In yahoo scoring, does a sack give a quarterback negative rushing yardage? I want to say no but I’m not sure. If he gets the negative rushing yardage already, plus a -.33 penalty on top of it, I would say that’s sufficient. But if he only gets the -.33, I don’t think that’s enough, since the average sack probably loses significantly more than 3.3 yards.
Sacks don’t count as negative yardage. Officially, they count as negative passing yards to the team total, but not against the individual.
I can’t say for certain, but I’m fairly sure that a sack is counted as negative passing yards for a QB.
Or, on edit, what **D_Odds **said. Oops.
Interesting. I always thought sack stats were counted against rushing totals, since there was no actual pass involved - and it could be ambiguous… what if the QB makes a run for it, but comes up 2 yards short of the line? That’s a sack, but isn’t really lost passing yardage. I guess it doesn’t really matter for general recording purposes.
But for the purposes of our system, making sacks equal to 6 rushing yards loss each seems reasonable. I’d like to see a greater benefit to having a quarterback who takes fewer sacks.
Jules, where do you weigh in on the scoring proposals I made?
I can calculate the average yards lost on all sacks in the league last year, or for the past x years. IMO the sack penalty should be equivalent to losing that many yards rushing.
EDIT: I’m waiting a little bit before I crawl yahoo’s data. Once I crawl it I can calculate the average yards lost per sack. Figure next week sometime.
If you want to put in the effort, I certainly would get behind using whatever that number turned out to be. I think a rough estimation on our part would work fine though.
It no effort; just a simple SQL query. Because yahoo added support for trades and keepers last year I didn’t bother using my utility, and therefore didn’t need to crawl the data last year. So the data I have only covers from 1973 to 2006. Only yahoo data is included, so the further back you go the less complete the data for that season.
1973-2006: -6.82 yards per sack (27,722 sacks losing 189,119 yards)
2000-2006: -6.32 yards per sack (8,206 sacks losing 51,825 yards)
Looking at the data the decades seem to have distinct averages. Just eyeballing them…
1970s: 8.4 yards per sack
1980s: 7.5 yards per sack
1990s: 6.7 yards per sack
2000s: 6.3 yards per sack
EDIT: Looks like your guess of around 6 yards per sack was right on the money. Nice instinct.
In College football QB sacks are counted against rushing totals. In the NFL they count against passing totals. However, in the NFL not all QB tackles for loss are sacks. It’s a scorekeepers decision. If a QB is deemed to have tucked the ball and became a runner and is tackled for a loss it’s not a sack, QB sneaks and bootleg runs are not eligible for sacks generally.
Interesting to see the numbers decline steadily as passing games became designed around a quicker release and shallower drops.
What do you guys think of the rest of the scoring proposals?
Sorry I’ve been quiet recently. I’ve gotten caught up in a lot of time wasting around here, and strangely enough, fantasy sports wasn’t involved. Here’s what I think:
I was one of those that was against the sack penalty in general when I joined the league. There’s a lot to cover on this topic, from why I think the sack is less the QB’s fault than the rest of the offense (maybe 25% blame on a QB on any given sack, and that’s generous), to why I think we should avoid penalizing the QB too much because for balance reasons they should remain the highest scorers (we can only start 1 afterall, as opposed to 1-2 RBs and 2-3 WRs). And this league is already pretty tough on the QB considering the TD/INT points ratio.
We know two things here with regards to the NFL. Sacks count against passing yards, and sacks occur on passing plays. Penalizing them according to the rushing scoring makes no sense. It would make more sense to penalize sacks as a passing play. If the average sack is 6 yards, and a passing point is 20 yards, that means a sack is roughly a third of a passing point in yardage. It sounds like - 0.33 points per sack was the perfect number all along.
I like this change. 0.35 points per catch always seemed arbitrary to me. Why three five? A quarter, a half, even a third, all are easily understood. 0.35 always rubbed me the wrong way. Plus, I like valuing the guys who consistently get open and make catches, which is completely underrated in the NFL. Wes Welker deserves more love.
I like this a lot too. It opens up some really interesting players to starter status.
I’m not sold on this. Sometimes a kicker misses because of weather, footing, holder, etc. Should they be penalized more? (I’m speaking as if the kickers are personally upset by our league’s scoring system, which they would be. All of them)
The only reason I’d sign up for this is because I hate the impact kickers have on fantasy. I couldn’t count how many times I’ve lost a week because my opponent happened to have the Bironas Special for lunch that day: 5 field goals 1 Extra Point. Son of a bitch.
Sure, a safety is a huge play that doesn’t earn enough points. An INT and a fumble recovery are big plays, but they don’t put points on the board by themselves. Safeties do, why are they worth less? And much rarer still!
I’m against this for the same reasons as the kicker suggestion. I don’t like the impact defenses play. Honestly, it’s fun when you lose because your opponent started the Bills against the Lions and happened to get 4 picks? Or Carson Palmer goes down, his backup throws four picks, and you lose because of that? Ruins the whole weekend.
