Word to the Wise: Don’t Swindle Yourself
Dorian “The Trashman” Colbert, Rosterwatch.com

It’s the last week of fantasy football for most of us, and while I’d like to serve up some trashy options to stick in your lineup or use some little-known statistic to gauge players’ usability, I think I’d be doing you a disservice. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a near-lifetime of playing fantasy sports, it’s that you roll with your studs come championship time. I still rue the day, several years ago, that I took Beanie Wells out of my lineup up moments before game time. He had performed for me like clockwork for most of the season, but there was something about his matchup I didn’t like. I ended up losing the championship by fewer than ten points when the guy I replaced him with had a dud. Wells had gotten almost 15 points that day.

Earlier this postseason, a friend of mine argued with me that he should take Josh Gordon out of his lineup because he was up against “lockdown” corner Aqib Talib, and Bill Belichick always takes away a team’s best weapon. 24 fantasy points later, he was lamenting that decision as his team went down in flames. Fantasy can hurt, and there’s no worse way to go out than by sitting the guys who got you to the dance.

So in short, don’t outsmart yourself. You’ve made good decisions up to this point, enough to get you to the finals if you’re still reading this. Getting to the playoffs was the part that took the most skill. Much of what happens in the playoffs is largely subject to chance, as one game decides your fate in most leagues, and a bad performance at the wrong time can seal it. Just ask thousands of fantasy owners who played Denver Broncos last week. So when in doubt, just play your best players, and enjoy your last few weeks of America’s most loved product.