The more I play Playoff Challenge, the more I believe there's one strategy and two avenues to use it. The strategy is to load up on the one team you think will make it to the Super Bowl. I say one team because it's too hard to try to pick two teams to make your lineup from. Plenty of people are going to have a combination of Broncos and Seahawks, and rightly so. They're the favorites. However, the best two teams don't usually make it to the Super Bowl. You have a better shot at loading up on one team's offensive weapons to ride them to New York.
How to win Playoff Challenge
Peyton Manning could go to SB XLVIII and take you to SB XLIX in the process. Michael Fabiano explains how. More ...
So with that settled, here are the two avenues you can go with: Pick the favorite in a conference (but get no points in the first round), or take a shot with a team you think can make a surprise run that plays opening weekend, so you can get all of those points. The majority of participants are going to choose the former. The last couple of years I did that, and I did pretty well. But so did a lot of other people. This year I've decided to go the latter route, not because I feel like taking a chance, but because there's a team playing in the wild card round I think can make that kind of run.
I'm becoming a big believer in the Cincinnati Bengals, taking into account the end of the regular season and seeing how the playoffs line up for them. They have the best defense in the AFC (sorry Chiefs), and after a home game against San Diego, they'll travel to New England, who is eminently beatable. That sets up the AFC Championship showdown in Denver - probably - but I'm not afraid of that game. Peyton Manning's lost big games at home in the playoffs before. The Bengals are peaking, and they have enough offensive firepower that I'm not scraping the bottom of the barrel at any offensive position, because everyone I chose gets the football a good deal of the time in every game. They score a lot of points, and if they make the run I believe they can, I'll be on top of the biggest of the NFL Playoff Challenge mountains - not just beating everyone I work with, but just about everyone who enters.
Kneel before Zod.
Jason Smith writes fantasy and other pith for nfl.com. You can see him as the host of NFL Fantasy Live that airs Sunday through Friday on NFL Network at 5pmET/2pmPT and also at 1amET/10pmPT. Listen to him on the NFL Fantasy Live podcast available at nfl.com and on itunes. Reach out to him on Google plus or Twitter @howaboutafresca, and listen to his Fantasy Podcast with Michael Fabiano and Elliot Harrison every week on nfl.com. He only asks you never bring up when the Jets play poorly.