Fantasy Football: Kick Return Yardage Debate
Don't Start Your Football Draft Until You Have Perfected a Legit Scoring System!
While it may be nice to gain those kick return points, it also may dampen the "defensive morals" of your league. By allowing 1 point for every 25 yards in kick returns, you are essentially "gifting" teams who are poor on defense, as they can easily gain 5 or 6 "free points" with a compilation of several mediocre kick returns if they are giving up several scores.
If you want a hypothetical example of why this scoring format is not justified, then here you go.
The New England Patriots give up 26 points in a game - 2 touchdowns and 4 field goals. Most leagues penalize you with a negative point for giving up 26 points, so give the Patriots -1 points so far. Add in ZERO sacks, interceptions, and fumble recoveries, and the Pats are still at -1. Wow, seems like a horrid day for the fantasy owner of this team, huh? Oh wait, the Pats gave up 6 scores . . . plus, of course, they get an opening game (or opening 3rd quarter) kickoff, which brings it up to 7 total kick returns for the game. Even if they average over a subpar 25 yards per return, that adds up to 175 yards, which would equate to 7 points under the 1 point per every 25 yards system. So, New England's combined score for this game would be 6 points.
Ok, now take the Dallas Cowboys. Lets say they give up only 14 points (2 touchdowns, no field goals), which in some leagues, might be worth a single point. Throw in an interception and a sack (Demarcus Ware had a slow day), then you have another 3 points, as interceptions are usually worth 2 points and sacks are worth 1 point. So, as of now, Dallas has 4 combined points on defense. Now throw in the kick return yardage! Oh, darn, the defense was so good that they didn't allow many scores, thus, meaning they won't get a lot of kick return opportunities. For the entire game, Dallas only gets 3 kick return chances, and combines for 70 yards on those returns. This would earn Dallas an extra 2 points, for a grand total of 6 points.
It is obvious that Dallas played a much more solid defensive game than New England, but due to the kick return yardage, the fantasy units end up with identical points. Ask yourself this question. Is that even fair?? How is it fair that a strong defensive performance ends up with the equal amount as a soft defensive squad that allowed their opponent to score 6 times.
You are best served to make kickoff and punt return yardage worth ZERO! You are advised to just give credit for touchdowns. BUT, if you absolutely think you need to use kick returns, then, at the very least, make it one point for every 75 yards instead of 25, so not as many free points can be earned by teams giving up a ton of scores.
True, one can argue that a good defensive team can make up for those lack of kick returns by gaining a lot more punt return yardage, as they obviously had more stops than the weaker defenses; HOWEVER, any average football fan knows that racking up punt return yards is not an easy task. You are nearly guaranteed 20 free yards on every kick return. On a punt return . . . the only guarantee is that somebody will be trying to take your head off IMMEDIATELY after you catch the punt.
Another argument from a kick return lover is this . . . "But my guy made an 85 yard return and got knocked out of bounds at the 8 yard line! It's not fair that I receive ZERO points for such an awesome return!!"
Well, life is not fair.
First of all, if the guy was stopped at the 8 yard line, there is a good chance he was taken down by the kicker or he was run down by a backup tight end, in which case, he didn't deserve any points anyways!
Secondly, a long return like that assures a quick score from their offense AND assures you that your defense will be right back on the field before you know it . . .which means more opportunities for you to gain sacks, fumbles, interceptions, and touchdowns from your defensive squad.
It is highly recommended that you bring this argument with you when attending your fantasy football draft. This could make a significant impact on some key matchups in your league! Good luck!
Published by Brian Munger
Brian Munger is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and holds active membership status with the Professional Association of Resume Writers (PARW). Munger is the owner/CEO of Resume Phenom, LLC, a c... View profile
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7 Comments
Post a CommentBong show you should start your own website! I like your opinion, and Brian I like your stuff too...My league rewards 2 points every 25 return yards. I drafted Josh Cribbs in the last round of our draft, and he's scored me the most points on my team, way more than T. Gonzalez, S. Smith (CAR), and Lee Evans. Am I crazy to have just picked up Clifton Smith (dropped Larry Johnson)? Andre Caldwell (dropped Lee Evans)?? Seems that kick returners on bad defensive teams are really good in my system... Any input guys? - Rookie fantasy leaguer
Truncated Continued #4:... In this instance, a subpar player is being rewarded just like a subpar team (too many scores allowed with no sacks nor INT's) is being rewarded in your example.
With regard to return yards, a league is much worse without return yards included in my opinion. However, I abundantly prefer the return yards to be associated with individual players instead of team defenses/special teams. By allowing return yards, it greatly increases the pool of viable RB's and WR's that are available to select from the free agent market. Deeper strategy then gets involved as well. Try playing this season (or next) with individual return yards... you'll probably find that it spices up your league in terms of fun and excitement.
Cheers!
Truncated Continued #3:.. It is up to YOU to maximize that rule to your advantage by doing research on which RB's and QB's get massive yardage, but tend to stay just under that limit (say 90 yard rushing per game and 275 yards passing on average).
As a real world example, in IDP you don't even want to take the best "real world" players necessarily. Take the Raiders' CB's last year... Nnamdi Asomugha is a total real world stud. He played opposite of DeAngelo Hall. Hall was so bad that the Raiders cut him only halfway through the season. Yet Hall was #5 in Fantasy Points Per Game among all Defensive Backs while Asomugha ranked 179th. So a savvy fantasy owner uses this to their advantage and allows suckers to take "big name" players like Asomugha while they use their knowledge of their league scoring system to select an inferior real world player, but a superior fantasy player. In this instance, a subpar player is being rewarded just like a subpar team (too many scores
Truncated Continued #2: ...It is clear that you have found an area that most of the other people in your league would not recognize. Instead of telling the world about this aberration, you should be keeping it a secret and selecting teams that you think will benefit the most based on the system that is in place. This gives you the advantage over your competitors. Making information like this public in your league is tantamount to a baseball hitter telling an opposing pitcher that he's doing something that gives away in advance when his fastball is coming. Instead of telling the pitcher, the batter should keep it to himself and utilize this knowledge to his own advantage.
You could play in a league where the rules state something absurdly insane such as whenever a RB rushes for over 100 yards in a single game or when a QB throws for over 300 yards in a single game, they lose 6 points. If that is the case, then the rules are the same for everyone. It is up to YOU to m
Brian,
While I applaud your attempt at this article, you have completely missed the boat on it. To begin with, your title is fallacious in and of itself. Why? Because all scoring systems are "legit." Why are they all legit? They are legit because everyone in the league then is subject to the exact same baseline.
It is akin to pro golfers whining that "course X" is too difficult and the scoring should be lowered. What difference does it make if say Tiger Woods wins by 2 strokes at +20 or by 2 strokes at -20? The answer is that it doesn't matter because they are all playing the exact same course and lowest score wins regardless of what "par" is predetermined to be.
Fantasy football is a strategic game. It combines sports knowledge with mathematical knowledge with poker-type skills and so on and so forth. In the example you provided, instead of complaining about it, you should be UTILIZING it to YOUR advantage. It is clear that you have found an area that mos
Yes, it is a personal preference . . . and I like to write and I love playing fantasy football, so it's my personal preference to debate such topics. Almost everything we do in life is a personal preference. It's my personal preference to say your response to this blog was rather pointless.
It's kind of hard to take your stance on this seriously when you finish the first prong of your argument with the rhetorical "Is that even fair??" in regards to the two scoring situations and then belittle the opposing argument with the trite "Well, life is not fair." Take your own advice, man. ANd relax, it's just a choice of personal preference anyway.