Gearing Up for the Fantasy Playoffs: Week 4

Sep 29, 2021

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We’re only a few weeks into the season but it’s never too early to think about the fantasy playoffs. I’ll go over three different scenarios as we enter Week 4, outlining the best way to approach your rosters with a focus on the postseason.

Using 4for4 tools, possible waiver adds and upcoming matchups, I’ll lay out a path for each record. With this advice, fantasy managers should have a short-term plan to either maintain their dominance or quickly pick up the momentum and get on a winning track.

Perfect 3-0

Congrats on sitting at the top of the league, but now is not the time to sit back and rest, as losses can come at you fast. With 11 or more weeks left to play in the fantasy regular season, we still need to assess our rosters to maximize output for the rest of 2021.

The first important task is to check your roster for upcoming bye weeks. I know it may seem like an obvious suggestion, but many managers decide to handle byes as they happen instead of planning ahead. If you’re proactive and make moves in advance, you’ll most likely grab better players and not have to deal with the fantasy managers who are just trying to stop the bleeding of their losing teams. By checking out our Hot Spots tool, you can get an overview of your players’ bye weeks and also see a color-coded map indicating their remaining opponents’ rankings in schedule-adjusted fantasy points (aFPA).

Also, by looking at strength of schedule we can pinpoint bye week fill-ins to target via the waiver wire or trade. Some examples of players with great upcoming schedules are Zack Moss and Curtis Samuel, whose return is imminent after a groin injury. Moss has a bye in Week 7, then gets three straight contests against teams ranked 31st, 29th and 30th, respectively, in aFPA. As an added bonus, Moss’s fantasy playoff schedule is pretty sweet with a Week 16 tilt against New England (26th), followed by the 28th-ranked Falcons in Week 17.

Samuel gets a soft path from Weeks 7-9, as he faces opposing defenses who’ve yielded an average of 35.8 in half-PPR aFPA to wideouts so far in 2021.

Another possible angle is to check out the rosters of your not-so-fortunate league mates and see if you can upgrade at your weakest position. You probably have an extra tight end or maybe a quarterback laying around that a manager with fewer wins would love to get their hands on. Teams not winning are scrambling to do so and may let a superstar go in order to get consistent production at another position.

Middle of the Pack

This is a good and bad spot to be in because your roster is probably solid, but you’ve either been bitten by the injury bug or had some high draft picks underperform.

One thing to evaluate is how those losses occurred. Is there a huge discrepancy between projections and outcomes? Can that be traced to a decrease in opportunity? If so, you may need to find some pieces in better situations moving forward so that the usage and volume are to your benefit.

Take a look at your wins and see if it was one or two monster performances that carried your team to victory or if you had even wins with a concerted effort. That can also help when evaluating your current roster to maximize points down the stretch.

Be sure to use the 4for4 tools and weekly articles on drops and stashes and streaming to stay on top of your roster. Players you have riding the bench right now may have had a perceived value when you drafted them, but situations change in the NFL and we have to accommodate those on a weekly basis.

Winless (But Still Optimistic)

It’s only been three weeks, so if your team hasn’t scored more than your opponent yet, no need to panic. But you do have to evaluate what is bogging down your roster and do everything you can to change the course of the 2021 season.

Looking at the snap counts of the players on your roster is a great step in determining where the lack of production lies. We have an appropriately named Snap App at 4for4, which will show why guys like Phillip Lindsay and A.J. Dillon aren't producing right now, as they are both on the field for fewer than 30% of their teams' snaps.

If you click right on over to the Target App section, you can see why DeAndre Hopkins and Robby Anderson have let us down, as they have each received a passing game target below 10% of their snaps. By utilizing each of those tools you can identify desirable players on the waiver wire, or more likely on other teams, to possibly target and elevate your winless squad.

When going down the trade road, it’s time to consider getting rid of players who you were hoping to give you a late-season boost. Try to create a multiple-player deal for one piece (a 2v1 trade) who has explosive potential, and see if you can’t find a manager who has some big names coming off disappointing performances.

You need wins now and have to put out the best roster possible. That sounds fairly obvious, but any way you can upgrade your starter by getting rid of depth and back-end pieces is essential. Let go of unnecessary handcuffs, backups to “onesie” positions and rookies who aren’t seeing the field. At 0-3, bench depth luxuries are no longer a thing until we get some wins.