Every year I am fortunate to receive a few offers to participate in playoff fantasy football. However, I have always chosen to pass on the opportunity. Writing for RotoExpert.com, I felt it was my duty to try out the concept this year. I’m glad I did because I’m probably going to take the title.

I was quite irritated with my fantasy football regular season this year. I entered the playoffs as the #1 seed in 2 leagues only to get upset when the weather caused a number of low-scoring games. My third of three teams lost on a tie-breaker…faithful readers may recall my torment of Brady keeping the Pats undefeated against the Ravens with a touchdown pass with :30 seconds to go that cost me my FFL game that week…it also cost me my tie-breaker and I was not in the playoffs in my third league.

With this heart-breaking finish to my season, I was going to take a month off from fantasy while I geared up my fantasy baseball activities. Repeated emails from one friend in Maine convinced me to try out the playoff fantasy concept. Here is how our league works: The lineup is 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 DST, and 1 Flex. The scoring system is 1 point for every 10 yards rush/receiving, 1 point for every 25 yards passing, 4 points for passing TDs, 6 points for rush/receiving TDs. No points received for receptions. Defense gets 1 point per turnover or sack, and 6 points for TDs, and 6 points for special teams TDs. However, there were 2 very interesting rules that convinced me to try out this league. You had to pick one lineup and stay with it throughout the playoffs. And you could only pick one player from each team.

This was uncharted territory. Tom Brady sounds like a great pick, but the entire league could take him. Did I have to take Brady as insurance? Should I take Favre instead and then go with Moss? What if Welker went off in the playoffs? My approach was to make a playoff bracket of how I thought the playoffs would go, and then pick from the super bowl champion in reverse order. Here is the team I settled on:

QB - Brady

RB - Tomlinson

RB - Grant

RB/WR - Portis

TE - Clark

WR - Burress

WR - Owens

K - Scobee

D - Tampa

I am currently 4 points out of first place. I have Plaxico and Brady in the super bowl. The first place team has Giants D and Brady. It should be a nail-biter to the end. I’m going to be at the Mirage high-roller Super Bowl Party in Vegas somehow trying to keep tabs on this situation. But when my inevitable Patriots super bowl bets fail to cover when they win by 11 points, I can take solace in knowing I have a nice fantasy football playoff check to buffer the damage.

If you would like to comment on this article, click here.