Am I the only one who HATES "standard" fantasy scoring?

[Walter W.]

Seems like most fantasy leagues these days feature a lot of scoring with big point totals like 187.4 to 173.6. Am I the lone wolf out there who thinks fantasy scoring has just gotten stupid?

Let me preface this by saying whatever makes a league happy, have at it. If I'm not in your league, I don't care how your scoring works. EXCEPT THAT, most rankings and other evaluation stuff seem to be based on (what I consider) stupid scoring systems. Long ago when I started back in the late 80's, scoring was fairly simple because we all had to do things by hand, no nifty web sites keeping track of stuff. Now, leagues can set their scoring with all kinds of goofy stuff because the web site will track it for you.

My general belief is that a player should actually have to accomplish something to score. Leagues these days are just the equivalent of grade school awards ceremonies. EVERYBODY has to get a participation certificate.

There are many rules out there that I think are silly, but my top "HATE" list:

1) PPR - Why should a short outlet pass score a point for someone? I know this was originally to bring receivers into league when everyone was going heavy on running backs. But if running back were worth more, so be it, draft accordingly.

2) Decimal scoring - Why is 1 yard worthy of even a tenth of a point? Decimal points belong in figure skating, gymnastics, and the X-Games.

3) A point for 10 yards - Really, a first down is worthy of a score?

4) Negative points for interceptions thrown - This one is really terrible. Seconds left in the half or game, your QB throws deep into the end zone, a Hail Mary, and a DB comes up with a meaningless pick. Or your QB hits the receiver right in the hands, perfect pass, but dude tips it into the air to a lucky DB. Both of those things cost your QB the same as if he throws a stupid pick right into a DBs belly.

I think people just overthink things and try to get too cute. Scoring an actual touchdown should trump everything. Six 1 yard grabs should NEVER equal an actual score. Yards are cute, catches are cute, but ultimately, every game ever played was won by the team that scored more points, not who had the most yards or catches.

Now get off of my lawn!

[ConnSKINS26]

I think you're actually the one overthinking some of this stuff. Or under thinking it.

I'll start with this--yes, first downs are extremely important in football.

[Walter W.]

I think you're actually the one overthinking some of this stuff. Or under thinking it.

I'll start with this--yes, first downs are extremely important in football.

Of course they are. But if you have 20 1st downs and 7 points, and the other team has 10 first downs and 21 points, who had a better game?

[henry1jg]

I hate PPR & decimal scoring too!

[RavingLunatic]

I am a fan of decimal scoring more than I am a fan of ties

I don't particularly care for PPR, but I don't have an active dislike of it either. In the league I commish we don't use it.

What I do dislike is penalizing a player for a fumble and THEN for a fumble lost.

[princey98]

I think you're actually the one overthinking some of this stuff. Or under thinking it.

I'll start with this--yes, first downs are extremely important in football.

Of course they are. But if you have 20 1st downs and 7 points, and the other team has 10 first downs and 21 points, who had a better game?

Well in fantasy 200 yds and 1 td is 26 points and 100 yards and 3 tds is 28 points. So team 2 had a better game in real life and in fantasy.

On the flip side- Calvin Johnson has 10 catches for 150 yards and Joseph Fauria has 3 catches for 8 yards and 3 TDs. Who had a better game?

[BuckeyeNation]

Anyone is entitled to like/dislike any scoring system or rules that they want. That's why there's a thousand different variations of this game, so everyone should be able to find something that they like,

I know some people want fantasy football to mirror the actual NFL game as much as possible. That's fine, but I don't particularly agree with it. For me, the games are completely different. Fantasy football is a statistical game, the NFL game is not.

As far as the rankings go, I think it's pretty simple. PPR is the most popular and most common type of scoring used in FF right now. My guess would be that those that make rankings want their rankings to be as relevant to as large of a group of players as possible. It's not like there aren't any sets of rankings for non-ppr or 2QB/SuperFlex. They are out there, though they are not as commonplace as PPR rankings. Then again, non-ppr and 2QB/SuperFlex leagues are not as common as PPR leagues.

[the_future]

I am a fan of decimal scoring more than I am a fan of ties

I don't particularly care for PPR, but I don't have an active dislike of it either. In the league I commish we don't use it.

What I do dislike is penalizing a player for a fumble and THEN for a fumble lost.

