Fantasy Football Playoff Winners 2022

I started this article last season because I really wanted to go back and see what players actually helped you win your fantasy football championships. We always talk about the top players like Josh Allen, Austin Ekeler, or Justin Jefferson, but we sometimes forget the players who actually helped you take home a title who are not considered top fantasy stars. We were shocked last season with players like Rashaad Penny, Devin Singletary, SONY MICHEL, and Amon-Ra St. Brown (WR1 in fantasy playoffs in 2021). With those results, I wanted to dig in to this again because we have a few players who may surprise you.

What I have put together are the top 5 at each position from Week 15 through Week 17. The numbers are by total points and based off of Half PPR scoring. These players put your teams on their backs and hopefully helped you take home the trophy and some sweet cash prizes. Let’s take a look at who they are!

I will add that for Bengals and Bills players, I have taken away any Week 17 stats and added their Week 18 stats. Many leagues decided the finals in a different way, but in my leagues, we used Week 18 points for those players from both teams.

Quarterbacks

Josh Allen *	83.60 points
Patrick Mahomes II	82.02 points
Tom Brady	69.60 points
Kirk Cousins	69.46 points
Daniel Jones	67.84 points
Dak Prescott	67.60 points

As you can see, I added 6 players to this list in case you did not use Week 18 for scoring for the Bengals or Bills players. Anyways, if you did then you were happy as Josh Allen was the QB1 during the playoffs. This one hurts since I played against him in two finals, but you were not shocked by the outcome. Same with Pay Mahomes; both players were the top QBs in scoring on the season, so there was no surprise they kept it rolling through the playoffs.

Kirk Cousins and Daniel Jones were top 10 QBs throughout the season, so seeing them in the top 5 was not shocking, but great to see if you held pat with them. As frustrating as Dak was throughout the season, he made it up to you if you continued to trust him and had a very strong playoff performance. The most shocking has to be Tom Brady. He only had over 20 points once all season and even in Week 15 and 16, he wasn’t that great. If you played him in your championship game, it paid off big time with a 37.68 performance. The GOAT continues to show us what he can do at his old age.

Running Backs

Austin Ekeler	66.00 points
Christian McCaffrey	63.90 points
Jerick McKinnon	61.60 points
Cam Akers	59.00 points
Tyler Allgeier	51.80 points

For the RB position, there were no players from the Bills and Bengals that needed to be added. The top two we don’t need to talk about too much since they were the top of their position throughout the season. It was great to see them keep it up because they were the only top tier RBs to make it on this list. Once again, we have some players you would not think would be here, but that is the beauty of fantasy football!

To start it off we can talk about McKinnon. We saw Pat Mahomes in the top of the QB list and many of his TDs went through McKinnon in those 3 weeks (4 receiving TDs & 1 rushing TD). We saw a similar performance with McKinnon in the playoffs last season and although we saw him do that, he was off of draft boards. He did not turn it on until the benching of CEH, but once he did, he did not look back. Not bad for a 30 year-old RB we thought would be out of the leagues years ago.

Two more shocking players made this with Cam Akers and Tyler Allgeier. Cam Akers was benched in the middle of the season and his own team was heavily trying to shop him or even cut him at one point. Instead, they cut Darrell Henderson and Cam Akers was able to overtake any role Kyren Williams was promised. For anyone who held on to him (which was very hard), good for you. For Allgeier, we were waiting for Patterson to have a big game each week, but once playoffs hit, Allgeier paid off and did not get you under 15 fantasy points in any one of those games.

Wide Receivers

CeeDee Lamb	60.70 points
Mike Evans	58.90 points
DeVonta Smith	58.40 points
Ja’Marr Chase *	55.50 points
DJ Moore	54.10 points
A.J. Brown	53.60 points

Last season we had players like Cooper Kupp and Deebo Samuel on this list, but things change every year with injuries, so this is what we are looking at for 2022. There is only one player from the top 5 last season on this list and that is Chase. Even though he is the only one, this list is not as shocking as the RBs. We saw Dak as a top QB above, so there is no surprise CeeDee was number 1. The people who thought A.J. Brown would not be a top WR with Hurts (me included) can eat it, because we were all wrong. He is 6th on this list and the WR5 overall on the season.

A.J. Brown’s teammate made the list ahead of him and even though he finished as a top 10 WR this season, people still were thinking about benching him in the playoffs. I think he showed us all enough to trust both WRs as top talents going in to 2023. DJ Moore was on his way of possibly being the bust of the season, but he turned it around with QB change and the absence of CMC. Fantastic to see him pull it together and be a league winner for you.

Now the elephant in the room. Mike Evans finished as the WR2 in fantasy playoffs although he had a pretty down season, especially in the second half of the season. Now if you used him in Weeks 15 & 16, you were pissed off because he gave you 13.3, then 5.9 points. If you made your finals with Evans, you were thinking about benching him and I hope you did not. In Week 17 he went for 207 yards on 10 catches and 3 TDs. This one week boosted the sh*t out of his stats, but if you started him in the finals, you likely won and congrats.

Tight Ends

George Kittle	60.60 points
T.J. Hockenson	45.60 points
Dawson Knox *	43.90 points
Tyler Higbee	39.20 points
Travis Kelce	37.60 points
Taysom Hill	34.90 points

Now on to our favorite position to talk about! If you had Kelce in your playoffs, you were bummed because he is a guy who should be scoring like a WR1, but he didn’t crush you too bad and still was a top 5 TE in the playoffs. The top dog was Kittle and he pissed you off throughout the season with early injuries and sporadic games. He stayed hot and consistent in the payoffs and started off hot with 25.3 and 30 points. He only gave you 12.3 in the finals, but it’s still a good game and he helped get you there.

Hockenson had one big game with Detroit at the beginning of the year, but he was a dud most weeks with that team. Once he was traded to the Vikings, he had a safe floor, but still did not give you those huge games. Well in Week 16, he had 35.9 points and for a player who was traded half way through the season to a team who has not produced a top TE in years, you were happy. Dawson Knox came on hot at the right time and scored a TD in each of his last 4 weeks. As long as you are scoring TDs, you will always be a top TE.

Two shocking players were Higbee and Hill (yes we are counting him as a TE, sorry Craig). We did not think Higbee would do much of anything when Baker took over, but once again, he was another TE with a big Week 16 score of over 30 points. Then there is Taysom Hill…. Like I said with Knox; if you are a TE and scoring TDs, you will always be at the top and although he only had 2 total catches in the fantasy playoffs, he still scored enough to make the list.

THE WRAP UP

Well there you have it. These players were the best fantasy players at their positions in the final weeks. Some of them we knew would be here, but there were many we were shocked about. This just shows that you can have your team “set” going into playoffs, but you still have to be involved each week and put bids on these guys and hope you can pick them up. It may be to help you or at the very least it is always good to make sure your opponent doesn’t get them. I hope you won some titles this season and if so, please write a nice thank you letter to these studs.

Stay Fluid, Stay Loose.