With the recent changeover in the runners of fantasy, the previous master sheets filled with data begging to be analysed, has since disappeared unfortunately. As a result, I didn’t really have anything to deep dive in because there was no data to dive through to pull together an article with any real substance or point. As of now though, recently the Fantasy runners, Bayley and Billybolo, made a post about suggestions for fantasy football going forward, including having Individual Defensive Player (IDP) groups which has proven quite popular from the poll included in the post. Other options such as time zone based drafting and Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) have proven less so, but the last option is the one that most piqued my interest, having Offensive Linemen added to our Fantasy Football.
“Bayley and I like this a lot, but I can see this being unpopular with Fantasy purest. We are working on some scoring options cause everybody should get the chance to draft themselves.” Is the description of this potential change, or rather addition, to fantasy football that Billybolo used and I personally love the adage that every user should have the chance to draft their player. As it stands currently, Offensive Linemen are the only position that if users are in them, they can’t be drafted on the account that you can draft your team’s Defence if you play a defensive position and that any returns play another position.
Before getting into numbers and the potential point scoring system of Offensive Linemen, there is some important points and conversation around these topics that need to be considered before simply just adding OL into our fantasy. They are:
1. Is there enough Offensive Linemen to warrant their addition to fantasy?
2. Will OL be added as a new position/extra round or replace the position of the FLEX position?
3. If Offensive Linemen are added and points are being scored for pancakes, should this be added to the Tight End or Running Back’s scores?
1. Is there enough Offensive Linemen to warrant their addition to fantasy?
Not too long ago, adding Offensive Linemen into Fantasy may not have been possible just strictly speaking based on numbers. With their resurgence though, the numbers of active Offensive Linemen within the league continue to increase. In the most recent DSFL draft, there was a total of 17 OL players, of approximately 10 have some TPE, 8 are above 120 TPE early into the season. Looking at the current line-up of OL in the ISFL already, there consist enough OL to have each player potentially draft two. Whilst that may be impractical, there is quality OL players who are young and will be around for the long haul, promoting the ability to add them into our fantasy system.
The downside, or rather more unknown side of Offensive Linemen, is how they perform within the team to gauge their potential in the coming season. For every other position, going through a teams TPE levels, depth chart and seeing how they played in the previous season gives a strong indication into how they might be expected to play or perform. This is easily seen with a player like Mattias Hanyadi, who’s consistent performance across the last 2-3 seasons as the highest scoring Running Back in fantasy, sees him always placed with 1OA value. Furthermore, you look to his team, the Yellowknife Wraiths, you see they just called up a QB and Two WR, to have a passing attack with 3 S22 players and a s23 player. A lack of TPE around these positions, it was clear that Yellowknife was going to be a run heavy team, putting more value into picking up Hanyadi. Can the same be said about OL and their performance?
Recently, there had been talk around the league about the lack of meaning in the stats of OL players. That is to say, that the stats the OL acquire, and thus their fantasy points, aren’t a real accurate representation of the player. On this topic, remember hearing that just having the OL on your team is enough, the stats are redundant and random. If this is this case, is having the randomness good for fantasy? Sure, we are using a sim that likes to screw everyone and everything possible, but there is some sense of predictability in positions like QB, RB or WR by looking at their TPE and the team, if this doesn’t carry over to OL, it becomes a guessing game for drafting OL and the question has to become is there too much randomness in their stats to add them to fantasy?
2. Will OL be added as a new position/extra round or replace the position of the FLEX position?
As it currently stands, Fantasy consists of 8 rounds, one of which being an offensive flex position, allowing users to pick either a 2nd RB or a 3rd WR to add to the team. If OL were to be added to fantasy, the heads need to decide whether they want to add an additional round, taking it up to 9 rounds, or potentially replace a position, which would more than likely be the flex position to not increase the round count. On the up side of adding an additional round to fantasy if OL was to be added, it keeps the amount of players currently be drafted not changed, the ability for your team to spiral up or down depending on games the same and keeps what essentially can be like a bench spot in case of wanting to drop and pickup someone for your team. The downside of adding the extra round is that as it currently stands, some fantasy drafts are not completed before the season as it stands and this will prolong the drafting time. Having people from around the world, it does make certain groups struggle to get everything done timely. In counter to this however, some group managers created a discord server/group to make it easier to be notified when it was your turn to pick as well as word from Bayley and Billybolo that there were looking to make a server that hosted every group for people interested in one, which should help increase the speed of the drafts. As a result of this, adding an extra round shouldn’t be as big of a problem in terms of timing that some people think it will be due to these new methods and allows the flex position to still exist.
