SDMB Fantasy Football early discussion

In My Humble Opinion
61

Keeper League Thoughts

I would be up for a football keeper league… so far my only keepers have been baseball, which lends itself to the format a little better, IMO. That said, I like the rules that Ellis posted near the beginning of the thread. They provide some continuity from year to year without letting anyone dominate TOO much, PLUS they make it so the top of the draft stays pretty wide-open every year. Sounds good to me.

Also, as an addendum to the previous post, I find that .5 points per reception is good even with a standard 10 points for receiving yards. I’ve done a full point per reception, and that’s too much, I think - ironically, not so much for the wide receivers, but it makes guys like Reggie Bush WAY more valuable than they, well, actually are.

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I’m not going to do the point by point rundown at the moment, but to address a couple things while I can:

How does IDP normally work? Well, very poorly, as it happens. They don’t matter, and to the extent they do matter, there are replacements available on the waiver wire all the time who are 80-90% as good as the guys taken (or better). All of which means that IDP ends up being a non-participation tax, quadruply so because Yahoo doesn’t prerank IDP, so that an autodrafted team ends up starting Colin Cole every week, an effective ~ 5 point handicap. And you know, no matter how you set up a league, there’re going to be no-shows, so it matters. Of course, point totals can be revamped to make IDPs relevant from week-to-week; my experience has just been don’t bother.

Also, I don’t really like the keeper idea. I’m already in one. It’s certainly not going to keep me out of the league, but that’s my vote.

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Scoring is always fun to hammer out.

Defense is stickiest. Tackles should be noted, but anyone can really get them. I think a half point should be cool. Sacks and safeties should be worth more. Does Yahoo support “pass deflected”?
(I missed where the signin is. That is, unless I’m not in. In that case, I’ll play vicariously.)

Edited to Add: If we’re going to do stuff for team defenses, I say we need to increase a good defense’s value and we also need to make kickers a little more valuable.

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This shouldn’t be a problem. Most of the league will be filled with people who I know from experience don’t drop out, and ideally the new people will respect the wishes that were made really clear in this thread.

If there is a problem, though, as commissioner I’d go through and use the yahoo recommended roster for people who didn’t adjust theirs manually.

We’d be using both, I think, if we decided to go that way.

I’m not sure that it’s gimmicky, but maybe only not mainstream, which partially explains why the FF magazines don’t touch it. Just because it’s not thoroughly charted territory doesn’t mean it’s worthless.

We ideally shouldn’t have that problem in regards to non-participation and auto-drafting, but I see your other points. I’ve never really done it before (I had it before in a league I was half-ass in years ago) so I don’t have experience with it. I thought it could add depth and strategy to the game, like “my premier RDE is against a good, healthy left tackle and a QB with a quick release, so I’ll pick this lesser player off the waiver wire who’s going against a tackle who’s hurt and bad with speed rushers” type thinking. I think possibly by valuing making tackles lowly relative to other actions, you’d see more difference between the elite players and their replacement-level players than if tackles made up a significant portion of everyone’s score.

But I’m cool with dropping the idea since no one seems especially interested. I just thought it might add more complexity and strategy to the weekly decisions, and I’m all for that.

So far I’ve only invited the people who were in the predecessor league last year who I knew were active players, and also Ellis Dee, who actually reserved a spot in this year’s league about 8 months ago. The people I don’t know I haven’t invited yet until we’ve reached a consensus on the number of people in a league, and if necessary, a criteria by which to choose people.

It turns out, too, that another person who was in our league and is reliable has shown up to this thread (a little late) and I feel like, as an active participant in last year’s league, he should also be invited at this stage.

I’m kind of torn now between preferences leaning towards 12 (it has probably the best spreading around of talent, a nice even schedule, a good playoff structure) and trying not to be a bastard by excluding people which I’d have to do unless we went to 14-16 teams.

I could go for this. I’d like all positions to be something people give serious consideration to, rather than just plugging in something semi-randomly as an afterthought.

The way we’re proposing de-valuing QBs, and boosting WRs with a partial point per perception, it seems like we’re equalizing the value of how many points each position generates. If we wanted to boost kickers and defenses to play a bigger role, it kind of plays into the same theme. Defenses more than kickers, though - since kickers are somewhat random, and defenses can be predicted better through matchups.

