Fantasy Segment: Why HALF PPR is the Best Scoring Format - 1/27/21
The Big 3 of Fantasy Football sites are ESPN, Yahoo, and NFL.com. Most people that have played fantasy have likely played on ESPN at least once because of the simplicity of the platform. Yahoo is easily the 2nd most popular platform, and I would think that most hardcore fantasy players have used this platform at least once (I am one of the few that have not). And while NFL.com is part of the big 3, they are nowhere near the top.
Why did I bring up these 3 sites in an article about 'Why Half PPR is best'? Because ESPN and NFL.com both use FULL PPR as their standard/default scoring. Yahoo uses Half. As of 2018, ESPN had approximately 12M users and NFL had 3M users. There is probably some overlap there so let's call it 13.5M users. Yahoo had approximately 10M users in 2018. I know that not everyone uses standard scoring on these platforms, but the information for how many people play in private leagues is not public (how unironic of them). So for this exercise, we will just say 13.5M people play with FULL PPR vs 10M that play with HALF PPR. It is time to convert the non-believers.
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Let me start off with this. I understand the basic premise of why Full PPR would be appealing. More scoring! Everyone loves to see their totals go up! That's one reason why leagues also have bonuses for 100 yards to multiple TDs or whatever. More points=more fun, right? In my opinion, that is not always the case.
I have been a Commissioner for Fantasy Football leagues for over 10 years now. In my first few years, I was very vanilla with the rules. As I got more experienced, I wanted to try some new things like keepers, different scoring models for QBs or TEs, and of course, PPR.
There is always fun rules you can do like adding punters or defensive players, but those positions, similar to kicker and defense, don't add skill to the game. A typical fantasy league has 1 QB, 2 RBs and 2 WRs, 1 TE and a FLEX. So let's focus on RB and WR for now, and go to TE later (QB scoring I have no qualms with). PPR affects the WR position the most, obviously, but how much more? How many more points is a WR likely to get over a RB based of receptions alone? Let's check out the numbers.
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KyleTheCommish Does Math
2020 rushing attempts: 13,752 or 26.9 per game
2019 rushing attempts: 13,387
2018 rushing attempts: 13,270 (lowest since 2010)
2010-2020 average: 13,668
3-year average: 13,470
2020 passing attempts: 18,056 or 35.3 per game
2019 passing attempts: 17,853
2018 passing attempts: 17,671
2010-2020 average: 17,791
3-year average: 17,860
Average number of plays per game in 2020: 64.3
Average completion percentage from 2017-2019: 63.47% (I couldn't find 2020 for some reason.)
Based on 2020 numbers and excluding all variables of a game, 55% of the time the play is going to be a pass. If we take the average completion % and apply it to this 55%, there is a 35% chance any given play is going to be a completed pass. Therefore, if we multiply that by the average number of plays per game, we can expect about 23 completions per team per game. But these 23 completions would be to RBs, WRs, and TEs.
According to this handy dandy chart, 59.91% of the time a pass was targeted to a WR in 2020. If I take this number with the previous knowledge that 55% of the time any given play will be a pass, I should understand that 33% (32.95%) of the time any given play will be a pass/target to a WR.
64.92% was the average catch rate for WRs in 2020. Catch rate is receptions divided by targets. To find this number I took the catch rate statistic for every WR that caught a pass in 2020 and averaged it together.
Put those numbers together and you'll find that 21.4% of the time a play is going to be a completed pass to a WR.
From ALL OF THAT, we can find that there will be about 14 receptions to WRs per team per game.
Let's check this out for RBs as well. Back to the handy dandy chart and we will find that 18.46% of the time a pass was targeted to a RB in 2020. That means 10.15% of the time any given play will be a pass/target to a RB. Given that the average catch rate for RBs in 2020 was 75.39%, we can suppose that 7.65% of the time a play is going to be a completed pass to a RB. That equates to about 5 plays per game that will end up as a reception to a RB (per team). Unrelated, but that would mean about 4 plays per game will end as a reception by a TE.
TIMEOUT!!!!!!!