A secondary, less emotional point (grumble…) is that the disparity between the top defenses and the bottom defenses is wide enough as it is. We really shouldn’t widen it any more. Someone will take Baltimore in the middle rounds, no one will ever draft or pick up Detroit. The proposed change only strangthens that gap and makes the relatively viable strategy of weekly matchup plays on defense less… viable.
Only if the safety point value goes up too, and even then I’m struggling to accept the idea of how important a defense would be in this league. If all of these proposals went through, the top defense last year would have been a top 10 overall fantasy producer. Pittsburgh would have scored more than Peterson, Fitzgerald, Andre Johnson, etc. Maybe I’m alone in thinking that isn’t very fun.
Fair enough. I used to agree that the rest of the offense had a bigger role in determing the number of sacks, but I’ve come around. The amount of time the QB holds the ball is the single biggest factor in the creation of sacks. In 2007, Charlie Frye took 5 sacks in less than 1 half of the first football game because he holds onto the ball forever, whereas Derek Anderson behind the same line/receivers/etc. took 14 for the entire rest of the year.
QBs that take a lot of sacks tend to be QBs that take a lot of sacks even if they move to teams with better protection.
As for the point value, having it essentially offset 6 yards worth of passing doesn’t seem like punishment enough. A sack is a much bigger negative play than a 6 yard gain is generally a positive play, IMO.
It is arbitrary, I guess. I just figured it was close to a third while producing more even numbers.
Well, the idea behind the scoring penalties was to factor in a kicker’s accuracy and not just the raw numbers of attempts. I think our kickers may be too high scoring… but rather than lower the score for successful kicks, I thought it might be better to address this by penalizing misses more.
I agree, it really doesn’t make much sense. As I said, I bet the reasoning is that the actual score of a safety is 2 points, therefore the fantasy score of a safety is 2 points.
I guess this is a matter of preference, because I’ve always thought defenses played too small a role. In years where I don’t have a dominating defense, I often rotate defenses from week to week and put a lot of thought into the matchups. So yes, I actually like when I win FF based on a dominant performance of a defense.
Increased importance of defense makes draft strategy more interesting. You usually get the best 2 or 3 defenses taken around rounds 8-10, but most don’t come off the board until the last 2 or 3 rounds, which, given the disparity you mention, seems to me to mean that they are relatively undervalued.
That’s interesting. That does seem like too much. On the other hand, Pittsburgh (spit) had an anamolously awesome defense last year. Where would the 2nd through 5th best defenses have scored?
To anyone still subscribed and attentive to this thread, I’d like to move up in the second round, preferably in the top 3 picks of that round. If anyone is interested in moving down a few slots and picking up a mid round pick for your trouble, let me know. Also, while I am extremely happy to finally get the top pick after playing fantasy sports for a decade, I’m taking offers on anyone who wants to move up. In the interest of fairness however, know that moving out of the top spot represents a significant change in draft strategy, and so I’d be looking for a very favorable deal.
Sure, some guys hold the ball too much. Some guys don’t, and get sacked anyway. Donovan McNabb often holds the ball for far too long, sometimes for 6, 7, 8 seconds in the pocket and doesn’t get a sack. Maybe a QB holds the ball too long because the WRs can’t break press coverage and need longer to get open, meanwhile the O-Line is getting winded and basically gives up on the play. I’m convinced coverage sacks occur because the O-Line gets tired and can’t continue to fight off multiple moves after the QB. I can see it both ways legitimately though, but that doesn’t represent enough of a proof to add more blame to the QB.
But even kicker accuracy seems arbitrary. David Akers is one of the most accurate kickers in football history, and yet his accuracy has jumped 8 to 12 points between consecutive years.
A lot of the problem with fantasy kickers is that performance is largely random year to year. Accuracy is every bit as random. To me it seems a problem to penalize inaccuracy when even the most accurate kickers in the league have off years. On edit, everyone has off years of course, but not to the degree that kickers seem to. For someone as historically accurate as Akers to jump from 75% to 83% from one year to the next or drop from 88% to 75% from one year to another is too strange to take seriously. The main point here is that nobody knows who the accurate kickers will be, so who is being penalized?
Pittsburgh, according to Yahoo, was only 2 points ahead of Baltimore, only 20 ahead of Philly, and 28 ahead of Tennessee. After that there’s a big drop off, but the next dozen teams are all tightly packed. If you figure an extra point per INT and fumble recovery, and a few extra points from scoring possibly, we’re talking about 30 extra points of the course of a season. For the number 5 defense, an extra 30 points a season puts them around where Reggie Wayne, Kevin Smith, and Vincent Jackson finished last season (around 60-80 overall). I’m not sure how significant that is, but I know that Pittsburgh being drafted in the first round based on value is way, way wrong.
I can see that point of valid and it’s a valid line of thinking. When we designed our quarterback scoring, I really wanted to reward low int/low sack guys over the raw numbers guys that typically top the QB category in FF, and a sack punishment fits in with that. But let’s see what others think.
Well, to be honest, this is a justification for not using kickers at all. Who knows how many attempts kickers will get, or how many of those that they’ll miss? And really - do kickers add all that much to an FF league? You can predict that match ups to a small degree - by picking either prolific offenses, or offenses that do okay between the 20s but then stall - but kicker seems like the most random of FF positions.