There’s no reason, by the way, that any particular score has to be a nice, even number, by the way. We don’t have to choose between .25 and .50 for a reception if we decide that .37 was the ideal number, or something. The scores are going to end up coming out like 13.72 anyway.

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I just checked Yahoo to see what their options were like. I apologize for not being too helpful before, I didn’t know what Yahoo allowed. I don’t see too much reason to stray from the typical standard settings, especially for RBs and WRs. 10 yards, 1 pt, TDs worth 6. Adding in attempts and receptions only further distances (har har) the elite from other players that could prove useful in certain situations.

I like Yahoo’s standard scoring options for QBs. I’ve played in leagues where TDs were 6 pts and it makes for some problems. I’ve never played with INTs being only a point though. Seems like it isn’t enough of a penalty.

The only time I played with IDP it was 1 pt per tackle, 2 for a sack, 2 for a forced fumble, 2 for a recovery, 6 for a return TD, and 1 pt for a pass defended, 2 for an INT. This was on Sandbox.com, way back in the day. Elite defensive players averaged around 15 pts a game, being mostly linebackers and linemen. If you were to do IDP, I would suggest interceptions being much more valuable than is typically standard. This helps keep defensive backs valuable and fun to play with.

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We had a fairly standard scoring system of passing 25 yards/point, 6 td, -2 int, and 10 yards per point, 6 TD for rushing/receiving, and it worked pretty well. But I’m not sure I fundamentally like RBs being, by far, the most important position in fantasy leagues. Adding a partial point per reception helps close the gap between WRs and RBs, and also gives the versatile, but not massive number RBs a chance to be valuable.

I’m worried that changing the standard passing TD from 6 to 4 will reduce the difference between QBs even further, and hence make RBs even more relatively important. If we’re adding a sack penalty to the mix (something I support) it seems like we should give QBs a slight boost somehow.

1 point per tackle seems too high to me. If a guy has a 7 tackle, 2 sack (if sacks count for 2), 1 int game, he’d have more points from tackles than ints and sacks, and yet the tackle number was fairly pedestrian while the sack/int numbers were really great. Having every defensive player get a substantial amount of points every game just from making tackles mushes all the defensive players together, where the truly elite don’t get much seperation from the pedestrian tackle makers - that’s part of the problem with IDP alluded to earlier. If we make tackles worth significantly less than other statistics, we could really start showing the differences between defensive players.

The key to fantasy sports isn’t really how many points someone generates, it’s how many points they generate relative to others at their position. Let’s say, just for demonstration, that every defender gets 8 tackles per game, but elite defenders get 8 tackles and 2 sacks. If we count tackles for, say, .33 points, the average defender is getting 2.5 points, whereas the elite players get the same 2.5 points, but also 2 sacks, giving them 4.5 points. 4.5 vs 2.5 is a substantial difference. But let’s say that you get 1 point per tackle - now one player gets 8, and the other gets 10 - the relative difference is much smaller. Having routine tackles make up the bulk of a defensive player’s score serves to even them all out, which is bad for fantasy sports.

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Running backs are not the most important position in fantasy because of scoring, it’s because they are nearly assured of “touches” from game to game. QBs need lots of things to happen to score points (blocking to hold, WRs to create space, etc.). WRs need a QB to make them effective (generally speaking, there are exceptions to everything of course). A running back can be effective even without blocking, and a starter is going to get touches every game. That’s why they’re so important, it has nothing to do with relative scoring. Okay, it has something to do with it, but not as much as some seem to think.

The main problem I’ve enocuntered with 6 pt TDs.is that a bad QB can have a bad overall game, but if he throws some garbage time TDs, he ends up being a stud. Here’s two players, which do you think is better?

Player X: 200 yards, 4 TDs, 5 INTs
Player Y: 400 yards, 2 TDs, 0 INTs

Obviously one had a much, much better game. Under a standard scoring system (25/4/-1) player X earned 19 pts, player Y earned 24 points. Under the same system with 6pt TDs Player X earns 27 points and player Y earns 28. Are they really the same QB? This is the same reason I’ve always favored -2pt INTs. I don’t like bad QBs being good options.

