NFL Playoff 2026: One and Done Playoffs - Divisional Round Update

Wild Card weekend is in the books. And, even if it didn’t go exactly how you had planned, that doesn’t mean your One & Done season is over. This is the rare type of competition where you can still dig yourself out - especially after one week. You get a new lineup each time around and, no matter how you played the first week, you still have plenty of guys left to field a competitive lineup.

That said, the rounds following this one get more and more dicey - especially in the Super Bowl. At that stage, if you played things wrong, you MIGHT not be able to field a competitive lineup. So we’re going to continue giving our advice for each round as we go here. I’ll include some of the basic tips from the first article in case you missed that, and then we’ll get into this week.

OTHER PLAYOFF FORMAT ADVICE: 

Playoff Best Ball Tips and Rankings

FFPC Playoff Challenge Strategy and Expert Advice

The Basic Rules For One & Done Playoff Contests

The idea is simple, but it doesn’t hurt to hit the basics quickly. For leagues like FFPC, you are picking one lineup and riding that out for the duration of the playoffs. Here, we are picking a new lineup each week. 

This applies to sites like MFL.com, RTSports, or tournaments like Rob Norton’s Baby Bowl (if you aren’t in that one, simply message Rob Norton on Twitter telling him you want in, make a donation, and you’re in!) The twist, of course, is that, once you use a player, you can’t use him again. 

So, if you use Josh Allen in Wild Card weekend, then he goes to the Super Bowl, you better hope you have the other quarterback left playing in that game.

Building A Winning One & Done Playoff Contest Strategy

Our strategy is going to be a combination of three things. Playing the odds, playing the matchups, and game theory.

If you create a narrative and things break just right for you, you can take it home. Let’s get into it. 

Playing The Odds When Building One & Done Lineups

You have to play the odds to some degree here. Whether you lean into the favorites or try to “be unique” by projecting long shots to make the Super Bowl, you have to have some semblance of a plan. 

All teams are not created equal in terms of their odds of making deep runs. And having players from those final few games still available to you at the end is crucial, especially at the “onesie” positions like quarterback, tight end, and even DST and kicker. 

Let’s take the wildcard weekend last year as an example. Let’s say you were choosing between Saquon Barkley and Najee Harris. 

At first glance, it seems like Saquon Barkley would have been the optimal choice because he scored more points. But when you take into account the outcomes of the games and the future games, it actually becomes pretty clear that Najee Harris was the better pick. 

If you look at both the Super Bowl odds and the Wild Card Round spread, it’s pretty clear that the Eagles were expected to win and the Steelers were expected to lose. And that’s what happened. That means that was the only game where you could use Najee Harris in this format, whereas the Eagles went on to play three more games. And, in those games, Saquon Barkley scored 39.2, 31.2, and 15.7 points. Wild Card week was actually the worst week to use him.

And, even more importantly, Barkley went to the Super Bowl, where you had far more limited options. As we mentioned, Barkley scored 15.7 points - the next highest scoring back was Karrem Hunt, who scored 2.4 PPR points. If you didn’t save Barkley, you lost out on a good amount of replacement value there.

Keep in mind - WINNING the Super Bowl doesn’t matter. Guys like Jalen Hurts and Tom Brady have been top-scoring fantasy QBs in Super Bowls that they lost. So we look at the odds of MAKING the Super Bowl. Here are the mostupdated remaining odds per BetMGM. It’s interesting to note that the Broncos went from AFC favorites to third without playing a single game.

Playing The Matchups When Building One & Done Lineups

The ideal outcome is for you to have players who do well in a losing effort early on. That’s optimal. But it’s still extremely important that they do well - you need to score points, after all. In the early rounds, when you have a lot of options at your disposal, it’s actually more important to get points than it is for the guy to get eliminated. Even in the Super Bowl, there are two teams to choose from. If you use a Super Bowl WR in round 1 and he goes off, it’s not the end of the world. Here’s what we had to say before Week 1 - both DK Metcalf and Rico Dowdle finished outside of WR20 and RB20, so playing the matchups was wise.

