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2003 Scoring Modifications |
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commish
Football Freak
3322 posts
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Posted - 7/17/2003 2:57:05 PM |
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2003 Scoring Modifications
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The Gamblers have made a very compelling argument in favor of slightly reducing the scoring system for Defenses and Kickers. I'll let him take the lead in this discussion thread, but let me summarize it here.
Our goal is to have a system where the most adept analysis is reflected. Kickers have always been somewhat random in trying to pick a good one, and DF/ST's also fit into this to some degree. On top of that, both K's and DF/ST's are scoring a disturbing percentage of a team's total fantasy points, to the point where the other positions are being diminished.
Among the compelling arguments, there is one rationale for a modification to these positions that has never been adequately refuted: what percentage of pre-draft analytical energy is spent on kickers and defenses combined? 2%? Seriously, 1%? There are various reasons for this, such as the fact that they are the least predictable, but the fact that it is true should be reason enough to want a modification. Why give 25%+ of a team's total points to two positions that take up less than 2% of one's analysis? Let's reward coaching for what coaches can analyze, namely QB's, RB's, WR's, and TE's.
That being said, the intent is to lower overall points for all kickers and defenses, while still maintaining a dropoff between the best picks and the rest of the pack.
Also, it should be noted that this may be the last tweak to the scoring system for quite some time, if not for good. We have maintained a conservative approach for six years, in only tweaking one position at a time. And it has come down to the final two. At the very least, any future tweak would be minimal at best, and even that seems unlikely. Methinks the balance is at hand.
For Kickers, it is suggested that the following be put in place:
up to 39 yards = 2 points
40-49 yards = 3 points
50-59 yards = 4 points
60-64 yards = 5 points
65+ = 10 points (a record)
For Defenses, it is suggested to have the following:
3 sacks = 1 point
4 sacks = 2 points total
5 sacks = 3 points total
6+ sacks = etc. (no cap)
1st turnover = 0 points
2nd turnover = 2 points
3rd+ turnovers = +2 points per turnover
And the Points Held table would change to:
0 = 10 points (shutout)
2 = 9 points
3-5 = 8 points
6 = 7 points
7-8 = 6 points
9 = 5 points
10-11 = 4 points
12 = 3 points
13 = 2 points
14 = 1 point
This chart had previously started with 12 points for a shutout and ran through 16 points given up.
By addressing the low side of sacks and turnovers, we are trimming a standard number of points across the board, while still allowing the elite DF's to kick butt. This will still reward a team for having a great defense, but it will no longer eclipse an entire team of offensive skill positions.
Personally, I think there is a very good case for making these changes, and that we will find it to be a help in minimizing randomness and rewarding talent evaluation in the core skill players (QB, RB, WR). Between all of the adjustments we should see kickers and defenses score an average of 5-6 less points per game. That's pretty substantial and will probably be our last tweak to our scoring system, but look at how much more important it will make the rest of a team. From now on, the 7 true skill positions of the 9 starters will have a bigger impact, and that's the way it should be.
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Hippie
Jockstrap Wrangler
17 posts
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Posted - 7/17/2003 3:09:37 PM |
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I agree with the boy
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| I've won a game or 2 when my d was the reason, those are not meaningful wins |
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Posted - 7/17/2003 3:21:47 PM |
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i agree...
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| with everything but the sack change.i like golf and poker and will be willing to play either at any time after 3pm. on friday.see you all then! |
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Roving Gamblers
Football Freak
747 posts
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Fu: 101.89 |
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Posted - 7/17/2003 3:45:43 PM |
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more on Ds and kickers
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i don't want to get into a long discussion at the moment (still at work), but i do want to point out that defenses and kickers are historically picked late in drafts, due either to their variability (defenses) or their uniformity (kickers). Keith and i don't think these players should be winning games for teams on a regular basis. a team with good RBs, WRs and QBs should not lose to teams with great Ds and kickers.
in addition, the separation between the top 1 or 2 defenses and the 10th defense seems far too large to me. putting caps on defensive scoring, similar to the way we do for yardage scoring, should help close that gap and ensure that offensive players play a larger, and fairer, role in our games. in a league that has a dozen games a year decided by home field advantage, one defense should not outscore another by 25 points. that's just silly in my mind, and undermines the rest of our great scoring system.
the argument for reducing kicker points is similar, but really i just think of the 50 yarder as a major dividing line between easy kicks and hard kicks. psychologically, the made 50 yarder is huge, where a 40something yard kick just isn't. so combining 30 and 40 yd kicks together seems to make sense to me.
