Some annoyances are constant. Like ringing ears after a rock concert, pesky mosquitos buzzing around your face on a hot summer night, the Nicole Kidman ad that plays in front of movies at AMC theaters.
Some nuisances seem here to stay, including points-per-reception scoring in fantasy football.
PPR has corroded the fantasy landscape with the same steady determination as geological erosion, with the same efficiency as a swarm of locusts, with misguided popularity akin to Adam Sandler’s comedy fandom.
So here we are, a fantasy community that has been conquering and oppressed by the scourge that is PPR scoring. There isn’t much we can do to change it right now, today. The only thing true football fans, who happen to play fantasy football, can do is to yell and scream at how backward the idea of PPR is while also conforming to being good at it while it is the supreme format.
So, let’s get to screaming, shall we?
Wes Welker was a PPR darling with the PatriotsBoston Globe via Getty ImagesFirst, the very idea of PPR is absurd. In real-life football, there is no benefit to how you gain yards — through the air or on the ground. A yard is a yard, regardless. So why score them differently in fantasy?
Some might argue we already do that with quarterbacks — since they often get fewer points for touchdowns and have higher yardage thresholds for points. This brings us to our second point.
There is no scoring inequity between running backs and wide receivers, which is why the QB comparison is a false equivalency. Fantasy QBs score a highly disproportionate amount of points compared to other positions. This is not true of RBs or WRs. The leaders at RB and WR often score a similar amount of points. But the top of the overall points rankings almost always is dominated by QBs.
Betting on the NFL?
Hence, the WR problem is better solved through roster requirements than by creating a prejudicial scoring system.
These things being undeniably true, it brings us to our third point: PPR has no reason to exist. It was born out of the domination of early rounds of the draft by running backs way back in the early days of fantasy (think: early-to-mid-2000s). To offset this, instead of making roster adjustments to address the problem (like adding a third WR position), someone opted to distort the scoring system instead.
Shaun Alexander was among the most dominant fantasy football running backs in history.Getty ImagesAnd because people like points, because points are fun, the idea caught on despite its lunacy. And now — when RBs don’t dominate drafts the way they used to, when there are even fewer feature backs and more backs-by-committee when the NFL has migrated to mostly pass-first offenses — PPR, which didn’t even make sense at its inception, makes even less sense now.
So what’s the solution? Easy. First, if your league doesn’t have a third WR spot, add one — giving you a starting roster of two RBs, three WRs, and a Flex, plus the other staple positions. The additional WR spot and the opportunity to play a WR at Flex help offset the supply shortage of RBs in the draft.
Next, convert the one-point bonus for first downs instead of scoring for receptions. This way, a player’s actual on-field contributions are reflected in fantasy output instead of just arbitrary yardage-method scoring.
[googleapps domain=”docs” dir=”spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQpyNLlwKUVF7fXgc3zPu-YjqmudjIk7ImpZh_O01BbMy_sc94SqcumT3eb2Rn6PzZrEfs1tg8Kkr54/pubhtml” query=”widget=true&headers=false” /]
These easy fixes should correct any perceived problems that encourage the use of PPR while removing the wart itself.
We’ll keep screaming these realities until they become our shared reality. Until then, let’s hold our noses while wading in the PPR filth.
