The FFPC Playoff Challenge is one of my favorite fantasy playoff tournaments to play every year. The tournament has been around since 2018, but has taken form over the past few seasons. It is extremely unique in that it only allows you to select one player from each playoff team. I have collected the data from the past three years of the tournament to uncover edges in the types of lineups that have done well each season.
First, I will go over the rules to help explain what the tournament is and how to play if you have not heard of the tournament before.
All of the information can be found on the FFPC site here.
FFPC offers both a $200 and $35 tournament. Both have the same rules, but the $35 dollar tournament has about double the number of entries, so it will be slightly harder to win it all. At 16,000 total entries, it still isn’t anything like playing the Milly Maker each week on DraftKings, so it’s definitely not lottery sized.
As I stated earlier, you are only allowed to pick one player from each playoff team to fill out a roster consisting of 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 4 FLEX (RB, WR, TE), 1 Kicker, and 1 Defense.
If you add up those roster spots you will notice that you will be forced to choose no players from two of the playoff teams. These will be teams you are fading to not make it out of the wild card round. You also want to pick a kicker and defense from teams that will lose their first game.
The scoring is the same as any FFPC leagues: 4 points per passing TD, 6 for all other TDs, 1 point per 20 passing yards, 1 point per 10 rushing/receiving yards, and 1 point per reception — except tight ends, who get 1.5 points per reception (TE premium scoring). All points are doubled for players in the Super Bowl.
Defense scoring is pretty typical of what you see in most leagues: 1 point for sacks, 2 points for an interception or fumble, etc. However, your defense will only lose points up until they give up 10 points. After 10 points, they receive the same amount of points, whether it is 12 or 35. More on that later.
Now with that out of the way, let's get into the fun information. For the most part, my data analysis was done on the top 150 rosters each season.
How to Allocate your FLEX Positions
How you choose to utilize your four FLEX positions can be very important to your chances of winning. Obviously, every year is somewhat different and there are going to be better RBs, WR, and TEs depending on the teams in the playoffs, but we can look for general trends of what works and what doesn’t. Below is a table showing the percentage of positions used in rosters of both all the teams in the tournament and the top 150 teams over the past three seasons.
| Running Back | Wide Receiver | Tight End | ||||
| All Teams | Top 150 | All Teams | Top 150 | All Teams | Top 150 | |
| At least 2 | 100% | 100.0% | 100% | 100.0% | 44.5% | 23.8% |
| At least 3 | 49.1% | 59.4% | 84.9% | 91.0% | 10.7% | 4.6% |
| At least 4 | 17.7% | 25.5% | 58.2% | 65.1% | 1.3% | 0.2% |
| At least 5 | 3.7% | 5.0% | 31.5% | 38.0% | 0.3% | 0.0% |
| At least 6 | 0.6% | 1.1% | 12.3% | 18.6% | N/A | N/A |
The important thing to note here is that when the NFL added two additional teams to the playoffs in 2020, FFPC added two more flex spots so it was not possible to roster 5 or more running backs or wide receivers until the 2020 season.
My initial thought on how to be unique was to use more than one tight end, possibly. They do get an extra half of a point per reception, and we have seen some strong tight ends in the playoffs over the years. This year we have Travis Kelce, George Kittle, Dallas Goedert, and Mark Andrews, just to name a few. However, to my surprise, that was not remotely the case. 44.5% of all teams use more than one tight end… and only 23.8% of the top 150 teams used more than one. So while it can work to use more than one tight end, people are doing it almost double the time it actually works. That trend is seen for three or four tight ends as well.
This basically makes it totally unnecessary to use more than one tight end unless you are getting extremely unique with it, and high-scoring tight ends are already hard enough to pick. Even if we remove the 2019 season with fewer FLEX spots, 2+ TEs structures were still only rostered 33% of the time and were utilized 40% on all teams. I do think it is OK to use more than one tight end given the 33% success rate over the past two years, but I don’t think it makes you as unique as you think, so you’ll have to get different elsewhere.