Keith and i agree that the result of these changes should be ~3-5 points at most on average. not a huge deal. but again, when you can win because of home field advantage, it is a major one. so this is definitely a debate that needs to be had. i really like the points against scale that Keith has up there, but am less attached to the actual scoring system of sacks. i think 1 pt per sack up to 5 sacks would be reasonable as well (the idea being that a 6th or 8th sack isn't really changing the outcome of a game; odds are the sacking team is going to win by that point). regardless, i hope this something we can discuss asap.
well, looks like i ended up writing alot after all. sorry |
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Roving Gamblers
Football Freak
747 posts
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Fu: 101.89 |
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Posted - 7/17/2003 5:10:59 PM |
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even more on defenses
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Below is a list top 25 scorers from last year, the round they were drafted in, and which are franchised for 2003. note that 5 top 25ers from 2002 were defenses. of them, none was drafted before the 7th round, while 13 other top 25ers were franchise players, or players drafted in rounds 1-3 (the rounds where your best players SHOULD be drafted). i see no reason why late picks should have such a strong presence in the top 25 if picking them is so variable, as evidenced by the falcons, saints and packers success. while there is of course variation amongst non-defense players (Brady, Vick, Pennington e.g) note that many of them became franchised for this year, while no defenses were franchised in 2002 or 2003, nor will they ever be.
RANK NAME 2002 Draft 2003 Draft
1 Rich Gannon F F
2 Priest Holmes 1 F
3 Buccaneers 7
4 Peyton Manning F F
5 Ricky Williams F F
6 Drew Bledsoe 6
7 Eagles 7
8 D Culpepper F F
9 Michael Vick 7 F
10 L Tomlinson 1 F
11 Tom Brady 10
12 Trent Green 8
13 Falcons UNDRAFTED
14 Aaron Brooks 1
15 Packers 13
16 Steve McNair 3
17 Jeff Garcia F F
18 Brett Favre 2
19 C Pennington 18 F
20 S Alexander F F
21 Donovan McNabb F F
22 Kerry Collins 13
23 D McAllister 1
24 Saints 16
25 Brad Johnson 8
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Coach Knoll Cowher
Football Freak
997 posts
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Fu: 100.96 |
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Posted - 7/17/2003 11:53:13 PM |
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Most of that looks ok except:
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I agree that defenses are overpowered. On top of that, you are not drafting a individual, you are drafting a composite. Of course, defense is HALF of the game of football, and for it to score half of a Fantasy team's points seems reasonable.
I do object to the kicker changes. A kicker is one player, not a team. There are many factors that go into evaluating kickers, and I think the new table nerfs kickers way too much. Let's not forget, that kickers hold almost all the scoring records in the NFL. Choosing the right kicker is as vital an issue for Fantasy Owners as it is for NFL teams. Just ask the Bills!
There is a huge difference between a kicker that can easily nail 30-yarders and one that cans 40-yarders. To lump those two ranges together really negates the differential between a great kicker and an average one. the high end of the scale is nearly meaningless, as how many +59 yard FG's do we see in a year? I want to see more seperation at the lower levels, as that is where a smart pick really outshines a poor one. There is as much strategy in choosing a kicker as any other position. |
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Coach Knoll Cowher
Football Freak
997 posts
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Fu: 100.96 |
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Posted - 7/17/2003 11:57:13 PM |
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Doesn't DF wins championships?
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| Why is it so common in Fantasy Football to want to devalue such a vital aspect of Football? QB's, RB's and WR's are great, but DEFENSE is the heart and soul of FOOTBALL! |
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Coach Knoll Cowher
Football Freak
997 posts
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Fu: 100.96 |
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Posted - 7/19/2003 4:51:46 PM |
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How about this?
