Ask the Experts

January 08, 2026

Who should be the top pick in a playoff fantasy league?

Puka, Josh popular choices

ASK THE EXPERTS appears weekly from training camp through the Super Bowl with answers to a new question being posted Thursday morning. How the guest experts responded when we asked them: Who should be the top pick in a playoff fantasy league?

JASON WOOD

The trick to winning fantasy playoff leagues is to correctly model how many games each player will play. Get the Super Bowl participants right, and focus on acquiring as many of those players as possible, and things generally work out. Similarly, if you think a team is going to get bounced in the first round, you really need to deeply discount their value even if they would be an elite first-round caliber player in a full-season redraft setup. With that in mind, I am predicting the Rams and Bills in the Super Bowl. And for that reason, my pick would be Puka Nacua, closely edging out James Cook. Nacua is a force of nature and we know he should deliver best-of-the-best production with or without Davante Adams in the lineup.

Wood is Senior Editor at Footballguys.com and has been with the company since its start in 2000. For more than 20 years, Footballguys has provided rankings, projections, and analysis to help fantasy managers dominate their leagues.

TOM KESSENICH

I've been struggling with this because with no dominant team in either conference I honestly don't know who to predict for the Super Bowl. But I continue to believe that if - HUGE emphasis on "if" - the Eagles can flip the switch offensively they have the best chance to run the table. So my No. 1 pick for a fantasy playoff league would be Saquon Barkley. I realize he is coming off a disappointing fantasy season but if the Eagles ARE going to make this Super Bowl run it will come with Barkley powering their offense like he did a season ago.

Kessenich is the Director of High Stakes Contests for SportsHub Games. He runs the NFFC, NFBC and NFBKC and is a fantasy sports Hall of Fame inductee.

SCOTT PIANOWSKI

I like the setup for Matthew Stafford. He's a heavy favorite in Week 1 and the Rams have a legitimate chance to win the NFC, which would give him a shot at four games. That established, it's probably a good year to have a later pick in a playoff draft. The field is very flat and you can make a case for so many different teams.

Pianowski has been with Yahoo Sports since 2008, covering a variety of sports. On the rare occasions when the computer is turned off, he enjoys word games, poker, music, film, game theory, and a variety of condiments. He lives in suburban Detroit. Pianowski was inducted into the FSWA Hall of Fame in 2021.

IAN ALLAN

Formats vary, but if you can get the key player off a team that plays four games, that's generally the way to go. The Rams, Patriots, Eagles and Jaguars would be the four I'd be looking at first. I guess throw in the Bills as well. The Rams are the one I feel best about, and that offense has really been cooking, with 47 touchdowns in its last 11 games. So I would be inclined to cast my lot with Matthew Stafford.

Allan co-founded Fantasy Football Index in 1987. He is a member of the FSGA Fantasy Sports Hall of Fame and the Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of Fame.

SAM HENDRICKS

I do not expect either Denver or Seattle to make the Super Bowl so they do not get a bump. Instead I think the Rams and Bills will advance so they get to play 4 games. I would take Puka Nacua first, then Kyren Williams followed by Matthew Stafford. Those are my top 3 picks in order. And James Cook comes in at 1.04.

Hendricks is the author of Fantasy Football Guidebook, Fantasy Football Tips and Fantasy Football Basics, all available at ExtraPointPress.com, at all major bookstores, and at Amazon and BN.com. He is a 30-year fantasy football veteran who participated in the National Fantasy Football Championship (NFFC) and finished 7th and 16th overall in the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC). He won the Fantasy Index Open in 2013 and 2018.

MIKE NAZAREK

QB Drake Maye, New England. Why? I believe the Patriots will play four games in the playoffs and he will lead the quarterback position by a wide margin.

Nazarek is the CEO of Fantasy Football Mastermind Inc, celebrating 30 years online! His company offers a preseason draft guide, customizable cheat sheets, a multi-use fantasy drafting program including auction values, weekly in-season newsletters, injury reports and free NFL news (updated daily) at its website, www.ffmastermind.com. He has been playing fantasy football since 1988 and is a four-peat champion of the SI.com Experts Fantasy League, a nationally published writer in several fantasy magazines and a former columnist for SI.com. He's also won $40K in recent seasons of the FFPC High Stakes Main Event. Nazarek can be reached via email at miken@ffmastermind.com.

SCOTT SACHS

As Buffalo does not have a bye week, it's an easy choice to go with Josh Allen. The AFC is not as tough as the NFC this season. There's no Seattle, LA Rams, or Green Bay to deal with. The comparable teams to Buffalo--Denver, New England, Jacksonville--are new to the playoffs. The Bills have dominated the AFC East for years, yet always seemed to stub their toe against Mahomes or Lamar. Well, KC and Baltimore are out, so this could be the time for Buffalo to trade in their bridesmaid bouquet and compete for the ring in the Super Bowl. Josh Allen will don his Superman cape, and while he may not win the Super Bowl, he should win fantasy championships for those who draft him.

With 2 perfect seasons and multiple league championships to his credit, Sachs runs Perfect Season Fantasy Football, featuring LIVE Talk & Text Advice. He is a 3-time winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Auction League, as well as a previous winner of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll. Follow on X: https://x.com/ffbcoach

ANDY RICHARDSON

I think the answer is Puka Nacua. He's had an amazing year, and the Rams are the team most certain in this year's playoff field to be playing multiple games. (Sorry, Carolina fans, but it's true.) Indeed, if the Rams win this week, and either the 49ers or Packers win, the Rams will head to either Philly or Chicago for a winnable game -- or even host a Divisional Round game if both those teams lose, which is not that far-fetched. I think the Rams are playing 2 games, might play 3 games and are one of the very few teams with a realistic chance to play 4. That gives Nacua the edge over someone like Josh Allen, who's awesome but will need to win in Jacksonville and probably Denver to play more than 2 games, which is a big ask.

Richardson has been a contributing writer and editor to the Fantasy Football Index magazine and www.fantasyindex.com since 2002. His responsibilities include team defense and IDP projections and various site features, and he has run the magazine's annual experts draft and auction leagues since their inception. He writes a weekly gambling newsletter, Index Bets, during the NFL season and also previews all the games on Saturdays and writes a wrap-up column on Mondays.

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