Week 18 Flex Rankings for Fantasy Football and DFS

If your fantasy football league counts Week 18 towards its championship, I truly wish you the best of luck. I say that as someone who once “lost” a whole lot of money in the season’s final week. Fantasy football is challenging enough as it is, even under the best of conditions. But this week adds another layer of chaos to the mix. So my current Week 18 Flex Rankings are subject to more change than usual. Of course, these rankings are also very applicable to DFS, so if you’ve continued your fantasy football season into that realm, these will also help you.

More Week 18 Fantasy Football Fun!: | Sneaky Starts | Fantasy Football Waiver Wire | Weekly Sleepers & Streamers | Starts & Sits | Skrip’s Week Winners | NFL DFS | NFL Player Props | IDP Analysis | Bold Predictions | Survivor Picks | NFL Injury Report | Dynasty Trade Targets | Weekly Rankings | Dynasty Risers and Fallers

I still went through my normal process and ranked well over 200 players based on Half-PPR scoring. However, there is likely to be a lot that changes over the next three or four days. Fantasy managers competing for a title will need to be extra vigilant this week regarding potentially late-breaking news.

Teams and players often have very different motivations this time of year, and many of them do not align. Let’s start with simple motivation and playing time. There is only one game on this week’s slate that is a true elimination game from a playoff perspective. That is Sunday night’s game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Health permitting, we know the players on these teams will give it their all. Saturday afternoon’s tilt between Carolina and Tampa Bay will be played with similar intensity, though the Panthers can still make the playoffs with a loss if Atlanta defeats New Orleans on Sunday. The winner of Saturday night’s game between Seattle and San Francisco gets the NFC’s number-one seed and a bye. Denver can clinch the AFC’s top spot with a win on Sunday against the Justin Herbert-less Los Angeles Chargers.

Most other NFL teams either need help to improve their playoff positioning or do not have an added incentive, having already been eliminated from the playoffs. In addition to the Chargers, Buffalo, Chicago, Green Bay, Los Angeles Rams, and Philadelphia are some playoff teams that may decide to limit the workloads of some of their key players. Non-playoff teams could employ a similar strategy. Do players like Ashton Jeanty and Breece Hall receive their typical weekly volume? For now, I ranked both running backs as I normally would among Week 18 Flex options. On the flip side, there will likely be some stat and bonus money chasing among certain players. I would not go overboard by overvaluing players who have a financial incentive on the line. However, that can be a logical tiebreaker if you are deciding between similar players.