"If you ain't first, you're last." If you've seen Talladega Nights, then you know that Ricky Bobby was clearly talking about fantasy football when he trademarked the infamous quote.

At this point, we have one single Monday Night Football game left until the end of the fantasy football season. Outside of a Monday Night Miracle, you probably have a good idea of whether or not you'll end up in first ... or last. And if we've learned anything over these previous three playoff weeks, it's that the players who got you here won't necessarily get you where you want to be. And the players that may have struggled along the way could have found a way to redeem themselves in the fantasy playoffs.

Who were the league winners of 2025, and what players quickly went from fantasy hero to fantasy playoffs zero? Let's recap the best and worst from the 2025 fantasy football playoffs.

Note: All fantasy finish data provided by the Fantasy Finishes Tool. PPG data is from the Utilization Report Season Stats.

Heroes Of The 2025 Fantasy Football Playoffs

Trevor Lawrence | QB | JAX

• Weeks 1-14 PPG: 17.0
• Playoff Finishes
  • Week 15: 44.3
  • Week 16: 31.2
  • Week 17: 24.1

Trevor Lawrence has been playing the best football of his career during the fantasy playoffs, and it's really not debatable. Drafted as the QB28 last summer, Lawrence rattled off a trio of consecutive QB1 finishes to end the 2025 fantasy playoffs ... and massive QB1 performances at that. He likely wasn't a starting quarterback in your league leading up to the tail end of the season, but he found himself starting in over 40% of all ESPN leagues by Week 17, many of them being championship-level matchups. What this means for Lawrence's 2026 prospects remains to be seen, but he has underrated depth at pass catcher—Brian Thomas, Jakobi Meyers, Travis Hunter (returning in 2026), Parker Washington, Brenton Strange—and a Head Coach in Liam Coen who has proven to get more out of Lawrence than any coach prior. Expect his ADP to vastly improve on his 2025 ADP based on recency bias alone.

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Derrick Henry | RB | BAL

• Weeks 1-14 PPG (PPR): 14.3
• Playoff Finishes (PPR)
  • Week 15: 10.0
  • Week 16: 22.8
  • Week 17: 45.6

If there was ever a meme to describe Derrick Henry's season, this is the one.

Written off as washed, and that Father Time was officially catching up throughout the season, Henry shrugged off the ball-security issues that plagued him throughout the regular season to deliver a pair of vintage King Henry performances in the two most important weeks of the year. He capped off the fantasy playoffs with a 45.6-point outburst on the back of 216 yards and four touchdowns, putting his managers who stuck with him all year in a prime position to take home the fantasy gold.

Closer to 33 than 32 at the start of the 2026 season, the Father Time chatter around Henry is surely going to pick up despite him showing us that he still has vintage performances buried deep in his bag.

Chase Brown | RB | CIN

• Weeks 1-14 PPG (PPR): 13.8
• Playoff Finishes (PPR)
  • Week 15: 16.0
  • Week 16: 32.9
  • Week 17: 29.1

Chase Brown was a preseason darling during summer drafts, and everything went south pretty much right out of the gate. Between Joe Burrow going down with an injury, Samaje Perine siphoning way more work than anyone expected and Brown's painful lack of efficiency, hope was just about lost. After failing to crack the top-20 RBs once through Week 7, Brown started to gain some momentum and posted five top-12 RB finishes from Weeks 8 through 14. In the fantasy playoffs, Brown rattled off RB13, RB1 and RB2 (pending MNF) finishes. There really isn't a better example of a tale of two seasons than what we saw out of Brown this year.

Managers who both stuck with Brown and managed to make the playoffs were rewarded for their loyalty and patience, and 2026 will likely be another offseason of bounceback hype for the entire Bengals offense, with their signal-caller entering the offseason in full health.

