I disagree with the concept of using a scoring system to level the playing field. PPR is flawed because it gives a double award for the same event. The beauty of FF is the unpredictablilty of what will happen in a season and each and every week, but trying to predict what will happen better than your compition. It will never be fair regardless of how you may try to doctor the scoring system to make it so. In fact the more you skew scoring (making the scoring unfair) to create balance amoungst positions, the more things become unbalanced with players getting unreasonable rewards for contributions that were not nearly as significant as other players.
Having a balanced scoring system that awards all players the same for the same event is really the most fair and equal way of doing it. I do not like PPR because it devalues TD and yardage, which has allready been pointed out above are more significant events than catching a pass, getting a rushing attempt or completing a pass.
As far as how an initial draft is influenced by the scoring system. No one is forcing you to draft RB with your 1st 2 or 3 picks. That is a choice you have to make. If RBs dominate scoring and thus are drafted early and often then it is up to you to decide of drafting a RB is a priority or not or if you can deviate from it. VBD principles still apply to any scoring system. Total points become a lot less meaningful if you are using VBD. Should QBs or kickers be drafted high because they are high scorers?
What really drives the RB dominated drafts in the early rounds is not the total points (although this does matter) but the position scarcity. Only 32 teams can possibly have a featured RB and many of those teams will not even have one. Instead those teams will use some form of RBBC or keep changing their starters week to week. I think it is important to point out that having RB at a premium in a balanced scoring system (as described above) does make sense because feature RBs touch the ball more than WR. They are at much greater risk to be injured because they handle the ball so often. Also there are only a handful of feature RB in the league, while there are almost always at least 2 WR from every team that are viable starting options. If you want to make your drafts more interesting then increase the number of WR starters that are required. This increases their VBD number and creates more position scarcity at WR then.
This is an exceptional summary.I'm revisiting this thread because I am involved in discussing our scoring rules in a startup dynasty league, and PPR is the current topic.
A few points regarding this and other PPR threads:
~~ Obviously nobody cares about other people's scoring systems; we are discussing the relative merits of PPR, not whether or not YOU should use it. Equally obvious is that, regardless of the scoring system, everybody in any particular league uses the same rules, and will draft accordingly.
~~ The main argument against PPR is that it rewards
a non-productive stat; a reception is no more productive than a rush attempt, pass attempt, or completion. It is what results from thes events, yards and/or TDs, that matter. There are game situations where yards and TDs might not matter, but we can't really account for these, so that is a non-issue.
1 yard rushing is the same as 1 yard receiving. Adding a PPR would have made Reggie Bush's receiving yards worth 275% more than his rushing yards, due to his 5.7 yards per catch. That seems counterintuitive and a bit silly to me. If this were an isolated instance, then no big deal.... but PPR skews things greatly in favor of receiving yards. If my fantasy team has more production (yards and TDs) than my opponent's team, I should win. PPR makes it so that that is not always the case.
~~ The main argument FOR PPR is that it evens out WRs and RBs. If your goal is for a 1200 yards WR to be of equal value to a 1500+ yard RB, some version of PPR will accomplish this. Adding a PPR for WRs and not RBs also makes a 50 catch, 500 yard WR equal to a 1000 yard RB. Ugh. Again, if this is your goal, good job! You did it! Rushing yards are now worth less than receiving yards.
~~ Another argument FOR PPR is to make drafts more interesting by making WRs more valuable than they currently are, so that the first 3 rounds aren't dominated by RBs. Biakabreakable (and others in other threads) makes a great point: positional scarcity is what drives RB value. Changing your starting lineup requirements to emphasize WRs more than RBs is a more "pure" way to make WRs more valuable than they are now.
Changing a scoring system to artificially inflate one position seems, well, artificial.
To each his own, obviously. I play in 3 money leagues; on has no PPR, one has full-blown PPR, and one has 1/2 PPR for WRs/TEs only. I have fun in all three leagues.
There is a school of thought in fantasy circles that wants the game they play to closely mirror real NFL games, and in general tend to push back against "rewarding" players for what they deem as non-impact events. As noted, the 1 rec / 3 yd play is scored the same as a 17 yard run. I understand the thinking, but I don't agree with it.There are several ways to balance out scoring across positions, and PPR is one of them. I grew tired of drafts that would run 15 RBs, 1 QB, 1 WR, another 8 RBs... The reason there is a RB stud draft theory to FFL is because of the wide disparity in scoring between RBs and other positions. With PPR, drafting has evened out across the RB and WR position. It creates more options as owners to build strong teams by employing alternative strategies. As the previous poster noted, PPR does a pretty fair job of balancing the #10 WR and #10 RB.
PR scoring yielded: 14 RB's & 16 WR'sYardage scoring yielded: 16 RB's & 14 WR'sNot much differnece between the two scoring systems.For 2006 stats the results are more in keeping with what you stated in your post with PPR having better balance.PPR scoring yielded: 19 RB's & 11 WR'sYardage scoring yielded: 22 RB's & 8 WR'sThough PPR only increased the number of WR's in the top 30 by 3.I agree that in the end the scroing system isn't terribly important because all GM's must play under the same rules. However, to me it seems that a scoring system that rewards PPR rewards catching the ball preferentially over yardage.To me Slevins 5 rec for 8 yards (Selvin this week) (5 points in a PPR scoring system) should not be sscored equal to a RB rushing (or receiving) for for 50 yards (1 pt/10 yards).
The key point is the scarcity of the RB is the reason they are picked early.I don't think have PPR is unfair in any way as everyone is playing by the same rules. I also understand the "want" of making RB's worth a little less, but you are better off changing the positional requirements (adding another WR or QB). PPR is too artificial to me as it rewards an event that by itself doesn't mean anything (such as a handoff). If you could give a point for a 1st down reception then I am on board but it doesn't seem like these are tracked well.If for some reason you feel the need for PPR, give 1/2 a point to TE's and WR's (or 3/4 for a TE), but don't give RB's any points for a reception as they are almost always long hand offs.
This is half the reason why I play PPR. Partly to balance RBs and WRs, but also because catching the ball takes skill and should be rewarded. People make comparisons to RBs taking handoffs all the time, but it's totally different. Not much skill is taking a handoff. Also, RBs take more handoffs than WRs catch passes. Awarding points per carry would only further the gap between RBs and WRs.
