Week 17 is nearly here, which means 16 Main Event winners and a few drawing winners will be heading to Miami in the coming days while a number of other members will be participating in the Online Final. There are no Thursday or Saturday games on this slate, so there won’t be any known scores for finals week. That difference alone means we need to prepare differently, especially for those participating in the Live Final. Let’s start by clustering the games on the Week 17 slate.

The Week 17 Schedule

Games with the Most Shootout Potential

Dallas vs Arizona (Indoors, no weather concerns)

Cincinnati vs Kansas City

Green Bay vs Minnesota (Sunday Night, Online Finals only)

Baltimore vs Los Angeles (National)

Indianapolis vs Las Vegas (Indoors, no weather concerns)

Significant Favorites Facing Volatile Offenses

New England vs Jacksonville

Tampa Bay at New York (American)

San Francisco vs Houston

New Orleans vs Carolina (Indoors, no weather concerns)

Buffalo vs Atlanta

Seattle vs Detroit

The Rest of the Slate

Washington vs Philadelphia

Tennessee vs Miami

Chicago vs New York (National)

Los Angeles (American) vs Denver (Indoors, no weather concerns)

Pittsburgh vs Cleveland (Monday Night)

Late Season Football

There are two things we have to account for late in the year that are much less of an issue early in the season: motivation and weather. Chicago vs New York, for example, is a contest where two struggling teams are playing for little more than pride. New Orleans will be very much in the thick of the Wild Card race in Week 17, while Carolina has already fired their offensive coordinator and started three different quarterbacks as their season has free falled over the last month and change. Minnesota and Green Bay both breached 30 points in their Week 11 indoor shootout, but they will square off in northern Wisconsin in early January for this matchup. Keep an eye on the weather (wind and sub-zero temperatures, in particular) as well as any motivation-related news for downward spiraling teams before setting your lineups in Week 17.

We’ve also seen over this past week that COVID is back to being a major factor in availability for professional athletes. Star players have been routinely added to the COVID list over the last 10 days, which means that we will also have to pay attention to those updates before setting our lineups.

The Online Finals – Main Event

The Week 15 Main Event had 707 participants with 1,645 total entries. Even though we don’t know exactly how many participants are qualified for the Online Finals, we do know that there is a payout for 500th place just as there is in the weekly contests. The total entries available will be higher than the submissions we’ve seen in most weekly tournaments, but how many of those lineups are submitted is an outstanding question.

The first decision for Week 17 lineups is going to be do you play a quarterback like Kansas City or Arizona in a potential shootout where their opponent can push the score upwards, or do you go with Tampa Bay or Buffalo as significant favorites against weak secondaries in potential blowouts? The second decision is do you stack the quarterback you select with their wide receivers or tight ends, or do you try to get exposure to multiple games by not stacking? Stacking, playing quarterbacks in potential shootouts, playing quarterbacks in one-sided affairs, and deploying no correlations at all are strategies that have each won a Main Event lineup this year.

For running backs you have to start your process with one question in this slate: can this option potentially beat the Indianapolis running backs score? At tight end I’m locking in one of the top options in Kansas City, San Francisco, Baltimore, or Tampa Bay if I have them. At defense there are a handful of very high ceiling options on this slate, but you ultimately have to start with New England and decide if you want to try and get different with another high-upside option at that position.

The Online Finals – Side Hustle

Running back plus wide receiver options have won the Side Hustle, but in most cases a quarterback is part of the winning equation. That means, for me, I’m playing a quarterback where my decision from there is do I pair them with their wide receivers or try to get exposure to a different game? Stacks tend to be much more duplicated, but are routinely among the top cashing options in the Side Hustle when they hit. With that said, those dupes have been beaten for the top spot multiple times by uncorrelated builds.

The Live Final

First, big congrats to all of the Main Event winners that are headed to Miami. Few have analyzed the decisions made in this year’s winning lineups more than I have, so I wanted to give each of you and our contest winners something to potentially think about while you’re on your flight down to Miami.

Each of you is in a very short field tournament here, and most of you probably have access to the majority of the high-end options at every position. In your situation, I would expect that most of your opponents will be deploying the Indianapolis running backs and the New England defense as the foundations for their lineup. One of the things that I’m looking forward to most with this group is finding out if anyone stacks New England’s running backs with their defense to try and get a little different versus the field.

Something that I have my eye on here is that Mark Andrews has been on an absolute tear lately. Cincinnati faces Andrews this coming week and then Travis Kelce during the Live Finals. If Cincinnati yields a big game to Andrews, they are more likely to make more significant adjustments when facing Kelce. If Cincinnati effectively mitigates Andrews, does their coaching staff march out a similar strategy against Kelce? If you primarily base your plays off projections and usage numbers, that little wrinkle may not interest you much. But for me, I look forward to seeing how that plays out when I watch the games the next two Sundays.

Quarterback and wide receiver are the two positions that I expect to see the most variety in during the Week 17 slate. Nearly all of the high performing quarterbacks and wide receiver groups are in very playable matchups, either in potential shootouts or as a significant favorite in a potential blowout against a weak opponent. One of the things I’d be researching in your shoes is how pass heavy is X offense in similar matchups. However it lands, best of luck to each of you.