A few months back I participated in a group discussion with several other fantasy football writers specializing in individual defensive players under the auspices of creating a standard set of rules for IDP leagues. It was, of course, a fool’s errand, but I was happy to give my 2 cents.
On one side was Jordan Rains (@50shadesofdrunk) who was strongly arguing in favor of a credo computer programmers call KISS, which stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid (not that he was using that term, but that’s what it boiled down to). He wants just 3 positions (DL, LB, and DB), and for a basic, easy to understand, scoring system. He has since been pushing his IDP123 rules, and more power to him. If he succeeds in bringing in more people to playing IDP then I’ll be happy to applaud him for it.
I was the most prolific in arguing against, but pretty much everyone else was. The rest of us argued that keeping it simplified was not the best way to play IDP. In fact, you should do the opposite of that. Playing IDP isn’t for someone who thinks they can just dip their toe in the water. Instead, take a running leap and cannonball into the deep end. Yes, there may be sharks in there. So arm yourself as best you can. But if you’re considering playing IDP then you at least recognize that football is an incredibly complex game, and you are ready to embrace that complexity in your fantasy leagues.
So here are my strong recommendations of the types of league settings, roster and lineup requirements, and scoring rules you should be looking for when you join an IDP league.
Use 5 IDP Positions
Ideally, leagues would use True Position settings, as that properly groups all players by their roles on the football field rather than just what their team happens to call them. Unfortunately, those positions aren’t supported by a majority of league hosts. But at the minimum, IDP leagues need to break out defensive linemen into tackles and ends, and defensive backs into cornerbacks and safeties. To do otherwise relegates tackles and corners to having little, if any, fantasy value, which is like offense-only leagues grouping tight ends into a receivers category. If the fantasy is being a NFL general manager, then don’t ignore parts of the game.
Use Big Play scoring rules rather than Tackle-heavy scoring rules
There are few things defensive players do on the field that accrue countable statistics. Making a tackle is the most common of these things, and thus in the early IDP leagues it became the main measurement used to determine how good IDPs were. In retrospect, this was a mistake, because a tackle is not necessarily indicative of the player making a good play that helps his team. For example, a cornerback gives up a 30-yard catch to a WR and then pushes him out of bounds. Yes, there is some value to the team in that the tackle prevented the WR from scoring a touchdown, but the offense’s expected points for this drive just shot way up because of this one play. If anything, the CB should be penalized with negative fantasy points for that play, rather than be rewarded with points for the tackle.
Instead, use a Big Play scoring system, defined as a set of rules where sacks score at minimum 4x the number of points as a tackle (though the total points may be accrued over multiple stat categories such as sack, sack yards, tackle, and tackle for loss), and where turnovers score at least 5x the number of points as a tackle (though again, this may be divided over forced fumble and fumble recovery stats, or interception and pass defensed stats). There is no question that sacks, turnovers, tackles for loss, and passes defensed are positive plays for the defense. Additionally, turnovers are the single most valuable type of play to a team behind only actual scoring plays. Don’t be hesitant to score them highly as a result. But keep in mind the comparative value of the offensive scores for touchdowns in your scoring rules.
Tackle heavy scoring systems will lead to teams acquiring a bunch of really bad defenders that are targeted by QBs, as they will have much higher opportunities for tackles. That defeats the purpose of the fantasy, doesn’t it? You want to beat your opponent because you did the better job of identifying and acquiring good players, not by collecting the worse group of defenders.
Adjust Scoring by Position
To enhance strategy, each position ideally should score about the same range of points. That way you will be focused on acquiring the best and most talented players rather than focusing on, say, getting a decent third LB before bothering with a DT. Unfortunately, that will require scoring certain stats differently by position. The best way to do this is to focus on the stats that demonstrate particularly good play by each position. DEs (or Edges) should focus on sacks; DTs (or Dis) on Tackles for Loss; LBs and Ss a good balance amongst categories; and CBs should focus on passes defensed and minimize points for tackles (for the example discussed above).
Balance IDP Lineup and Roster Requirements against OFF
Just accept the fact that teams will care more about rostering their stud RB’s backup more than a safety to cover a bye week. I’ve experimented with rules to deter or even penalize this to no avail. It’s just a fact of FF existence. But depending on your lineup and roster settings, this can destroy relative IDP value.
Here’s an example – A 12-team league starts 8 offensive skill position players and 11 IDPs, and has a 30-man roster size. 8 RBs/WRs/TEs times 12 teams is 96 players, or the top 3 players from each NFL team. Assuming 2 viable fantasy RBs per NFL franchise, 3.5 WRs, and 1.5 TEs, that’s 96 out of 224 offensive players, or 43% of the viable non-bye week players are in teams’ starting lineups. For IDPs, 11 starters sounds like a lot, and it was set to mimic the fact that NFL teams have 11 defenders on the field at a time (ignoring that no NFL team has 8 combined offensive skill players on the field together). That’s 132 starting IDPs. Assume 11 viable fantasy IDPs per team (it’s even more with DL rotations and nickel/dime usage, but this is just an example), that’s 352 available IDPs. 132/352 is 37.5%. So just from your starting lineup requirements, you have greater demand for IDP starters (11 vs 8), but less supply for offense (224 vs 352), leading to a greater share of available offensive players in your starting lineup (43% vs 37.5%). Assuming IDPs score about the same per player as offensive players (which is often not the case), then the starting lineup requirements are going to create greater value to be placed on the offensive players.
Now let’s look at the example league’s roster requirements. There are 10 bench spots per team, or 120 total over the league. There are 128 fantasy-viable non-starting offensive players, and 220 fantasy-viable non-starting IDPs. Having a smaller supply of offensive players makes acquiring them more valuable, so teams will snatch them up, leaving the IDPs on the waiver wire. And having plug-and-play IDPs available for in-season pickup decreases the need to spend sufficient draft capital to acquire IDPs during initial player acquisition.
There are several solutions, and you should strongly consider combining several.
A) Increase roster size – the surest way to increase IDP value is to make them scarce. And the easiest way to do that is to increase the roster size to 50+, and depending on the number of teams maybe even 60 or 70. In a 12-team league, assume the first 11 bench spots will be filled by only offensive players and plan accordingly. Yes, that all but eliminates in-season free agent pickups. I never said there was a perfect solution.
B) Increase the number of teams in your league – I prefer 16-team leagues as it is exactly half the number of NFL teams and it makes the ratios nice and even. This is another way to get more players on team rosters and decrease the supply of available IDPs. 16 teams with 55-man rosters equals 880 total players, which accounts for every fantasy viable player on every NFL team as well as several young backups with potential (and yet there’s still weekly transactions because of injuries).
C) Consider roster limits on your offensive players – Everyone hates this rule, but if you want there to be offensive players available on the waiver wire with the same scoring value as available IDPs, this is how you do it. If you’re not going to have large rosters, then you absolutely have to have position roster limits or you can kiss any value for your IDPs goodbye.
Conclusion
IDP league settings are messy and complex. As I have learned the hard way, making one small adjustment can shift the entire setup out of balance with huge unintended results. Therefore, the absolute best thing to look for before joining an IDP league is an experienced Commish who has put real thought and care into the league rules. But I strongly encourage you to play IDP leagues, and stop limiting yourself to less than half the players on the field. If your fantasy is to be a NFL General Manager, then just imagine choosing to draft Nick Bosa over DK Metcalf, and having that choice pay off as the correct long-term team building decision.
