It's (almost) the most wonderful time of the year...
In a few weeks, Fantasy Football fever will be sweeping the nation. I've got no easy task ahead of me, defending my title in The Lowes Cup fantasy football league. The Lowes Cup must remain mine.
And this really is no laughing matter. We've already signed up our league on Yahoo, and we're in the midst of the most heated preseason scoring/lineup debates in the history of the league (this is the fifth year, the fourth year in which we've awarded the Cup to the champion). Last night I spent an hour or two on a brilliant (well, not really) analysis of last year's NFL touchdown-scoring leaders as part of my argument that QB's should continue to get only 4 points per TD thrown (rather than 6). I'm so proud of my fanatacism that I reprint that post below. I rule.
Ok, I'm signed up now
I like the point per reception rule, but really I don't care if we keep it or not. I say keep two QB's. Negative points for missed fg's/xp's are ok, but I agree that they shouldn't be as high as -5 ... missing an extra point is really random, and you shouldn't risk losing a tight game because of an extra point. Negative points should only be for habit-type dumb plays that are semi-predictable (i.e., fumbles, interceptions).
Because I was just really interested in the subject tonight, I did a brief study comparing the number of TD's scored by QB's, RB's, and WR's. I took the Top 10 for each position in terms of TD's scored (counting passing, rushing, and receiving TD's for each position). The results were like this:
Avg. TD's for Top 10 at each Position
-QB's: 25.7 TD's, 10.4 INT's
-RB's: 15.8 TD's
-WR's: 10.4 TD's
Avg. TD's for Top 20 at each position
-QB's: 21.95 TD's, 12.45 INT's
-RB's: 11.80 TD's
-WR's: 9.00 TD's
So, if here's the TD point totals for each position:
-Top 10 QB's: 154.2 (133.4 with INT's added in)
-Top 20 QB's: 131.7 (106.8 w/INT's)
-Top 10 RB's: 94.8
-Top 20 RB's: 70.8
-Top 10 WR's: 62.4
-Top 20 WR's: 54.0
I got too lazy to add fumbles in, but assuming those are equal for each of the three positions, the results aren't too surprising. If you give six points per TD, an average Top 10 QB gives you about 40 more points for the season than a Top 10 RB.
But wait, you ask, aren't we (as a league) only going to be playing 12 QB's, while we'll probably play 18 RB's? Well, you'd be right. If I hadn't just closed my spreadsheet without saving it, I'd give you the stats for the Top 12 QB's and Top 18 RB's. But, since I did delete the spreadsheet, we'll just go with the numbers for the Top 10 QB's and Top 20 RB's.
A Top 10 QB has 133.4 points. A Top 20 RB has 70.8. That's a big disparity, given that (theoretically) those numbers should be even (if we're weighting QB's and RB's the same ... I'm not even bringing WR's into the equation, but using the numbers above you could make an argument for the point per reception rule in balancing positions....)
Anyway, my point is this: If you give QB's only 4 points per TD, the average Top 10 QB will score 82 points (25.7*4 / 10.4*2). That's more equal to the 70.8 points scored by the average Top 20 RB. So, going off pure TD's and INT's (not including yardage or fumbles), if we have 12 QB's and 18 RB's active in our league every week, QB's will still have a slight edge even if they get 4 points per TD.
So, the moral of the story is, we have to keep QB TD's at 4 points. I know it seemed like we overcompensated last year in response to Peyton's 2004 season, but QB's still are pretty balanced in our league.
