Introduction
This winter my wife got started in on the whole Marie Kondo thing. She cruised around the house, shouting, “You don’t bring me joy! Thank you for your service!” all while ditching clothing, books, knick-knacks, two cats, and a child (kidding).
As we ramp back into the Immersion, I got to thinking about why it brings me joy. I love this league. I love the large rosters, the contracts, the salary cap, the scoring system, and the super involved owners. With so much going on, though, there’s bound to be some clutter. That clutter is some of the positions we use.
The Immersion philosophy has become that if something happens on the field of play, we get points for it, which is cool. What doesn’t bring joy, however, is attempting to scout good players at lame positions. You know what I’m talking about – Kicker, Punter, Defensive Tackle, and Corner. Lame, lame, lame, & lame. We got rid of Kickers and Team Defense in another league last year and it was just the greatest.
Proposals
Proposal #1: Get rid of Kickers and/or Punters. The end.
Proposal #2:
1) Remove DT, DE, CB, & S designations.
2) Fold those positions into three defensive positions – DL, LB, DB.
3) Start 2DL, 2LB, 2DB, 2 FLEX
Rationale
Proposal #1: Kickers and Punters do not bring joy.
Proposal #2: Of the Top 100 Defensive scorers from 2018, there were 12 DTs, 20 DEs, 35 LBs, 5 CBs, and 28 S. The CB rankings (out of 100 defenders) were 43, 93, 98, 99, 100. If we combine positions as proposed, there would have been 32 DL, 35 LB, 33 DB in the Top 100. This configuration makes sense and provides owner flexibility.
As a bonus, it will no longer matter if a player is designated as a DT or DE. Unfortunately, this does not solve the DE/LB/EDGE riddle. One thing at a time.
Should we get rid of kickers and punters?
- No (71%, 5 Votes)
- Yes (29%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 7
Loading ...Should we streamline defensive positions to DL-LB-DB?
- No (71%, 5 Votes)
- Yes (29%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 7
Loading ...© 2019, Adam Franssen. All rights reserved.
One drawback to eliminating DT and CB is that essentially nobody who plays those positions will ever be rostered. I like that I had a good CB once (Peanut Tillman) and that my annual search for a good DT continues.
I do, oddly, like rostering those guys. Yeah, its a crapfest trying to find a good one, but when you do it’s awesome.
How is that a drawback? The player either scores counting stats or he doesn’t. CB is particularly heinous. The better the CB, the worse they are for the Immersion. The best CBs for fantasy play across from the best CBs in the NFL. It’s an affront to the sensibilities.
Moreover, propping those positions up for the sake of keeping designations doesn’t seem to make sense in an NFL that is increasingly fluid with its position usage across the board. DE’s slide into the middle on 3rd downs. EDGE rushers spend 40% of the time with on hand in the dirt. The Rams played like 3 safeties at LB in the Super Bowl. Some safeties line up on the slot receiver. We could add “Slot CB” or “EDGE” or “S/LB Hybrid” in order to really take advantage of defensive schemes. I’d rather we find a way to make EDGE rushers relevant than maintain CBs.
Another approach would be to set the scoring for counting stats and then allow owners to choose 8 starters regardless of position.
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. The result of the rule change would be to render a bunch of defensive players unrosterable.
It could have the effect of driving up prices on DEs and Safeties. You’d essentially have to start 2 safeties instead of 1 and 2 DEs instead of 1, which means that they’d be more valuable. Not necessarily a bad thing, just a likely outcome. I don’t think there would be a DT in the league you’d ever put into a game given that their stats would get crushed if you changed their scoring to DE scoring (I assume that would be the switch – to collapse DT and DE scoring into DL scoring.)
That’s a really good point. Even if I wanted to start a DT or a CB, I couldn’t, unless they still scored like their position. If that was the case I’d probably be on board.
I agree with both of these. The good news is that for every unrosterable player at DT or CB there will be an equal and opposite increase is rostereable DE, LB, and S.
Prices of good players on D will go up, too. This is cool! It seems like our star players are compensated fairly, but mid-tier defenders are literally a dollar each. Thus, a DE2 or LB2 or S has almost no draft value whatsoever. This change might actually lead to owners taking defenders in the first rounds much more frequently, spicing up that aspect of the league and inflating the value of late round draft picks.
Forcing 2 RBs certainly drives their prices up. I’m guessing the same would be true of S and DE, but not to the same extent.
As for kickers and punters: I am less concerned about losing those. I do enjoy the aspect of kickers and punters getting points for random shit like making tackles though.
I care less about kickers and punters also, but don’t mind either way. I assume roster sizes would remain the same if we ditched them?
In my opinion, the whole point of this league specifically is to really immerse yourself in each position, boring or not. The more you “streamline” these positions or remove them entirely, the more it becomes an espn league.
I like hating my kicker one week and having him save my ass the next. I love thinking that paying a CB is going to actually matter. In addition, I personally feel like having them makes watching games more interesting. I start giving a shit about punters and the otherwise insignificant moves from CB to S or DE to LB.
