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By - Jeff Mertes
If your fantasy football league is in its formative stages, or about to add individual defensive players (IDP) to the scoring template, here's a word of advice. For some reason, there is a compulsion to make IDP scoring too complex. It borders on ridiculous at times.
Stat choices can include sacks, interceptions, tackles, assists, tackles for loss, passes defensed, fumbles caused, fumbles recovered, touchdowns, safeties, forearm shivers, starters sent to the sidelines…okay, so the last two are made up, but you get the idea. Including individual defensive players can become too convoluted – almost impossible to follow during the course of a game. You might liken the tendency of being defensively overdone to including pancake blocks by linemen in offensive stats.
Hey, a steak left on the barbeque grill too long makes it taste like a charcoal brickette. Keep your defensive stat template rare to medium. It shouldn’t be so complex that a player’s performance can’t be followed during the course of watching a game live or on the tube.
Defensive touchdowns are musts. True, they certainly result rather sporadically but can’t be overlooked because it just wouldn’t be football without them. Most leagues award six points for all, no matter how a defensive player makes it happen.
Sacks are stopper staples that stand out because of their impact on NFL games as well as the ease in which they can be followed. There isn’t anything more exciting among slobber knockers than watching your defensive end beat blockers and bear down on an unsuspecting quarterback standing motionless, a wildebeest in the cross-hairs of a hungry lioness. It’s the most primordial of defensive stats and must be included. A typical scoring template awards two points for each quarterback smoosh, and one point for half a sack, or four and two.
Pass pilfers have to be considered. Interceptions are certainly difference makers that turn drives to mush and the player making the pick-off is easily identified as a focal point of grid action. Points awarded usually range from five down to two (perhaps three – slightly more than a sack – is about right).
So, a basic IDP template is an “IS” model that includes interceptions, sacks and touchdowns – these are easiest to follow during the course of a game, and often most integral to which team wins or loses.
Tackles are often included in individual defensive scoring along with touchdowns, sacks and interceptions. No doubt, mundane tackles are important. But, too often, they are just ho-hum outgrowths of defensive play, can be difficult to follow (especially in the middle of the line) and, at times, rather subjectively assigned. Still, many leagues recognize tackles and assists as being the backbone of defensive play – perhaps rightly so. In a “TIS” model that includes tackles, each stop is generally worth one point (or slightly less than a sack) and assists half a point, rounded down if necessary to make final scoring even (nothing worse than a 24.5-20 outcome, we always say).
An “IS” or “TIS” scoring template is all that is really needed to produce meaningful IDP scoring. They are the most predictable defensive stats and benchmarks of IDP performance.
Beyond these two scoring modules, a problem arises of overly weighting other stats that may be a result of happenstance, rather than athletic talent and skill, or may seldom occur. Determining whether or not a player might achieve many of the peripheral stats could be relegated more to the flip of a coin than thoughtful analysis.
Safeties rarely occur and sometimes aren’t assigned to individual players. However, they’re a basic way that defenses score points for NFL teams. As a “coin-flip” stat, they might make sense by assigning two points to the IDP who drags the ball carrier down in his own end zone (if, indeed, he is identified). Of course, in the case of a gang tackles, who gets what portion of the points?
Fumbles caused may be usable because they are really what create attack killing boo-boos of coughing up the ball. Some players seem to have more of a propensity for stripping the ball or popping the pigskin from a ball carrier’s grasp than others. In fact, fumbles caused are a result of IDP skill and aggressiveness while the commonly used stat of fumble recoveries really result more from luck than anything else. Generally, one point for a fumble caused is the norm.
Passes defensed is appearing more often in IDP templates. They’re no doubt indicative of pass defense as a “close, but no cigar” type of stat. Unfortunately, players, especially cornerbacks, who get lots of pass defenses, are also being picked on unmercifully. These weak-link fodder may get beaten so often that they seriously impede their NFL team's chances to post victory. Whether or not knocking down a pass is more important than being burned three or four times is highly questionable (if passes defensed is rewarded, then being beaten should be subtracted, right?). Since interceptions are already indicative of good pass defense, batting down an aerial may not be necessary as a fantasy football measuring stick unless having questionable hands are desirable.
Make sure, when concocting a defensive scoring template, you don’t tip the scales too far towards slobber knockers. Recreate a few games from your season a year ago and see what kind of an impact IDPs would have had. If in doubt, lean toward simplicity – make the standard to only include individual defensive player stats that are easy to follow during the course of a game and that may be somewhat predictable rather than a result of blind ass luck. Above all, don’t get mired down in minutia.
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