How To Make a Great Point System For Your League

Liberal Point Happy Leagues Vs. Old School Point Leagues
By Todd "The True Guru" Farino

Making a point system for your league is not only the most important factor in setting up your league, but it's the hardest. There are so many sub-factors that go into building a point system that if you forgot to consider any of them, your point system can be flawed. A flawed point system could have imbalance, gaps in scoring, and missed points that should be earned. Imbalance is the most common form of flaw and is the biggest flaw of the old school scoring system. As most of my readers know, I am a man of change in the fantasy world. America elected a new leader on change, we should change fantasy football and fantasy baseball scoring for the better. The "old school" scoring system was basic and really put most of the points in the runningbacks. Even know the quarterback is the leader on the team and puts up great numbers in real games, in the standard scoring system they were outdone by runningbacks and that is imbalance. Kickers and defense also get no respect in standard systems and you almost ask yourself why you have them if they score so low. I've always been a fan of lots of points. I'd rather play in a league that has scores like 170.1 - 158.4, then low scoring leagues like 90-84. I feel that the more scoring opportunities there is, the more strategy can be used to win. You also feel like you always have a chance to win, even when you are down by several points. Let's get into our thoughts on building a fun and effective scoring system.

Scoring Balance
A key to any scoring system is balance. This doesn't mean that every player must have the ability to score the same number of points, but some players can't dominate the points against the entire team. A great example of that in the old school system was Marshall Faulk. If you got Faulk in the years where the Rams were "The Greatest Show On Turf" you probably won your league. That's fact. I've been in a league for 9 years now, and one manager won the first two championships and he had Faulk. To avoid that I made scoring more balanced, so one player couldn't win every game for you. That you in fact need other players to play well to win. Here are scoring options we recommend for making your league more competitive and balanced.

1. Point Per Reception - PPR leagues rock. Giving a point per reception gives credit to the receiver for catching balls. The argument against PPR leagues is that runningbacks should then get a point for carries if receivers get points for receptions. First of that is insane. Receptions are an act that the player must complete. They have to run an effective route, break away from a defender, and then actually catch the ball. A running back has the ball handed to them by the quarterback. So it makes sense to give a point per reception because it balanced the receivers with extra points. It even helped the runningbacks when they catch balls out of the backfield.
2. Completion Points - This one will get the least amount of consideration, but one thing I've done in some of my leagues to make the quarterback the the points leader along with the team leader was giving him points for completions. However, if you give him points for completions its also correct to cost him points for attempts. Similar to saves in baseball. The closer will lose points for the save opportunity, but get bigger points for getting the save. If he blows the save, he loses points. If the quarterback throws an incomplete pass, he loses points. What I have done is I give .75 points for a completed pass, and -.25 for the attempt. So if the quarterback completes the pass he gets .5 points. This not only powers up the quarterback, but helps your quarterback if he gets yards and completions, but he's on a team that runs in the touchdowns.
3. Field Goal Points - This one makes complete sense and it pretty much already being down. All field goals are not created equal. Why would you give 3 points for a 43-yard field goal and 3 points for a 19-yard field goal. You have to create a tiered scoring system. Give 3 points for 19 and under, 4 for 20-29, 5 doe 30-39, 6 for 40-49, and 8 for 50+. If you do that kickers now hold considerably more significant power for your team and getting kickers with big legs become more valuable.
4. Defensive/Special Teams Points - Defenses score OK in the standard system if they do great, but there isn't any wiggle room for a great defense versus a OK defense. You also don't reward defenses that don't give up allot of yards, but allow 20 points for whatever reasons. You should award points a reverse tier for "total yards allowed" and for "points scored". Special teams should always be includes, and points for forced fumbles with fumble recovery. Besides sacks and INTs, give points for blocked kicks and punts. Be liberal with your defense and special teams. We think they should have the ability to compete with your flex player. The key to defenses is, if they have a real bad 54-point type performance that they get a bad score. There has to inherent risk in a defense, that any defense can do very bad or very good based on performance. The standard system really doesn't have good separation on performances. Put all that together and not only is fantasy football more exciting, but its more balanced.

The point of your scoring system (spot the pun?) is to make the game fun, exciting and that even when you are down to your last player, you can still win. No more being absolutely broken that you are within striking distance to win, but you have a sorry old defense left on Monday. With a modern scoring system, with luck, you can win. Pure joy is the emotion we want, and that is the whole point of the game now isn't it? Another great advantage of a more liberal scoring system would help to eliminate the "Luck Factor". You could lose a game because your opponent had a running back get 4 TDs and he nearly beats you on his own. That is much harder to do with a liberal point system. As fantasy football has evolved over the years, so should evolve its system of scoring. Have fun, play smart, and you should have a great time playing fantasy football.