Overuse of tight ends has caused both running backs and wide receivers to be slightly underused. 91% of top 150 teams have at least three wide receivers, and 65% have at least four. Don’t build a team with fewer than three WRs, and it is probably a good idea to have at least four. Again removing 2019, we see 88.8% of the top 150 teams have at least four wide receivers.
Things get dicey for running backs after you have three on your team. This is not entirely surprising, as we have generally seen teams with strong passing attacks make it to the playoffs and make deeper runs. But in 2020, over half the top 150 teams rostered at least four running backs, so it definitely can work. You could build a team this season on which Christian McCaffrey, Austin Ekeler, Tony Pollard, and Saquon Barkley all have a very real chance to be their team’s primary scorer. Just remember to think through how the rest of the lineup is constructed. If you want to use someone like Jerick McKinnon, could he really match the scores of Patrick Mahomes or Kelce over multiple playoff games? Possibly, but he would have a much better chance of doing it should the Chiefs just have an overall rough day on offense and lose early.
Games Played by Position
Now we are going to look at the number of games played for each position on top 150 teams over the past three seasons.
| Quarterback | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | Total |
| 1 Game | 49.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 16.6% |
| 2 Games | 7.7% | 0.0% | 89.4% | 32.3% |
| 3 Games | 43.2% | 1.3% | 10.5% | 18.5% |
| 4 Games | 0.0% | 96.7% | 0.0% | 31.8% |
The above table shows you want your QB playing at least two games, if not as many as possible. In 2020, Tom Brady was on 98% of the top 150 teams and played in 4 games. In 2019, Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes were each on around 50% of the winning teams. Lamar teams survived him playing only one game, but it required a massive 34-point fantasy score for them to do so. Mahomes played 3 games and went to the Super Bowl. Last season was a bit unique in that the Rams and Bengals were not the favorites to reach the Super Bowl. Not only that, but Josh Allen played only two games, but scored a whopping 81 fantasy points. To put that into perspective, Joe Burrow played in four games but scored only 78 points.
When choosing your QB, you need them to be extremely efficient even if they only play two games. That really only leaves you the option of choosing QBs with very high upside, such as Mahomes, Allen, and Jalen Hurts. Any other QB would really need those big three to lose in the playoffs early and not score well, so you’d be fading three of the best teams in the NFL. Joe Burrow is likely the only other QB with a close enough ceiling. 96% of the QBs on the top 150 lineups were projected to play 2+ games in the playoffs.
RBs on Top 150 Rosters to Reach # of Games Played
| Running Back | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 1 Game | 42.1% | 25.3% | 0.9% | 0.0% |
| 2+ Games | 48.2% | 19.9% | 17.2% | 2.2% |
| 3+ Games | 24.2% | 30.0% | 0.9% | 0.0% |
| 4 Games | 20.3% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
As we saw earlier, you can roster up to six running backs on your team using your FLEX positions. The table shows the number of games played for running backs gets very small past 3 RBs, because teams get eliminated in the playoffs and it is rare for a team with 4+ RBs to make it into the top 150.
In general, it is rare for teams to have RBs that make deep runs into the playoffs. This makes intuitive sense because of the PPR scoring of FFPC, plus over the past three seasons, the NFL teams making deep playoff runs have had stronger passing attacks. The 2021 playoffs had Cooper Kupp, Ja’Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins outscoring RBs on their respective teams. The 2020 playoffs had the Buccaneers and the Chiefs in the Super Bowl — both had potent passing attacks. The one exception to the rule was in 2019 with the 49ers led by running back Raheem Mostert, who scored triple the amount of fantasy points as any WR on his team. He ended up on 88% of the top 150 teams in 2019.
All this should lead you to try and choose running backs that can be the highest scorer on their team, and if the team were to make a run in the playoffs have it be because of them. Christian McCaffrey is a great example of this for the 49ers. Any RB on the Eagles, Chiefs, Bills, or Bengals would have a hard time being their highest scorer unless you are betting on them getting an early playoff exit. Players like Joe Mixon or Jerick McKinnon would be interesting leverage plays if you build the rest of your lineup as if the Bengals or Vikings lose early, but the RB has a big game that overshadows the QBs and WRs.
