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| The Ultimate Scoring System - Fantasy Power Points |
| by Doug
Cox |
| October 20, 2004 |
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Have you ever had a season where your fantasy team was outstanding - scoring a ton of points every week - but you finished the
season with a .500 winning percentage, or worse? It seemed that every week you just happened to play against the team in
your league who miraculously managed to score his highest point total all year? "That f'ing fantasy schedule!!" you
mutter to yourself week after week. And you are exactly right - the winners of win/loss leagues are completely dependent on
the random fantasy schedule that your commish decided upon before the season started.
All a fantasy football league schedule does is tell you who your opponent is each week. Your opponent's final score has
nothing to do with the performance of your team. You didn't put your team through a rigorous week of preparation for your upcoming opponent. Your
defensive team (or players) have no effect on your opponent's offensive output. Unless you score the most points in your league every week, it is
completely random whether you pick up a W every week.
So, we must ask ourselves, why do the majority of fantasy football leagues insist on using the win/loss system year after
year? The answer is simple. First, that's the way the NFL does it. All that matters in the NFL is a team's win/loss record.
At the end of the regular season, the teams with the best records go on to the playoffs. That's one reason fantasy leagues use
win/loss records, they mimick the exact system of the league that their entire world is based on. The other reason that
fantasy leagues use the win/loss system is that it is a lot of fun to play against an opponent every week. The smack
talking every week leading up to your game. The hope that your opponent's players do horrible or even get injured early in
the game. The excitement of watching your guy on Monday Night Football try to score enough points to leapfrog your opponent.
All in all, it is a ton of fun facing an opponent every week. Leagues that are based merely on total points, and other
similar systems, just seem to lack that element of excitement that win/loss leagues provide.
So, you might ask yourself, what is the best alternative to a win/loss league? The Ultimate Fantasy Football
Scoring System is described in full detail below. Please read on...
The Fantasy Lodge Football League, or FLFL, was founded in 1989 (although back then it was merely called the FFL, or
Fantasy Football League). Back then the FLFL was a simple win/loss league. In fact, it was a win/loss league for about 5
years. But because of all the reasons mentioned above, after 5 seasons the commish started toying with a system to make the
league more fair, and more fun, for everybody. It was a total trial-and-error process; some little details were added one
year, some were removed, and some were changed just a bit. But after about 4 seasons of experimenting, the FLFL finally had
the complete system that it still uses today.
The entire league is based on Fantasy Power Points. The winner of the league (and #1 seed for the playoffs) is determined by the team with the most Fantasy
Power Points for the regular season. The 2nd place team is the team with the 2nd most Power Points, and so on. The ways you earn Power Points are three-fold: (1) Beating your opponent one week gives you 10
Power Points. Losing to your opponent gives you 0 Power Points, and a tie earns both teams 5 Power Points. (2) You
earn additional Power Points based on how many team points (a.k.a. "fantasy points" on league management sites) your team earned for the week. The more team points you
score, the more Power Points you get. The formula the FLFL uses is: (Team Points - 20) / 5 = # of Power Points.
For example, 25 Team Points would be 1 Power Point, 51 would be 6, 109 would be 17... (3) The third way you get Power
Points is based on your team points ranking for the week in your league. If you score the most team points in your entire
league one week, you are rewarded greatly. Below is the FLFL's weekly ranking breakdown for bonus Fantasy Power Points:
Hi score = 15 Fantasy Power Points
2nd high = 13
3rd high = 11
4th high = 9
5th high = 7
6th high = 5
7th high = 4
8th high = 3
9th high = 2
10th high = 1
So, based on the three ways a team can achieve Fantasy Power Points, here is an example of a team's Power Points for the week: if
you beat your opponent one week, scored 77 team points, and had the 5th highest score that week, you would get 10 + 11 + 7
= 28 Power Points for that week.
Obviously the FLFL is a 10-team league based on the above info. We've also seen 8-team and 12-team leagues adopt the FLFL's Fantasy Power Points system
successfully, with a bit of tweeking of the system to accomodate their needs.
Leagues just seem to love the Fantasy Power Points system, because it makes the league more fair and still has the excitement value
of a win/loss league. A team in the FLFL who gets 2nd hi score for the week but has the unfortunate position of playing the
week's highest scoring team isn't penalized severely. Sure he doesn't get his 10 Power Points for the win, but he still
gets a ton of other Power Points. The 10 Power Points for a win seems to be just enough to make teams care that they beat
their opponent, but it's not so much that you fall way behind in the standings for losing a game or two. The key to success in
a Fantasy Power Points league is to consistently score in the upper half of your league's weekly team points. And it really
helps to get a handful of high scores, which really catapult you in the standings. I've seen teams in last place get a few
high scores in a row and then they're right back in the mix.
A common argument that win/loss league members often use is, "If you're in a win/loss league and your team is good, it'll
all work itself out in the end". The fact is that sometimes that's true and sometimes that's not true. I've seen way too
many stud teams get screwed because they constantly played the "aberration team" every week. Another thing that supporters of
win/loss leagues say is that "it takes too much extra time to figure out the Power Points every week". Well, if 2 to
3 minutes each week is a lot of time, then that's true. And if an additional 2 to 3 minutes each week isn't worth it to make
your league a lot more fun, then feel free to stay with your ancient win/loss league.
For your reference, the FLFL's Fantasy Power Points page can be found here. If you do decide to adopt the Fantasy Power Points system to your
league, please put a link to FantasyLodge.com on your league's page.
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