In my opinion, the whole point of this league specifically is to really immerse yourself in each position, boring or not. The more you “streamline” these positions or remove them entirely, the more it becomes an espn league.
I like hating my kicker one week and having him save my ass the next. I love thinking that paying a CB is going to actually matter. In addition, I personally feel like having them makes watching games more interesting. I start giving a shit about punters and the otherwise insignificant moves from CB to S or DE to LB.
I find joy in all the positions. Part of the argument is that this league revels in the minutiae of a full roster. I vote nay!
Seems like dumbing down the league. As Ben mentions, part of this league is the minutiae—if we can have debates about the value of spreading out cap hits (and ways to restructure a contract), why would we want to simplify things by essentially eliminating positions?
Many of the same arguments employed above (“positionless league” for one) apply to RB, WR, and TE–I might even argue in many cases that these positions are less well defined in the modern NFL than DB or DL. Would we really think about simplifying offense to QB and 5 FLEX?
So, 2 things. One, there are certainly discussions of having positionless leagues on offense on the ffl podcasts I listen to. As in, what is the point of forcing 2 RB and 2 WR and 1 TE? Why not start your 5 best? Works in the actual NFL.
Two, can someone PLEASE come up with a compelling reason to keep CB as a fantasy position? 1 guy finished above 50. 4 below 90. That’s it. The current claim is that we should feature NFL second-best corners that don’t score fantasy points instead of point-scoring safeties because…we like minutiae? Cool.
If you hold the, “every play counts” position, I get keeping kickers and punters (gag), but it seems we only gain by allowing teams to start better players.
I get that there are leagues going positionless, but those are different leagues. There are also leagues without benches, leagues that start multiple QBs, leagues without DEF etc.
This league had started with extensive starting line-ups including all defensive positions. It also has deep benches which reward those who draft well or are crafty in their pick-ups. The extensive positions reward those who could find the exceptional scoring player at a position that didn’t score well (and yes this doesn’t always translate into the best NFL players at their position, but this is true in fantasy at several positions).
Are the proposals above bad? No, but they would shift the league quite a bit. Several teams would likely also be penalized in the short run due to their roster construction. I also think that other changes would need to be made as well–for example rosters would probably need to shrink.
Check out the golden year of cornerbacks: 2012.
Charles Tillman – 2nd overall in defense scoring
Richard Sherman – 6th overall in defense scoring
The 10th ranked corner had 143 points (Last year the #1 corner only had 139 points, and the #2 corner had 119 points.)
To reiterate, TEN corners in 2012 outscored last year’s top corner. Last year was definitely a down year for CBs (though 2012 might be their best year – I haven’t looked at other years, really.)
Is there a way to adjust DT and CB scoring to make them more interesting/valuable?
Yeah. The effect is to increase the Boom or Bust nature though.
Someone with a spreadsheet could probably figure out the scoring trends for those positions over the past 9 years. My gut is that both positions were down last year, but I haven’t dug into it.
I guess this is a bad time to bring up my KR/PR proposal? 😉
These hardly seem like positions anymore. Few kickoffs get returned now, and punters have become pretty good at forcing a fair catch. I could imagine that if you made these positions, many teams would be posting bagels on a weekly basis.
Was totally a joke man …
No doubt. But you know I’m just waiting for the day when we’re provided offensive linemen stats.
Since at least 5 people surprisingly care about DT and CB, what about this: instead of eliminating those positions, we can keep them but change lineup requirements.
Current IDP Lineup:
1 DT
1 DE
2 LB
1 CB
1 S
2 FLEX
Modified
1 DE
2 LB
1 S
1 Defensive Lineman (DT + DE)
1 Defensive Back (CB + S)
2 Flex
This addresses all of the stated concerns.
1) DT and CB are still there, with their premium scoring in place;
2) Teams that have invested heavily in DT or CB get to maintain that roster advantage (e.g., Chitons still get value for their 2 Top 10 DTs; Hawks still get value from their 2 Top 4 CBs);
3) No need to immediately revamp rosters since teams can start players/positions as they always have if they want;
4) BONUS: increased value for the DE2 and DE3 positions and S2 and S3 positions;
5) BONUS: Owners don’t have to start worthless positions hoping that 2012 CBs start playing in 2019;
One change would be that right now we can only start a maximum of 3 DEs and 3 Ss whereas this modification would theoretically allow an owner to start 4 of those positions (1 DE, 1 DE in the DT+DE spot, 2 DEs in both flex spots). I say that if you roll 4 starters deep at DE or S, you go right ahead. This still mirrors what some NFL teams do, so it’s not like we’re allowing 5 TEs to start.
Better, right?
P.S. Kickers and Punters are still stupid.
I know I’m late to this conversation but I personally like the challenge of building a roster with all these positions. The challenge of trying to make a complete team with a salary cap. I agree that by eliminating or trimming the fat, will result in more expensive contracts, making it even harder to roster a solid team. I feel like it would also take away from the creativity and research it takes to build a team. Which is my favorite part. As for kickers, I’m fine either way with that idea.