A. PPR vs. P1D

There are excellent reasons why PPR was created and additional excellent reasons why it proliferated.  The advantages of having a standard rule set is that it is very easy to communicate information to FF players as a whole.  It creates a common language to make player comparisons, and league comparisons, easier. 

I’m not a tremendous fan of using it for my own leagues, because I don’t think easier is a particular value for my leagues.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Team owners should be rewarded for spending extra energy on their team, and by forcing a different player evaluation based on a complicated scoring system rewards those who understand the unique ways in which the scoring rules change relative player, and position, valuation and acquires players accordingly. 

Similarly, based on our discussion above, a catch may or may not have value to the player’s team.  Why should a catch and immediate tackle behind the line of scrimmage score as many points as a catch made 20 yards downfield resulting in a first down?  The two important statistics involved are yards gained and first down acquired.  The catch is a prerequisite for both plays, but comparatively, is of much lesser value.  Therefore, I will score it as such.

I began scoring first downs when I created my TUFFSCCL league in 2014 and find it far superior to merely scoring receptions.  The twitter-famous “Scott Fish Bowl” introduced point per first down, as opposed to point per reception, this past year in 2017 and I suspect that will lead to the wider industry embracing it in the next couple years as that tournament / contest involves about 80% of the fantasy football writers in the industry, giving them all first hand experience with the scoring category.  

PPR was initially created to devalue traditional RBs and buff WR scoring, bringing the positions into more equal overall value. As the game of football has changed, you’re more likely to get the opposite effect, with PPR valuing most of the top 25 WRs greater than most of the top 25 RBs, with a few exceptions at the top of the RB rankings.  Thus there is no longer the pressing need to keep PPR scoring.  First downs were not tracked per player at the time PPR came around.  As which statistics are tracked, we can adapt industry standard practices for the better.  Changing to scoring first downs, which does a better job of appropriately rewarding players for making a play of value to their team, is such a way.