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Chris Meaney
The National Fantasy Football Championship offers plenty of different contests with entry fees ranging as little as $25. The NFFC prides itself on creating leagues for any price range. $25 too much? You can hop over to their Bestball10s site with leagues starting at $10. Their most popular high-stakes overall competitions are the Primetime and Classic, with entry fees of $1,600.
Not many fantasy football players want to invest over a thousand dollars in one league but would love to compete for the chance to win six figures. That is where the NFFC Cutline Championship comes in, with an entry fee of $150 and the overall grand prize producing a whopping $100,000.
When it comes to roster construction and managing FAAB you must dot the i’s and cross the t’s in order to find success in a unique competition like the Cutline Championship, providing the opportunity to turn $150 into $100,000. Understanding and knowing the league rules, scoring, FAAB stipulations and lineup requirements is essential to surviving. All of that starts by reading this NFFC Cutline Championship overview.
Overview
“The NFFC Cutline Championship will consist of multiple leagues each comprised of 10 teams/managers. This is an optimal scoring format, where an owner's best scoring lineup will be used from Week 1 to Week 9. Owners will not have to choose who to start or bench on their rosters during this time. After week 9 there is no optimal scoring and team owners will set their lineups to compete for prizes in the applicable bracket.” — NFFC
Prizes
The top two teams from each league based on the criteria below qualify for the championship bracket in Weeks 10-12 of the Cutline Championship:
1st — Most total point scored Weeks 1-9
2nd — Second most points scored Weeks 1-9
Three other teams move to the Wild Card bracket for Weeks 10-12:
3rd — Most points among remaining teams
4th — Most points among remaining teams
5th — Most points among remaining teams
Round 1: Weeks 10-12 (scores combined for those three weeks + weekly scoring average from Weeks 1-9)
The top 25% scoring championship bracket teams after Week 12 advance to Week 13 (top 140 teams if we had 560 championship round teams based on 2,800 total teams); all other teams from the Championship bracket move to the Wild Card bracket. The top 20 scoring Wild Card teams move up to the Championship bracket; the next 200 advance in the Wild Card bracket. All other teams in the Wild Card bracket are finished.
Round 2: Week 13 (take each team’s weekly scoring average from Weeks 1-9, plus weekly playoff scoring average, plus your score from Week 13)
The top 100 scoring Championship bracket teams advance; all other teams move to the Wild Card bracket. The top 10 scoring Wild Card teams move up to the Championship bracket; the next 120 advance in the Wild Card bracket.
Round 3: Week 14 (take each team’s weekly scoring average from Weeks 1-9, plus weekly playoff scoring average, plus your score from Week 14)
The top 60 scoring Championship bracket teams advance; all others move to the Wild Card bracket. The top six scoring Wild Card teams move up to the Championship bracket; the next 60 advance in the Wild Card bracket.
Round 4: Week 15 (take each team’s weekly scoring average from Weeks 1-9, plus weekly playoff scoring average; plus your score from Week 15)
The top 11 scoring Championship bracket teams advance; all others move to the Wild Card bracket. The top scoring (1) Wild Card team moves up to the Championship bracket; the next 20 advance in the Wild Card bracket.
Final round: Week 16 (take each team’s weekly scoring average from Weeks 1-9, plus weekly playoff scoring average, plus your score from Week 16)
12 teams compete in the Championship bracket 75 teams compete in the Wild Card bracket. (Note: In the event of a tie for teams to advance to the next round in either the Cutline Championship or Wildcard rounds, all tied scores at the cutline will advance. By way of example, after Week 13, the top 93 teams will advance in the Championship round. If, for example, three teams are tied for 93rd place in the standings, all three tied teams, for a total of 95 teams overall, will advance to the next round of the Championship.)
Scoring
Starting lineup requirements:
1 quarterback
2 running backs
3 wide receivers
1 tight end
1 flex (RB, WR, TE)
1 kicker
1 team defense/special teams
Lineup submission:
“Leagues have an optimal scoring format for Weeks 1 through 9 where your highest-scoring player from each of the 10 starting positions is scored at the end of each week. Then in the Championship Round and Wild Card Tiers of Weeks 10 through 16, all owners must set their starting lineup each week. That is different from the regular season.” — NFFC
Roster construction:
With 26 rounds of drafting and only three FAAB periods, your path to cashing in the overall begins at the draft. Understanding the optimal amount of players at each position is crucial when it comes to constructing a successful best ball team. This means drafting two kickers and two defense/special teams. Yes, two kickers … it’s vital you have multiple players available at every position due to injuries and the unknown after your final FAAB period has passed (Week 9). You still have seven weeks to go and cannot afford to not be accruing points at every position. Do not render yourself useless with one kicker, potentially leaving your team with a zero down the stretch. Rostering two defense/special teams is not due to injury, with DST always guaranteed to take the field, but DSTs can be volatile and at times generate more points than you’re anticipating. With this being best ball, it’s sharp to have two DSTs each week with their weekly boom/bust potential. You’re increasing your range of outcomes without investing much in the draft. Getting the two boring positions out of the way first is crucial because you need to know how many spots at each position you’re going to allocate.