Hate the fumble + fumble lost. A few of my leagues have -1 for fumble and -3 for fumble lost. A fumble almost completely negating a TD, no thanks...

[stingray_76]

add me to the "hates PPR" list
the act of a reception adds nothing to the game, the result of the catch (yards and scores) does.
back catches the ball 5 yards behind the line and is immediately tackled = +0.5points
back takes the handoff 5 yards behind the line and is immediately tackled = -0.5points
feel free to explain what the difference is????

[RavingLunatic]

I am a fan of decimal scoring more than I am a fan of ties

I don't particularly care for PPR, but I don't have an active dislike of it either. In the league I commish we don't use it.

What I do dislike is penalizing a player for a fumble and THEN for a fumble lost.

Hate the fumble + fumble lost. A few of my leagues have -1 for fumble and -3 for fumble lost. A fumble almost completely negating a TD, no thanks...

Standard scoring is -2 for a fumble, so I could kind of see -1 for a fumble and -1 more for fumble lost, but stuff like you described is usually the case and it makes no sense to me

[TommyL31]

I agree that some leagues over complicate things but here's my perspective on a lot of the topics on this thread:

1. PPR - this one I absolutely get 4 catches for 0 yards are not as valuable as 40 yards rushing or 1 30 yard catch. I don't have a huge problem with it mostly because it's "standard" now and while it over values some players (like Julian Edelman) relative to his actual production there are few (if any) players who have no NFL value and gives them fantasy value. It just adds value to certain types of players more than others.

2. Fumbles - not a fan of (and don't play in) any leagues that penalize for fumbles and fumbles lost. I will say that I prefer penalties for fumbles over fumbles lost because if a RB fumbles and his offensive lineman recovers it, that's still a bad play by the RB. It's not a magical skill or strategic ability to fumble the ball in a way that your team will recover. Sometimes your teammate saves your butt though but it doesn't mean you won't be in the doghouse. I will say that I've played in leagues that penalize fumbles but give the same number of points to offensive players for fumble recoveries. So basically, if you fumble but recover it yourself, you get back what you lost because you made up for your mistake personally. It's also kind of cool when a guy gets points for recovering someone else's fumble because if a RB fumbles and the QB picks it up he made a good play and he should be rewarded (Luck made an awesome one of these in the NFL playoffs).

3. Decimal scoring - I actually kind of like decimal scoring because it's not like most scoring systems are scoring for the efficiency of your touches (yards per carry or catch) so how are 5-2 yard rushes worth one point but a 5 yard rush and a 4 yard rush are worthless? The game is measured in yards. On that note, I actually played in what we called a 'yardage' league for a couple years where every yard scored 1 point which meant that scores were huge. It also meant that we had to have a backup QB rule (ie if your QB left with an injury in the first half and didn't play a down in the 2nd half you could count a backup QB on your roster to count instead) because if your QB went down in a league like that you basically lose.

4. Points for yards vs. TDs - I agree with Princey. TDs are obviously important but if one guy gets 99 yards on a drive and another guy gets the TD was the second guy more valuable? Both players contributed and have value so it can't be just one or the other. I think this is also important because TD opportunities are greatly affected by the team around you and not just a product of individual performance. Look at things like 2009 Steven Jackson. He was on a 1-15 Rams team that was horrible. Jackson had over 1400 yards rushing and over 300 yards receiving but only 4 TDs. Contrast that Joseph Addai who got to play with Peyton Manning. He had 300 receiving yards but just over 800 rushing yards (and 3.8 yards per carry vs. Jackson's 4.4) but he also had 10 TDs. I would rather have Jackson in that scenario and think he had the better year.

[Water Buffalo]

Seems like most fantasy leagues these days feature a lot of scoring with big point totals like 187.4 to 173.6. Am I the lone wolf out there who thinks fantasy scoring has just gotten stupid?

Let me preface this by saying whatever makes a league happy, have at it. If I'm not in your league, I don't care how your scoring works. EXCEPT THAT, most rankings and other evaluation stuff seem to be based on (what I consider) stupid scoring systems. Long ago when I started back in the late 80's, scoring was fairly simple because we all had to do things by hand, no nifty web sites keeping track of stuff. Now, leagues can set their scoring with all kinds of goofy stuff because the web site will track it for you.

My general belief is that a player should actually have to accomplish something to score. Leagues these days are just the equivalent of grade school awards ceremonies. EVERYBODY has to get a participation certificate.

