Setting Scoring in IDP Leagues

Tom Kislingbury

How do you make a dynasty player happy? Let them talk about why their setup is the best.  I spend a lot of time reading about how people have their league set up.  Different positional requirements, scoring, playoff systems etc.  I love hearing about how people like to play and what bits they like best.  But the one thing that drives me crazy is “My IDP league is great.  The top players at every position score the same amount”.  Aarrgh!

I get the attraction.  One of the reasons the NFL is so great is that there’s lots of ways to skin the cat.  Teams have won Super Bowls by building killer defenses, getting a star quarterback paired with offensive weapons, or building an O-line that bulldozes anyone in their path.  We want to be able to do the same – to build teams based on defense just like they do in the pros. 

I love this concept – I just don’t think the way to do it is by equalising scoring across positions.  The reason being that (as usual) it comes back to the economics of scarcity.  Fundamentally there is an imbalance in fantasy football.  At any one time there are only a few startable options at some positions (quarterbacks, running backs and tight ends) but loads of viable starters at others (wide receiver, linebacker and safety).  This isn’t a problem of course it’s just how the game works.  The problem arises because the drop-off in scoring varies a lot by position.  Here’s an example using a fairly standard scoring system.

Standard Leagues

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chart 1

The data is the points scored by each player (using 2016 data) in order.  So the QB line shows how much the top QB (Aaron Rodgers scored) and then all the others in order down to the bottom one (Chase Daniel).  Same with all the other positions.  So the important thing is the gradient.  The positions with more scarcity show a steeper drop-off.  Let’s look at them one by one.

QB:  At the top there’s a an elite group of around seven players.  The drop-off between number eight and number 23 is less steep which is why so many people play late QB.  All of those players are pretty interchangeable.  Then after the top 32 it falls off fast.  As you’d expect, only about one QB per team is viable.

RB:  The top is absurdly steep.  If you had David Johnson or Zeke Elliot it was a massive advantage.  But it’s generally a steep decline after the top ten.  If you don’t have a workhorse back in fantasy, you suffer.

WR:  The top five are really good but then there’s a long, slow drop-off because of the sheer number of players that catch passes these days.  Note how many receivers ranked 40 or later do well.  It’s very easy to find viable WRs these days.

TE:  Ugh.  It’s just flat and low here.  With these particular settings TEs are not that relevant and most of them are interchangeable.  Kyle Rudolph, Cameron Brate, Dennis Pitta, Jack Doyle.  Ugh.

K: Matt Bryant was really good last year so there’s a steep drop-off from #1 to #2.  After that it’s really flat.  This obviously proves what wel all know – kickers are a crapshoot.  Get them out of your league.

DT:  With these settings, DT is the lowest scoring position in the league.  There are a handful of players at the top who stand out but then a long, flat drop-off. 

DE:  Khalil Mack is out on front on his own at #1.  There’s then a fairly gradual decline.

LB: There are two elite options and another 12 or so good starters.   But after that this is one of the most shallow declines of all positions.  There’s about 50 points difference between #18 and #32.

CB:  Logan Ryan had a great season as the top corner last year but after that it’s another long, slow drop-off.  Teams give three corners each significant playing time so there are plenty to go around.

S:  Landon Collins leads a small group of four top options.  Then after that again there’s a gradual decline.  And similar to LB and WR there are plenty of good options available all the way through.

So all in all this describes a fairly typical dynasty situation.  You need a top RB, an elite QB is a big benefit but you can generally find decent options at WR, LB and S.  And no one cares about K, CB or DT.

‘Balanced’ Leagues

Now – let’s go back to the premise of having top options at each position scoring the same and see what it does shall we?  This is the same data adjusted for a league where top players for each position score about the same:

chart 2

So clearly it looks very different.  Again let’s examine each position in turn.

QB:  As we saw before there’s a steep drop-off at the position.  Now only the first few QBs are any good and the rest are fairly weak.

RB: If you have David Johnson or Zeke you’re happy, but again there are only about ten viable players here.

WR: We know that the WR drop-off is shallow so there are still plenty of good WRs available.

TE:  Towards the lower end of the rankings TEs now score abysmally poorly.

K:  Because of the interchangeable nature of kickers this is now the second-highest scoring position.  The 12th best kicker now scores more points than the third best RB.

DT:  The top handful are good but outside the top eight DTs are terrible.

DE:  Average really.  This is a pretty good distribution.

LB:  This is now the most premium position in the league.  The top four LBs are now better than all but one RB and every single WR.  Your LB2 and LB3 starters will dominate weekly scoring.

CB:  Similar to DE this is a pretty good distribution. 

S:  Another good distribution.  Although it’s worth noting that Ss, DEs and CBs all heavily outscore the equivalently ranked RBs and QBs. 

So although the top scorers are all equal this league is clearly not viable.  LBs are vastly overpowered as are all IDPs bar DTs.  And kickers are going to regularly win games.  Whilst all but the best RBs and QBs are pretty useless and wont impact games much at all.

Findings and Summary

Balanced positions are a myth.  It doesn’t matter if we turn assisted tackles or receptions or rushing yards or sacks slightly up or down; the way stats are spread out across players mean that if top IDPs score highly there will be very plentiful mid-range options.  That’s just a natural function of the fact that there are twice as many IDPs in the NFL as there are skill positions.

My favoured solution is simply numbers.  We all like to work from a base of having equal numbers of offensive and defensive players in the starting line-up (who knew us obsessive stat compilers had a bit of OCD?) but there’s no reason this has to be the case.  To equalise offense and defense I prefer simply having a couple more IDPs start than offensive players.  That way your QBs, RBs and WRs can all be game-winning stars but a strong defense can still manage to keep pace with them.  Exactly how the NFL is put together.

So next time someone tells you how balanced their league is you can easily check. Just look through their top scorers from the last season then you will generally see a bunch of LBs in there.  If that’s the case I suggest you decline their invitation politely and look for a league where some sensible inequality is used.

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tom kislingbury