"QB Performance Has Been Getting Worse!"

That statement has been uttered in various football circles quite frequently in recent years, and has prompted many fantasy aficionados to place an even greater value on the top tier of quarterbacks. This, in turn, has added to the "first round quarterback" controversy that has been a firebrand discussion topic for the last few seasons.

This article is not intended to rail against the notion of taking a first-round quarterback (although my opinion on that is fairly well documented), but to discuss QB scoring in general, at least with respect to the passing game. However, some interesting facts will lend themselves to that discussion as well.   Read More >>

Putting Your NFL Knowledge To The Test 

Statistics are fun.

No, really!  I’m totally serious – don’t get bored and quit reading yet.  Stay with me…

Still here?  Good.  I totally understand, really I do:  Most people’s eyes start glazing over if a topic wades into the deep end of statistical mean, standard deviation, linear regression, and other mathematical theory, and I can sympathize.  It can be pretty dry stuff. 

But I also believe that if the material is presented in the right way, most people can enjoy statistics.  Especially sports fans.

After all, stats are the life-blood of every good barroom discussion about sports:  Wins and losses, average score, RBI’s, ERA, foul-line shooting percentage, NASCAR average lap speed, yards-per-carry, completion percentage, QB rating, etc., etc., etc...  It’s all statistics. 

And it’s all part of the fun of being a sports fan.  How else can we argue about who really is better?  Who’s more likely to choke?  Why my team is amazing and why your team sucks.  Stats give us the ability to provide evidence to support our positions and to raise the discussion above the “I know you are, but what am I?!?” level of debate.

Plus, besides being used to sway opinions among fans, statistics can also be interesting all by themselves.  Some stats are enough to give you pause, make you stop and think, and maybe even get that little rush of, “Whoa… I didn’t know that!”

So to try and show you that stats are fun, and perhaps even give you that little rush, I’m going to whip out a surprise quiz here.  Now don’t panic – This won’t count towards your semester grade, and it won’t be part of your permanent record here at the Whiz.  It doesn’t really matter if you studied or not.  The whole point is to share some stats I happened to find interesting in a hopefully fun way. 

Grab a pencil and paper and get ready to jot down your answers to the following 30 questions to see how much you really know about what happened in the NFL last year.  But no cheating – the goal isn’t to try impress yourself with how quickly you were able to look up things on the web.  It’s to instead review some of the details of last year’s NFL season, get you to think about stats, and to possibly make you smile.  And one disclaimer:  All statistics used are from the ESPN statistics web-pages for the NFL 2006 season – other sources may have slightly different numbers, especially for defense.

So I present for your entertainment and edification; amusement and amazement; diversion and discovery:  The Whiz’s 2006 NFL Statistics Quiz!  The answers to each question will be given at the end of the quiz.

In the early days of fantasy football, leagues usually used very simple scoring rules – the standard was 6 points for TDs and maybe, if a league was particularly adventurous, a 3-point scoring bonus for a player who broke 100 yards rushing or receiving, or 300 yards passing.  This limited scoring was typically used because all the calculations were done by hand.  League commissioners compiled scoring results from NFL box scores in their paper each week and distributed them to the league. It was just too much work to add in extra scoring options.

But the evolution of computerized scoring and internet leagues with sophisticated websites has led to a much wider range of scoring rules. Customizable scoring built from almost every NFL stat has now become the norm, and TD-only leagues seem archaic and incomplete.  Fantasy football’s “standard offensive scoring” is now typically 6 points for TDs, 0.1 point for every rushing and receiving yard, and 0.04 points for passing yards.  In addition, interceptions, fumbles, return yardage, and numerous defensive scoring rules are added to create a much more involved fantasy football experience.  These expanded rules have allowed much deeper rosters and led to much higher scoring fantasy games. 

However, in spite of expanded scoring rules, one thing has remained pretty constant since the old days:  The dominance of Running Backs. 

In most leagues, the top scoring players are usually Running Backs and Quarterbacks.  QBs are typically used as only one starter per team, so there is enough depth at the QB slot and less demand for these players relative to their high scoring.  But RBs are usually started as two per team, and often three if an offensive flex slot is used.  This makes their value extremely high, and RB scoring can often make or break a fantasy team.  So leagues usually see RBs go fast and furious in every draft, either in a redraft league or a dynasty league’s yearly rookie draft.  Their high-scoring potential and their high demand makes RBs simply too valuable to pass up.

In an effort to create more scoring balance among the positions and to increase the value of WRs and TEs relative to the dominant RBs, one scoring rule that is becoming more commonly used is the “Point-Per-Reception” (PPR) rule:  One point is added to a player’s score for every pass they catch.  Pretty simple.