There are many rules out there that I think are silly, but my top "HATE" list:

1) PPR - Why should a short outlet pass score a point for someone? I know this was originally to bring receivers into league when everyone was going heavy on running backs. But if running back were worth more, so be it, draft accordingly.

2) Decimal scoring - Why is 1 yard worthy of even a tenth of a point? Decimal points belong in figure skating, gymnastics, and the X-Games.

3) A point for 10 yards - Really, a first down is worthy of a score?

4) Negative points for interceptions thrown - This one is really terrible. Seconds left in the half or game, your QB throws deep into the end zone, a Hail Mary, and a DB comes up with a meaningless pick. Or your QB hits the receiver right in the hands, perfect pass, but dude tips it into the air to a lucky DB. Both of those things cost your QB the same as if he throws a stupid pick right into a DBs belly.

I think people just overthink things and try to get too cute. Scoring an actual touchdown should trump everything. Six 1 yard grabs should NEVER equal an actual score. Yards are cute, catches are cute, but ultimately, every game ever played was won by the team that scored more points, not who had the most yards or catches.

Now get off of my lawn!

1) I can understand your dislike for PPR scoring. It's not for everyone. It has its pluses and minuses, and I can't fault someone for liking it or not. I personally think it diversifies scoring a bit so that more players potentially have fantasy value, which I like, but even I am starting to think that perhaps .5ppr might be better than a full 1ppr these days.

2) This one is simple. Because 10 yards should be worth more than 9. I used to play on CBS redraft leagues where 40 yards was worth the same as 41, 46 or 49 and a new point wasn't scored until you reached the next 10 yard threshold. I couldn't stand watching my opponent's guy get 50 yards, my guy get 69 yards, and there's only a 1 point difference. Decimal scoring is mandatory for me.

3) Yup, and I can use the reverse on you. My receiver gets a 60 yard reception and goes out of bounds on the 1 yard line, then your RB comes in and plows it in from the 1. That 1 yard TD run is really worth the same as the previous 60 yards?

4) While the examples you give are indeed a bit lame, it would be much lamer to not penalize a QB for throwing terrible passes. Isn't the goal of fantasy football to at least somewhat mimic how your players do on the field for that week? If your QB throws 3 TDs and 5 INTs and mine throws 2 TD and 0 INTS, who had the better week? Yours probably cost his team the game, and mine probably had a pretty solid week. In most leagues (6 point passing TD leagues at least), and ignoring yardage totals, your QB would have scored 8 points and mine 12. Sounds good to me. Should yours really be 18? Unfortunately, there's no real way to differentiate a "legit" interception versus a hail mary pick, so it sort of is what it is. Are there really that many hail mary interceptions anyway? Balls bouncing off the receivers hands are just part of the game too. It still counts for an INT in actual NFL stats too remember, and I don't see QBs crying about that.

Most people, myself included, hate TD heavy or TD only leagues. Quite simply, it's boring. It makes a small group of players valuable and that's about it. Hoarding big Brandon Jacobs and Mike Alstott TD plungers isn't my idea of fun. It also gives you a LOT less to root for on Sundays and generally makes fantasy matchups a lot less interesting. I'll be the first to say that I can't stand all of the ridiculous bonuses that some leagues award these days (length of TD bonuses, random yardage threshold bonuses etc), but I wouldn't ever want to play in a league that was dumbed down to scoring basically nothing except TDs. I actually like "standard" scoring quite a bit

[Cult of Dionysus]

I am beginning to like premium yard scoring. Where RBs and WRs get 1.2 pts per 10 yards (with decimal scoring, of course). Devalue TDs to 5 pts, except for QBs where it's 4 pts.

[sportstalkryan]

add me to the "hates PPR" list
the act of a reception adds nothing to the game, the result of the catch (yards and scores) does.
back catches the ball 5 yards behind the line and is immediately tackled = +0.5points
back takes the handoff 5 yards behind the line and is immediately tackled = -0.5points
feel free to explain what the difference is????

Excellent point. Myfantasyleague now tracks first downs as a stat. I'm a big purporter of switching PPR to PP1D. Let's score the things that actually matter to a NFL team.

[Cult of Dionysus]

How much of a penalty should QB INTs be? It's what separates the three tiers of QBs IMHO, elite, good, mediocre.