I was just explaining the numbers I played with the one time I remember using IDP. Aside from that, your numbers are actually way off. 7 tackles in a game might not seem terrific taken by iteself, but guess how many players in the entire NFL averaged 7 tackles for a season? A rough count (total tackles divided by number of games played) puts that total at 24. From the entire NFL! The scoring system I used makes it so that a defensive player who is the best tackler in the NFL (but does nothing else) is far more valuable than someone who tackles no one, but happens to make a couple big plays a season. Here’s a made up example.

Player A: 115 tackles, 0 sacks, o INT. This is an absolute elite tackling LB. He would have ranked second last year in tackles.
Player B: 45 tackles, 3 sacks, 1 INT, 1 TD. This is an average linebacker who made one big play all season. Is player B better than player A? Is it close? I don’t think so.

My system: A=115 pts. B=60
Your system: A=37.95. B=28

A guy who was consistently excellent all year is marginally better than a waiver wire pickup who managed one fantastic play in an entire season. You have to consider relative value over an average waiver player too.

Unfortunately it’s nearly impossible to balance it all for each of the three main categories of defensive player. Tackles worth too much overvalues LBs and devalues DL and DBs. INTs worth too much and DL become marginalized, and to some extent, LBs. Make sacks worth too much and everything goes crazy.

Sorry this is so long, but it was really fun to write. I would be willing to play in any league, any system. It’s all about discovering what the true value of the scoring system is and adjusting your plan accordingly. I’ve played baseball leagues where pitchers were vastly more important and closers the most important still. I’ve played where pitching is largely an add-on and position players dominate. I’ve done well in both. It’s all about strategy, and the scoring system is basically meaningless. I’ve found people who only play a specific system are just opposed to change for the sake of it and don’t like to try new things.

But since I’ve noticed that my posts have been responded to with criticism and opposition, I’m guessing I won’t be getting one of those invites. And that’s a shame. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one here who would do as much research as I just did for something like this. :smiley: I think that speaks pretty loudly for how I treat my fantasy sports… and why I’ll be divorced shortly after I get married.

Edit for a couple typos.

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That’s a good point. The way it was explained to me is that there’s a larger gap between the top 10 running backs than there is top 10 WR, QB, etc, and so even though QBs score more, RBs are more relatively valuable because getting one of the few studs gives you a larger advantage at the RB position than having a top 10 QB would.

But your explanation makes sense too. It’s probably some combination.

That makes a lot of sense. I’m definitely for -2 point ints, and I’m okay with 4 point TDs, it’s just that it does somewhat lessen the importance of QBs as a whole. My personal preference is to make up with that with more yardage points - 20 per point instead of 25, along with a sack penalty (at least as often as not, a sack can be blamed on a poor QB decision). Let’s look at your examples under my hypothetical scoring system - let’s assume that X got sacked 6 times (he might be getting killed out there if he’s throwing 5 ints" and that Y has 2, and that a sack carries a .33 penalty.

Player X would score 14 points, and player Y would score 27.33. It more accurately reflects their performances, I think, and it wouldn’t leave QBs too weakened.

The thing is… being the “best” tackler (by tackle numbers) doesn’t necesarily mean much. The MLB of my team (Browns) is named Andra Davis. He’s adequate at best in the running game. But he’s in the top tacklers in the league every year. Why? Teams run right at him, and he gently wrestles them to the ground 5 yards down the field from where he touched them, trying not to inconvenience them too much. In a tackle-dominated league, he’d be a good defender. Tackles can be spectacular, great plays, or they can be mundane, weak, and too late/far/whatever. Whereas sacks and ints tend to generally be spectacular defensive plays - not that you can’t work your way into an easy sack or int. I guess you could say they’re game changing, too, whereas tackles can be routine… since there’s no way to seperate the routine tackles from behind too far down the field to that bone-crushing tackle at the line of scrimmage on third down.

It’s a lot more likely that a replacement-level player will have a game with plenty of tackles than of plenty of FF/sack/int/etc plays, and the key complaint of IDPs so far is that with typical scoring systems, everyone ends up being too similar point wise for there to be much skill in picking them. This would change that. I would still value tackles, just not as highly. 2 tackles shouldn’t be worth half a sack/int/FF/etc.

It’s hard to say. Like I said, “elite tacklers” don’t necesarily say they’re elite, or even good, defenders. There are plenty of mediocre players that get plenty of tackles.