Load up on your skill players before taking your first QB, which is a minimum of seven rounds (2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 FLEX).
Quarterback is a position that warrants two at the minimum or three at most. The Cutline Championship is only a 10-team format, so you don’t need to invest too much draft capital at the QB position. Last season the highest-scoring QB was Lamar Jackson with 520.95 fantasy points while averaging 34.73 points per game. The lowest-scoring (min. 15 games) QB was Mitchell Trubisky at 270.20 points, 18.01 PPG. While that range of outcomes is significant with a +16.72 PPG gap, the mean at the QB position was a solid 23.31 PPG, creating a +11.42 PPG above the mean for Jackson. That’s a larger outlier than usually for QBs — removing Jackson’s PPG, the most productive QB (min. 15 games) was Dak Prescott’s 28.05 PPG, only 4.74 PPG above the mean.
Running back is the roster spot that earns you one of those gigantic checks. Christian McCaffrey was the cream of the crop last season, racking up 471.20 points while averaging 29.45 PPG. The PPG mean at the RB position last season was 14.92 PPG, mounting CMC as the leader at any position in positive PPG with 14.53 PPG above the mean. The PPG and gaps between elite RBs versus average and below-average RBs is staggering. There is no one way to build a roster, but considering the relative depths of the positions these days, you’re better off allocating at least one of your first two picks on a running back, and it’s worth considering a two-RB start.
Michael Thomas (374.60 points) had a historic season and crushed every wide receiver with nearly 100 more than the second highest-scoring WR Chris Godwin (276.10). Including Thomas and Godwin, there were 25 WRs to top 200 points; there were only 18 RBs to do so. Lower to the 150- to 199-point threshold and you find 13 running backs, 20 receivers.
Preferred roster construction
My recommendation: 3 QB, 7 RB, 9 WR, 3 TE, 2 K, 2 DST
The NFFC Cutline Championship isn’t DFS, but there are still positive correlations and stacks that can benefit you in this format. Stacking a QB along with one of his pass-catchers can put you on the fast track. In the later rounds, you don’t have to avoid the WR2 or WR3 from a team if you already drafted his WR1 teammate — both might not be optimal every week, but you’re likely going to hit a home run each week with one of them. Stacking both of them with Josh Allen provides a positive correlation.
The same can be said for multiple running backs on the same team as a way to capitalize on a specific team’s depth. Focusing on the teams with a running back by committee provides the opportunity to own the lion’s share of the team’s backfield. Another factor to this is not investing too much in draft capital when it comes to drafting these RBs. Teams with uncertainty can benefit you come draft day with their talent or role being undervalued or overlooked.
Such opportunities include:
Detroit Lions: D'Andre Swift, Kerryon Johnson
Seattle Seahawks: Chris Carson, DeeJay Dallas, Carlos Hyde, Rashaad Penny
Pittsburgh Steelers: James Conner, Anthony McFarland, Jaylen Samuels
San Francisco 49ers: Raheem Mostert, Tevin Coleman, Jerick McKinnon
Los Angeles Rams: Cam Akers, Darrell Henderson, Malcolm Brown
Tampa Bay Buccaneers: Ke'Shawn Vaughn, Ronald Jones, Dare Ogunbowale
Washington Football Team: Adrian Peterson, Bryce Love, Antonio Gibson
New England Patriots: Sony Michel, James White, Damien Harris, Rex Burkhead
Free agent acquisition budget
If you’re not familiar with FAAB, it’s essentially your free agent budget. Three times a year in the NFFC setup, you can bid on free agents, with the highest bid landing the player. NFFC runs FAAB:
FAAB 1: Week 2
FAAB 2: Week 6
FAAB 3: Week 9
There is major leverage with only three FAAB periods. To obtain leverage in the Cutline you must exploit that by spending big the first FAAB period. Just be sure you’re confident on the player’s role, volume, ROS projections etc. While doing so you also need to be conscious of your remaining budget along the way. Leaving “x” amount of dollars for the next two FAAB periods is crucial regardless of current or future projected success. Things happen.
The second and third FAAB period involve balancing obvious roster need with remaining budget. The third one is especially where you make every dollar count. If you’re entering Week 9 and missing players for any reason, it’s key to cut every single one of them while placing as many $1 bids on available players. You want to enter Week 10 with a roster loaded with players who are healthy, amassing volume.
