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By Steven Van Tassell (@SteveVT33)
Let’s talk about playoff byes. It seems odd to be thinking about them while we still have a dozen NFL teams who have yet to have their regular season bye. That’s inevitable when the NFL schedules bye weeks through Week 14. There were people concerned that the Dynasty Owner (and other fantasy football league) playoffs would start in Week 14 with teams on bye when the Week 14 bye weeks first appeared last year.
We will probably discuss NFL bye weeks again in Week 14 when playoff berths will be on the line and six teams (Atlanta, Chicago, Green Bay, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and Washington) will be on bye. This week, we have four teams (Jacksonville, Miami, Seattle and Tampa Bay) on bye, but Dynasty Owner playoff bye weeks are the focus of this article. The Dynasty Owner playoffs are the standard fantasy football six team playoff format with the top two teams receiving a first round bye. Our playoffs start with the #3 seed playing the #6 seed and the #4 seed playing the #5 seed in Week 15 of the NFL season. If you finish as the #1 or #2 seed your team gets a bye.
I realize now that this is standard and I’m getting used to it, but it’s taken me a few years. My home redraft league that I’ve played in for over 20 years is different. We have three divisions, and you play every team outside of your division once and the other three teams in your division twice for a total of 14 regular season games. The three division winners and a Wild Card team with the best record of all the non-division winners make the playoffs. That’s right, only four teams make the playoffs and there are no byes. Two weeks of playoffs and that’s it. We didn’t even have a third place game until a few years ago. I thought that was how all fantasy football leagues were until I started playing in more leagues and on different platforms than CBS Sports.
Four teams in the playoffs is what it used to be in the old school NFL days right after the NFL-AFL merger. From 1970 to 1977, only four teams in each conference made the playoffs, the three division winners and one Wild Card. The playoffs expanded to five teams per conference in 1978 with a stand-alone Wild Card game. This was the playoff system until 1989 when the NFL went to six teams per conference making the playoffs. It makes sense that most Dynasty Owner, and most fantasy football leagues, have six teams make the playoffs as that was the way it was in the NFL from 1990 until 2020. Fantasy football started before 1990 (supposedly the first league started in 1963 according to this article from The San Diego Union-Tribune). However, the explosion in fantasy football happened when six teams per conference made the playoffs. It’s not surprising that the most common fantasy football playoff system mirrors the NFL playoff system in effect at the time.
Back to Dynasty Owner as our playoff format has been in effect since 2020. As I’ve mentioned before, the 2019 beta season had 10 team leagues and four teams making the playoffs that lasted for two weeks. If you are new, the current Dynasty Owner playoff system is on pages 20 and 21 of the Dynasty Owner Constitution, including the playoff seeding tie breakers and the 3-week playoff format that includes reseeding after the first round. With reseeding, not only is it important for a team to finish in the top two so that they earn a first round bye, but finishing first gives the first place team an additional advantage of facing the lowest ranked first round playoff winner.
The focus on getting a playoff bye might be coming into focus in your Dynasty Owner league. It definitely is in the league that has our Match-up of the Week. The teams featured have identical records and have scored a similar number of points so far. They are separated by only 68.4 points, which can be made up in the remaining four Dynasty Owner regular season weeks. They have the advantage over the third and fourth place teams on points. Since the top two teams play each other, the winner will be in first place and the loser could drop all the way down to fourth place. Check out this week’s Match-up of the Week to find out the teams and the league.
For the purposes of this article, all statistics, ADP and Dynasty Owner roster percentages were current as of the afternoon of Thursday, November 17th.
Dynasty Owner Match-up of the Week
High Rollerz vs. Quaranteam – Writer’s League (League #80545)
First place in the Writer’s League is at stake in this Match-up of the Week and as mentioned above, the loser could fall as low as fourth place. Both teams are 8-2 and in the Top 100 of the Chase for the Ring standings. Quaranteam is in first place and has scored 1,596.8 points to sit in 25th place in the Chase, while High Rollerz are in second place with 1,528.4 points, which is good for 73rd place. The third and fourth place teams (DixieNormus and Dirty Hippie Farmer) are also both 8-2 and don’t play each other this week, so both teams could be 9-2 after Week 11. If that happens, the loser of the Match-up of the Week will be 8-3 and in fourth place. They may still be in the Top 100 of the Chase for the Ring, but in danger of finishing outside of the top two in their League and having to play in the first week of the Dynasty Owner playoffs. The winner is in the driver’s seat for a first round bye.
Let’s see what the Match-up of the Week projections looked like before the start of Thursday Night Football.
This is going to be a very close match-up as High Rollerz are favored to beat Quaranteam by only 3.32 points. With this tight of a projected game score, I’m not sure why High Rollerz have a 57.8% Win probability, but that’s what it says. It also says that Quaranteam has 14 players to play, but they have Marquise Brown ($2,946,835) and his projected 10.72 points on their Bench right now. Since he is still listed as IR, it’s not counting him as “To Play” even though his projected points are included. I checked to make sure about that.
If Brown isn’t expected to play on Monday Night Football, it’ll hurt as Quaranteam is out of WRs with both Tyreek Hill ($18,000,000) and Jaylen Waddle ($6,771,498) on a bye and Odell Beckham Jr. ($1,250,000) still not playing. They might need to get someone off the Free Agent Auction, but have plenty of salary cap room (over $17 million) and five roster spots to have their pick of the available free agents. It’s not a bad position to be in for Quaranteam.