Let's dissect this information a bit before I wrap up this point. My inherit thoughts on PPR is that it makes WRs more valuables than RBs. The only way a WR can get points is to start with catching the ball (unless they do some sort of trick play), while a RBs touches mainly come by rushing the ball and thus will get points only from yards gained. A RB will get more touches during a game, but a WR2 can outscore a RB1 with just a few catches. This doesn't even get into the fact that WRs average a lot more yards per catch than RBs do per catch or per rush. Again, the whole reason for this math is to figure out how many more points a WR should expect to see, based on receptions alone, over a RB.
UNTIMEOUT!!!!!
(For this example, let's assume a 12 team league with standard PPR scoring and roster alignment (using a WR in the flex). So in a perfect world, the top 36 WRs and top 24 RBs are considered starters. Because every NFL team is different it is impossible for me to assume targets for WR1s vs WR2s or 3s and the same for RB1s vs RB2s. So I am going to blindly assign that a WR1 (on an NFL team) will get 50% of the targets and WR2 + WR3 will assume 25% each. Again in terms of NFL rosters, RB1s will get 60% of the targets and RB2s will get 40%. Obviously, those percentages are baseless, but I need some sort of projections to complete this. Last thing to assume, to make the math a bit more even, let's project each fantasy team to have 2 RB1s, 2 WR1s, and 1 WR2 in their starting rosters.)
Now let's tie in all these numbers from before. A RB stable in an NFL game will see 5 catches per game. If a RB1 is going to assume 60% of the RB targets per game, that means they will get 3 catches per game. A WR room gets 12 catches per game. So our WR1s get 50% of the WR targets, which is 6 catches per game. Finally, WR2s get a measly 25% of the targets meaning they get 3 catches per game.
Fantasy Points per week from receptions:
RB: 3
RB: 3
WR: 6
WR: 6
FLEX (WR): 3
Again, the italicized assumptions I made are very rudimentary and are not at all to be taken as fact. The point of them was to provide easy math for me while staying within a general scope of what is to be expected from these positions week in and week out.
The biggest thing for me coming away from doing all this math is this. In any given week, the average RB1, in the NFL, is going to get about the same receptions as your average WR2. Another way of saying, the RB you select in the 2nd round is going to get you the same amount of PPR upside as a WR you select in the 7th round. That doesn't seem fair and balanced to me. How are we supposed to compare a RB1 vs a WR1 in the 2nd round then? We either need to completely rethink the way we are drafting in a PPR or we need to try Half PPR to balance RB1s and WR1s. If we cut those numbers in half, the 3 point difference between WR1s and RB1s is down to only a point and a half per game.
Half PPR not only closes the gap from average WRs to average RBs, but it also encourages RBs to be put in the flex position as often as a WR2. It encourages RBs to be taken a little bit earlier in the middle rounds of the draft, especially if they have some receiving upside. It persuades you to acquire RB depth because your 2 starting RB positions are almost as valuable as the starting WRs. And all in all, it allows for more strategic thinking for how you will set up your roster.
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Why Bonuses are the Worst
I won't go in-depth here because I don't think it is really necessary to waste too many words on this topic. Many sites allow an additional scoring type known as bonuses. For example, if a RB gets over 100 rushing yards, he gets an additional ____ points.
Maybe I am just old school, but I always felt like 100 rushing yards or 100 receiving yards was always the benchmark to a good day in fantasy. If you got over 10 points, I couldn't be upset at a players performance. And the easiest way to get 10 points was to get 100 yards. If you got a touchdown on top of that 100 yards, well hot dog it was a great day for that player. If you play in a half ppr, you are looking at around 18-22 fantasy points with that stat line.
I play in a league with a 5 point bonus if you get over 100 yards. That is 1 point shy of a touchdown. Now take that stat line and you have 23-28 points... for hitting a benchmark threshold. Some people may not see that as a problem, but when you look at 100 yards as a good, not great day for so long, it is quite an eye-opener.
Let me wrap up with the truly worst thing about bonuses.
Player A: 6 catches, 99 yards, no touchdowns
vs
Player B: 3 catches, 101 yards, 1 touchdown.
One player got tackled at the one-yard line. One player got a 70-yard touchdown because he was uncovered.
Player A: 12.9 points
Player B: 22.6 points
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