Scumleague FF 2018 (First Game 9/6)

[PJ.]

Pass catching rbs are *already* fantasy relevant(Todd Gurley was one of the best pass catching backs in the league. Alvin kamara. Etc.

[Rob14]

You just named two elite RBs who can also run the ball. Sure, if you're a Gurley or a Bell or a Kamara, you can be extremely fantasy relevant as a pass-catching back who can also run the ball. But people like Riddick or Sproles are as good as non-pass-catching RB2s in terms of how they benefit their teams, and they don't get similar numbers in non-PPR.

[Rob14]

Like think about it this way. If Kamara didn't run the ball at all last season and just had his 81 catches for 826 yards and five touchdowns, that is still a really solid year. That role would still be hugely important to the Saints. In non-PPR, he would have averaged only 6.6 points. In PPR, he would have averaged 11.4 points. I'd consider the latter number way more representative of how a receiving-only Kamara would benefit the Saints.

[mith]

To me, the fundamental problem with PPR is that the production of a given player is already reflected in their yards and touchdowns. A running back with 826 yards and 5 TDs receiving is no more valuable than a running back with 826 yards and 5 TDs rushing in those terms. If there is additional value, it is that it (typically) takes fewer catches (fewer opportunities) to put up stats than rushes (though that simple math does fail to account for opportunities that end up incomplete, risks in passing vs. rushing, clock management, etc.). Anyway, if that additional value does exist, isn't it an argument for the opposite of PPR? (Wouldn't a receiver with 10 catches for 826 yards and 5 TDs be more valuable?)

The other issue, which was already discussed earlier in the thread, is that it's easy to say "look how much more this player I think is awesome is worth if I give him PPR", but the value to a fantasy team is relative to others at the position. Your hypothetical Kamara-who-can't-run is worth about the same in PPR relative to Gurley, for example (basically, Gurley would have been even more of a dominant number 1 last year). Fakamara would of course be drafted higher in PPR than in non-PPR, but at the expense of hypothetical guy-who-can't-catch that put up 826 yards rushing and 5 TDs. PPR does, obviously, enhance the value of certain players, but hurts others, and doesn't do a whole lot to the overall "balance" of the draft (in terms of positions taken and size of tiers) outside maybe shifting WR1s up the overall board.

[BROseidon]

Your problem is that you care about "reflecting on-field value" when that's not why PPR is good.

[BROseidon]

Like by your logic you should make QB passing yards worth the same as rushing (same with TDs). There's a reason Cam is a top 5 fantasy QB but not even in the top 1/2 of QBs in the league in terms of actual value to his team.

[BROseidon]

Oh and while we're on the topic of QBs why don't we add stats to QBs to approximate game-management skill because that's a huge part of what the QB (with the help of the OC) does.

Actually let's also add an OC position that incorporates this.

[BROseidon]

Ooh and for RBs, let's add stats about how well they open up the passing game by forcing teams to stack the box (great buff to Fournette, for instance!).

[BROseidon]

Blocking stats for RBs and TEs?

[BROseidon]

Anyways now that I'm done with that rant about why that argument for being anti-PPR is bad and inconsistent with the rest of how Fantasy Football is set up, what I actually came here to say was:

Every UI needs to fucking fix how they do waivers. I have 20 waivers set for my work league for contingencies to make like 4 changes, and that's *with* me having 1st on the Waiver Wire so my first drop never needed to be repeated.

[PJ.]

Like by your logic you should make QB passing yards worth the same as rushing (same with TDs). There's a reason Cam is a top 5 fantasy QB but not even in the top 1/2 of QBs in the league in terms of actual value to his team.

tyrod taylor.

[PJ.]

You just named two elite RBs who can also run the ball. Sure, if you're a Gurley or a Bell or a Kamara, you can be extremely fantasy relevant as a pass-catching back who can also run the ball. But people like Riddick or Sproles are as good as non-pass-catching RB2s in terms of how they benefit their teams, and they don't get similar numbers in non-PPR.

that was my point. The best guys at it are already the best ball-runners too. And the guys who are pass-catching only, don't really become THAT relevant. For example, Chris Thompson is *already* fantasy relevant without ppr.

[PJ.]

The other issue, which was already discussed earlier in the thread, is that it's easy to say "look how much more this player I think is awesome is worth if I give him PPR", but the value to a fantasy team is relative to others at the position. Your hypothetical Kamara-who-can't-run is worth about the same in PPR relative to Gurley, for example (basically, Gurley would have been even more of a dominant number 1 last year). Fakamara would of course be drafted higher in PPR than in non-PPR, but at the expense of hypothetical guy-who-can't-catch that put up 826 yards rushing and 5 TDs. PPR does, obviously, enhance the value of certain players, but hurts others, and doesn't do a whole lot to the overall "balance" of the draft (in terms of positions taken and size of tiers) outside maybe shifting WR1s up the overall board.

Less dominant #1 tho..60 pts vs 80. and the middle of the Board wrs(such as WR 3s) start to be worth as much as RB2s. So if you PPR AND Flex then you get the desire effect of having more wide receivers played and not having to sit your 5th best player cause RB 3 is gonna score as many or more pts as your wr3.

[mith]

Your problem is that you care about "reflecting on-field value" when that's not why PPR is good.

Context is important. I was responding to Rob's comment about PPR being more representative of how his hypothetical Kamara would benefit the Saints; he was making the case that PPR is better because it reflects on-field value.

If all I cared about was on-field value, I would propose a fantasy football league where we just total up VORP each week or something. (Ok, I would probably actually play in such a league.)

That said, I haven't really seen a good reason *why* PPR is better. It's not better reflecting on-field value; it's not doing as much to balance the draft or relative value within a position as is usually claimed (see below). It raises scores, which I guess is a psychological plus? But scores are relative so I don't care much about that.

