Playoff Draft Theory

*based on a 6 or 7 team draft.

When I build for playoff drafts it all comes down to where you pick, who picks ahead of you, and complete roster correlation. Taking the “best available” takes a new tone when you have to pick players based on teams you predict to play the most games. If you simply fill teams with players with no regard for stacking situations you will end up with the lowest possible ceiling. There is no hedging in playoff drafting, we take all or nothing, my friends.

Step one is to look through the bracket and make decisions on who wins the playoff rounds. Because of reseeding to face the #1 seed your strategy will be completely dependent on who you have going through. You will need 1 to 2 teams from each division and pay attention to how the bracket will shake out in your scenarios, so you keep the players you select from playing against each other until the last possible moment.

For example, I like the Niners to go all the way. I also expect the Rams to upset the Lions in Detroit. So, unless you are also picking the Packers to defeat the Cowboys you can not correlate a Niners stack with a Rams stack because they would get paired up against each other in the second round. In the same token if you think all the favorites win then the Niners will get the Eagles in the second round so then you can’t pair them up with your Niners stack and you would want to target either the Lions or the Cowboys as your compliment to the Niners in a double NFC stack.

As you can see, filling out your bracket first is the key to maximizing opportunity. I personally like to get 4 players from my main team stack from each conference and depending on the amount of draft rounds and teams I like a back up stack of 3 players from each conference as well.
You must be willing to change strategy as every single decision can be changed by your opponent’s picks. Just remember to correlate most importantly with your quarterbacks and have not only your initial bracket filled out and next to you but a blank one to change the scenarios as the draft flushes out to make sure whatever group you are forced into drafting you can be sure to correlate with picks from the other side of the bracket and keep you players away from playing each other a long as possible.

The player rankings aren’t crazy necessary as it will fall into place as you build your stacks. I don’t take chances or dart throws if possible and I’m not huge into taking handcuffs unless they have a role or you have a dead space on your roster.

I’m taking Miami and Los Angeles to upset and I am leaning toward Tampa Bay as well if Baker is good to go. In that scenario for the NFC I want SF with Tampa or Dallas on the NFC side and you would want to take a combo of Baltimore and Cleveland or Buffalo and Miami. 

My Stacking Order:
SF
BUF
BAL
CLE
DAL
MIA
LAR
TB
DET
PHI
KC
HOU
GB
PIT