Many fantasy leagues crowned their champions after Week 16, not wanting to risk having their seasons be decided by backup players for NFL teams with nothing to play for in Week 17.
Other leagues go right down to the wire with their title games, while others play consolation games this weekend.
In any case, the perennial problem facing fantasy GMs in Week 17 is figuring out which NFL players are playing for real on the final Sunday, and which are making token appearances - or even taking a week off.
NFL head coaches whose teams have little at stake still like to keep their opponents guessing about how many of their starters will play and for how long.
That means your guesses are as good as mine. Here are mine:
*Tennessee Titans: The AFC's top seed is light on motivation. Running back LenDale White has 15 touchdowns this year, but he's got some bad karma going after stomping on a Terrible Towel in Pittsburgh after Sunday's win. I don't like the vibe here.
*New York Giants coach Tom Coughlin vows to play his starters against Minnesota, but Big Blue has already clinched the top seed in the NFC. The banged-up Brandon Jacobs is a risky play this week, as is receiver Domenik Hixon. But running back Derrick Ward, who last week burned Carolina for 215 yards, could be worth a shot because he is 52 yards shy of 1,000 for the season.
*Arizona Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt says shoulder-impaired receiver Anquan Boldin will be in action against Seattle. Still, the Cards' playoff date has been booked, so I'm shying away from Boldin, Larry Fitzgerald and quarterback Kurt Warner, who's been fading recently.
*Cross the Indianapolis Colts off your list, unless you picked up QB Jim Sorgi on waivers this week. Once Peyton Manning starts thinking about holding the clipboard, he's already got it.
*The Dallas Cowboys are trying to sqeeze into the playoffs, but Philadelphia's No. 2 pass defense won't take kindly to Tony Romo throwing the ball in the cold confines of Philly's Lincoln Financial Field. Romo is a no go.
*On the other hand, load up on Denver Broncos and San Diego Chargers, who will stage a shootout for the AFC West title on Sunday night. QBs Jay Cutler and Philip Rivers are very attractive plays this week.
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A team of destiny
The following story won't help your fantasy team, but it might brighten your day.
Tom Borrelli, the Buffalo News sportswriter who died in late November after a fall at All High Stadium, was the originator of this column. Tom was a devoted fantasy sports player, and was known around the office for making self-deprecating jokes about his teams
"If only the people reading this stuff knew how bad my teams are doing," he said on more than one occasion.
Like all of us, he had runs of bad luck as well as times of good fortune in the fantasy world. But Tom would have you believe that he finished last in every league, that his roster in any sport was a sea of "red crosses" (signifying injured players). As a fantasy GM he could make Lou Holtz sound like an optimist by comparison.
In our Buffalo News Football league, Tom's Oxen Train team made the playoffs despite a 6-7 record in the regular season.
Then the Oxen Train took off, mowing down three opponents and winning The News' fantasy championship.
The championship game matched Tom's team against that of Steve Jones, The News' sports editor. The Oxen Train won, 58-44. Tom's big gun was Denver quarterback Jay Cutler, with 19 fantasy points in the Broncos' loss to the Buffalo Bills .
Jones said that if he had started David Garrard at quarterback instead of Kurt Warner, he would have been the champion. That's the kind of second-guessing self-torture that Tom would have loved.
"And in true Ox fashion, I whined about it all day Sunday," Jones joked.
gconnors@buffnews.com
