Ryan D Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 I thought I'd share this email I sent out to players of new leagues that Im making, and new scoring system, with the community Hello human. Let me begin by saying, this message that you are reading is incredibly long by modern standards. I call it "The Mantasy Fanimesto", or, "Three thousand words on pretend football from Carp Truly." (Its actually about 3,700) But ease your brow! Its written like good journalism, with the front end loaded with everything that requires knowing, and the back half stuffed full of inane details only meant for those eager to steep in the juicy context. I've spend much of the past three days redesigning fantasy football scoring. I'm starting two leagues, and I want you to join both. One redraft, one auction. But I only want you to join if you are going to stay. For players in my current league, a league called Quest, that league will continue forward, but after this season we will switch to Quarterbacks not being allowed to be keepers to balance their elevated role in the new system. These leagues need to be a cash leagues, for reasons I will get into later. I'm thinking The price for each league will be 50$, but if you are receiving this message and feel like you cannot afford it, I want you to be in the league, getting money out of you is absolutely not the object of this league, I can cover you, or depending of how many people can't afford it, those who CAN afford will pitch in, or we can ammend the prize pool. These are crazy times, i know, who knows if we'll even have a season...I suspect we will. As a football fan, I find that fantasy is a really fun way to follow the sport, and stay engaged and excited in the NFL, and stay in touch with and compete with friends. Fantasy reignites my love for football long after the Jaguars are mathematically eliminated in week 6. But something was wrong with fantasy. I attempted to fix it. So, yea, join me. You can even stop reading here. The rest is just be blabbering about the scoring system intricacies, I promise. But please tell me if you are in, or out, because if you're out I have to send this email to someone else. Don't feel any pressure to join, because I'm asking you join this thing, to be a part of this social group endeavor, and I do have list of other people to ask if you'd rather not commit. Remember, money will never be an issue. Its not about the money. So, like I said, the price for the league maybe be 50$, but tell me what you think a good price would be, I'd love it to be higher, as high as we can all afford. I know I'm fairly broke, and maybe some that get this email are more broke, so let's start a dialog about what works for you personally. Which transitions beautifully into my next point. The first reason it has to be a cash league is twofold. It makes people care, which inherently makes it more fun. Some of you might disagree, and I'd hate to come across as so pompous as to promise you are absolutely wrong, but...I think I just accidentally did. A small amount of skin in the game hones the competitive juices. The second reason it has to be a cash league is equally as important, if a bit more verbose. Hopefully as we play together through the years, I envision the cost for each league rising to 1000$ or even 2000$ a person, with those who can afford covering those who can't, and having the winner maybe double their money, and we use the rest of the money to throw a party, every year, where we fly everyone in. We could do LA with James and Kyle one year, one year in Asheville, one year in Ocean City. Have a giant ridiculous trophy for the winner and all eat blue crabs or whatever manure we get, and connect as humans and enjoy our (the really bad word)ing lives. And no, I haven't seen much of the show, The League, but I'm talking about some manure like that, but for real. So yea, thats the idea. Oddly enough, this idea was birthed of figuring out how to better score the (the really bad word)ing fantasy game. I love football, but I avoided fantasy football for years. I've been playing 4 years now, a relative newcomer to the fantasy scene. I remember my first year, having so much fun, but seeing so much room for improvment in the structure. It was 10 team league, normal roster spots, and i was left without much to do, starting pretty much the same stacked lineup every week going against someone else with an stacked lineup with my fingers crossed that one of my players got lucky and scored a few touchdowns. And I do say "got lucky," because, touchdowns are high variance plays, we'll get into that much later. The average team scores about 2.2 touchdowns per game, trying to predict which players will actually get