So, in that regard, matchups are key. For instance, we expect the Steelers to lose. But do we really want to run DK Metcalf up against the Houston Texans “Swarm City” defense? Same goes for Rico Dowdle and the Panthers. How much running will they be able to do against a tough Rams defense as 10 point underdogs? There are six teams that will get eliminated this week so you don’t HAVE to use someone from each of them. Even if you think a team will win, it might make sense to use them here if the matchup is great. 

Game Theory For NFL Playoff One & Done Contests

There are a number of different ways to use game theory to gain leverage. So let’s lay them out.

Positional Game Theory

We mentioned the “onesie” positions. Consider which positions are deep and which are thin. There are a lot of decent quarterback options. I mean, the nature of the position suggests that a quarterback is going to be involved regardless for each team in every game. So QB is a fairly deep position.

Tight end, on the other hand, can be thin. The top six fantasy scoring tight ends from the regular season are all eliminated. George Kittle was the best remaining tight end, and we saw what unfortunately transpired there. So we’ll have to scrap at the position fromhere on out. 

Conference Game Theory

It’s been a key point of the article, but you do need to strategically “save” guys for the Super Bowl. As we mentioned, if you use all the viable tight ends up, you won’t have one left for the big game. One way to handle that is to add up the players you like at each position in each conference. If one conference is loaded, you can lean into that early and save guys from the other conference. This is a popular strategy, especially at quarterback.

I put together a basic depth chart with some players color-coded at the bottom of this article to give you a feel for how to value these guys. Just a quick glance shows us that there are a LOT of viable running backs on the NFC side - especially since at least three teams have two backs you can realistically start with the Seahawks, Rams, and Bears. That means you can use up NFC running backs a lot more easily in the early rounds if you want, with a plan to just start whatever AFC running back is left in the Super Bowl. 

Team Game Theory

As you can see in the grid at the bottom, some teams are also more loaded at singular positions than others. For instance, multiple NFC teams have multiple viable running backs in fantasy. If you use Kenneth Walker or D’Andre Swift and the Seahawks/Bears advance, you still have Zach Charbonett and Kyle Monangai in a pinch.

In the conference round, especially, you can use wide receiver rooms to your advantage. Let's say you have to start two WRs each week. With some of the teams in these four games, like the Texans, Broncos, or Seahawks, they have one clear alpha wide receiver in Nico Collins, Courtland Sutton, or Jaxon Smith-Njigba. With a team like the Rams, they have two solid options in Puka Nacua and Davante Adams. If you use one, you’ll still have the other in your back pocket even if they win.

Uniqueness Game Theory

This is the last piece of the puzzle. And it can often come down to luck. But in some of these large tournaments, you are going to need some luck. And, if you truly believe an upset is coming, it’s even better to lean into that. Here is the advice we gave going into last week.

For instance, a lot of people will be using Christian McCaffrey in the Wild Card weekend, with them being 5-point underdogs. What if you think the 49ers go to the Super Bowl, and you are one of the few teams that save CMC til the end? What if you use Puka Nacua this week and he goes crazy and the Rams lose despite being 10-point favorites? I mean, they did lose to the Panthers earlier this year…

That Puka Nacua situation came DANGEROUSLY close to happening, where he almost scored two touchdowns in a loss. They pulled it out with under a minute left, but these are the scenarios we need to consider for this week. 

NFL Playoffs Divisional Round Weekend Example Lineup

Here is last week’s example lineup. I’m going to continue based on the players I have personally used, but there is an updated grid at the bottom to make your own decisions. 

• QB: Josh Allen
• RB: Kyren Williams
• RB: Christian McCaffrey
• WR: A.J. Brown
• WR: Christian Watson
• TE: Dalton Schultz
• FLEX: Tetairoa McMillan
• DST: Pittsburgh Steelers
• K: Harrison Mevis

Divisional Round Example Lineup

• QB: Bo Nix

In this example, I’ve already used Josh Allen. The strategy is to use the AFC quarterbacks now and then use whatever NFC quarterback makes it to the Super Bowl. Odds are good that an elite defense in the Seahawks or Rams makes it to the big game, and the AFC QBs can give me spike weeks along the way. So we go Nix here, then next week I will use whoever is left of Drake Maye or C.J. Stroud to guarantee I have a live QB for the finals.

