It's playoffs time, which means that these tips are at peak importance.
DO Stick With What's Been Working
Image by Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP
If you're in the playoffs, there's a reason you got there. It's because your team is good, and they've been performing well all year. (Either that, or you're a master computer hacker.) If your team is good, and they've been performing well all year, don't all of a sudden get cute and think that you should bench Peyton Manning for someone with a great matchup. That's the kind of overthinking that results in you scoring 50 points and spending your whole day Sunday throwing darts at a picture of yourself that you printed out and taped to your living room wall.
DON'T Keep Starting Players If They Aren't Actually Working
Image by Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP
That being said: don't keep playing a guy just because you've been playing him. Sometimes a team will succeed in spite of a week spot in the lineup, but you overlook said spot because you've been winning. For example, I have Jeremy Kerley pretty firmly ensconced in my second wide-receiver spot. I'm in the semifinals of my league this week, and I was considering whether I should play Kerley or Darrius Heyward-Bey, who, despite being a pretty high draft pick, has been riding my bench thanks to injury and a few zero-catch games. But when I looked into it, Kerley's performance is pretty rough: over his last two games, he's put up a grand total of 4.4 points. I've been on a winning streak, but it hasn't been because of him. So, out goes Kerley, and in goes Heyward-Bey, who went for 82 yards and a score last week against Denver.