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You dominated your fourteen-week regular-season schedule and emerged 14-0.
You destroyed every opponent that tried to take you down.
You finished first in your division, five games clear of your closest competitor.
You’re convinced that the other teams in your league will concede the playoffs, avoiding any additional and unnecessary embarrassment and pain.
If that’s what you expect, I’ve got bad news.
Your stellar regular season will earn you the top seed in your league for the postseason. Still, other than that, nothing from the regular season carries over to the postseason.
In the fantasy football postseason, all four playoff teams begin with a 0-0 record.
A great regular season is terrific, but to win the title, along with the respect and admiration of your peers, you’ll need to prove yourself all over again.
I’m Tracy, and I’ve been an NFL and fantasy football student for years. So I know the rules regarding ESPN fantasy football.
In this post, I’ll address how many teams in your ESPN fantasy football league enter the playoffs, how tie-breakers are determined, and the means through which a league champion emerges from the playoffs.
In the meantime, you should expect that your fellow league members, at least those who qualify, will want to participate in the playoffs.
Let’s get smarter!
Key Takeaways
- Four teams advance to postseason play in the standard 10-team, two-division ESPN Public League.
- A tie-breaking system is employed if two or more teams have identical won-loss records after the Fantasy Football regular season.
- Each round of the playoffs spans two weeks.
Which Teams Make the Playoffs?
Four teams advance to postseason play in the standard 10-team, two-division ESPN Public League.
The two division champions advance along with two wild-card teams.
Division champions are the teams with the best win-loss records in the league divisions.
The wild-card teams are the two teams with the best records that did not win their divisions.
The two wild-card teams may both emerge from the same division. [1]
It would be great if things were only that simple.
But with only a fourteen-game regular season and ten teams in a league, I can almost guarantee you that at least two teams will finish with identical records.
In this scenario, we will advance through a series of tie-breakers to determine the division champion, the wild-card teams, or both!
Tie-Breakers
Suppose two or more teams have identical won-loss records after the Fantasy Football regular season. In that case, the following tie-breaking system is employed:
- Overall points-for
- Head-to-Head record
- Division record
- Overall points-against
- Coin Flip
Imagine Team A finished the regular season with a 10-4 record in Division I of a league.
Team B and Team C finished the regular season with 9-5 won-loss records in the same Division I as Team A.
Team A lost to Team B, beat Team C, and accumulated 1055 points-for during the regular season.
Team B lost to Team A, beat Team C, and accumulated 1000 points-for during the regular season.
Team C lost to Teams A and B and accumulated 1005 points for the regular season.
One of these teams wins the division, one wins a wild-card, and the third team is genuinely the big winner as the top seed in the consolation bracket.
Just kidding!! I hope that you caught my humor!!
Any team that EARNS the top seed in the consolation bracket is NOT the big winner!!
So apply your knowledge to the above scenario.
Tell me which of Team A, Team B, or Team C is the division champion, the wild-card, and which is headed to the consolation bracket.
I’ll allow you 10 minutes.
OK. TIME!
Team A owns the best record in the division, so they are division champs without needing tie-breakers.
Next, we break the tie between Team B and Team C.
The first tie-breaker is ‘points-for.’
Team C acquired more points-for throughout the regular season than Team B, so Team C is the wild-card, and Team B is the top seed in the consolation bracket. [2]
This seems unfair because Team B beat Team C in a head-to-head competition.
Get over it! Life isn’t fair!
The Playoff Matchups
Each of the four playoff teams is seeded by record.
If necessary, the tie-breakers mentioned in the above section are applied.
In the first round of the playoffs, the division winner with the best won-loss record plays the wild-card team with the worst won-loss record.
The other division winner plays the wild-card team with the better won-loss record.
In the second round, the winners of the first-round games compete for the league championship.
Each round of the playoffs spans two weeks
(In the regular season, each matchup only lasts one week).
The 5th through 10-seeded teams in each league compete in the consolation bracket. [3]
Read more: WHAT IS A WAIVER IN FANTASY FOOTBALL (AND HOW DOES IT WORK)?
Closing Thoughts
With all the tie-breakers involved, fantasy football playoffs can frustrate you.
In addition, dominating your league for an entire fourteen-week season only to be eliminated after a poor two-week showing in the playoffs can be equally disturbing.
If this is the case, get together with a group of buddies and play in a custom league on ESPN.
You and your fellow league members run the show in a custom league.
You keep everything you love about fantasy football while addressing areas you are less fond of.
References
- https://support.espn.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004507992-Regular-Season-and-Playoffs-Schedule-in-Public-Leagues#:
- https://support.espn.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036952471-Playoff-Seeding-How-Regular-Season-Standings-Tiebreakers-Work#:
- https://www.espn.com/fantasy/football/ffl/story?page=fflrulesplayoffs
