks matter. Too many things change during the season to waste time lining up your bye weeks in a “perfect” season that will never happen. Best to ignore them entirely and simply take the best player, regardless of their bye week.
But there’s another factor that should also receive the cold shoulder when strategizing for the upcoming season. And, unfortunately, it’s often used as a rationale for taking someone, then never gets considered again. It’s like it only existed to mess up your draft, then disappeared over the course of the season.
Over the years, I’ve seen many people consider a guy’s schedule during the fantasy playoffs as a reason to choose hm over another player. And by “many people,” I’m including me. I did it for years. And why not? If you can make it to the playoffs, why not give yourself some good matchups? The schedule is right there, so why not use it to help your team?
Well, because it doesn’t happen that way. Like with bye weeks, too many things occur over the course of the season to make playoff matchups predictable in August. And while that applies to bye weeks, which occur in weeks 5-14, it really applies to weeks 15-17. You have no idea if your starter will be your starter when those critical weeks come up. They might get hurt or they might be underperforming, so you have the same risks as with bye weeks.
But wait; there’s more. The team itself might not be in a position to make those weeks meaningful. Let’s say the Chargers, for whatever reason, are 4-10 headed into week 15 and out of the playoff race. Head Coach Brandon Staley is almost certainly gone at the end of the season, the team is going nowhere and they’re playing out the string. Do the matchups still look good? I know this can happen with any player, but did the playoff schedule matter at all?
Sure, you can question the odds of the Chargers actually being that bad. They might struggle a bit, but 4-10? Not realistic. Except that’s exactly what the Rams were the year after winning the Super Bowl. So whatever weight was given to their schedule during your playoffs was meaningless. A waste of time.
Which brings up another point: When the record is that bad, injured guys don’t come back. Sean McVay doesn’t play his stars in the preseason, when the games don’t matter. So why would he play them at the end of the year, if the games also don’t matter? If the Rams were 11-3, could Cooper Kupp have come back? I have no idea. I just knew that their record meant the best players who have any kind of injury have little reason to return. And it’s a trend other teams follow as well. So your player might be on a hopeless team, or slow-walked to IR, or stuck with new starters that won’t help his stats. So what was the point of even looking at the playoff schedule?
Again, we’re talking about nearly four months after the season starts. But let’s say you somehow dodge all those bullets and you have the player you wanted and the matchup you wanted. You’re all set, right?
Well, maybe not. The team that was supposed to be a pushover might be better than expected, and have a solid defense. Or maybe they’re historically bad against the run or pass, which makes the other part of the offense an afterthought in the gameplan, which hurts your player.
Or maybe your player’s offensive line is terrible, making any matchup look worse than expected. Or you have a productive bench player with a better matchup you couldn’t have predicted over the summer, and none of this matters. Any of those things could happen over the course of one month, much less several.
But, you might ask, if that’s the argument then why bother doing any prep since you never know what will happen in the future? And sure, that’s true. Every draft or auction carries risk. But you’re going by what you see headed into week 1. You know if a guy is healthy and on a good team, or a star, or a big part of the offense, or has the potential to make an impact. Things change, but you go by what you know at the time.
When it comes to playoff matchups, you already know that you don’t know if it will matter. You can assume things based on what the start of the season looks like, and then you roll with the changes. But starting out making assumptions about four months into the season? You know that doesn’t make sense. It would be like holding your draft in early May.
By the way, I’m mostly talking about the middle and end of your draft, where most titles are won. When deciding between two guys, take the best one. Not the one with the convenient bye week, and not the one with the “better” playoff matchup. Pick the one you think will be most productive in that particular scoring system, and that’s it.
And feel free to ignore this advice if you want. I’m just trying to present ideas that can help you on draft day. When you have 90 seconds to make a pick, you don’t need to look over data that doesn’t matter. If I can save you a few seconds here and there, all the better for you. And I think time-saving techniques you implement in July will help you a few weeks down the road. I can't predict the future, but I'm pretty sure about that one.
Do you give any weight to a player’s playoff schedule when drafting? Has it ever burned you, or really paid off? Share your thoughts below.