Chris Olave | WR | NO

• Weeks 1-14 PPG (PPR): 14.3
• Playoff Finishes (PPR)
  • Week 15: 20.5
  • Week 16: 36.8
  • Week 17: 25.9

There might not have been a single player who was slated for positive regression in Dwain's Utilization Reports more often throughout the season than Chris Olave, and that's exactly what we were blessed with in the playoffs. The utilization was there throughout the season—Olave had a Utilization Score of at least 80 in six of his first 14 games, posting a cumulative Utilization Score of 80 through Week 14—but the fantasy points trailed behind.

A Week 9 QB switch to Tyler Shough injected life into this offense. From Weeks 9 through 16, Olave posted a Utilization Score of 85 while averaging 17.7 PPR points per game on the back of a 28% target share and a 14.9-yard aDOT, a massive jump from his 10.8-yard aDOT in Weeks 1 through 8. He finished the playoffs with another elite performance in Week 17, posting 25.9 PPR points on an 8-119-1 receiving line (11 targets). Expect Olave to be a popular mid-round selection this summer after finally living up to the hype that he's had for the previous few offseasons.

Puka Nacua | WR | LAR

• Weeks 1-14 PPG (PPR): 21.6
• Playoff Finishes (PPR)
  • Week 15: 27.9
  • Week 16: 46.5
  • Week 17: TBD (MNF)

I'm bending the rules a bit here with Puka Nacua not having played in Week 17 yet, but if you're a Nacua manager, there's a high likelihood that you're either playing in your league's finals or, at the very least, a third-place game.

The expectations were high coming into the year for Nacua (WR7 preseason ADP on Sleeper)—his 21.6 PPR points per game from Weeks 1 through 14 put him as the overall WR2. And yet, somehow, he improved his production even more when his managers needed him most. His 46.5-point outing in Week 16 put his opponents in a massive Thursday Night hole in the playoff semifinals and put his managers in prime position to advance to the finals. What he does tonight remains to be seen, but it's hard to imagine it'll be anything but what he's been doing all season—winning you your matchup.

Nacua should be one of, if not the first, wide receiver off the board once 2026 drafts open this summer.

Zeros Of The 2025 Fantasy Football Playoffs

Lamar Jackson | QB | BAL

• Weeks 1-14 PPG: 17.2
• Playoff Finishes:
  • Week 15: 13.6
  • Week 16: 4.7
  • Week 17: DNP

If you drafted Lamar Jackson this season, you probably felt pretty damn good about your QB situation ... until Week 4. Jackson posted three consecutive top-four positional finishes to start the year (33.4, 34.3, 33.0) before a 13.4-point outing in a Week 4 game overshadowed by injury. He then sat out until Week 9 and made his long-awaited return ... only to post two top-12 QB finishes across the rest of the entire season. Yeah, it was that bad.

The QB waiver wire was robust this season, with guys like Trevor Lawrence and Jaxson Dart providing relief for Jackson managers and allowed many to sneak into their playoffs, but trusting Jackson did nothing but burn managers. With a playoff-high of 13.6 points, Jackson had one of the most forgettable stretches of his career when it mattered most for managers. Having short-term memory loss will be a good thing when it comes to drafting Jackson in 2026.

Jahmyr Gibbs | RB | DET

• Weeks 1-14 PPG (PPR): 23.7
• Playoff Finishes (PPR)
  • Week 15: 9.8
  • Week 16: 20.8
  • Week 17: 6.4

WTF, man. There may not have been a more electric and reliable running back to trot out in your lineups this season, up until it mattered most. Inconsistency plagued the Sonic to David Montgomery's Knuckles after he got managers' hopes up leading up to the playoffs. With two overall RB1 finishes in three weeks before the playoffs (55.4 points in Week 12, 37.0 in Week 14), Gibbs failed to crack 10 points in two of his three games during the fantasy playoffs.

