5 Fantasy Football Rules to Guarantee Yourself a Playoff Spot

When NFL Network trots out the Thursday Night Football, you know your fantasy season is in the home stretch. Depending on the league you usually have between four and five games left before the playoffs.

You may be 10-0 by week's end or you might be 5-5. Bob Costas would spend half an hour letting you know all the variables, but I figure you get my point.

Whatever your record is, if you are aiming for the playoffs, there is one thing all teams have in common: You need to get your team ready for the second season.

Perfect teams are few and far between, and to be honest, even they can improve. There's a saying "the day you stop learning, you're dead." Well, the day you stop improving your fantasy team, your season is dead.

You need to keep massaging your team, finding the potential holes and patching them up before they become a problem. I say before, because when the problem rears its ugly head, it's already too late.

To help you through this, I designed a fool-proof, 100 percent guaranteed method to not only steel your team for the coming conflict, but also devastate and demoralize your foes.

Unfortunately, that plan was stolen by ninjas (fantasy ninjas!) who then wiped my memory of it, so I had to throw together this list to make my deadline.

Stupid ninjas.

Doing the things I list below will also set you up for success in the playoffs as well. As with everything, keeping focus on not only what is happening now, but also what you will face in the future will have you ready to overcome many obstacles.

So without further ado, here are five adjustments you need to make in order to guarantee yourself a playoff spot.

1. Examine and Shore Up Your Backup Quarterback

This is something even owners of elite-QBs-who-never-get-hurt need to do. You can't just roll into the playoffs with anybody at the backup quarterback spot.

This isn't something to be cavalier about. Look hard at who is behind your main guy, what he can do and what defenses he will face and what weapons he has on his team.

Even if you have an Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees, you need a rock-solid backup because you just never know what might happen.

In one league I am in, I saw a team lose two quarterbacks during the playoffs in the space of a week. So anything can happen. Brees, Rodgers, Brady—everyone can get hurt.

Making sure you have a No. 2 quarterback you can count on—or at least has upside—is vital just in case something happens during the stretch. A weak backup could end your run at a playoff spot very quickly. Don't think so? Ask yourself this then:

Would you really want to have to win a final game to get into the playoffs using John Beck or Blaine Gabbert?

Take some time to make sure that if all else fails, you have a guy who can put up points. Make a trade, hit the waiver wire—whatever it takes.

Make sure you have a good option if the worst happens.

2. Maximize Bench Depth

Dovetailing off that, take the above point and apply it to your entire bench. Now is the time to start trading dead weight. Sure, you want multiple running backs, guys who can step in according to matchup or if there is an injury.

You do need reliable backups. What you don't need is guys who are either buried completely on the depth chart or are in an offense that is terrible at utilizing them. What good is having a wide receiver on your bench if his quarterback can't throw the ball or a running back whose offensive line can't open holes?

Dump the dead weight and shore up your position players. Make sure that if Shonn Greene goes down, you have someone worthwhile to take his place in the lineup.

Again, as with quarterback, you can hit the waiver wire for upside or make trades. Just make sure whoever you get will contribute. Not might contribute. Will contribute.

You can also look to backups of your starters. If Greene goes down, Joe McKnight will be useful on your bench, as would LaDainian Tomlinson. You don't have to have the real backup to your starter. In some cases, it's not worth it. For example, having Chris Ogbonnaya backing up Peyton Hillis hasn't made a big difference has it? On the other hand, Michael Bush continues to excel with Darren McFadden out.

So if you grab a real backup, make sure that the surrounding situation will allow the success to translate.

Keep in mind, one or two Hail Marys on a roster is fine. Just try to make sure all of your depth isn't backups to your starters. Sometimes a guy goes cold and doesn't perform—I'm looking at you Chris Johnson—but isn't replaced by his backup.

You want guys who can be put in a lineup for struggling players and often that is not going to be a backup to that player.

So restrain yourself and again, make sure you add value, not just warm bodies.

3. Look Ahead at Schedules

Once you get into the playoffs, it's easy to just toss out your lineup and go. This is an especially bad trap if your team is super loaded and you don't think you have any holes.

When you start working on your overall depth, take a look at who your players are going up against in the critical playoff weeks. Make sure you have some good matchups there to ensure you will get the best points possible from every position.

At Footballguys.com, we have a strength of schedule article that posts each week with adjustments based on trends and changes in defenses. It's not an end all be all—even bad defenses have good weeks and good defenses will get blown up—but it does give you an idea of what you will be up against.

It's funny to me that sometimes players will obsess about their opponent's lineup. There's nothing you can do about that. In fact, in many ways you aren't playing the guy in your league. You're playing against all the teams who your players are facing.

With that in mind, it's a very smart idea to make sure you have guys who can perform down the stretch to get you into the playoffs as well as put up points during your playoff run.

You don't need to make wholesale changes, and you aren't benching a stud like Arian Foster regardless of who he faces. Beyond the studs though, you should make sure you know how likely it is a player will perform so you can maximize your point output.

4. Dance With who Brought You

There's a lot of tinkering in this article, but one thing you really want to avoid down the stretch is over-thinking. Looking at your lineup trying to squeeze every ounce of value can lead to mistakes.

The main guys in your lineup got you this far. They can finish the job and not only get you in the playoffs but win the whole thing.

It's fine to switch around your fourth wide receiver or flex player. Those are matchup/upside positions in your lineup.

It's really dangerous to start swapping out your studs or guys who have performed well all season because you stared at the team stats on NFL.com for an hour and think you can get a dozen more yards with player A than player B.

"Start your studs" is a pretty good rule of thumb in fantasy football. Barring injury, you should follow it. Don't over-think it.

5. Don't Overdue It

All of the above are points that I firmly believe in. I'm not afraid to tinker, and I think you are always looking to improve your team. In fact, even if you have a tremendous team that is loaded with studs, there is always something to be improved upon.

That said, don't overdue it. As with the fourth rule about starting your studs, sometimes it's the moves you don't make that will lead you to victory.

I've seen owners with a solid roster—maybe not loaded with elite talent but instead filled with solid earners—blow up their roster trying to get that one huge stud. I've seen people trade multiple players to get Adrian Peterson, LeSean McCoy or Drew Brees.

It's great if you have those guys or can acquire them at a reasonable price.

However, if you trade all your other talent, who else will put points up? Sure, Brees can get you a ton of points, but he can't win your matchups all by himself.

In many cases, I'd rather have Ahmad Bradshaw, LaGarrette Blount, Steve Johnson, Brandon Lloyd and Matt Schaub than have Brees while the rest of my roster is Pierre Thomas, Shonn Greene, Santonio Holmes, Darrius Heyward-Bey and Kevin Walter.

One stud can grant you a lot of points and save you when another roster spot goes haywire. More often than not though, he cannot outscore an entire opponent by himself.

You need to keep your team balanced. The moves I have mentioned above do not have to be drastic, giant moves. They can be small moves that pay big dividends.

Don't get caught up in the shiny, expensive toy. Sometimes you are fine with a bunch of quality players rather than just one elite guy.

There's a fair amount of risk and randomness in fantasy football. You can't quite prepare for everything because some random event will always blindside you despite your best preparations.

Still, you can do a lot of work to make sure that whatever changes you make will put you in the best possible position to succeed.

Andrew Garda is a staff writer at Footballguys.com. Check them out for rankings, projections and player analyses. More than 50,000 pages of content every year to lead you to the championship.