Welcome to Fantasy Sports Knockout. Can you survive the season long grind of fantasy football? Confident in your managerial skills? Put this to the test in Knockout, a season long survivor tournament where every week matters. Strategize. Draft. Survive.

Think you know Fantasy Football? Prove it at Fantasy Sports Knockout!!

Fantasy Sports Knockout: Strategy

Knockout

Knockout is an exciting new survivor fantasy football league. What is survivor fantasy football? Well, it’s just like it sounds. Draft your lineup, use any players you want. But be careful, as you can only start each player once, all season. The lowest scoring entry is eliminated each week. ‘Stop losing, start surviving in the only league where skills are tested, and strategy pays off’.

Plan ahead

While there is no draft at Fantasy Sports Knockout, it is still important to test out different strategies for player deployment. My method is old school but simple. I will select 25 players from each of the skill positions and list them all on a spreadsheet with their matchups and byes laid out week by week. This will help me to determine which matchups to target for which players. I will make several iterations for each position and settle on one leading up to Week 1. This is similar to the method that players use for survival pools.

Target defenses

While I will be using FantasyPros’ rankings and projections to assist in my selections, I will not be relying exclusively on this tool. Since I plan on surviving until Week 18, I need to plan out all 18 weeks of the season ahead of time.

Teams I will be targeting as opponents for quarterbacks will be the New York Giants, Tennessee Titans, Carolina Panthers, Minnesota Vikings, Arizona Cardinals, Indianapolis Colts, and possibly the Atlanta Falcons.

One quarterback I was not initially planning on using (Baker Mayfield) might get a start due to a strong matchup against the Giants in Week 12. Week 18 can be the most tricky due to teams resting players, but my current strategy is to use Dak Prescott against Washington. It is a road game, but I expect the Cowboys to be one of the only teams with something to play for so late in the season. Time will tell whether it will be for the divisional crown or wild card seeding, but they are the NFC team most likely to be competing that has a softer opponent.

There are 10 QBs I will be certain to fit in at some point of the season. They are Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Caleb Williams, Anthony Richardson, Jayden Daniels, CJ Stroud, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, Jordan Love, and Dak Prescott. While starting these 10 is a priority, my strategy is to find strong starts among the other 15 and to attempt to slot eight of them in before figuring out when to deploy my stud options.

Other positions

I will be following a similar strategy for the other positions. The teams I target may differ slightly as teams susceptible to the run are not always the same ones that can be exploited through the air. I will be working backward for the tight-end position as there are fewer impact options available. This projects to be the toughest position to ‘get right’ but could also prove to be the difference maker down the stretch. Achieving a balance here could be the key to survival.

Stay Liquid

It is important to have some built-in flexibility, as injuries and performance trends can put your well-laid plans to waste. Striking a careful balance between staying competitive enough to survive early and having enough strong options for the final weeks of the season is going to be a challenge at Fantasy Sports Knockout. The concept is simple — survival is not.

Think you know Fantasy Football? Prove it at Fantasy Sports Knockout!!