AFC Team-By-Team Playoff Best Ball Analysis

Breaking down what teams to target and avoid, and how to play them

For those unfamiliar with Playoff Best Ball, I’ve linked my first post with some general strategy thoughts below.

Today we’re going to focus primarily on Underdog’s flagship contests: The Mitten and The Gauntlet, and their various iterations which will continue to spawn until the playoffs commence such as the little Mittens, little Gauntlets etc.

Each are similar. You are placed into a 6-person draft where you compete directly against those in your lobby in Round 1. The best two scores advance. From there, you are placed into new pods, and only one team advances from each until the final round in the super bowl. The size of those additional pods varies. Notably, in past years Underdog has run major tournaments with only one team advancing. This year, in each of the Mittens or Gauntlets currently active, two teams advance in Round 1. This reduces the value of elite fantasy assets on teams with a poor chance of advancing multiple rounds in the playoffs, and increases the value of bye-week teams and/or tertiary options on teams with the best super bowl odds.

As I explained in the linked post at the top of this article, the most important factor in the strength of your teams is whether they are properly constructed to maximize your chances of getting a viable 5-player line-up in the Super Bowl. That means at least 1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR/TEs, and 1 FLEX. Of course, each additional player you roster beyond 5 going into the Super Bowl gives you additional combinations of players to make the highest possible score. As we’ll dive into today, the approach to each team and each draft is different, but the general rule is that every pick you make should either be in service of giving you additional player combinations or additional team combinations for a 5-player super bowl lineup.

The AFC Playoff Picture

The AFC is a three-headed monster. Prior to Week 17, the Chiefs, Ravens, and Bills were each afforded a 22% chance to make the Super Bowl per ESPN. I suspect the Chiefs odds have climbed since securing the 1-seed, as have the Ravens since moving closer to securing the 3-seed. Those increases likely come at the expense of the Bills and Steelers.

It is now very likely the Bills, Ravens and Texans will host — in some order — the Steelers, Chargers, and Broncos on Wild Card weekend. The most interesting aspect still undecided is who gets the 7-seed. If the Broncos win just one game however they will lock it down, and they get an un-motivated Chiefs team in Week 18. There is a small chance one of the Colts, Dolphins, or Bengals sneak in ahead of the Broncos (or the Chargers) but it’s best to bet on the 7 remaining as they are for the moment.

The Ravens moving into the likely 3-seed is of course good news for them. But it might be even better news for Kansas City. If you agree with the odds makers that three teams are clear of the pack in this conference, then it’s a big advantage that the Bills and Ravens will almost certainly have to play each other prior to playing the Chiefs, while Kansas City faces a far weaker team in Round 2.

Kansas City Chiefs

Should we play them?

The Chiefs are the most inefficiently priced team in this tournament in my humble opinion.

They have the highest odds to make the Super Bowl of any team in the conference and yet their first player (Patrick Mahomes) is drafted after 1 Bill, 2 Ravens, 3 Eagles, 3 Lions, and a partridge in a pear tree. Their first skill players are drafted in Round 4 — 7th highest among any team.

If there is one consistent trait of underrated teams in this format, it’s a team with strong odds of making the super bowl relative to their players’ weekly fantasy projection. I totally understand why Derrick Henry is more enticing to click than Isiah Pacheco, but if the Chiefs make the Super Bowl, Henry is scoring 0 and Pacheco is scoring something. It does not matter how high the score is of the best lineup in the Super Bowl, it just matters if your score is the highest.

As we noted up top, let’s say you reckon the Chiefs, Bills and Ravens are roughly a coin flip vs. each other and a heavy favourite vs. any other team. The Chiefs only need to win one flip, while the others need two — and Kansas City has home field!

Of course, Chiefs-heavy teams will face obstacles along the way.

The combination of no elite-projecting player and the first round bye means Chiefs teams will likely have poor advance rates in the early rounds. But that’s OK. If the Chiefs make the Super Bowl, whatever few teams you advance through the first two rounds will have far better odds to advance from Round 3 and ultimately take down the contest.

Think about it this way: you build a team with 3 Chiefs. That team now has to compete with a maximum of 7 players compared to teams that focused on the Ravens and Bills in Round 1. Let’s assume the favourites win each game. In Round 2 you get your Chiefs back, but you still have to deal with teams who stacked Ravens and Bills — which now play each other in a projected shoot out, and employ better fantasy assets anyhow. You’re once again up against it.

While you will undoubtedly lose most of your Chiefs teams, whatever teams you do advance going into Round 3 will be in pods filled with Ravens and Bills stacks. Of course one of those teams — at least — will have been eliminated, which means a lot of teams you will be up against are drawing dead or close to it, and most of the rest will be heavier on the Chiefs opponent.

If Kansas City reaches the Super Bowl, your advancing teams will be up against a field littered with stacks of the team they just beat, and there will be a relatively small number of teams with a “live five.”

The other major benefit of the Chiefs is of course how cheap they are. QB and RB is the most scarce position in playoff best ball since there is only 1 viable QB for each team, and typically 1 standout RB, while there are 3+ WR/TE options on most teams. To win the tournament, you very likely need the starting QB and RB from at least one of the two Super Bowl teams.