those touchdowns is a fools errand, and fantasy football largely just boils down to tracking volume and crossing your fingers. From an analytic standpoint it is didn't seem very dynamic. But to me, whats was even more off was that it didn't true to the game. Football isn't about which player scores the actual touchdown. And why do quarterbacks not matter much? Could I design something that was more engaging, with a higher skill cap, that was more true to the actual game while being more fun to play? Of course I can. Sorry for all the ado, but wait no longer, baby bird, the worm is incoming Let's dive into the scoring system. This might appear at first to be a long string of largely incoherent numbers, but it's actually somewhat of an algorithm. The goal here is to score players with respect to the fact that football is about much more than how many yards and/or touchdowns are compiled. Buckle in. PASSING TOUCHDOWN--------------------- 28 points INTERCEPTION------------------- -36 points PASSING ATTEMPT------------- 1.09 points COMPLETIONS--------------------- 3 points INCOMPLETION--------------------- -3.3 points SACKED-------------------------------- -10 points PASSING YARDS-------------- 6.7 yards = 1 point PICK SIX------------------------------- -33 points 40+ YARD COMPLETIONS---- 20 points 40+ YARD TD------------------------ 10 points PASSING FIRST DOWN--------- 2 points GAME WINNING DRIVE--------- 28 points RUSHING Rushing attempt-------------------- 1 point Rushing touchdown---------------- 32 points Rushing yard-------------------- 4.3 = 1 point Rushing first down------------------ 4.75 points 40 yard rush‐--------------------------- 24 points 40 yard touchdown----------------- 12 points GAME WINNING SCORE--------- 32 points RECEIVING 3.55 yards‐------------------------------ 1 point Reception (PPR)--------------------- 2.5 points Receiving touchdowns‐---------- 34 points Receiving first downs------------- 11 points 40 yard catch‐------------------------- 21 points 40 yard touchdown----------------- 10 points GAME WINNING SCORE--------- 34 points Fumble -15 Fumble lost -15 (The definition of "game winning" for these purposes is as follows: the player scores a touchdown in the final 4 minutes of the fourth quarter, or overtime, that causes his team to obtain a lead that they do not relinquish) DEFENSE Alot of metrics, but in still tuning here. LINEUP QB Superflex Flex 4 WR 3 RB 2 TE D I explain at the end, why this roster. One is a draft league, no keepers, full redraft every year. The other one is auction and FAB. If you dont know what this is, don't worry, its easy. Drafts wills be back to back, wed sept 9th, the day before the first game. 10:30 EST start maybe ? When can my west coast people do it? This is where I can bid farewell to most of you. The rest of this piece is just me droning on and on about the workings and philosophy of this scoring system, intended only for the most ardent math or fantasy connoisseur, one whom has time to kill and an affinity for descent into the depths of stream-of-consciousness style writing that some say mirrors madness itself. They say that...but are they right? Impossible to know for sure. METHOD & PHILOSOPHY : QUARTERBACK SCORING This entire system is built off of Quarterback scoring. The lightest scratch at the surface into traditional fantasy football draft strategy reveals what many consider to be bedrock fantasy philosophy: Don't draft a quarterback early. For this upcoming season, Lamar Jacksons ADP (average draft position) is 16th overall, and Patrick Mahomes is 17th overall. And if you are drafting in a traditionally scored league, I can give you some great advice right now: 16th or 17th overall is too high to be taking Jackson or Mahomes. Don't take a quarterback early. The ADP for top QBs is ALWAYS inflated a bit, because there's a certain percentage of people who don't understand: don't take a quarterback early. If you're reading this, and you think I'm wrong, email me about it, because I'm honestly curious if there's even one single knowledgable fantasy player that can take issue with this advice. Why am I so laboriously making this point? Can you feel the lurking discrepancy? Let's momentarily leave the world of fantasy football, and come back to the reality of actual football. Quarterback is the most important position. So shouldn't Quarterback be the most important position in fantasy? Shouldn't Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes be drafted number one and number two overall? The short answer: Yes. To me, the answer appeared simple: Crank up the points on quarterbacks in an attempt to align fantasy football with actual football. And three years ago, that's exactly what I did. I