It’d be easier if there was a tackle for loss/no gain category, which we could give more points to.

Part of the skill comes from predicting, based on matchups, predicted game plan, etc. which players are more likely to have that spectacular day.

No, I definitely appreciate it, this is the kind of input I’m looking for. I’m still hoping we do IDP, although the idea is seemingly lukewarm. If we do IDP, I want us to put our heads together and comes up with a scoring system that’s not too random, but at the same time makes the decision on who to start matter because not all defensive players end up being pretty much the same.

No, that’s not it at all. Criticism is fine, and you’re not really criticizing so much as offering opposing viewpoints, which is good. The reason you haven’t been invited is that I’m waiting for input from the people who I’ve played with before about team size and such - we have our league, our discussion, and our draft time, so it’s not urgent that we fill out the roster right at this moment. It’s nothing personal at all - the only people I’ve invited were from the league last year (I didn’t think that all 9 full-season participants would end up showing up to do it again, but I’m glad they did, I like the continuity) and also Ellis Dee who participated in our thread last year and wanted the first slot to open up to our league this year.

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Damn it. I wrote up a nice edit that more clearly expressed what I meant, and cleared up some errors, and it didn’t come in within the 5 minute edit timer. Excuse the general crappiness of the last post.

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The sample IDP numbers aren’t remotely close to reality.

*1 point per tackle seems too high to me. If a guy has a 7 tackle, 2 sack (if sacks count for 2), 1 int game…

Let’s say, just for demonstration, that every defender gets 8 tackles per game, but elite defenders get 8 tackles and 2 sacks…

7 tackles in a game might not seem terrific taken by iteself, but guess how many players in the entire NFL averaged 7 tackles for a season? A rough count (total tackles divided by number of games played) puts that total at 24. From the entire NFL!*

Guys, the sack record is barely over 20 in an entire season. Two or three sacks in a game is about as common as safeties or blocked FGs. Do you really want to base the primary scoring for a position on something so rare and unpredictable?

Only 24 players averaged 7 tackles per game all last year. Compare that to the fact that the official all-time record holder averaged 1.4 sacks per game. Unless you think somebody is going to double the sack record, they are far too rare to be a primary scoring stat.

The same issue holds true for interceptions and passes defensed.

The only way to make IDP viable is to base virtually all of their points on tackles. TO make it a meaningful position, they have to be reasonably able to score 10 points in any given week, so that would be at least 1 point per tackle. Many good points were raised explaining why this is sub-optimal, so I’m thinking that IDP isn’t the best idea.

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No, I know. 7 tackles would be a good, but fairly routine game, whereas multiple sacks/turnovers would be a huge game. That was my point - even if a player were doing super human stuff regularly, it would be drowned out and he wouldn’t have much value over a crappy player who makes routine tackles.

The complaint was that IDP, under standard scoring systems, essentially makes no real difference because everyone can pick out a player who makes a lot of tackles and score roughly the same amount of points - the elite defenders that are regularly making game-changing plays aren’t valued that much. Having IDP with high tackle points effectively just adds noise to your league - most defensive stars won’t be doing much better than free agents.

Making plays other than tackles stand out gives a chance for the elite players to stand out over the routine ones, and also gives people more to think about in regards to matchups and such.

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You’re comparing two completely different positions. Most sacks are made from positions that get relatively few tackles, and most tackles are made by positions that make relatively few sacks. That’s the nature of the beast; rushing the quarterback takes you out of position in run support.

Generally speaking, DEs (in base 4-3 systems) and OLBs (in base 3-4) make sacks while MLBs make the tackles. Emphasizing sacks while devaluing tackles will make both positions effectively worthless, since the steady tacklers will be undervalued while the sackers will be so inconsistent that their contribution can be mostly ignored like kickers.

There are only so many roidheads who get to play the Raiders twice a year to go around.

Check out ESPN’s leaderboard for last year. Compare the rushing and receiving leaders with the tackle and sack leaders in the context of fantasy points. Note that touchdowns are not included. To make the IDP guys equivalent to the skill positions, sacks would have to be worth 10 and tackles worth 1. If you didn’t want the IDP guys to be equally valuable, maybe halve those numbers to 5 and .5.

