As summer begins to wind down, and the NFL hype-train begins picking up steam, minds naturally wander to America's true national pastime - fantasy football 🏈.
Who will be in your league? Which platform will you utilize? All secondary concerns to the true keystone decision: how will your league be scored? 🧮
This is a hot topic of debate every season. Having played in a smorgasbord of leagues in my 15-year fantasy career (woof 👴), I have the answer. Surprisingly, it's the least common of the scoring offerings.
Before I provide you the answer to this fantasy awakening, let's explore the most popular solutions, and where they come up short.
Standard 🤓
Despite the name, Standard has become increasingly less popular over the years. The scoring system for it is straight-forward, with no major flaws. Both rushing and receiving yards are treated the same.
| Type of Yards | Points Earned |
|---|---|
| Passing | 1 Pt / 25 yards |
| Rushing | 1 Pt / 10 yards |
| Receiving | 1 Pt / 10 yards |
The issue with treating all yards the same, is that it biases against possession receivers (typically slot Wide Receivers and Tight Ends) and pass-catching running backs. The players who move the chains and the keep the offense on the field, only to be rewarded with a few yards. These players are often siloed into fantasy irrelevance. This led to the creation of fantasy's greatest sin.
PPR (Point Per Reception) 🤮
This scoring system is the exact same as Standard, but with the caveat that all catches are rewarded with a bonus of 0.5 - 1.0 points, in addition to points earned for yardage.
On its face, this seems like a logical correction. Players get rewarded for making high-value catches, while rushing points remain constant.
The Problem
The aim of any fantasy scoring system should be to distill on-field production into fantasy points.
This premise is not without flaws, but that doesn't make it an unworthy goal. Linemen are completely irrelevant in fantasy, despite being worth first-round capital in the real NFL draft. Receivers don't earn points for pass interference flags drawn, nor does any player receive their proper due for blocking. Despite numerous shortcomings, let's keep our eye on the goal and see how PPR falls short of it.
The key issue is best demonstrated by its edge cases. In Standard, if a RB rushes for zero yards, or a QB throws an incomplete pass, they naturally earn nothing. In PPR, if a receiver catches a ball and gains zero yards, they still earn points. Depending on whether you're playing Half-PPR or (god forbid) Full-PPR, that player could lose anywhere between 5 and 10 yards on the catch and still be considered a net positive.
This is obviously ridiculous. Catching a ball has no inherent on-field value. Nor should losing yards ever have the opportunity to be rewarded. What then can we do to capture the value of important chain-moving plays?
Point Per First Down 💥
Our Goldilocks solution. Point Per First Down (PPFD) rewards the valuable yards, no matter how they're earned. Whether it's a RB pushing the pile, a QB sneak, or a receiver making a tough contested catch, if they're earning first downs for their team, they're earning points. It's that simple.
Fantasy has already long-determined that not all yards are created equal. A player who earns that tough final yard for a TD receives a bonus, in addition to the yardage points. PPFD instills the same spirit.
Running PPFD through similar edge cases as PPR, we see that any play that earns zero yards, receives zero points. A huge play that earns 80 yards is worth exactly what its real-life value is to the team - 80 yards and a first down. A pass-catching back that earns 15 yards while their team is backed up to 3rd & 20 earns points for 15 yards and nothing more. Who cares if it was a catch.
PPFD also adapts better than PPR to an ever-changing league. Decades ago, fantasy was dominated by bell-cow RBs receiving 20+ carries per game. Then PPR came in hoping to restore some balance at the same time that the game became increasingly pass-heavy. And recently, we've seen a rise of do-it-all RBs with Christian McCaffrey and Saquon Barkley. Regardless of where the game goes, PPFD adapts.
Wrapping Up
No scoring solution is perfect, but it's clear PPFD mirrors actual football value better than the more broadly adopted Standard and PPR. Spread the gospel. Share this with your league commissioners. Enjoy watching the game and never having to worry again whether that lateral was technically a forward pass.
Bonus Notes
These aren't related to PPFD, but are scoring tweaks I've implemented in my own league.
Point Per Kicking Yard
Kickers are rewarded 0.1 points per Field Goal yard. It's nonsensical to reward a 49-yarder 4 points, while a kick one yard further earns a full point more.
This does come with the downside of field goals less than 30 yards not being rewarded the minimum 3 points I believe they should be worth, but the tradeoff is worth it.
Put the ST in D/ST
Yards gained on special teams are rewarded 0.1 points per yard, just as they are for an offensive player. Special teams TDs have always been rewarded, but yards earned are just valuable as yards earned on offense. Count them as such.
Tackles for Loss
Defenses get rewarded for sacks, why not TFLs?
4th Down Stops
Clearly, I've put a lot of effort into making the defensive side of the ball more entertaining / valuable.
A turnover on downs has the same effect as a turnover via fumble or pick. Give the D their due.
Bonuses for Crossing an Arbitrary Threshold
Some leagues implement a bonus if say, a player earns over 100 yards in a game, or a QB has 300+ passing yards. A player earning 100 yards has no inherent team value over a player earning 99 yards, sans that one yard, which they've already been rewarded for.