Fantasy: Grading the Top-Scoring IDPs

Every year, I try to convince all of my friends to use IDP’s in their fantasy league. Every year, they respond with the same groans and eye rolls. There are several reasons for this, but I’ll spare you and include one good one.

The fact is, standard scoring for IDP’s rarely rewards the players most deserving of fantasy points appropriately. As a result, no one who adheres to these settings truly has a good idea of who to draft, and ultimately resorts to rotating endless waves of players who rack-up tackles into their IDP spot and pray they get a turnover or two. What’s the point in that?

To clarify, the following chart ranks the top-scoring IDPs of 2011 based on a popular default scoring system. Tackles, defended passes and half sacks are worth 1 point, assisted tackles are .5 points, sacks, interceptions, forced fumbles, fumble recoveries, blocked kicks and safeties are 2 points. Touchdowns, as usual, are 6 points. I will also note that because no default settings for return yards have been established, they were left out of this scoring chart.

For the most part, good players get rewarded but better ones do not. Our number-one graded cornerback, Darrelle Revis (+23.1), doesn’t even crack the top 100 in fantasy points in this format. Neither does our top-ranked defensive end, Justin Smith (+47.5), who placed 142^nd overall.  Von Miller (+50.8) was our top-graded IDP, but was only good enough for 78^th place. Defensive Player of the Year Terrell Suggs (+38.2) had a monster season, but was only good enough for 31^st place despite posting several gaudy fantasy-friendly stats including 14 sacks and 7 forced fumbles.

Furthermore, half of the top 20 scorers didn’t even grade in the top 10 in their positions, let alone defensive players overall. Three players had negative grades over the course of the season, but were actually rewarded with fantasy points. Antoine Bethea (+1.3), for example, was the top-scoring safety in leagues with default IDP scoring, but 22^nd in our grade rankings. His fantasy output is huge from racking-up 139 tackles, but little else.

To improve upon this, our own Jeff Ratcliffe and Ross Miles collaborated to provide a fantasy IDP scoring system to better reflect on-the-field play instead of blindly rewarding interchangeable tackling machines. To do this, there was less emphasis on tackles and more of one on potentially game-changing plays. Turnovers, tackles for loss and sacks all increased in value to level the playing field for players with different roles. This is not to say that there is no place for players who routinely and effectively gobble-up ball carriers, but more so that having a true defensive impact revolves around much more than just tackling.

If we apply Ratcliffe/Miles scoring system, we get a little closer to mirroring on-field play.

The top looks much different now.  Jared Allen and Jason Pierre-Paul devastated their opposition all season long, and few would argue against their tremendous performances in 2011. It's much more appropriate for them to be in the top spots rather than barely within the bubble of the top 20.

There are also a few new names on the rankings this time around. You’ll notice Suggs made the biggest jump going from 31^st overall to 4^th in fantasy points. Given his high grade over the course of the season, his ranking seems appropriate. DeMarcus Ware (+32.5), Calais Campbell (+34.1) and Sean Weatherspoon (+18.3) surged into the top 20, and rightfully so given their tremendous 2011 output. Von Miller still did not crack this list, but his fantasy production nearly doubled with the new settings in place.

There are still relatively low graded players on this list, including James Anderson (-2.3), Pat Angerer (+2.5) and James Laurinaitis (+5.6), who each logged over 140 tackles this season. But even with these players still on the list, the average position rank of the top-20 fantasy IDP’s plummets to 10.7 from the 15.7 from the standard list.

There will always be limitations in fantasy football because of the difficulty to quantify the effectiveness of certain IDPs. For example, a shutdown corner usually has his best day when stat sheets are empty. But when the emphasis is placed on these game-changing plays in IDP leagues, we get much closer to the truth about who the truly elite defensive players are than we were before.

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