Cutting the EDGE: Fixing IDP Positional Issues

Chuck “Concrete Charlie” Bednarik played for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1949 through 1962. Bednarik was the last full-time two-way player in the football.

Prior to World War II, it was common for the 11 players on the field for offense to remain out to play defense; there was little to no specialization. Even after a 14-year career, Bednarik still lined up at center and inside linebacker for every single play. Versatility like Bednarik’s is a throwback skill, something that the titans of football’s yesteryear were praised for.

You’d think fantasy players would love NFL athletes who can play multiple positions, but they are skittish about them instead.

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Oakland Raiders edge rusher Khalil Mack has given owners in Individual Defensive Player (IDP) formats fits for years, as his positional eligibility on many sites has swung from defensive end (DE) to linebacker (LB) and back. This is common for players in the NFL’s highly-versatile defensive climate these days, where the flexible nature of packages makes the difference between defensive schemes nearly nil.

If Concrete Charlie was playing IDP, though, he’d tell you to quit whining about multi-position players and do something about it.

Sixty-Minute Men

For many years, intricate IDP set-ups were in place solely by the grace of ambitious commissioners who manually adjusted everything.

In the last few years, however, sites like ESPN have created an actual edge rusher position and MyFantasyLeague (MFL) allow nearly every setting to be futzed with. We are living in a golden age of IDP options, so rather than throwing your hands up in disgust, take your league’s fate into your own hands.

In some leagues (especially if you use MFL, my site of choice), it’s as simple as allowing multiple-position eligibility.

But why does it matter?, you may ask. It all comes down to the kind of league experience you want to cultivate as a commissioner.

In leagues I run, one of the most important factors is a realistic feel. Due to this, I wanted versatile players to be valued much more highly than players who are pigeonholed into just one position. There’s a big reason why Jadeveon Clowney (defensive end, defensive tackle, and rush linebacker) was picked higher than fellow edge rusher Mack (defensive end and rush linebacker). There’s a reason why both were selected over rush linebacker Dee Ford in the same draft class: versatility is a valuable asset.

Los Angeles Rams defensive lineman Aaron Donald is a perfect example of this. Donald had been classified a defensive tackle in the Rams’ 4-3 defensive front, but this year the team switched to a 3-4 scheme and Donald was re-categorized as a defensive end. Donald’s position in fantasy leagues switched subsequently, but not because he had failed; the team shifted him into a different role.

Donald responded well, remaining a top-tier defensive player in terms of fantasy scoring this season. He posted 12.54 points per game in big-play scoring (sixth-highest) after earning 11.17 in 2016 (15th-highest), proving that he had worth at either spot.

When players like these demonstrate that they can excel at more than one position, the fantasy GM’s in your leagues shouldn’t be penalized or punished for selecting them; they should be rewarded.

Sucking Air

One of the biggest factors in establishing multiple-position eligibility for me, however, was how to make it fair and easy. As commissioners, we have more than enough going on with the simple day-to-day facets of league management. Adding another responsibility has to be manageable, and there has to be a concrete way to subjectively filter out the players who should not earn it.

To that end, I came up with a list of three criteria players needed to achieve in order to earn a second position:

1. Must play 40 percent of their team’s defensive snaps (can be found on Pro Football Focus) in the previous season.

1. This rule means players who play well in limited sample sizes will not get artificially inflated.

2. Must have been classified as the position they will be adding within the last three years (can be found on Pro Football Reference).

1. This rule serves two purposes: first, it gives a specific source to adding a position for a player, rather than any opinion or conjecture about having maybe played it once; second, it keeps the positional eligibility relevant (i.e. Derrick Morgan hasn’t played defensive end since 2012, so while he theoretically could pick it up again, there is no recent data to support this).

3. Must have played effectively in the season they played the position applied for (can be found on Pro Football Focus’s grades); a grade of 70.0 is considered effective.

1. This rule serves to whittle down the list for quality. A player who played a second position in a previous season poorly shouldn’t receive extra value, while a player who does grade out well has proven they can actually play two positions.

These are simply guidelines. If you don’t have a subscription to Pro Football Focus, FantasyData.com and many other sites have snap counts for Rule 1. For Rule 3, if you don’t have access to PFF, you could establish a fantasy point or positional ranking threshold instead of a grade.

You know best how to adjust rules to make sense for your league, so fit this idea to what your league needs and the resources you have.

Concrete

Finally, this is what the positional eligibility changes looked like for us in concrete terms. By having league owners request specific players be examined for specific positional updates, we had applications for 46 players to receive dual eligibility, with only 25 receiving this adjustment.

The table below shows these players, the MFL default position, and their custom position, as well as their scoring rank at each position this year.

Player	Default Pos.	2017 Rank	Custom Pos.	2017 Rank	Difference
Casey, Jurrell TEN	DE	24	DT	5	19
Crawford, Tyrone DAL	DE	50	DT	22	28
Daniels, Mike GBP	DE	38	DT	15	23
Donald, Aaron LAR	DE	7	DT	1	6
Easley, Dominique FA	DE	NR	DT	NR	N/A
Hicks, Akiem CHI	DE	13	DT	2	11
Williams, Leonard NYJ	DE	49	DT	21	28
Graham, Brandon PHI	DE	11	LB	19	-8
Peppers, Julius CAR	DE	20	LB	32	-12
Cox, Fletcher PHI	DT	17	DE	42	-25
Jackson, Malik JAC	DT	4	DE	22	-18
Beasley, Vic ATL	LB	96	DE	54	42
Clowney, Jadeveon HOU	LB	4	DE	4	0
Irvin, Bruce OAK	LB	24	DE	15	9
Mack, Khalil OAK	LB	6	DE	5	1
Quinn, Robert LAR	LB	49	DE	29	20
Sheard, Jabaal IND	LB	53	DE	31	22
Barron, Mark LAR	LB	33	S	5	28
Bucannon, Deone ARI	LB	64	S	34	30
Allen, Ricardo ATL	S	81	CB	93	-12
Graham, Corey FA	S	78	CB	88	-10
Hyde, Micah BUF	S	15	CB	7	8
Joyner, Lamarcus LAR	S	54	CB	34	20
Mathieu, Tyrann ARI	S	12	CB	6	6
Ward, Jimmie SFO	S	90	CB	111	-21

Allowing this positional flexibility gave a rankings boost on average from 37.2 to 29.0 at a position for players – a jump of 8.1 spots, or two-thirds of a tier in 12-team dynasty leagues. That raw average boost also doesn’t even take into account the fact that owners on MFL can switch players back and forth from week to week to account for the best matchups for their roster.

There’s definitely some work involved in creating multiple-position eligibility in your IDP leagues, but there is truly no downside once you do so. You add value to players, get your league closer to a realistic feeling, and you make your owners happy.

That kind of dedication to versatility would make Concrete Charlie proud.

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