WRs on Top 150 Rosters to Reach # of Games Played
| Wide Receiver | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 1 Game | 38.4% | 38.2% | 15.0% | 0.7% |
| 2+ Games | 9.6% | 69.0% | 21.2% | 0.2% |
| 3+ Games | 53.1% | 11.8% | 0.2% | 0.0% |
| 4 Games | 13.1% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
Wide receiver games played are similar to running backs, mostly because of the success of QBs and TEs making deep runs, but we do see that WRs playing more games on your roster is important to some degree. There hasn’t been a WR to play four games that you had to have on your team other than Cooper Kupp, and the Rams were not the favorites to make it to the Super Bowl. We do see a much larger percentage of top teams to roster at least 2 WRs to play 2+ games, but stop short of 3+. It is not hard for an alpha wide receiver to have two big games in a row in a full PPR scoring system. 2020 Stefon Diggs, 2020 Davante Adams, and 2021 Mike Evans were all on 90+% of the top 150 teams in their respective seasons and played exactly two games.
The main takeaway for wide receivers is that they provide the most flexibility of all the positions. In general, it is good to have a larger number of them because they have such high ceilings compared to everyone but quarterbacks, but also, you don’t need them to play a ton of games.
Just remember: the longer you think a team can make a run, the more often that wide receiver will have to continue to be his team’s highest scorer. For example, if you want to build a roster that tells the story of the Bills reaching the Super Bowl and want to use Gabe Davis, you are asking a lot for him to not only outscore Josh Allen but also take over as the team’s WR1 for at least 3 games in a row.
Davis would make a lot more sense if you are building as if the Bills only play one or two games, where he can hit his ceiling instead of Diggs.
TEs on Top 150 Rosters to Reach # of Games Played
| Tight End | 1 | 2 |
| 1 Game | 27.3% | 3.1% |
| 2+ Games | 81.2% | 1.5% |
| 3+ Games | 82.1% | 0.4% |
| 4 Games | 0.0% | 0.0% |
The FFPC 1.5 PPR scoring for tight ends can make elite tight ends even more elite. No player is more elite at the position than Travis Kelce, and he is the reason the above table shows the results that it does. In each of the past three seasons, the Chiefs have played three playoff games and 82.1% of top 150 teams contained one tight end who plays at least three games.
Despite the likes of George Kittle, Rob Gronkowski, and Mark Andrews being in the playoffs over the years with Kelce, it was extremely rare to have two tight ends on the same roster play a significant amount of games. With 27% of teams only having one tight end on their roster play one game, it can be viable to punt the position in a way where a single-game team gets eliminated but their tight end happens to put up a good score. But definitely do not try to guess two “punt” tight ends on the same team. Only 3% of top teams have two tight ends play only one game.
This will be discussed further, but it is going to be hard to build a team without Kelce. If you want to get exposure to other tight ends it is recommended you either play two, with one being Kelce and the other being from a team that likely loses early such as a Mark Andrews, or hope a George Kittle or Dallas Goedert can be the dominant scorer on their team for multiple games plus Mahomes or another Chief significantly outscores Kelce in possibly an early Chiefs exit.
Kickers and Defenses
The only thing you need to know about kicker and defense games played is that you want yours to play only one game. Kickers and defenses will not outscore QBs or skill position players over multiple games, so you should focus on choosing your kicker and defense from teams you do not expect to win.
How to Differentiate Your Roster
You will, without a doubt, hear that you need to differentiate your lineup and can’t just play the best player from each team. While it is definitely true to try and make a lineup that won’t cause you to tie with 100 other teams, you also don’t want to try and get cute in the wrong ways.
The top six most-rostered players on top 150 teams in 2021 were Cooper Kupp (100%), Mike Evans (93%), Deebo Samuel (92%), Josh Allen (90%), Travis Kelce (88%), and Davante Adams (83%). All of those players were considered one of the best options, if not the best option, on their teams last season and all were under-rostered over the entire field. Most teams like the Bills or Bucs had two or three great options and it usually comes down to just nailing those coin-flip decisions, all on the same roster.