As for the point about there being sackers and tacklers and never the twain shall meet, here’s a list of last year’s top 41 sackers with their per-game* sack and tackle stats:


Player			Tackles	Sacks
S. Merriman LB, SDG	3.9	1.1
Aaron Kampman DE, GNB	5.6	1
Aaron Schobel DE, BUF	3.3	0.9
Jason Taylor DE, MIA	3.9	0.8
L. Little DE, STL	3.8	0.8
J. Peppers DE, CAR	3.6	0.8
Trevor Pryce DE, BAL	2.9	0.8
Mark Anderson DE, CHI	1.8	0.8
DeMarcus Ware LB, DAL	4.6	0.7
S. Phillips LB, SDG	4.1	0.7
A. Thomas LB, BAL	5.2	0.7
K. Wimbley LB, CLE	3.9	0.7
D. Burgess DE, OAK	3.2	0.7
Will Smith DE, NOR	3.3	0.7
R. Geathers DE, CIN	2.6	0.7
J. Peterson LB, SEA	5.6	0.6
Warren Sapp DT, OAK	2.9	0.6
Bobby McCray DE, JAC	2.2	0.6
Bart Scott LB, BAL	6.4	0.6
Terrell Suggs DE, BAL	4.1	0.6
Robert Mathis DE, IND	4.1	0.6
Bryan Thomas DE, NYJ	4.8	0.5
R. Colvin LB, NWE	3.4	0.5
Chike Okeafor DE, ARI	3.4	0.5
E. Dumervil DE, DEN	1.1	0.5
Karlos Dansby LB, ARI	5.1	0.5
Trent Cole DE, PHI	3.9	0.5
Tamba Hali DE, KAN	3.9	0.5
Cory Redding DT, DET	3	0.5
Ty Warren DT, NWE	5.3	0.5
Justin Smith DE, CIN	5.1	0.5
Jared Allen DE, KAN	4.8	0.5
Jarvis Green DE, NWE	2.1	0.5
V. Holliday DE, MIA	4.1	0.4
E. Ekuban DE, DEN	3.9	0.4
Joey Porter LB, PIT	3.4	0.4
Alex Brown DE, CHI	2.9	0.4
Luis Castillo DT, SDG	2.4	0.4
C. Williams DT, GNB	2.1	0.4
Brandon Moore LB, SFO	5.8	0.4
K. Vanden Bosch DE, TEN	4.7	0.4

Same* list for the top tacklers:


Player			Tackles	Sacks
Zach Thomas LB, MIA	10.3	0.2
DeMeco Ryans LB, HOU	9.8	0.2
L. Fletcher LB, BUF	9.1	0.1
Keith Bulluck LB, TEN	9	0.2
D. Edwards LB, SDG	8.9	0.2
Cato June LB, IND	8.9	0.1
B. Urlacher LB, CHI	8.9	0
A. Pierce LB, NYG	8.8	0.1
K. Brooking LB, ATL	8.5	0.2
Lance Briggs LB, CHI	8.4	0.1
Kirk Morrison LB, OAK	8	0.1
James Farrior LB, PIT	8	0.3
Ernie Sims LB, DET	7.8	0
Lofa Tatupu LB, SEA	7.7	0.1
Gary Brackett LB, IND	7.6	0
D. Brooks LB, TAM	7.6	0
Chris Hope S, TEN	7.6	0
A.J. Hawk LB, GNB	7.6	0.2
W. Witherspoon LB, STL	7.3	0.2
Sean Taylor S, WAS	7.1	0
J. Vilma LB, NYJ	7.1	0
J. Trotter LB, PHI	7.1	0
L. Johnson LB, CIN	7.1	0
Tedy Bruschi LB, NWE	7.1	0.1
Sean Jones S, CLE	6.9	0
Thomas Howard LB, OAK	6.9	0
M. Greenwood LB, HOU	6.9	0.1
E. Henderson LB, MIN	6.9	0.2
J. Phillips S, TAM	6.8	0.1
D. Thornton LB, TEN	6.8	0
Chris Draft LB, CAR	6.8	0.4
S. Schweigert S, OAK	6.7	0
S. Quarles LB, TAM	6.6	0.2
Donte Whitner S, BUF	6.6	0
Nick Barnett LB, GNB	6.6	0.1
K. Mitchell LB, KAN	6.5	0.1
Andra Davis LB, CLE	6.5	0.1
L. Marshall LB, WAS	6.5	0.1
C. Crowder LB, MIA	6.5	0.1
Ray Lewis LB, BAL	6.4	0.3
Bart Scott LB, BAL	6.4	0.6

Note that exactly one guy made both lists.