3. If Offensive Linemen are added and points are being scored for pancakes, should this be added to the Tight End or Running Back’s scores?
This is probably the most crucial point to be determined if OL were to be added into fantasy football. Their entire ability to score points for fantasy football would be coming solely from the pancakes they rack up. Their only other recorded stat is sacks allowed, which would come with a negative point value in my eyes. Whilst the amount of points that should be allocated per pancake will be discussed later, it has to be kept in mind if pancakes, and the points awarded to them, will also be given to players not in the Offensive Linemen position, Tight Ends and Running Backs.
In season 23 of the ISFL, or NSFL as it was during that season, the most successful player in the OL position recorded above 70 pancakes, 9 of them, which would cover most of the OL taken in a 6 person fantasy draft. On the flip side, the top 9 Tight Ends had between 41 to 21 pancakes, which whilst being half of what most OL earn, could make certain TE unstoppable in fantasy points.
It is not necessarily a problem if Tight Ends become the highest scoring position, the problem lies in that there is currently a lack of credible fantasy point earners in that position. The advantage being is that the Tight Ends that catch the ball, playing as a receiver, will not be accumulating high numbers of pancakes and vice versa, tight ends that are used primarily as blockers, won’t have high pancakes. The TE with the most receiving yards last year, Avon Blocksdale Jr., had 730 yards, just shy of 700 yards from the most yards a WR carried the ball, in a season that say 11 WR have 1000 or more receiving yards. Without fantasy scores for the players, it makes it hard to clearly compare whether it will make Tight Ends overpowered in fantasy. Only 6 RB got over 20 pancakes, with the most being 38. The extra depth in this position should make them more stable if pancakes were added to their scores but caution still needs to be taken.
It is also possible that for the first season if OL are added, pancakes only count towards OL players and no other position. Other potential ideas could be pancakes count as 1 point for Tight Ends or Running Backs to not throw the system entirely on its head.
Speaking about the points system, if OL are added and all other concerns above are addressed to add them into fantasy, what type of points would they earn? Taking a look at the OL stats of last season, we can get an idea as to what could be expected. Drafts would consist of 6 OL being taken, but for the reason of not everything in a season going to plan and variability in the drafting phase of fantasy, looking at the top 8, by pancakes, gives a little more of an accurate average that we may see. Of course, only human user’s players can be drafted and will be looked at in this piece below.
1. Lazlo Forty-Two – 87 Pancakes, 1 Sack allowed
2. Bruce Buckley – 84 Pancakes, 0 sacks allowed
3. Bryon Dolls – 77 pancakes, 2 sacks allowed
4. Simon Tremblay – 76 pancakes, 1 sack allowed
5. Givusafarre Rubbe – 75 pancakes, 0 sacks allowed
6. Doug Quail – 75 pancakes, 0 sacks allowed
7. Benson Bayley Jr. – 74 pancakes, 2 sacks allowed
8. Edmond Beaver-Dantes – 71 pancakes, 5 sacks allowed.
Without last season’s fantasy scores, I have only decided to calculate the hypothetical scores based of what the league MVP of the season, Mattias Hanyadi, one of the highest fantasy point scores, In the top 5 if I remember correctly but may be wrong, highest scoring Running back. He earnt 281.6 points last season.
Scenario 1 – Pancakes = 2, sacks allowed = -5
1. Lazlo Forty-Two – 169 (1)
2. Bruce Buckley – 168 (2)
3. Bryon Dolls – 144 (6)
4. Simon Tremblay – 147 (5)
5. Givusafarre Rubbe – 150 (T3)
6. Doug Quail – 150 (T3)
7. Benson Bayley Jr. – 138 (7)
8. Edmond Beaver-Dantes – 117 (8)
This looks to make Offensive Linemen earn more points than the likes of Kickers/Punters or team defences but not reach the upper echelons of fantasy scores earned by the star Quarterbacks, Wide Receivers and Running backs. It looks to rewards good pancake numbers and attribute a value to allowing sacks, something we can see between as in this scenario, Lazlo outscore Buckley by 1 fantasy point, by having 3 more pancakes with his 1 sack allowed. Short story is that 3 pancakes more outweighs one extra sack allowed compared to fellow Offensive Linemen, which is probably too small but is a good starting point that is a solid entry plan for OL. The difference between he highest and lowest Linemen in this is 52 points, which is a fairly decent margin considering fantasy scores go over 1000 points for a user’s team quite easily.
