There are a lot of subtle tweaks you can make to the basic scoring system to make certain positions more or less valuable. In addition you can modify your scoring to make elite players even more valuable within certain positions.

One of the primary goals of my league is to make all positions relevant on draft day. In many leagues, defenses, kickers, and to a lesser extent, quarterbacks are difficult to differentiate statistically. This is because the statistical variation between the best and worst of these players who will be drafted is minimal. What I try to do is look for the stats that make these players significant to the NFL and reward those stats according. Let’s take a look at some examples.

• Quarterbacks handle the ball on every play and typically will have much more statistical output than other positions. To mitigate this effect, I reduce the value of TD’s and passing yardage. This brings QB’s back onto a level playing field with other positions. I play in multiple leagues and in my league 2 QB’s were in the top 10 for scoring this week. Another league I play in awards a full 6 points for passing TD’s. In this league 5 QB’s were in the top 10. You may think the latter makes QB’s more valuable. It doesn’t. It makes the elite QB’s more valuable, but after that it actually decreases the value of the position because even average QB’s produce 15 – 20 TD’s in a season. It means you can draft a QB very late and still expect to get LaDanian Tomlinson type TD stats.

• Defenses are typically picked very late in many leagues for several reasons. First, their output is largely based on their schedule and there’s really no way to factor this out with a scoring system. Secondly, many scoring systems place a premium on defensive TD’s. This adds yet another element of unpredictability and another reason to delay picking one on draft day. One way I’ve countered this is to examine the stats that make a defense good. Takeaways and defensive scores are good stats, but not necessarily the goal of playing good defense. The ultimate goal on defense is to not allow the other team to score. Therefore, I place the highest point value on points allowed. The next highest scoring category is yardage allowed. This usually correlates with points scored. Another stat I give points to is a “Win” by the defensive team. If a team’s defense holds their opposition below the NFL scoring average (around 19 points) and that team wins their game, the DST gets a bonus for contributing to that win. This scoring system has enhanced the value of a good defense and also helped take some of the unpredictability out of defensive scoring. As a result, defenses in my league have become relevant on draft day, not just an afterthought.

• In fantasy football, just like the NFL, kickers are their own special bird. There is usually no more than 2 points per game separating the top kicker from the last ones on fantasy rosters. This makes them un-draftable because it’s typically a wasted pick when you could spend that pick on a sleeper who becomes valuable player. The problem is compounded because points scored at this position are mostly a matter of opportunity. The only way to begin to combat this is to take a look at what makes a good kicker. My two factors are accuracy and distance. Therefore we put a premium for FG length and some penalties for missed FG’s. For example, an NFL kicker shouldn’t miss when his team in the red zone, so if he does it’s -3 points. On the other hand 60 yard-plus FG’s are so rare that we give 10 points for these. Does it make much difference on draft day, not really, but it has widened the margin from best kickers to worst kicker to about 3 points per game and makes having a good kicker a bit more of a premium.

As you can see, the scoring system can have dramatic impacts on your league in more ways than you may imagine. A good commissioner should examine the season stats each year in order to determine what stats differentiate the good players from the elite player so that these players are thusly rewarded. An example from this week is Michael Turner vs. Willie Parker. These were the 2 highest scoring RB’s for the week in probably every league.

• Michael Turner – 226 Total Yards – 2 TD’s
  
• Willie Parker – 138 Total Yards – 3 TD’s

Most leagues reward TD’s with 6 points and its logical to do so, but what if that’s all you take into account. In some leagues, Parker outscores Turner, yet 200-yard rushing games are statistically rare. So, in addition to yardage points on a linear basis (x number of points per yard) my league applies bonuses at various levels (50, 100, and 200 yards). By achieving those bonuses, Turner outscored Parker in my league by 5 points despite having 1 less TD.

Now on to some questions…

Q) In a 12-team league how do you decide how many teams are in each division? Is it possible to have 4 divisions with division rivals playing twice (playoffs start in week 14)?

A: First you need to determine how you want to work your schedule. In this case with playoffs starting in week 14, you know you have 13 regular season games. Next, you need to decide if you want to have division teams play each other once or twice. Typical 12-team leagues have 3 divisions. This allows divisional opponents to play each other twice (6 division games) and allows you to play 7 of the 8 remaining teams. I feel this is the best format as it mimics the NFL in divisional format and still allows you to play nearly every team once. A remedy to this is to play a 14-game regular season but that likely runs your playoffs into week 17 and as we see in the next question that presents its own set of problems.

You could also remedy this, as you suggest, by going to 3-team divisions (4 division games) and playing the other 9 teams in the remaining weeks. This allows you to keep the division format and still play every other team, but I think the 3-team division makes the division concept less important. Because you play so many non-division games, it’s not nearly as important to have a strong division record because you could easily win your division despite winning only 1 or 2 division games.

A: It comes down to personal preference and I’ve changed my mind on this. My philosophy used to be that the fantasy season was based on the NFL regular season and you shouldn’t remove a week from the season just because certain unknown players may or may not play. After all, we deal with bye weeks and injuries; shouldn’t we build a team to be able to deal with players resting in the final game of the year? Well my answer to that now is “no”. I’ve just seen too many good fantasy teams robbed of their top players and fall in the playoffs when they were likely the best team in the league. My goal is to reward teams that draft and build the best team. I don’t think getting bounced in week 17 because of unpredictable circumstances identifies the best team in the league. You can’t draft a team for week 17. You have to draft at team to get to the playoffs. The playoffs should be an event to identify the best team, not the luckiest. And I know there is luck prevalent throughout all of fantasy football, but if we can easily remove a bit of it by having playoffs when we know most of the marquee players will still be playing shouldn’t we do that? I wouldn’t decline participation in a 17-week league, but I think the 16-week leagues more accurately reflect the ability of a fantasy team.

That’s a wrap for this session. We’ll leave the topic of discussion open for next week so feel free to send in any questions you’ve got for the commissioner’s court.