For a sacker, 7 tackles wouldn’t be a “fairly routine” day; it would be a double-plus super good day. Given all this, let’s say you made sacks worth 10 and tackles only worth .5 to devalue the compilers and favor the studs. I might still go with a tackler simply because their points are more reliable. The best sacker in the league averaged 1.1 sacks per game, meaning that every single multi-sack game was accompanied by a completely sackless game. Thus, there are days when he would score basically nothing.

I’ll take a few guaranteed points every week versus points one week and none the next. Most fantasy players would; that’s why running backs are the most valued players.

  • Per-game totals are season total divided by 16.
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Interpret that post as you will. I myself am not even sure what point I’m trying to make, but I thought the stats might help. As to the larger point of whether IDP is even a good idea, based on that post my conclusion is…I dunno.

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I appreciate the work. The numbers you posted were solo tackles, right? Any idea where the tackles come from? Like I said - the teams run their own stats, and possibly some independent stats bureaus and they can disagree on the number of tackles. I’d hate, for instance, to have Stabbin’ Ray Ray get a whole lot of tackles that the team credits him with where he jumped on the pile 5 seconds too late.

Legitimately collected solo tackle numbers tend to be a lot lower, as you said. I may be overzealous in suggesting how lowly to rate tackles - I just don’t want players like Andra Davis (sucks, but consistently makes lots of tackles) to be the best defenders.

I still feel like tackles should be valued lower than they typically are in IDP leagues, but maybe they should be worth more than my initial suggestion. I’m open to ideas about scoring.

Basically what I want is a system in which tackles don’t drown own other stats, making tackling machines the clear top players. Tackles are more consistent, and consistency can be good depending on your perspective - but from my perspective, if you expect almost the exact same number of tackles every week, you’re not having to put much effort into analyzing matchups, etc.

Like I said, I’ll drop the IDP idea if no one wants it, but I enjoy the debate, and I’d like to brainstorm an IDP system that can be interesting and fair.

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The tackle averages include both solo and assists.

Andra Davis didn’t make either list posted, though his 6.4 tackle average (0 sack average) puts him on par with the worst guys in the tackle list. I’m not sure why you’d think he would be good in FF under any scoring system; the stats reflect his suckiness pretty well.

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Ah just memories for the argument I used to use to discredit tackle statistics as mostly meaningless. From like 2002 to 2004 when the Browns ran a 4-3 he was always way up there. That might be including all tackles, including assists. But my point was about high tackle numbers not necesarily correlating with being a good defender.

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Tackles are for defense what yardage is for offense. Sacks are the equivalent of touchdowns. Based on the leaderboard link a couple posts up, the basic ratio is 10 yards = 1 tackle, and 1 touchdown = 1 sack. Do you dislike yardage drowning out touchdowns? The trend over the past few years has been the exact opposite, where most fantasy players (and even yahoo itself, based on how the default scoring has been changed) prefer that the fluke bigtime plays like touchdowns get devalued and the more consistent/earned stats like yardage get emphasized.

It boils down to what do you want to map the stats to?

Tackles maps to yards; 10 yards = 1 tackle by frequency, so tackles = 1 point.
If sacks map to touchdowns; 1 TD = 1 sack by frequency, so sacks = 6 points.
If sacks map to yards; 100 yards = 1 sack by frequency, so sacks = 10 points.

I’m happy with either sack value, but if I had to choose, I’d probably go with 1/10. At first glance you might think that makes DL equal to RB, with Merriman rivalling Tomlinson for the top, but it still leaves IDP guys way down in the pecking order. Unlike running backs, IDP gain either “yards” or “touchdowns”; never both. The entire DL position is a sea of Tiki Barber/Brandon Jacobs and Willie Parker/Jerome Bettis divisions. Who do you invest in?

Tiki Barber and Willie Parker, obviously. In the same way, you gotta go with the tacklers, but at 10 points per sack a metric assload of sackers would find their way into the starting lineup, though probably none would be drafted until the fourth round.