Scenario 2 – Pancakes = 3, Sacks allowed = -5
1. Lazlo Forty-Two – 256 (1)
2. Bruce Buckley – 252 (2)
3. Bryon Dolls – 221 (6)
4. Simon Tremblay – 223 (5)
5. Givusafarre Rubbe – 225 (T3)
6. Doug Quail – 225 (T3)
7. Benson Bayley Jr. – 212 (7)
8. Edmond Beaver-Dantes – 188 (8)
This scenario just increases pancake score by 1, allowing the best OL to have scores that can see them jostle amongst some of the highest earners currently in fantasy, potentially seeing draft strategies change as they could be another option to land a high earner with some consistency, but know they won’t be the best fantasy players in the league. Trading superstar potential for consistency would be an interesting dynamic to a system filled with potential boom and busts. Pancakes at 3 is probably the highest they could go, as any more would see the top OL go well past the 300 fantasy point mark if they have a similar season, needing only 75 pancakes to do so, which 6 people did last season. I think its safe to say we don’t want OL being added and overtaking the whole system, but this scenario sees a lot more variance between the best and middle level of Linemen, 68 fantasy points between first and eighth.
In conclusion, I would very much enjoy the addition of Offensive Linemen into the fantasy system we currently have. There is different issues that need to be addressed that can be done in different ways that will best fit to serve the league, such as adding another round or replacing flex as well as whether pancakes will earn positions other than Linemen points. The two scenarios listed above are just quick ideas as to what their points may look like to get an idea as to how they may impact fantasy and start a discussion as to how we would want to see them perform, mixing it with the tier 2 Quarterbacks and running backs and being equal with Wide Receivers and Tight Ends or being between those positions and Kickers/Punters and team defence. There is definitely room to add Offensive Linemen to fantasy and with the change to fantasy leaders, I hope @"BayleyIsland" and @Billybolo53, do find a way to take this idea and turn it into reality as soon as they are able to implement it fairly and cleanly.
“Bayley and I like this a lot, but I can see this being unpopular with Fantasy purest. We are working on some scoring options cause everybody should get the chance to draft themselves.” Is the description of this potential change, or rather addition, to fantasy football that Billybolo used and I personally love the adage that every user should have the chance to draft their player. As it stands currently, Offensive Linemen are the only position that if users are in them, they can’t be drafted on the account that you can draft your team’s Defence if you play a defensive position and that any returns play another position.
Before getting into numbers and the potential point scoring system of Offensive Linemen, there is some important points and conversation around these topics that need to be considered before simply just adding OL into our fantasy. They are:
1. Is there enough Offensive Linemen to warrant their addition to fantasy?
2. Will OL be added as a new position/extra round or replace the position of the FLEX position?
3. If Offensive Linemen are added and points are being scored for pancakes, should this be added to the Tight End or Running Back’s scores?
1. Is there enough Offensive Linemen to warrant their addition to fantasy?
Not too long ago, adding Offensive Linemen into Fantasy may not have been possible just strictly speaking based on numbers. With their resurgence though, the numbers of active Offensive Linemen within the league continue to increase. In the most recent DSFL draft, there was a total of 17 OL players, of approximately 10 have some TPE, 8 are above 120 TPE early into the season. Looking at the current line-up of OL in the ISFL already, there consist enough OL to have each player potentially draft two. Whilst that may be impractical, there is quality OL players who are young and will be around for the long haul, promoting the ability to add them into our fantasy system.
The downside, or rather more unknown side of Offensive Linemen, is how they perform within the team to gauge their potential in the coming season. For every other position, going through a teams TPE levels, depth chart and seeing how they played in the previous season gives a strong indication into how they might be expected to play or perform. This is easily seen with a player like Mattias Hanyadi, who’s consistent performance across the last 2-3 seasons as the highest scoring Running Back in fantasy, sees him always placed with 1OA value. Furthermore, you look to his team, the Yellowknife Wraiths, you see they just called up a QB and Two WR, to have a passing attack with 3 S22 players and a s23 player. A lack of TPE around these positions, it was clear that Yellowknife was going to be a run heavy team, putting more value into picking up Hanyadi. Can the same be said about OL and their performance?