I think you’re drawing the wrong conclusion. I don’t think anyone would draft the defense in the first round, even if the raw numbers were higher. Stephen Gostkowski put up as many points as Brandon Marshall or Randy Moss last year, but there’s no chance he’s going in the 2nd round. It’s a more complex issue of value over average, how the tiers break down, relative view of the position, consistency from year to year, etc.
I suspect the changes would result in more defenses being taken from rounds 7-12, not anything so drastic as entering the top 5 rounds.
I don’t believe last year Pittsburgh would have been a top 10 overall fantasy scorer if we adopted the all of the defense-friendly soring options. I’m happy to help research that question to uncover the truth, but I’d rather not do all the research myself.
I agree with this in regards to WRs, and even moreso with TEs. The problem is with RBs. Upping PPR from 0.35 to 0.5 greatly overvalues RBs like Westbrook, IMO. On a side note, I greatly prefer multiples of 0.05, so I have the exact opposite feeling of the 0.35 number.
Oh, duh, yahoo provides this info automatically. Here’s the top 10 fantasy defenses in 2008 using the HHM league settings:
276 Baltimore
272 Pittsburgh
253 Philadelphia
245 Tennessee
213 Tampa Bay
209 New York Jets (?!)
202 Miami
200 Indianapolis (?!)
200 Minnesota
198 New York Giants
Here’s the top 10 offensive players:
314 Drew Brees
301 Philip Rivers
297 Aaron Rogers
286 DeAngelo Williams
274 Jay Cutler
269 Michael Turner
269 Peyton Manning
266 Kurt Warner
245 Donovan McNabb
244 Matt Cassel
So you are indeed correct that the defense scoring options proposed brings defenses up to the level of offensive players. Personally I view that as a good thing, but reasonable people can absolutely disagree on this point.
The HHM defensive scoring:
Sack 1
Interception 3
Fumble Recovery 3
Touchdown 6
Safety 2
Block Kick 2
Kickoff and Punt Return Touchdowns 6
Points Allowed 0 points 16
Points Allowed 1-6 points 12
Points Allowed 7-13 points 8
Points Allowed 14-20 points 4
Points Allowed 21-27 points 0
Points Allowed 28-34 points -4
Points Allowed 35+ points -8
Where do your drafts typically see the top 10 defenses drafted?
Here are those 10 defense’s actual draft positions last year in the keeper league, which has 14 owners and 16 rounds.
11-1 Baltimore
11-6 Pittsburgh
13-13 Philadelphia
16-9 Tennessee
14-3 Tampa Bay
n/a New York Jets (?!)
n/a Miami
14-6 Indianapolis (?!)
10-14 Minnesota (keeper from previous year)
9-3 New York Giants (by me, the ultimate NY homer)
So only my super reach and the keeper pick even remotely resembled the actual draft position those defenses deserved. The fact that two of the top 10 went undrafted isn’t surprising given the general lack of respect defenses get in FF.
Given your scoring system, your league underdrafted the defenses IMO. I think this shows there’s no concern that anyone would be tempted to take Pittsburgh in the first round. But I would suspect value would dictate that more defenses were drafted in rounds 9-12 than there were. I guess people still go by a standard draft list prepared for standard scoring even in leagues with significantly different scoring.
Summarizing the feedback so far on proposed changes:
- Change sack penalty from -.33 to -.6
SenorBeef supports
Ellis Dee supports
D_Odds opposes
Jules Asner opposes - Change PPR value to from .35 to .5
SenorBeef supports
D_Odds supports
Jules Asner supports
Ellis Dee ambiguous (thinks it’s good for WR/TE, bad for RB)
3) Change individual return yards from 25/point to 20/point
SenorBeef lukewarmly supports
Jules Andre supports
D_Odds opposes
- Change kicker missed kick penalties for 0-19, 20-29, and 30-39 yard kicks from -3, -2, -1 to -4, -2.5, -1.5
SenorBeef supports
D_Odds opposes
Jules Andre ambiguous
- Make safeties worth 4 points to a DST
SenorBeef supports
Jules Andre supports
Ellis Dee probably supports since it’s closer to his recommended keeper league settings
D_odds indifferent - safeties should be worth more than whatever we make int/fum recoveries worth
6) Change defensive scoring from 15/10/6/3/0/-5/-10 to 16/11/7/3/-1/-6/-11
SenorBeef supports
Jules Asner opposes
Ellis Dee probably supports since it’s closer to his recommended keeper league settings
D_odds indifferent (slight preference to current system)
- (as per Ellis Dee’s keeper league suggestion) change fumble recovery/int DST scores from 2 to 3
SenorBeef supports
Ellis Dee probably supports since it’s closer to his recommended keeper league settings
Jules Asner possibly supports along with safety increase - uncomfortable with defenses scoring too much
D_Odds indifferent
Anyone else want to chime in? Omni, I know you’re the new guy, but you have lots of FF experience and good football knowledge so feel free to chime in. Everyone else - Taz, Retrovertigo, and the less talkative bastards?