made a host of other changes to the same effect. Defense is half of the sport, why are they relegated to a footnote in fantasy? Crank the points way up. Give RBs and WRs bonus points for plays of 40+ yards, and bonus points for first downs, because that 2 yard run on 3rd and 1 SHOULD be worth more than a 6 yard draw on 3rd and 24. A whole slew of other possible ways for players to earn points than just yards, catches, and touchdowns, respecting the fact that football isnt about how many yards you rack up, but how and when you get those yards. But as I was doing my draft research for our upcoming year 4 of this experimental scoring system, i realized something, it can be even more. After our first season was concluded I analyzed the stats and the changes I needed to make were apparent: quarterback points needed to be boosted even higher, and the defensive points needed to be turned down. After the second season, i noticed the problem with the defense, they were still scoring quite high, but without much variance, the 3rd ranked defense was scoring 40 ppg, and the 24th defense was scoring 35 ppg. Most games, the defenses had little impact on the result, and then every so often they would have a completely outsized effect, almost winning the game outright. This is something that was happening with the quarterback scoring too, but I didn't notice it until the following off-season (like....three days ago) For the time i just thought to turn up QB scoring a little more. After the third season (now)...I'm looking at the numbers and I see the problem with Quarterback. Scoring is sky high, and they 'feel' valuable, but a deep dive into my numbers show that the quarterback position is STILL not valuable. Sure, theyre scoring tons of points but, but theres not much difference between the 3rd ranked QB and the 22nd. So I've fallen into the same fantasy strategy quagmire: the quarterback is not valueable. If I turn up the points even higher, this issue remains, they're scoring more points, but theres not much difference between the 4th QB and the 20th, so, there's only a couple QBs that have value. So I sat down played with the numbers to address this issue, to fix fantasy football, to find the variance needed to bring proper value to the quarterback position to bring it into balance, with dynamic scoring, that represents that there are more ways for a quarterback to have a good game than just throwing a boatload of touchdowns. My first attempt started with a simple premise. 1 yard is 1 point. If one yard is worth one point, what should everything else be worth? I ended up with a system where quarterbacks could score 1000 a week, which I loved, but it ended up resembling the NFL too much, where teams with Mahomes or Jackson would win about 75% of their games. I like to think of it, like how when the first version of The Matrix that was made, it was too perfect. But as it fell apart the more it was developed, I realized that 1yard=point was too arbitrary of a starting location. I'm tempted to explain to you all the options I explored and what was wrong with each one of them, tempted to get into my past and WHY I am the perfect person to merge fantasy math with real football, but let's instead fast forward into something you can sink your teeth into, where I ended up. The problem with quarterback scoring was this: We're scoring quarterbacks based on production of yardage and touchdowns, but over the course of a given season, a majority of NFL starting quarterbacks (20+ every year) produce ABOUT THE SAME amount of yards and touchdowns. While on a PER GAME basis, yardage is remarkably steady, while touchdowns fluctuate wildly, leaving fantasy owners in the situation of just hoping that they get lucky and this is the week that their guy throws 5 touchdowns. I'll attempt to quickly back this up. Here are the average stats for the average quarterback in the average NFL game Attempts 34.8------------ Completions: 22.1------ Completion%: 63.5----- Yards: 235------------------ Touchdowns: 1.6-------- Interceptions: 0.8------- Fumbles:0.5---------------- Sacked: 2.5----------------- These numbers are from last year, but these metrics have been very stable, you can take a peek right here if you'd like https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/NFL/passing.htm Thats neither a good game, nor a bad game, but an average game. Now quickly let's glance at the "average" QB single game stats, against the NFL records for single game stats Avg Record % increase Attempts 34.8------------70----------------100% Completions: 22.1------45----------------105% Yards: 235-----------------554---------------135% Touchdowns: 1.6---------7-----------------337% Interceptions: 