Playoff League Scoring Systems

With the end of the regular season games, several Fantasy Football game providers have launched into their playoff contests. At this time, StatLeader is following 5 such games Sportsline.com Playoff Challenge, Superbowl.com Playoff Challenge, Fox/Sporting News' Playoff Fantasy Football 2004-05 and Playoff Three for All, and finally Best Buy's Weekly Playoff Fantasy Football Challenge.

Some of these have the same scoring systems as their regular season counterparts and some don't. So let's look at each of them quickly.

Sportsline.com and Superbowl.com Playoff Challenge games are basically the same game. (The former from CBS and the latter from the NFL). The scoring system used here is exactly the same as the regular season Sportsline.com and NFL.com fantasy games during the regular season.

The Fox/Sporting News Playoff Fantasy Football 2004-05 uses the same scoring system as their "Basic" game during the regular season. Remember, the F/SN Basic and Ultimate games use the same system except that Basic does not include Kickers while "Ultimate" does. So, if you played in their Ultimate game, your offensive and defensive schemes are the same, just no Kickers.

OK, that's the easy stuff out of the way.

F/SN's Playoff Three for All Football uses the following scoring method:

• Rushing, Passing, or Receiving Yards - 1 Point/Yard.
• Rushing, Passing, Receiving, or Kick or Punt Return TDs - 60 points.
  

Notice there are no Kickers or Defenses. The important information here is that QB passing yards are scored the same as rushing and receiving yards. Under most regular season scoring systems, you need 2.5 to 3 times as many passing yards as rushing or receiving yards to earn the same amount of points. Why is this? Because QBs normally throw for 2-3 times as many yards as a running back or receiver will earn.

The same situation exists with the TD value where again a passing TD has been put on the same level as all others. Again in most regular season leagues, a passing TD is not worth as much as a rushing or receiving TD.

The effect of this is that your QB will easily be your highest point scorer. Additionally, it removes the scoring advantage that a running QB such as Michael Vick would have over someone such as Peyton Manning. (Note: While Manning has been the top QB under most [not all] scoring systems, running QBs have kept close to him since for every rushing TD they score, Peyton has to toss roughly two. For every rushing yard they get, Peyton has to throw for about 2.5). Under the Three for All system, that's gone, so make you QB pick very carefully.

Finally, the Best Buy Weekly Playoff Fantasy Football Challenge scoring system. There are several changes here. They are:

• Rushing and Receiving Yards go from 1 point/10 yards to 0.1 point/yard
• Passing Yards go from 1 point/25 yards to 0.1 point for every 3 yards
• Field Goals go from 3 pts 0-39 yds, 4 points 40-49 yards, 5 points 50+ yards to 0.1 point/FG yard.
• No Defenses
• No Salary Cap

The result of all this is as follows:

1. Higher overall scores (Players who previously received 8 points for 89 rushing yards will now get 8.9.
2. Slighly lower scoring from the passing QB. As Doc noted yesterday a QB who passes for 300 yards would get 12 points under the regular season system but only 10 from this system. This makes the running QB a little bit more valuable.
3. For FGs over 30 yards this will raise the average score as indicated up in #1. A pair of 39 yarders will earn a kicker 7.8 points under the new system vs. 6 under the old one. The down side? A 20 yard field goal will only earn 2.0 points. The 0.1 pt/ FG Yard can have a pretty big hit on Booters who make a lot of short kicks such as Nate Kaeding and Morten Andersen both of whom had exactly 1/2 of the field goals from less than 30 yards.

So there it is. A brief analysis of the five scoring systems. There is some rumor floating around that we might ad one more (you'll have to check back to see if and who). Until then, best of luck this weekend.