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| Instead of lumping all FG's under 50 yards into one big clump, why not make "chip shots" of under 40 yards worth 2 points, 40-49 worth 3 points and then make a smaller subset in the longer yardage FG's. Perhaps make 50-55 yards worth 4 points and 56+ worth 5 points. Only one kicker, Adam "Vinny" Vinatieri , hit a 56+ yarder last year. By devalueing the chip shots, we will reduce the over-all scoring of kickers and put them more in line with the relative drafting value of the position, but we will still retain the importance of drafting kickers that nail mid-range FG's with greater frequency. |
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Posted - 7/19/2003 5:57:23 PM |
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what is our mission?
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one of the goals of this league is to reward good analysis of the dynamics of football, and in particular we have an emphasis on the offensive skill positions. how deep is this analysis when it comes to kickers and defenses? to the critics of a diminished role, be honest: what percentage of their summer pre-draft preparation is spent on these two positions? overwhelmingly, the most studying time is spent on the QB, RB, WR, and TE positions, and there is a reason for this. namely, there is too much chaos with kickers and defenses.
the fact that as a whole we probably do not spend even 5% of our time analyzing kickers and defenses, compared to the Big 4, should be reason enough to pause and reflect. yes, kickers hold scoring records in the NFL and defenses do win Superbowls, but in fantasy football neither of these positions involve the same level of analysis that the Big 4 do.
what is trying to be accomplished by these tweaks is to maintain a separation between the best and worst kickers and defenses, while lowering their overall percentage that these positions contribute to a team's overall points.
there does need to be a substantial dropoff between the top kickers and defenses and the rest, so that gamesmanship enters the fray during the draft (just how early does one want to grab what they consider to be an "elite" kicker (*snicker*) or defense?). to this end, I think that the kickers grid does this.
however, the approach to defenses will probably need some adjustments. we need to still have it where the top defense would be clearly better than the rest. but we need to find a way to maintain that dropoff and yet lower the defensive output as evenly as possible across the board.
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Roving Gamblers
Football Freak
747 posts
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Fu: 101.89 |
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Posted - 7/19/2003 6:17:38 PM |
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i'm with the benevolent dictator on this
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maybe kickers should stay the way they are (as i think Keith was saying). Kent's way would be successful too i think. i've never really cared about the kicker scoring, it just got lumped in to the early discussions and i felt the need to explain the thought process behind changing their scoring. maybe that process was flawed.
i do care about defensive scoring however. whatever people say about Ragnarok trying to replicate the NFL, there are limits to that replication. our system emphasizes offense, as shown by the 7 starting positions out of nine devoted to it. only 1 is devoted to defense. understanding that, does it make sense to make offense and defense equal SCORERS in our system? no! this makes basic sense to me. if you want to make the argument that defense is as important to an NFL team as the offense, and want to have that reflected in Ragnarok, you should want an equal number of POSITIONS on our starting lineups for O and D, not only equal points. that's stupid. it undermines every other pick to overemphasize any one position. defense is overemphasized given its variability, its inability to be predicted (as compared to other positions), and its deemphasis in the Ragnarok draft. like i said earlier, Franchise players, early round draft picks, and personal sleeper picks should be the cornerstone of your team, not the late round fluke pickups. try as Erik might to get someone to be stupid enough to take a defense in rd 2 or 3, no one's going to. why? cause they can't be predicted. their inherent variability means that wasting an early pick on them can be disastrous. as such, defense should be deemphasized.
thank god the dictator agrees...
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Posted - 7/21/2003 8:13:17 PM |
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beta version of modifications are posted
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Thanks to everyone for their passionate and focused discussion about the proposed rules modifications. The full review has resulted in a better, more refined proposal.
We have two objectives:
1) lower the overall points scored by kickers and defenses
2) maintain a distinction between the best and worst
The merits of both of these points have been debated on the board, and strong rational arguments in favor of change haven't been effectively or logically refuted.
That being said, the new version accomplishes both of these goals. It may seem harsh to chop the low end of the scoring system, but doing so precisely targets where change is needed: across the board. It still allows for the elite picks to distinguish themselves from the masses, if not more so. And it achieves a proportionality that has been long overdue.
I am confident that as the season plays out, these changes will result in a better experience for everyone. |
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