0.8--------7-----------------672% In comparing these two sets of numbers I'm shortcuting you to an answer that theres much more data to back up:touchdown and interception totals fluctuate wildly on a per game basis. I'm attempting to fast forward you past all the digging I did, and I'm using this "average" game as a reference because we're going to come back to it later. Its not just quarterback, all positions share this "touchdown variability problem" The WR who scored the most touchdowns in the league last year averaged just 0.68 touchdowns per game, and it is not all uncommon that a majority of his touchdowns came in groups in a smallnhandful of games. Again, this is not some statistical aberration, the deeper you dive into the stats the more true this is. In the league I created 3 years ago, i gave points for passing attempts, RB carries, first downs, and some other things, additional metrics to stabilize the "touchdown variability problem" It worked, actually too well, with the addition of other ways to earn points without increasing the proportion of points touchdowns actually produced "nerfed" or "watered down" touchdowns too much, which was hard to balance without returning to skewing results, but i was able to do it with the new system, however, the larger overall problem remained, as I quoted to you earlier, in this system, QB3 was scoring about the same as QB22. Quarterbacks were no longer so touchdown dependant, but there still wasn't dynamics in the position, even though there is large dynamic value at the position in ACTUAL football, largley because, the additional metrics that I added shared the same problem with yardage and touchdowns. Over the course of a season, most NFL quarterbacks will produce about the same amount of yards, touchdowns, first downs, and completions. On average, 1-3 quarterbacks will produce statistically significant higher totals, and 3-4 will produce statistically significant lower totals, and everyone else will be bunched in between. Game-to-game most quarterback will produce roughly equal stats, with the exception of touchdowns and interceptions fluctuating. Now mind you, this generally isn't true of RB and WR, who have dynamic fluctuation in yardage totals. Maybe this all seems obvious to you, or maybe you doubt this, as it took much swimming through the data for me to come to this realization, and I was suprised myself. The average quarterback passes for 235 yards in a game, and each week youd be shocked to realize how many QBs come within 30 yards of that number. This is true of most positive production metrics, with the exception of touchdowns and interceptions, which, again, fluctuate wildly. The answer is to add additional wrinkles, balanced negative points based on expected production. If this isn't making sense, it might soon. Ok...getting into how the scoring system actually works. Yay! We're finally here! Wait, are we here? Is anyone actually still with me? Let's take another look at my precious: PASSING TOUCHDOWN--------------------- 28 points INTERCEPTION------------------- -36 points PASSING ATTEMPT------------- 1.09 points COMPLETIONS--------------------- 3 points INCOMPLETION--------------------- -3.3 points SACKED-------------------------------- -10 points PASSING YARDS-------------- 6.7 yards = 1 point PICK SIX------------------------------- -33 points 40+ YARD COMPLETIONS---- 20 points 40+ YARD TD------------------------ 10 points PASSING FIRST DOWN--------- 2 points GAME WINNING DRIVE--------- 28 points This scoring system produces a dynamic range of quarterback value. Notice that you actually get more negative points for an interception that a touchdown, more negative points for an incompletion than a completion. Last year In, in a traditional scoring system, Jamies Winston, with his 33 TDs and 30 INTS, was QB3. In this scoring system, Winston wouldve finished QB19. This system balaces the "touchdown variability problem" and creates a more dynamic group of quarterback grades by introducing EFFICIENCY grading to balance out PRODUCTION grading. Well, based on what? In one way, its based on my search through the numbers and my love of football, in another way, its based arbitrarily on the number 100. Why 100? I honestly don't know. Seemed like a good enough number at the time. Allow me to explain If you dont like math, earmuffs yourself for this next bit: So lets go back to the "average" quarterback playing in the "average" game Attempts 34.8------------ Completions: 22.1------ Completion%: 63.5----- Yards: 235------------------ Touchdowns: 1.6-------- Interceptions: 0.8------- Fumbles:0.5---------------- Sacked: 2.5----------------- First downs:12 With my scoring system, this "average" quarterback grades