If you were lucky enough to survive his 9.8-point outing in Week 14 and advance to Round 2, you were probably pretty pleased with his 20.8 last week ... only to be disappointed (and likely buried) by his 6.4 in the Week 17 championship. That 6.4-point outing was his second-lowest-scoring performance of the entire season, trailing only his 5.8-point, RB37 finish in Week 9.

There will likely be adjustments to this Detroit offense this offseason, but planning around Jahmyr Gibbs will likely continue to be a priority. Don't let his disappointing playoff finishes blind you from his upside as a sure-fire early-Round 1 pick this summer.

Bucky Irving | RB | TB

• Weeks 1-14 PPG (PPR): 17.4 (six games)
• Playoff Finishes (PPR)
  • Week 15: 8.1
  • Week 16: 7.1
  • Week 17: 8.3

What started as an exciting season that felt like Bucky Irving was picking up where he left off in 2024 turned into an absolute nightmare finish down the road. Irving started the season posting four straight RB15-or-better performances and encouraging rates (72% snaps, 71% of the rushing attempts, 57% route rate). He averaged 18.0 PPR points per game and everything was looking up.

Then, he got hurt. He missed the following eight games, returning in Week 13 to a completely different role. From Weeks 13 to 16, Irving saw his snap share drop to 55%, his rushing attempts drop to 63% and his route rate drop to 43%. On top of that, he failed to log a single carry inside the 5-yard line between Weeks 13-16, ceding work to both Rachaad White and Sean Tucker. His Week 17 championship performance wasn't any better, posting only 8.3 PPR points and failing to find the end zone for a third consecutive week.

Irving will likely be a hot topic going into 2026 as people begin to forecast his role, but it's safe to say he was one of the biggest losers of the 2025 fantasy playoffs and did far more to hurt you than help you as a manager.

 CeeDee Lamb | WR | DAL

• Weeks 1-14 PPG (PPR): 16.2 (10 games)
• Playoff Finishes (PPR)
  • Week 15: 17.1
  • Week 16: 11.1
  • Week 17: 9.6

CeeDee Lamb had a turbulent season, often seeming more like the WR2 in Dallas behind George Pickens than the alpha WR1 we've been accustomed to. Even so, with Dallas' pass-happy offense, he was able to post seven top-15 WR performances through the first 15 Weeks despite missing the majority of Week 3 (6% routes) and all of Weeks 4 through 6 due to injury. Was he providing the Earth-shattering and matchup-winning production you expected out of your Round 1 pick? No. Was he burying you? No.

That, of course, didn't happen until it mattered most. Shocker! Lamb's WR30 (11.1 PPR points) finish in Week 16 and his 9.6-point outing in Week 17 were his two lowest-scoring games of the season to date. If you made it to the semifinals with Lamb in your lineup, you likely didn't make it any further.

Jaylen Waddle | WR | MIA

• Weeks 1-14 PPG (PPR): 13.6
• Playoff Finishes (PPR)
  • Week 15: 4.6
  • Week 16: 10.2
  • Week 17: 0.7

The Dolphins were a disaster all season, but things were looking up for Jaylen Waddle's fantasy production early in the season when Tyreek Hill went down with a season-ending leg injury in Week 4.

From Week 5 through Week 10, Waddle posted four top-20 WR finishes, with three in the top-13 and two in the top-eight WRs. He operated as the overall WR6 during that stretch, averaging 16.0 PPR points per game. From Week 11 through 16? Waddle looked like a shell of himself, operating as the WR43 with 9.6 points per game. If you thought things couldn't get worse, you were sorely mistaken. Quinn Ewers replaced Tua Tagovailoa as the team's QB1 in Week 16, downgrading the entire offense. Waddle surely felt the ripple effect, posting finishes of 10.2 points and 0.7 points in the final two weeks of the fantasy playoffs.

As someone who started Waddle as a FLEX play in both of those games, I can confidently say that he did everything he could to prevent a championship run. His 2026 prospects will be interesting to watch, as the ambiguity around both Tyreek Hill and the QB situation will have massive implications on his upside.

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