The one problem we haven’t touched on with IDP is that it seriously fucks with your bench. Unless you want everyone to adopt a “rolling kicker” mentality when it comes to IDP, we need enough bench spots to support carrying IDP starters through bye weeks without sacrificing offensive bench space. No matter how many points tackles and sacks are worth, nobody is dropping a premiere skill position on a bye week so they can hold onto Jason Taylor.

On preview:

All the tackle numbers I’ve posted to this thread include assists. I posted the top 41 tacklers from last year; can you offer any of them as examples of bad defenders with inflated numbers? A league of 14 owners taking three tacklers each would draft 42 of them, so excluding rookies, the two lists I posted effectively include every single DL that will appear on any fantasy roster.

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No, I definitely tend to lean towards the yardage side of things.

I think there are two components here - how stats relate to each other (and what type of defenders would be good), and how many raw points the stats give, determing how they relate to the rest of the team and how important they are. Right now I’m working on the former part. The first part is figuring out ratios - tackles should be X, and sacks should be worth 3x, 4x, whatever. And then we can determine what value X will represent, which will determine how much IDP score will matter.
My main concern is that they’ll end up working kind of like kickers, which will be boring and won’t add too much to the league. You pick a good one, you start him every week without giving much thought, and he racks up a fairly normal amount of points. That’s what’s going to happen in tackle dominated leagues - you pick a good MLB, and he puts up his 5-8 tackles every week, you don’t even really need to think about it.

But in order for it to be a fun addition, it should be more like WRs. You might have 5 decent WRs and have to put a lot of thought into what 2-3 to start, thinking about matchups and trends and such. I would like picking defenders to be closer to picking WRs than picking kickers, and for that to happen, the stuff that depends more on matchup needs to count for more.

I do wish, though, that there was a seperate category for DL and LB, so that even if we left tackles decently valued, the whole decision wouldn’t come down to which MLB to pick.

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I went through and adjusted our scoring system to better reflect our latest discussions. This is just preliminary and not at all final, just a first draft that could use refinement. It’s not looking like we’ll do IDP this year, but I’ve kept those stats in right now for the purposes of discussion.

Roster Positions: QB, WR, WR, RB, TE, W/R, K, DEF, DB, DL, DL, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN, BN

Depth/bench will be reduced if/when IDP is removed.



Passing Yards (20 yards per point; 1 points at 200 yards; 1 points at 325 yards)
Passing Touchdowns (4)
Interceptions (-2)
Sacks (-.5)
Rushing Yards (10 yards per point; 1 points at 100 yards; 1 points at 175 yards)
Rushing Touchdowns (6)
Receptions (.4)
Reception Yards (10 yards per point; 1 points at 85 yards; 1 points at 150 yards)
Reception Touchdowns (6)
Return Yards (35 yards per point)
Return Touchdowns (6)
2-Point Conversions (2)
Fumbles (-1)
Fumbles Lost (-1)
Offensive Fumble Return TD (6)
Field Goals 0-19 Yards (3)
Field Goals 20-29 Yards (3)
Field Goals 30-39 Yards (3)
Field Goals 40-49 Yards (4)
Field Goals 50+ Yards (5)
Field Goals Missed 0-19 Yards (-3)
Field Goals Missed 20-29 Yards (-2)
Point After Attempt Made (1)
Point After Attempt Missed (-1)
Sack (1)
Interception (2)
Fumble Recovery (2)
Touchdown (6)
Safety (2)
Block Kick (2)
Return Yards (20 yards per point)
Kickoff and Punt Return Touchdowns (6)
Points Allowed 0 points (15)
Points Allowed 1-6 points (10)
Points Allowed 7-13 points (6)
Points Allowed 14-20 points (3)
Points Allowed 21-27 points (0)
Points Allowed 28-34 points (-5)
Points Allowed 35+ points (-10)
Tackle Solo (.5)
Tackle Assist (.25)
Sack (4)
Interception (4)
Fumble Force (2)
Fumble Recovery (2)
Touchdown (6)
Safety (4)
Pass Defended (4)
Block Kick (4)