• RB: Rhamondre Stevenson

We already used Christian McCaffrey and Kyren Williams. So we’re saving Blake Corum and rooting against the 49ers. Rhamondre Stevenson scored six touchdowns over three games to close out the regular season, then just had 128 yards from scrimmage last week. If the Pats win, it should be a good game for him, and I’ll still have TreVeyon Henderson available to use later. 

• RB: RJ Harvey

There are two aspects to this play this week. One is that you can run on the Bills. I have no idea why the Jaguars went away from Travis Etienne (6.7 yards per carry) and Bhayshul Tuten (12.5 yards per carry) last week. So we like that. We’re also scared of the impending return of JK Dobbins, who is rumored to potentially return next week if the Broncos win. Let’s get Harvey in there now. 

• WR: Davante Adams

All three of the wide receivers we used already got eliminated, though AJ Brown did let us down. I’m tempted to use Puka Nacua here, but the folks who already used him got two touchdowns. The way to really create leverage against those teams now would be to save Nacua for later weeks when they are starting scraps. So I’m going to use Adams here and hope he can find paydirt once or twice as he did for most of the season.

• WR: DJ Moore

The Bears are likely to be playing from behind here. And we’ve seen them go pass-heavy in those situations. This team actually has a ton of viable fantasy options, so I’m glad they made it through. As you’ll see with my tight end pick, I can use two of them this week and still have Luther Burden, Rome Odunze, D’Andre Swift, and Kyle Monangai available if the Bears win. 

• TE: Colston Loveland

There is a hypothetical world where both the 49ers and Bears win, and Colston Loveland has a great matchup next week. But the odds of that are not good - a parlay of those two outcomes would pay out 10:1, so not likely. This isn’t the best matchup for Loveland, but there aren’t really many good TE matchups left out there. So we’re going to use the guy who’s been getting 10+ targets for three straight weeks. Barring a Texans vs. Bears Super Bowl, we’ll have other options as we go.

• FLEX: Christian Kirk

As tempting as it is to use a running back, saving RBs for the next two rounds is crucial. So we’re going to go with Kirk here. Even if Nico Collins clears concussion protocol, he’s set for a matchup with Christian Gonzalez. Kirk played 30 snaps from the slot, only 8 out wide, and that’s how you attack this “bend don’t break” Patriots defense. If the Texans win, I’ll use Collins next week. Christian Kirk had a big game last week. Let’s see if he can do it again. 

• DST: New England Patriots

The Patriots' defense looked great with Milton Williams and Robert Spillane back. And C.J. Stroud left something to be desired with his performance, to say the least. This game has a low over/under, and the Pats are favored, so we’ll lean into it. We used the Steelers last week (wish we used the Texans), which means that we can just use Buffalo or Denver next week and save the NFC defense. 

• K: Harrison Mevis

We are taking the opposite path with our kicker, using NFC kickers. We already used Harrison Mevis. If we use Jason Myers and the Seahawks and Rams win, we’ll be forced to correctly pick the AFC winner next week or face not having a Super Bowl kicker. So we use Cairo Santos here, knowing that we will use the winner of either Jason Myers or Eddie Pineiro next week, then the AFC kicker in the Super Bowl. 

Rankings Grid

Here is a depth chart that incorporates as many of these thoughts as possible. As you will notice, the kickers and defenses especially factor in both early matchups and odds of making it to the Super Bowl.

The color-coding for the rankings below still factors in our overall feelings for the next three weeks. As we progress, more and more focus will be placed on the immediate games. For instance, Hunter Henry was green last week, with a bad matchup against the Texans this week and two tough tight-end defenses in the Bills and Broncos in line if they advance, he’s a guy I might not use unless they make the Super Bowl.