Less dominant #1 tho..60 pts vs 80. and the middle of the Board wrs(such as WR 3s) start to be worth as much as RB2s. So if you PPR AND Flex then you get the desire effect of having more wide receivers played and not having to sit your 5th best player cause RB 3 is gonna score as many or more pts as your wr3.

Yes, if you play PPR and Flex then you'll start more WR3s than if you play non-PPR and Flex. And that's fine, it's just that this change is not in a vacuum - for example, QBs are now even less valuable in terms of doing well in fantasy football. (And, of course, you also have more wide receivers played by having 3 WR on the roster instead of a flex. I understand there are other reasons people like Flex, or PPR, or both together. My point is: this is a fine argument for PPR if you are stuck in a 2-2-1 Flex league, which hey, that's standard now so maybe that's why PPR is standard too. There are just other ways to achieve whatever this is trying to achieve; and if you aren't in a Flex league, PPR doesn't do much at all in terms of relative RB and WR values.)

As for dominance within a position, it depends on how you're defining dominant. Last year, Gurley outscored Bell by 62.7 in non-PPR and 41.7 in PPR, so that's an improvement. He outscored #3 by 77.1 in non-PPR (Hunt) and 62.9 in PPR (Kamara), still an improvement. After that, though, the gap is bigger in PPR; 30 points bigger, comparing #1 to #25, for example. I mean, it should be obvious that if you get a lot of yards and TDs, you are more likely to have gotten a lot of completions. It's not a guarantee, but it's a solid trendline. The same is true (moreso) of WRs. The jump is bigger at the top (the top 6 WRs had around 100 catches, while your WR3s maybe averaged 60 or so), so relative to the RBs the top tier WRs are a little more valuable. On the flip side, there is a bigger disparity between getting a top RB/WR and not. So, those who happened to draft Gurley last year (not often in the first round!) were happier if they were in PPR. Those who drafted David Johnson and got stuck starting a replacement player the whole season, not so much. (PPR doesn't expand the number of players who are viable, either. It makes some players more viable and some players less, but the tiers are about the same.)

All of which is a long way of saying: You haven't demonstrated that PPR+Flex is better than non-PPR+3WR. (And I'm not saying I have demonstrated the opposite. It's subjective. I happen to like more valuable QBs and roster constraints and not getting rewarded for 0 yard receptions. But I like Flex positions just fine too - that's why we have one in Auction, where you should almost always have 3RB+3WR starting but hey maybe you really got screwed on RBs like, say, you spent a third of your budget on a holdout, maybe you can find 4 WRs to hold things together until he comes back, if he does. ~fingers crossed~)

[PJ.]

Are we really arguing that QBs need to be more valuable when I got almost 5 points for:

[mith]

(I'm not sure why that was scored as a passing TD instead of a rushing TD? [edit]never mind, saw another angle; yeah, it's still dumb[/edit])

Anyway: QBs are not great even in non-PPR. But what you're talking about (getting credit for short passes in the air which go for big gains after the catch) is accounted for (crudely) in QBs getting fewer points per yard (2/5) and TD (2/3) compared to rushing and receiving, and those are likely reasonable on average. (A quick calculation from googling yards-in-the-air stats says Brady's completions were about 55% in the air, FWIW.) There are completions where the QB barely did anything, and there are completions where the QB did everything but catching the perfectly thrown ball.

(Also, if we're basing things on single example plays: How many points should Gurley have gotten there if he had been tackled as soon as he "caught" it? PPR says that's worth .6, which is stupid.)

[PJ.]

Pristine Pass.

Mahomes also had 2 such TD "passes" this week.

[PJ.]

But what you're talking about (getting credit for short passes in the air which go for big gains after the catch)

Also this is not what I'm taking about. I'm talking about the Jet Sweep specifically which is going to turn a handful of "rush" attempts into "pass" attempts more and more as the year goes on.

[mith]

See my edit. I agree it's stupid; and stupider for PPR.

[Kmd4390]

*Shrug*

It's done intentionally by the teams so that if it's dropped, it's incomplete rather than a fumble. So the whole point is for it to be "technically a pass". There isn't really a way to offset that in fantasy. You're better off just accepting it as a fact of the game.

[BROseidon]

Perfect pop passes like that are surprisingly difficult tho

[Nero Cain]

Like the point of PPR is to make WRs feel less bad from a design perspective

no. If anything its designed so that more RBs are startable and that heavily targeted WRs can compete with better WRs that get more yards. It's the socialism of fantasy sports.

[PJ.]

And socialism is great. So what's the issue?

[BROseidon]

Things that lead to more decision points and less swing (because injuries exist) are good game design choices

[mith]

It doesn't appear to actually make more RBs startable, though, at least on a season total basis. Some receiving backs get a boost relative to those who don't catch many balls, but the gap between a RB1 and a RB3 or RB4 just gets more extreme. (For a quick and dirty reference point, if you take the top 24 scoring RBs from last year and average their points in each type of league, the number of players reaching half of that mark is 42 in PPR and 41 in non-PPR. The average RB1 is 56 points better in PPR; the average RB2 is 35 points better; RB3, 31 points; RB4, 28 points.)

Now, granted, that doesn't take into account week-to-week "viable" starters, injuries, etc. But I don't see any particular reason to think that those measurements would say anything different. What is likely happening here is you're seeing that there are more RBs that can score ~8 points (or whatever) on a given week, without taking into account that 8 points is less good in PPR than it would be in non-PPR. PPR is actually more akin to rich-get-richer capitalism, not socialism.

(And not more decision points. Different decision points. Probably no less swing, if anything I would expect it to be more swingy based on the increased gaps between top tier players and replacement level.)