Recently, there had been talk around the league about the lack of meaning in the stats of OL players. That is to say, that the stats the OL acquire, and thus their fantasy points, aren’t a real accurate representation of the player. On this topic, remember hearing that just having the OL on your team is enough, the stats are redundant and random. If this is this case, is having the randomness good for fantasy? Sure, we are using a sim that likes to screw everyone and everything possible, but there is some sense of predictability in positions like QB, RB or WR by looking at their TPE and the team, if this doesn’t carry over to OL, it becomes a guessing game for drafting OL and the question has to become is there too much randomness in their stats to add them to fantasy?
2. Will OL be added as a new position/extra round or replace the position of the FLEX position?
As it currently stands, Fantasy consists of 8 rounds, one of which being an offensive flex position, allowing users to pick either a 2nd RB or a 3rd WR to add to the team. If OL were to be added to fantasy, the heads need to decide whether they want to add an additional round, taking it up to 9 rounds, or potentially replace a position, which would more than likely be the flex position to not increase the round count. On the up side of adding an additional round to fantasy if OL was to be added, it keeps the amount of players currently be drafted not changed, the ability for your team to spiral up or down depending on games the same and keeps what essentially can be like a bench spot in case of wanting to drop and pickup someone for your team. The downside of adding the extra round is that as it currently stands, some fantasy drafts are not completed before the season as it stands and this will prolong the drafting time. Having people from around the world, it does make certain groups struggle to get everything done timely. In counter to this however, some group managers created a discord server/group to make it easier to be notified when it was your turn to pick as well as word from Bayley and Billybolo that there were looking to make a server that hosted every group for people interested in one, which should help increase the speed of the drafts. As a result of this, adding an extra round shouldn’t be as big of a problem in terms of timing that some people think it will be due to these new methods and allows the flex position to still exist.
3. If Offensive Linemen are added and points are being scored for pancakes, should this be added to the Tight End or Running Back’s scores?
This is probably the most crucial point to be determined if OL were to be added into fantasy football. Their entire ability to score points for fantasy football would be coming solely from the pancakes they rack up. Their only other recorded stat is sacks allowed, which would come with a negative point value in my eyes. Whilst the amount of points that should be allocated per pancake will be discussed later, it has to be kept in mind if pancakes, and the points awarded to them, will also be given to players not in the Offensive Linemen position, Tight Ends and Running Backs.
In season 23 of the ISFL, or NSFL as it was during that season, the most successful player in the OL position recorded above 70 pancakes, 9 of them, which would cover most of the OL taken in a 6 person fantasy draft. On the flip side, the top 9 Tight Ends had between 41 to 21 pancakes, which whilst being half of what most OL earn, could make certain TE unstoppable in fantasy points.
It is not necessarily a problem if Tight Ends become the highest scoring position, the problem lies in that there is currently a lack of credible fantasy point earners in that position. The advantage being is that the Tight Ends that catch the ball, playing as a receiver, will not be accumulating high numbers of pancakes and vice versa, tight ends that are used primarily as blockers, won’t have high pancakes. The TE with the most receiving yards last year, Avon Blocksdale Jr., had 730 yards, just shy of 700 yards from the most yards a WR carried the ball, in a season that say 11 WR have 1000 or more receiving yards. Without fantasy scores for the players, it makes it hard to clearly compare whether it will make Tight Ends overpowered in fantasy. Only 6 RB got over 20 pancakes, with the most being 38. The extra depth in this position should make them more stable if pancakes were added to their scores but caution still needs to be taken.
It is also possible that for the first season if OL are added, pancakes only count towards OL players and no other position. Other potential ideas could be pancakes count as 1 point for Tight Ends or Running Backs to not throw the system entirely on its head.