Random thought I just had: it might be interesting if you could have a point modifier based on whether or not someone’s team won or lost. If they won, you could, say, give them 20% more fantasy points. It’d add an interesting element of game prediction in deciding who to start and who to bench. Not that yahoo supports anything like that, or that I’ve ever heard of it at all, just sounds like it might be a cool idea.
I gave 20 yards/point for passing. I’m not sure if that’s a popular idea. But with 4 point touchdowns, 2 point interceptions, and a sack penalty, we’re taking a lot away from QBs, and I thought that boosting their points from yardage somewhat would help balance it out, letting QBs still score a lot of points, but being more about overall efficiency than number of touchdowns. This is one of the areas I’d really like feedback for.
.4 points per reception. Good, bad? I felt like 1/3rd might be too low and 1/2 might be too high, so I settled in between. Gives elite WRs the potential to be some of the top players in the league instead of being secondary.

Kick returns 35 yards per point. That’s one thing I missed from our league last year. Players who had a double role as returners should be credited for it, I think. I wanted to say 25 yards per point initially, someone else suggested 50, so I went with 35. I’m still thinking 25 might be better - elite WRs and RBs tend not to return kicks normally, but sometimes they return punts, and punting does less yardage. And those that do return kicks tend to be second/third/fourth string players who you might pick based on matchup or whatever and could use the point boost from their returns. Not a strong opinion here, except that return yards should be credited in some way.

I gave a penalty to FG kickers for missing 0-19 or 20-29 yard field goals. I’m not sure that it really adds anything to the league, but I guess it kinda makes sense to punish kickers for missing easy FGs when ints, fumbles, etc. are punished. But it’s not at all a strong opinion. Should points given for routine field goals go up a bit to compensate?

I boosted the amount of points given for forcing low scoring games to the defense as was suggested on the thread. I would like defenses to be a bigger part of the scoring in general. Picking their matchups can be among the most fun positions. I also gave defensive returns a 20 yards per point rating, when the default scoring system doesn’t credit that.

The IDP values as they are now don’t really feel right to me, but I’m not sure what we should use.

Tell me what you think.

80

Because tackles are the focal issue here with IDP, linebackers stand out. But I think the real issue is not tackles, but the scoring of sacks and interceptions. DL were far undervalued in the league I played, and the other leagues I’ve seen since. They don’t tackle, and they don’t get any INTs. What small amount of sacks they get, linebackers get half as many, and defensive backs get that many still! I mean, the leading solo tackler in the league last year also got 3.5 sacks and an INT.

I think the key here to balance isn’t making sacks worth 5 because it doesn’t do enough to devalue LBs (though it would certainly change which ones were among the best), but making INTs worth a lot more. Look at the top INT guys. Really, only Adrian Wilson was able to make a multi-stat splash. The top 20 of the INT charts for last season show only 13 players with more than 50 tackles… and of those, only 8 registered even a single sack. I like the idea of making sacks worth 5, but INTs should be worth more.

I think the best overall system is one that awards 1pt for tackles, 5pts for a sack, and 6pts for an INT. LBs remain overall best options, but DL and DBs have value. The best DB and DL have similar enough value to compete with the best LB, which is what you want, ideally. DL are still the lowest of the three, but if DL and LB are merged into one position, it doesn’t really make much of a difference anyway. Finally, the IDP players compete, points-wise, with offensive players, making their selections something worth researching and spending time with, as the difference between an elite defensive player and a waiver wire pickup will be just as big as with offensive players. I haven’t punched the numbers into a league to see how it affects rankings, but my calculations on the top and middle of the pack at each position seem to even out; elite players are still elite, mediocre players are still mediocre.

I used solo tackles for my numbers because there are a lot of inflated tackle numbers if you use assists. The easiest way to find out is to go to this link, and sort the rankings by solo tackles and by total tackles. The top 15 changes dramatically. There are players who are in the top 40 of total tackles that have no buisness being there because they have more assists than solo tackles (looking at you Bruschi). Though generally the top players are still elite level defenders, I don’t see any good whatsoever from adding in assisted tackles.

So what do I think about IDP? I think they’re fun, I like more players and more options. I don’t like how you can almost always get roughly equal value on the waiver wire as you can from starters with standard scoring systems. I don’t like that, in my experience, LBs were more valuable than DL and DBs. I don’t like that they’re an after-thought either.