Every fantasy football postseason follows its own, difficult-to-foresee storyline.
This year, having the right players from each week's early games -- and, in one case, the week's final game -- played a critical role in deciding league championships. Each of the three best individual player scores from Weeks 14-17 occurred in either a Thursday or Saturday game, and five of the top 10 during that span came from games played outside of the traditional Sunday window.
In Week 14, it was Jahmyr Gibbs, whose 37.0 fantasy points on Thursday Night Football gave his managers quite the head start in their semifinal matchups. Gibbs would, unfortunately, then total 39.0 points the next three weeks combined.
In Week 15, Kyle Pitts Sr. obliterated his previous career best for fantasy points by scoring 45.6 on Thursday night, one of the most unexpected single-game outcomes of the entire year. Pitts was started in a large enough percentage of leagues (46.3%), too, to heavily influence semifinal matchups.
In Week 16, a wild, overtime Thursday game between the Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks gave us Puka Nacua's 46.5 fantasy point performance. Nacua was one of six players to score at least 15 points in each of the four traditional playoff weeks (Chase Brown, Trevor Lawrence, Bo Nix, Tyler Shough and Jaxon Smith-Njigba).
Finally -- not only a reference to the weekly progression, but also to the final game of our traditional playoffs -- Bijan Robinson's 39.9 fantasy point performance in Week 17 on Monday Night Football probably decided many championship games. Robinson scored at least 29 points in each of the past three weeks, the only player to have as many as three such scores during the entire fantasy playoffs.
Needless to say, these four placed high on the list of players most commonly found on ESPN championship teams this season. Nacua led the way, residing on a title winner in 29.1% of leagues. It capped what was an outstanding, fantasy-MVP-caliber season for the third-year Rams wide receiver, one who leads his position in scoring (349.0, +3.5 over the next-closest) heading into the NFL season's final week. Nacua has done that despite missing Week 7 due to an ankle injury, meaning his 23.0 points-per-game average is second among all players (Christian McCaffrey, 25.3), and 1.7 better than the next-closest wide receiver.
Robinson's playoff outburst, which, to be fair, followed a stellar regular season that saw him score the fourth-most fantasy points among running backs and eighth most among all players through Week 13, earned him a place on a championship roster in 23.8% of leagues. That was third best in the league.
Pitts' 14.9% roster rate was second among tight ends (Trey McBride, 22.4%) and 19th overall, while Gibbs managed a 14.4% rate despite his sluggish finish, ninth among running backs and 22nd overall. Gibbs, who led this list last season (29.0% of leagues), has finished nor worse than 22nd on the list in each of his first three NFL campaigns. He's also third on the all-time running backs list, and seventh among all players, in terms of fantasy points scored in a player's first three NFL seasons.
Here are the top 50 players found on championship rosters in ESPN standard leagues. Included are their preseason ADPs and year-to-date scoring totals.
Additional takeaways
Nacua's playoff flourish should take nothing away from Smith-Njigba's dominant, consistent campaign. At one point, Smith-Njigba had a 34.6 fantasy point lead on the wide receiver field -- that marking the conclusion of Week 12 -- and he's headed for the position's largest number of top-25 weeks (a leading 15, with one week to go) as well as its best week-over-week consistency score. His second-best ranking above should come as no surprise considering he was still the No. 4 scoring wide receiver and No. 11 player overall during the four playoff weeks.
At 18.7% of ESPN leagues, Brandon Aubrey is the kicker with the greatest such rate since ... well, Aubrey himself in 2023 (20.4%)! In the past seven seasons, Aubrey is the only kicker to have held a spot on a championship roster in more than 15% of leagues, which isn't to say that he's suddenly a kicker worth opening up the draft wallet to select, but rather that he's one of the position's few reliable scoring sources in an era where the positional field is largely unpredictable.
Drake Maye, arguably the breakthrough performer of 2025, provided hearty contributions in driving his fantasy teams both into the playoffs (fourth most common quarterback and No. 26 player overall) and into championship matchups (third and 22nd). Though his New England Patriots had their bye in Week 14, his streak of 20 fantasy point performance in each of their three games since, culminating in his scoring a career-best 32.44 points in Week 17, made him the quarterback most commonly found on title-winning rosters. Maye's 336.22 fantasy points are second best at the position this season, and if the Patriots do play him in Week 18 in their quest to secure the AFC's No. 1 playoff seed, he has a chance to move into the top five all-time seasons by a second-year quarterback.
The waiver-wire gem to have during the fantasy playoffs was Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Michael Wilson, whose role expanded while Marvin Harrison Jr. nursed multiple injuries. Wilson's 86.7 fantasy points from Weeks 14-17 were third most among wide receivers and 10th among all players. From Week 11 forward, Wilson placed second at his position and eighth overall with his 148.6 fantasy points.
Those of you who are in superflex and two-quarterback leagues might be screaming, "Where the heck is Trevor Lawrence on this list?!" Yes, Lawrence was tremendous during the fantasy playoffs, scoring a second-best-overall 117.94 points, while being the only player to score at least 19 in each of the four weeks. In ESPN standard one-quarterback leagues, however, his lineup exposure wasn't quite as great, going from 20.2% to 23.2% to 18.5% to 43.1% starter rates, which ranked 17th, 17th, 18th and ninth at the position. If you were so bold as to use Lawrence as your starter, great job! In our leagues, however, he was on a championship roster in only 10.7% -- though that's still a boost from his 6.4% rate of being on a playoff team.
Among playoff busts, Justin Jefferson's second-half swoon tanked a large number of his fantasy teams. After residing on a playoff team in 41.2% of leagues, still only 65th overall, his number shrunk to 5.8% of championship squads. Jefferson's 183.1 fantasy points for the season are only 34.5 more than the aforementioned Wilson had in the past seven weeks, and Jefferson's 58.8 points over the past eight weeks have been exceeded by 45 other wide receivers.
Here's hoping that you had several of the players from the above list on your fantasy roster this season, and congratulations to all of our new league champions!
