A New Type of Fantasy Football League: Category Fantasy Football

It’s that time of year again. The summer is winding down, the leaves are soon to be falling off the trees, and most importantly football is in the air.

For many, that means the start of cheering on your favorite team and hoping that they are able to make a run at the playoffs and eventually even the Super Bowl.

For some of us, it means the beginning of an entirely different game – it means the beginning of fantasy football.

I have been playing fantasy football for over a decade now. It’s an absolute blast. I love the pre-season preparation. I love drafting my team. I love watching my guys score. Most of all, I love ridiculing other owners while I hoist the championship trophy at the end of the year.

It was my love of fantasy football that led me to joining my first fantasy baseball league this year. Though I have absolutely no interest in baseball and I drafted arguably the worst team ever assembled, I have combined pure luck with the waiver wire to put me on the track that led me to locking up my division last week.

Fantasy baseball holds little relevance to the subject at hand, other than that it got me interested in the way that the game is scored. Unlike standard fantasy football leagues, your average fantasy baseball league doesn’t use “points” to calculate who wins or loses a game. Instead, it uses a number of pitching and batting categories to determine which team had the more productive week overall.

For example, your league may be a “5 x 5” league, which would indicate that there are five batting categories and five pitching categories. These categories may vary but could include things like Batting Average, Home Runs, Runs Scored, RBI, and Stolen Bases on the batting side; Wins, Strikeouts, Saves, ERA, and WHIP on the pitching side.

This type of scoring system allows teams to be assembled in a number of ways. An owner could decide to focus on pitching while hoping to steal a batting category or two; or he or she may do the complete opposite by focusing on hitting. An owner could also decide to try to assemble a more balanced team which could win both batting and pitching categories, but is not particularly strong in one area. The combinations of strategies in fantasy baseball are endless.

In addition to the various drafting techniques, fantasy baseball is also interesting because it makes room for players who have more specific roles. Players who are great base-stealers, for example, can be owned in leagues simply because they could potentially single-handedly win their owner the ‘stolen bases’ category. While it is only one category, it could be the difference between winning and losing the game for the week if things are close in other areas.

Fantasy football is different. It does not really leave room for players who fill specific roles for their team. Instead, we focus on which players will get us the most total “points,” regardless of how those points are accrued.

We don’t care if Michael Turner runs for 200 yards and zero touchdowns, 80 yards and two touchdowns, or 20 yards and three touchdowns – all that we care about is that he got us 20 fantasy points this week.

Most fantasy leagues completely neglect individual defensive players and kick returners, instead focusing on a boring (and many would argue pointless) position that we call “Defense/Special Teams.”

With these issues in mind, I decided to look at what fantasy baseball does with categories and try to apply it to football. At first it seemed like a simple idea that would be relatively easy to implement. The more I looked into it, the more I began to realize that football statistics are difficult to turn into categories.

Determined to figure out a way to do this, I looked all around and I believe that I’ve found an effective, fun, and unique way of using categories for scoring in this new style of fantasy football.

These categories include offensive, defensive, and special teams scoring in order to balance scoring more than a traditional fantasy football league.

What Are the Categories?

Total Touchdowns – The total number of touchdowns scored by the team, including offensive, defense, and special teams touchdowns

Offensive Yards - Passing/rushing/receiving

Receptions – Offensive passes caught by a player any position

Explosive Offensive Plays – Passes, rushes, and receptions of 20+ yards

Tackles – Total number of tackles, both solo and assisted

Sacks – Total number of sacks, including half-sacks

Turnovers Forced – Interceptions made + fumble recovered

Passes Defended

Kicking – Field goals worth 3, extra points worth 1

Total Return Yardage – Kick return yardage + punt return yardage

How Does the League Work?

Like in fantasy baseball, this scoring system will be entirely about winning categories in a given week. The team with the most categories won in a head-to-head contest will be victorious.

In traditional leagues, an owner could conceivably win a game by simply scoring more touchdowns, but this scoring system balances things by forcing the owner to invest in a variety of offensive, defense, and special teams areas. Like in the real game of football and unlike traditional fantasy, in this scoring system, a great offense by itself cannot win a game – the team needs the defense and special teams to perform as well.

What Does a Starting Lineup Look Like?

Quarterback
Running Back
Running Back
Wide Receiver
Wide Receiver
Running Back / Wide Receiver / Tight End (Flex)
Tight End
Defensive Line
Defensive Line
Linebacker
Linebacker
Cornerback / Safety (Flex)
Cornerback / Safety (Flex)
Cornerback / Safety (Flex)
Safety
Kicker
Returner

Because there are so many categories, the rosters are also a lot larger than a standard league. There are 40 total roster spots – 16 starting spots with 24 bench spots. This can leave you thin at quite a few positions, but it will also leave the free agent talent pool more open to pick up players and plug them in when needed.

How Will Draft Strategies Change?

This is perhaps the most interesting and yet to be determined portion of the equation. Unlike standard IDP (Individual Defensive Player) leagues where defensive players are still relatively low-scoring in comparison to their offensive counterparts, this scoring system gives equal precedence to offensive and defensive players. With that, one could argue that an elite defensive player like Patrick Willis is every bit as valuable as an elite offensive player like Chris Johnson.

In this league, players who traditionally score on one side of the ball could also occasionally get points on the other side of the ball.

If I have Ryan Grant in my starting lineup and Aaron Rodgers throws an interception to a defender who ends up being tackled by Ryan Grant, I will actually get credit for the tackle; just as I would if he was a defensive player.

If I have Jared Allen in my lineup and the Vikings decide to put him in on offense at the goal line and throw him a touchdown pass, I will actually get points for the reception, yardage, and touchdown; just as I would if he was an offensive player.

Players who return kicks and play on offense or defense may add an interesting dimension to this league.

Vikings WR Percy Harvin caught 60 passes for 790 yards and six touchdowns, ran for 135 yards, and had 1,156 yards and two touchdowns in kick returns. While he had value in a standard scoring league, his ability to contribute points in a variety of categories would have made him very valuable within the category scoring system.

One-trick-pony players like Dwight Freeney, who is a sack machine but rarely contributes in other statistical areas, may have big-time value if your team is strong in other areas and you just need to add sacks.

How Do You Keep Score?

Because this league style is new and unknown, there aren’t websites that use the category scoring systems. However, the website http://myfantasyleague.com does have a way to track all of these statistics. Using this website, we can setup rosters and scoring types that match the ones above. By setting every scoring item (except field goals which will remain three) to a point value of one for every event, the commissioner of the league can manually place them within categories.

Unfortunately, this type of scoring system comes at a price tag of $89.95 from MyFantasyLeague.com. The league commissioner will have to decide if it’s worth his or her time to completely manually score the league or drop the money to have most of it done automatically.

Why Should I Be in a League Like This?

At this point, we don’t have any record of exactly how well a league like this will work.

Fantasy football is about having fun. What better way to bring excitement to your league than introducing a completely new way of playing?

Though every league has its quirky rules, this league is the first of its kind. While I wouldn’t recommend leaving your traditional fantasy football leagues, if you’re looking to start a new league that’s not exactly like everyone else’s, I think it’s worth giving this kind of league a chance.

I will be starting my own Category League this year and I will periodically post updates this season. If the league goes well, I will be looking for a web application developer who can help me create an automated way of scoring Category Fantasy Football in 2011. If this happens, I will make the application available to use for other commissioners.

If you do decide to create a Category League like this, please leave a comment here, as I’d be interested in seeing how your league works! Best of luck in all of your leagues this season!