Because you can draft Mahomes and Isiah Pacheco in the 2nd and 4th rounds (or Kareem Hunt even later), you can add elite skill players from top NFC contenders in Rounds 1 in 3 to complement them in a way you can’t with any other AFC team. Or, you can take multiple shots on the RB1 from two NFC contenders and then backfill your team with Chiefs pass catchers.

This is a big reason why Chiefs teams will be more and more live to advance the further you go into the tournament. Bills and Ravens teams will either have to pair with tertiary players from top NFC teams, or take shots on sleepers. You could pair the best Chiefs with star players on any NFC team you like.

How do we play them?

If you’re playing the Chiefs as a primary team the most essential member of the stack is Patrick Mahomes. As the 5th QB off the board, Mahomes presents a great value.

I am a big fan of drafting the skill players from the top NFC competitors — Jahmyr Gibbs and Saquon Barkley especially — and then adding Mahomes as my QB. We’ll get to this with the Eagles in my next column, but if you’re playing Chiefs-Eagles, I much prefer a 2 v. 2 of Barkley-Mahomes to Hurts-Pacheco, which makes me more inclined to go Barkley over Hurts more often than not if I can choose between both in the early-mid 1st round, and am in a position to expect Mahomes to come back to me. (You have to read the room a bit on this one)

Isiah Pacheco was one of the more overrated plays in my opinion, though he suffered a ribs injury on Christmas Day which might further depress his ADP to a better value. The Chiefs have split their backfield in three since Pacheco’s return, with him and Hunt receiving near equal carries and Samaje Perine playing in passing situations. Even if Pacheco pushes Hunt aside in the playoffs, this team doesn’t run the ball well and with their pass catchers now fairly healthy they don’t need to run the ball much at all. Their best run-game is the quick passing game, particularly featuring jet-sweeps and screens to Xavier Worthy, protecting their offensive line with a stream of misdirection.

Pacheco is an underdog to outscore Xavier Worthy and Travis Kelce — and maybe even Hollywood Brown — in most Chiefs games. If his ribs injury is serious, perhaps the backfield consolidates back around Kareem Hunt and there will be more value in KC’s RB room.

For now, I prefer to take multiple shots on the RBs of premiere NFC options and pair those with Mahomes and his pass catchers. Jahmyr Gibbs and Saquon Barkley come off the board in Round 1. Josh Jacobs is drafted in early Round 3, in a natural pairing with Mahomes in the late 2nd. Aaron Jones goes in the early 4th.

My ideal Chiefs team starts with one of Gibbs or Barkley in Round 1 and Mahomes in Round 2. Then in Rounds 3 you can aim for either a Viking — Justin Jefferson and/or Aaron Jones — or a Packer — Josh Jacobs. In Rounds 4-6, the odds are fairly strong you will still be able to fill out your team with Chiefs pass catchers.

As a final note, the most straightforward teams to pair Chiefs with are the Eagles and Packers, since neither will have a bye. If you wind up pairing them with one of the Lions or Vikings — make sure to decide as you are drafting your team whether you are making a double-bye team, or whether you are playing that NFC team to wind up as the 5-seed.

It’s important to be intentional about this. If you are playing Lions-Chiefs as a double-bye team, make sure to cap your total number of Lions and Chiefs at 5. Also feel free to prioritize Round 1 points with your late picks.

The reason it’s important to be intentional about the ‘story’ of your lineup is that if you are playing a double-bye team, your expectation is that there is a very low threshold necessary to win first prize come the super bowl since it will prove very difficult for Chiefs-Lions teams to advance out of Round 1. There may be very few teams that even make it to the super bowl with five eligible players, so if you happen to be one of them you’ll be in pole position. This was the case two years ago when both one-seeds — the Eagles and Chiefs — advanced to the Super Bowl. If however the Lions do not get the 1-seed, it’s more likely you’ll see teams with 6-7+ Chiefs and Lions on their team come super bowl, and you will be at a disadvantage if you bring just 5.

Both paths are plausible but you need to build a lineup to match the story you’re relying on.

My final note here is that you will need a 2nd QB on any Chiefs team you draft. The best option is Jayden Daniels in a vacuum, but with the way I tend to play the Chiefs I’m likely heavily invested in two other NFC teams’ skill players. Therefore, my most common Chiefs pairing is to add Justin Herbert in the final rounds paired with 1-2 of JK Dobbins and/or Ladd McConkey as my 2nd AFC team, or Russell Wilson with George Pickens.

Who to play

Favourite Clicks: Patrick Mahomes, Xavier Worthy, Travis Kelce, Kareem Hunt

Least Favourite Clicks: Isiah Pacheco

Based on doing drafts constantly the last 24 hours, I’m fairly confident that the ADP of these players will be Kelce/Worthy-Brown/Pacheco-Hopkins/Hunt shortly, and it’s best to get ahead of that rather than catching fake ADP value, especially if you’re drafting in any of the fresher contests.