More concerning for High Rollerz might be the weather in Buffalo for the Bills-Browns game. Snow is expected all weekend with accumulations of three to six feet (not a typo, it’s feet). If that happens, then the High Rollerz starting QB Josh Allen ($43,005,667) could be negatively affected. They could switch and move Allen to the Bench and have Taylor Heinicke ($2,375,000) in their Starting lineup. That move would reduce their projections by 8.01 points and make Quaranteam the favorite. It’s difficult to think about putting Allen on the Bench, but the weather coupled with Allen’s elbow injury might make that the correct decision. That’s the situation that High Rollerz and everyone with Allen needs to think about before Sunday at 1 PM (Eastern).
Quaranteam does have Devin Singletary ($974,500) playing in that anticipated bad weather in their Starting lineup at RB, but his projections are lower, and they have Najee Harris ($3,261,862) on their Bench. Imagine at the start of the season that a team would have Najee Harris on their Bench in favor of Singletary, and it wouldn’t be criticized in an analysis of the team’s lineup.
High Rollerz are weak at TE with Juwan Johnson ($895,000) in their Starting lineup and Harrison Bryant ($1,016,007) on the Bench after the injury to Dallas Goedert ($14,250,000). In contrast, Quaranteam has Tyler Higbee ($7,250,000) as their Starting TE and Travis Kelce in the FLEX ($14,312,500). Definite advantage for Quaranteam and maybe a difference maker in their match-up.
The final lineup decision to highlight is Quaranteam using Lamar Jackson ($23,016,000) as their Starting QB and having Jalen Hurts ($1,506,292) as their Bench QB. The projections support this choice as Lamar is projected to score 2.15 more points. That’s the opposite of their performance so far this season as Hurts is QB3 and outscoring QB5 Jackson by 2.1 points per game. It’ll be interesting who Quaranteam has as their Starter and if the decision matters in the end.
Check back on Tuesday in the weekly recap article to see who won the Match-up of the Week and is in first place in the Writer’s league. Both teams might still be in the Chase for the Ring Top 100 depending on how many points they score. In fact, Quaranteam may find themselves in fourth place in the League, but still in the Top 25 of the Chase if they score enough points, but not enough to defeat High Rollerz.
As we get closer to the Dynasty Owner playoffs, there will be some pretty tough matchups that could determine first place in a league or whether a team actually makes it into the playoffs. If your team is in this situation and you want to be next week’s Match-up of the Week, let me know on Twitter (@SteveVT33).
Conclusion
Playoffs are coming to Dynasty Owner sooner than you might realize. While there are still 12 teams in the NFL who haven’t had a bye and eight weeks left in the NFL season, there are only four weeks left in the Dynasty Owner regular season. After Week 11 is over, there will be three Dynasty Owner regular season games left. Just as many games as the Dynasty Owner playoffs (and Loser’s Bracket tournament).
Hopefully your Dynasty Owner team has either clinched a playoff berth or is well on their way to doing so. While it’s not 100% guaranteed, the winner of our Match-up of the Week can start planning for the playoffs as they will be 9-2 and have a minimum of a 3-game lead over the sixth place team. It might be a 4-game lead and they will definitely be in, but even with a 3-game lead, they should make the playoffs on the first tie breaker (Total Points Scored for the Regular Season).
Next week is Thanksgiving and a big day of football, family, food and fun. The articles will still come out on the usual schedule, while a Thanksgiving week schedule for both the Dynasty Owner podcast and Livestream is still being determined and will be announced shortly. Here’s the article schedule for next week:
- Mondays: The stand-alone weekly Surprise and Totally Predictable Event article will start off the week on Monday morning. Jay Pounds will also preview the Monday Night Football matchup from the Dynasty Owner perspective.
- Tuesdays: The Dynasty Owner recap article that highlights the players who should have been in your weekly Starting lineup and those who should have been on the Bench appears on Tuesday. Jay Pounds puts together his weekly Free Agent Auction targets article for Tuesday as well. This article will help you figure out what players to bid on before the first Free Agent Auction run of the week is processed on Wednesday at 5 AM (Eastern).
- Wednesday: Matt Morrison – The Jerk continued his Opportunity is (Almost) Everything series this past Wednesday by looking at the RBs who get the most opportunities and who are the most efficient. He’ll look at WRs next Wednesday, then TEs the week after Thanksgiving. His weekly rankings also pop up on Wednesdays.
- Thursday: Next Thursday is Thanksgiving, and there are no teams on bye and three NFL games on the schedule. Matt Morrison – The Jerk will preview the Thanksgiving games and also tell Dynasty Owners who should be in their Starting lineup and on their Bench. He’ll also have at least one “Value of the Game”.
- Friday: My weekly Starting lineup and Bench recommendations article will get published on Friday as well. That article also has a look back at the previous week’s recommendations.
Please read all of our articles and tune into our other content this week. The Dynasty Owner podcast with myself and Jay is scheduled to be recorded this Friday for release later in the day. We are also hoping to have a Friday lunchtime Livestream with myself and Dynasty Owner CEO Tim Peffer. If you can’t watch it live, then catch it on the Dynasty Owner YouTube channel later on. Apologies for the delay with both of them.
Don’t forget follow Dynasty Owner on Twitter as well. Thanks for reading!
Steven Van Tassell is the Head of Content for Dynasty Owner
Follow us on Twitter: @SteveVT33 and @Dynasty_Owner