The regular fantasy season is over, but that doesn’t mean your fantasy football fun is over. Get your DFS lineups submitted to enjoy the NFL playoff games to the fullest! And I can help you make the best lineup! Below you can find my top fire (boom), ice (bust) players and sleepers for Conference Championship Weekend.
Don’t miss my Fire & Ice chart at the bottom of this page. There, I have listed out all of my fire, good, sleeper and ice plays for Conference Championship Weekend.
Note: I used FanDuel’s full Sunday tournament slate for player pricing. FanDuel uses half-PPR scoring so I used half-PPR data in my below write-up.
Young, inexperienced quarterbacks typically fall flat on their faces in the postseason … but not Jayden Daniels. He has scored 22.3 and 25.1 fantasy points in his first two NFL playoff games while hitting 300 total yards and turning over the ball zero times in both games. Daniels is the only quarterback to have multiple games with 300-plus yards in the 2024 postseason and the first QB to ever have multiple such playoff games as a rookie.
Daniels has scored at least 22 fantasy points in each of his last seven full games played, including his career-high 34.4-point performance in Week 16 against the Philadelphia Eagles. Daniels’ cost is cheaper than Josh Allen’s this weekend, while he offers the same upside — and possibly a safer floor — than Allen.
Not only has Saquon Barkley been elite all season long, but he has consistently beaten up the Washington Commanders — he has averaged 137.5 scrimmage yards per game in his 11 career matchups against them. That is the most by any player against any opponent in the Super Bowl Era (min. 10 games played). The Commanders had no answers for Barkley in their two matchups in the regular season, letting him destroy them for 150-plus yards and two touchdowns in both games.
Barkley is the most expensive player in FanDuel DFS tournaments this weekend, but his price a fair and warranted especially given the limited elite fantasy options across the four remaining playoff teams. Jahmyr Gibbs scored 32.5 points against the Commanders last weekend and I expect a similar output from Barkley this Sunday.
Travis Kelce is the second-best FLEX (RB/WR/TE) option outside of Saquon Barkley, but he has only the sixth-highest price tag at the position — making him a fantastic value and an easy pick for your flex spot.
Kelce is just a different type of beast in the playoffs. After a very underwhelming regular season, Kelce exploded for 21.2 fantasy points in the divisional round against the Houston Texans. He has now hit at least 21 fantasy points in three of his last four playoff games and has had more than 70 receiving yards in 14 straight playoff performances. That is double the longest such streak in NFL playoff history by any player — Antonio Brown has the second longest playoff streak with seven straight games of 70-plus yards.
Over his last 14 playoff games, Kelce has averaged a ridiculous 20.5 fantasy points per game. Only Christian McCaffrey (22.2) has averaged more points than Kelce in the playoffs since 2020 among non-QBs (minimum five games).
Khalil Shakir is the cheapest WR1 in FanDuel full slate tournaments this weekend, while I believe he is the second-best wide receiver option, behind Washington Commanders’ Terry McLaurin, this weekend. Last weekend, Shakir accounted for 67 of Josh Allen’s 127 passing yards against the Baltimore Ravens. Josh Allen should have to rely on his arm much more often to bring down Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. Shakir led the Bills with 12 targets, eight receptions and 70 receiving yards in their first matchups against the Chiefs this season.
After two years of doing very little in the NFL, Dyami Brown has finally had his break out this postseason. Over the last two weeks, Brown has recorded a career-high 17.4 fantasy points in the wild-card round and then a career-high six receptions and 98 yards in the divisional round. The coaching staff is starting to trust Brown and had him on the field for 83% of his team’s offensive snaps last weekend.
Brown leads the Commanders with 187 receiving yards and has the same number of receptions as Terry McLaurin (11) in the 2024 postseason. The Philadelphia Eagles allowed both Puka Nacua and Demarcus Robinson to put up over 70 receiving yards against them last Sunday… and that was in heavy snow. The weather is supposed to be much nicer this Sunday in Philadelphia, which should allow for a cleaner, more pass-heavy game.
Kareem Hunt is the cheapest among the lead backs playing this weekend. His price makes sense as the Kansas Chiefs’ backfield has been a disaster since Isiah Pacheco’s return. However, Hunt out-snapped and out-performed Pacheco by a lot in the divisional round, and he has a chance to score a couple of touchdowns in an expected high-scoring affair this Sunday.
Hunt is the only Chiefs running back to get a goal-line carry since Week 4. He has had a goal-line carry in each of his last three games and scored on each of those attempts.
Even if you need a cheap running back option, don’t waste a spot in your DFS roster with Isiah Pacheco. He has scored seven or fewer fantasy points in six straight games, including back-to-back performances with exactly 1.8 points. Last week, in a game that the Kansas City Chiefs controlled, Pacheco still only saw five carries for 18 yards with zero receptions. Plus, Pacheco has not had a goal-line carry since returning from injury. He offers no upside or floor. Stay away.
Despite having just three receptions for 24 yards in the 2024 postseason for a whopping 3.9 fantasy points, A.J. Brown is still priced as the most expensive wide receiver in DFS full slate tournaments this weekend. I can’t make that make sense.
The typical rule of thumb when playing in large tournaments is that you are looking for players to score three times their cost, especially for the top-priced players. So that means Brown would need to come through with approximately 24 fantasy points this weekend … but he has not scored more than 21 points in any game this season.
Goedert is only $700 more, and Ertz is just 300 more…
Dalton Kincaid has scored fewer than four fantasy points in three of his last four games and has hit more than eight points in just two weeks this entire season. Kincaid has two measly receiving touchdowns on the year while averaging 33.7 receiving yards per game. There has not been a single week this season that Kincaid has recorded 55 receiving yards or 12 fantasy points. Truly astonishing for a guy that had such high expectations to start the season.
Dallas Goedert and Zach Ertz are much better options and are not much more expensive than Kincaid this weekend. If for some reason you can’t afford Kelce, Goedert or Ertz, I would rather take a shot on Noah Gray, who is $300 cheaper than Kincaid, and at least has a higher probability to wrangle in a touchdown or two.
With DFS price considered, below, I categorize every relevant fantasy player into five different buckets: (1) fire starts (best starts of the week); (2) thumbs up (good starts); (3) Risky players with upside (sleepers); (4) Ice starts (predicting bad performance from good player); (5) Stop (must sits).
Note: If a player/defense is not listed, I either expect them not to play in conference championship weekend or am not considering starting them in fantasy lineups.