There is no reason to choose an Adam Thielen or Tyler Boyd on your team, because these 3rd or 4th options in the offense will have such a hard time being high scorers on their teams over multiple games. Tee Higgins was rostered on only 9% of all teams last season, and likewise ended up on only 9% of the top 150 teams and he is still an excellent player. Focus on getting different among teams’ top options or targeting ambiguous WR or RB groups, such as the Cowboys' running backs Tony Pollard and Ezekiel Elliott, or the Bucs’ Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Just nailing these coin-flip decisions will be enough to make your roster different.
I do want to discuss Travis Kelce specifically. The Chiefs have been in the playoffs each of the past three seasons. Kelce’s overall ownership on top-150 teams across all three seasons is 80%. That means if Kelce is in the playoffs, there has been an 80% chance he is on a top 150 team. The only other players close to him are Davante Adams (78%) and Derrick Henry (69%), both of whom are not in the playoffs. This makes it extremely hard to fade Kelce, even if Mahomes is also a solid option. Even with a projected ownership of over 50%, he is still likely under-rostered, and it is easier to use one of the many other great QB options available instead of Mahomes.
One last note on choosing your defense. FFPC scoring is a bit unique in that your defense stops losing points after giving up 10 points. If you’ve watched many games this season, you likely know giving up less than 10 points in any game is extremely rare except for the best teams. However, you don’t want to waste a good team by taking their defense. Basically, don’t worry about choosing a defense that can get blown out and instead focus on defenses that can generate sacks and turnovers — the Miami Dolphins come to mind. Josh Allen is prone to sacks and turnovers, and the Miami defense is likely to be under-rostered.
The Patriots were the highest-rostered defense in 2021 at 45% and ended up on 42% of top-150 teams… but they scored zero fantasy points! The Steelers, on the other hand were only rostered on 3% of all teams and 9% of top 150 teams, and they scored 13 fantasy points. That was the highest score for a single-game defense in the playoffs last season which is exactly what you are targeting. Even though they were playing the Chiefs, I was a huge fan of the Steelers last season, hoping TJ Watt and company could generate sacks on Mahomes who loved to move around in the pocket. I didn’t care that they might get 30+ points scored on them because every team in the playoffs was likely to give up at least 10 points.
A good defense won’t be the reason you reach the top 150, but it can be the difference in finishing 150th and 1st.
Usable Player Pool
Kansas City Chiefs: Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes, Jerick McKinnon (Leverage)
Buffalo Bills: Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, Gabe Davis (Leverage), Devin Singletary (Leverage)
Cincinnati Bengals: Ja’Marr Chase, Joe Mixon, Joe Burrow (Leverage), Tee Higgins (Leverage)
Jacksonville Jaguars: Travis Etienne, Christian Kirk, Evan Engram, Zay Jones (Leverage)
Los Angeles Chargers: Austin Ekeler, Keenan Allen, Mike Williams (Leverage)
Baltimore Ravens: Justin Tucker, Mark Andrews, BLT Defense (Leverage)
Philadelphia Eagles: Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith (Leverage), Dallas Goedert (Leverage)
San Francisco 49ers: Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel (Leverage), George Kittle (Leverage)
Minnesota Vikings: Justin Jefferson, Dalvin Cook (Leverage)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Chris Godwin, Mike Evans, TB Defense (Leverage), Ryan Succop (Leverage)
Dallas Cowboys: Tony Pollard, CeeDee Lamb, Dalton Schultz (Leverage), Brett Maher (Leverage)
New York Giants: Saquon Barkley, NYG Fade, NYG Defense (Leverage)
Seattle Seahawks: SEA Fade, DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett (Leverage)
Miami Dolphins: MIA Fade, MIA Defense (Leverage), Tyreek Hill (Leverage)
Projected Ownership
You can find my player ownership projections here that I will update until kickoff for the first game.
Finally, HAVE FUN! Use this link to enter the FFPC Playoff Challenge.