out like this Attempts 34.8------------- 37.93 points Completions: 22.1------- 66.3 points Incompletions: 12.7----- -41.91 Yards: 235------------------- 35.52 Touchdowns: 1.6-------- 44.8 Interceptions: 0.8------- -28.8 Fumbles: 0.5--------------- -15 Sacks: 2.5------------------ -25 First downs 12 ---------- 24 Total= 97.84 Plus the chance for massive bonus of plays on 40 yards, which for an "average" QB is approximately .2 per game, .1 as touchdown. brings the total to 102.84. So, the average QB will score 100. Now, it's 100, but in couldn't made it 0 or 1000. Look at is as four quadrants contributing to this "average" core score of 100 Touchdowns vs interceptions= 16.4 net points Completions vs incompletions=24.39 net points Yardage total= 35.52 points Passing Attempts total = 37.932 Theres also sacks and first downs, generally canceling out, but still room for point gain or loss. This "quadrant system" started out as a triumvirate, with "perfect" 33-33-33 proportions between TD, INT, and comp vs inc, but using INT penalties to tune down the expected points generated by touchdown passes, as a satisfying address to the "touchdown variability problem" works wonderfully, as the weekly touchdown fluctuations will still produce satisfyingly dramatic results without lording over the outcome. But these negative metrics actually created too much dynamic variability, too much range between QB4 and QB24, so more weight was shifted to the steady yardage metric and points for attempts were added to stabilize the system. Its hard to explain exactly how great this scoring system works without being able to actually show you its results when applied to quarterback stats over the past 2 seasons, and how it really brings quarterbacks with low volume and high efficiency back into the fold, how much more the score list actually represent which quarterbacks are playing well. My grand vision including providing a few additional wrinkles, like point multipliers for 3rd and fourth down and the fourth quarter, but alas, I have no fast and reliable way to do this as of now. So after getting the most important position right, let me explain how we layer in the running backs and receivers, which is tricky. Any idea on how to quantify and compare the statistical contributions of quarterbacks to that of running backs and receivers is pure conjecture, and in my mind, traditional scoring is woefully astray here, as i previously established sharply, drafting Mahomes or Jackson early is a bad idea in standard scoring. Two MVPS coming off record setting seasons. And we're deeeeeep into this fanimesto, so I'll spare you the long walk down the path of how I came to the following conclusion and just cut to the chase and offer my conjecture upfront: RB1 and WR1: 110 points. So a top flight RB or WR will contribute to his teams success slightly more than an "average" quarterback. The average per game stats of a RB1 or WR1 look something like this RB 20 carries, 100 yards, 1 TD WR 7.5 catches 95 yards, 0.7 TD These numbers are painstakingly accurate, I'll spare you the long form and end this madness. These stats are quite modest, so positional players will still be able to far outperform in certain scenarios and should be balanced quite nicely. The scoring has been tinkered with to the properly balance those overpowered Reception running backs. A (the really bad word)ing league should be (ideally) 12 teams, with one QB slot, 4 WR slots, 3 RB slots, one flex spot, one super flex spot, and one defensive slot (optional) and 7 bench spots. You can tinker and add or remove team slots accordingly. Why so many? Rosters should not be stacked, the depth of ones roster ought to determine what victory thou hath wrought on the day. Its in choosing these fringe players where most of the work is done, and, more depth = more skill cap. "But oh! There aren't enough players to fill all those spots!" Stop your sniveling you whelp! There were 58 receivers that averaged least one reception per quarter played last year, and if an NFL team is considering a player for regular touches, you ought to too. Why is defense optional? I still can't find a satisfying to score these, most of the important metrics fluctuate even more wildly than touchdown passes. I congratulate you for reaching the end, whoever you are at this point. Who you may be matters not, what matters that if you made it here, its quite unavoidable that you exit this ardent soliloquy with different ideas than you brought through the door. Fantasy ideas. MUHAHAHAHAHAHA AAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHahahahahahhahhhahhhhhhh FIN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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