Speaking about the points system, if OL are added and all other concerns above are addressed to add them into fantasy, what type of points would they earn? Taking a look at the OL stats of last season, we can get an idea as to what could be expected. Drafts would consist of 6 OL being taken, but for the reason of not everything in a season going to plan and variability in the drafting phase of fantasy, looking at the top 8, by pancakes, gives a little more of an accurate average that we may see. Of course, only human user’s players can be drafted and will be looked at in this piece below.
1. Lazlo Forty-Two – 87 Pancakes, 1 Sack allowed
2. Bruce Buckley – 84 Pancakes, 0 sacks allowed
3. Bryon Dolls – 77 pancakes, 2 sacks allowed
4. Simon Tremblay – 76 pancakes, 1 sack allowed
5. Givusafarre Rubbe – 75 pancakes, 0 sacks allowed
6. Doug Quail – 75 pancakes, 0 sacks allowed
7. Benson Bayley Jr. – 74 pancakes, 2 sacks allowed
8. Edmond Beaver-Dantes – 71 pancakes, 5 sacks allowed.
Without last season’s fantasy scores, I have only decided to calculate the hypothetical scores based of what the league MVP of the season, Mattias Hanyadi, one of the highest fantasy point scores, In the top 5 if I remember correctly but may be wrong, highest scoring Running back. He earnt 281.6 points last season.
Scenario 1 – Pancakes = 2, sacks allowed = -5
1. Lazlo Forty-Two – 169 (1)
2. Bruce Buckley – 168 (2)
3. Bryon Dolls – 144 (6)
4. Simon Tremblay – 147 (5)
5. Givusafarre Rubbe – 150 (T3)
6. Doug Quail – 150 (T3)
7. Benson Bayley Jr. – 138 (7)
8. Edmond Beaver-Dantes – 117 (8)
This looks to make Offensive Linemen earn more points than the likes of Kickers/Punters or team defences but not reach the upper echelons of fantasy scores earned by the star Quarterbacks, Wide Receivers and Running backs. It looks to rewards good pancake numbers and attribute a value to allowing sacks, something we can see between as in this scenario, Lazlo outscore Buckley by 1 fantasy point, by having 3 more pancakes with his 1 sack allowed. Short story is that 3 pancakes more outweighs one extra sack allowed compared to fellow Offensive Linemen, which is probably too small but is a good starting point that is a solid entry plan for OL. The difference between he highest and lowest Linemen in this is 52 points, which is a fairly decent margin considering fantasy scores go over 1000 points for a user’s team quite easily.
Scenario 2 – Pancakes = 3, Sacks allowed = -5
1. Lazlo Forty-Two – 256 (1)
2. Bruce Buckley – 252 (2)
3. Bryon Dolls – 221 (6)
4. Simon Tremblay – 223 (5)
5. Givusafarre Rubbe – 225 (T3)
6. Doug Quail – 225 (T3)
7. Benson Bayley Jr. – 212 (7)
8. Edmond Beaver-Dantes – 188 (8)
This scenario just increases pancake score by 1, allowing the best OL to have scores that can see them jostle amongst some of the highest earners currently in fantasy, potentially seeing draft strategies change as they could be another option to land a high earner with some consistency, but know they won’t be the best fantasy players in the league. Trading superstar potential for consistency would be an interesting dynamic to a system filled with potential boom and busts. Pancakes at 3 is probably the highest they could go, as any more would see the top OL go well past the 300 fantasy point mark if they have a similar season, needing only 75 pancakes to do so, which 6 people did last season. I think its safe to say we don’t want OL being added and overtaking the whole system, but this scenario sees a lot more variance between the best and middle level of Linemen, 68 fantasy points between first and eighth.
In conclusion, I would very much enjoy the addition of Offensive Linemen into the fantasy system we currently have. There is different issues that need to be addressed that can be done in different ways that will best fit to serve the league, such as adding another round or replacing flex as well as whether pancakes will earn positions other than Linemen points. The two scenarios listed above are just quick ideas as to what their points may look like to get an idea as to how they may impact fantasy and start a discussion as to how we would want to see them perform, mixing it with the tier 2 Quarterbacks and running backs and being equal with Wide Receivers and Tight Ends or being between those positions and Kickers/Punters and team defence. There is definitely room to add Offensive Linemen to fantasy and with the change to fantasy leaders, I hope @"BayleyIsland" and @Billybolo53, do find a way to take this idea and turn it into reality as soon as they are able to implement it fairly and cleanly.
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