If you're like me, you spent most of the past week on the couch with the remote in your hand, clicking between the plethora of pro football and college bowl games, all the while keeping track of how your fantasy team was doing in the playoffs.

You also probably ran across the showing of Eraser, which aired Sunday night. And, no, I'm not talking about the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Vanessa Williams flick. I'm talking about the show Redskins cornerback Champ Bailey put on in absolutely shutting down Joe Horn and the rest of the Saints' receivers in Washington's 40-10 blowout.

The performance was especially riveting to yours truly, who needed Horn to accumulate only 30 yards to win a spot in the local league's fantasy championship game. For those of you who also had Horn in your fantasy lineups, you know how it turned out: 13 yards on two catches.

And for those of you who plan on playing fantasy football again next year, here's some free advice: Remember that performance by Bailey and Fred Smoot next fall when you're thinking about drafting any NFC East receiver that isn't named David Boston.

Anyway, like most of you, I've had to look elsewhere to satisfy my fantasy football jones for the rest of the football season.

We're talking fantasy playoff football, and I think I've found a couple of games with slightly different formats that might interest you.

First, NFL.com is running a game called Super Bowl.com Playoff Challenge that is free to anyone who registers at their site.

In this game you'll spend 30 million fictional monetary units on an eight-player roster consisting of one QB, two RBs, two WRs, one TE, one K and one defense. These players will form the team that you start the playoffs with, minus any changes you make to your roster prior to the weekly deadline. In addition, you'll also be able to plug these players into your lineup for the NFL's divisional-round games. But after this, it gets tricky.

Prior to the NFL Championship games, you'll be able to replace only four of your players, with the other four carrying over. And then, prior to the Super Bowl, you'll be able to replace only two of your players, with the remaining six carrying over.

The good thing is you can change your lineup as many times as you want prior to the weekly deadline.

But it's still crucial that you have a solid eight guys from teams you think are going to go far heading into the divisional round, because they're going to form the core of your team the rest of the way.

If you can do that successfully, and better than everyone else, you'll win the grand prize: A trip for two to Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego, including round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations and ground transportation.

Second-place finishers will win a trip for two to the 2003 Pro Bowl in Honolulu, also including round-trip air, hotel and ground transportation.

For the show finisher: An official NFL helmet of his/her choice.

The other contest is run by The Sporting News and is called Playoff Football.

Like the name of the game, the premise is a bit simpler.

But if you can prove adept at it, the grand prize is simply a couch potato's dream: A $1,400 projection television.

In this game you'll pick three new players for each week of the playoffs. Y our team will consist of one QB, one RB and one WR. Piece of cake right? We'll all pick Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk and Torry Holt and start looking for a place in the den where we can set our 42 inches of sin.

Wrong.

Here's the catch: Once a player is picked, you can't pick him for the rest of the playoffs.

So, you're going to have to be very prescient in forecasting the championship game and Super Bowl participants if you want to have a chance to win.

Then you're going to have to pick the previously mentioned Rams players, and the rest of the studs (Terrell Owens, Anthony Thomas, Jeff Garcia, Ahman Green, Brett Favre, etc.) at exactly the right times to totally utilize their fantasy value.

This is going to take some foresight, or what Saturday Night Live's George Bush would call strategery.

Like the NFL.com game, the weekly deadline is noon (Eastern Time) on the day of the first playoff games that week.

The second-place finisher will win a DVD-Video Player.

The third-through-10th place finishers will win an MP3-CD Player.

And if you can finish anywhere in the 11th-through-100th range, you'll get a six-month subscription to The Sporting News, plus a pair of binoculars.

Don't waste any time. Both of these games start on Jan. 12.

And I'll leave you with one very pertinent question:

Can anyone beat the Rams?

Personally, I don't think so. But if any of us can at least guess correctly the AFC team they're going to hammer in the Super Bowl, we'll be that much closer to winning that big-screen TV.

Last week I again benefited from the Raiders' misfortune, as Rich Gannon's last-minute, end-zone interception sealed Denver's spread win and put the finishing touches on another 2-1 week for me.

My record now stands at 18-12 overall.

You can e-mail Greg Lucas at: greg@mrfantasy.com