Get ready for a massively long post!

The following are the rules I have tailored from over a decade of fantasy football playing. When I explain the rules and the reasoning behind them, I'm confident many of you will not want to play under any other rule set ever again.

The key to my rules are BALANCE. This is something a group of gamers should understand very well. Many fantasy football rules (especially scoring systems) pay absolutely no attention to balance. Many players have just come to accept this imbalance. But with the right combination of very standard scoring rules, a good balance can be achieved.

First, though, let's talk roster sizes:

3 QBs (1 starter)
5-6 RBs (2 starters)
5-6 WRs (3 starters)
2-3 TEs (1 starter)
2 PKs (1 starter)
2 D/STs (1 starter)

Leagues with deep benches are, IMO, far preferable to ones with thin benches. It allows owners to use late-round picks on extra rookies or guys that could produce if they get a chance to get on the field. It rewards owners that pay attention to camp and preseason ball to scout for potential gems. It also emphasizes trading (social activity) over free agent land-grabbing (not so social). It provides a nicer buffer from injuries than thinner benches do. (In my leagues, I actually don't set maximum limits for any one position, but allow enough bench space to fill a roster in a pattern much like the one above. I don't mind limits though, as long as they're not too restrictive. Sometimes you want to be able to carry an extra WR or RB because you've got two or three guys with short-term injuries that you don't want to dump)

Also note the 3 starting WRs instead of 2. Most leagues are trending toward this, and I believe GWJ played with this rule as well. In today's NFL, the WR pool is too deep to only have 2 starting receivers per team. With 3 receivers, owners find joy in quietly productive players like Bobby Engram and Joe Jurivicius.

Now, onto the scoring system:

6 points per rushing & receiving touchdown, 4 points per passing touchdown
Nothing too exciting here, most leagues are like this. Some use a full 6 points per passing TD, which is horribly unbalanced.

1 point per 10 yards rushing
Pretty standard scoring here too. The other most common option is 1 point per 20 yards rushing. The reason I use 1/10 and hate 1/20 is because a 1/20 league places an overly heavy emphasis on touchdowns. In such a league, one goal-line touchdown run is equal to 120 yards rushing. That is, in my opinion, asinine. It's hard to make an exact equivalence between yards and touchdowns, but nice round numbers are desirable, and making 1 touchdown equal to 60 yards rushing is a lot more down to earth than 1 equaling 120 yards rushing.

My scoring system's reason for existence is to try and make a player's fantasy value as close as possibleto their real-life value. I hate seeing leagues where a Pro Bowl receiver is less valuable than an average, second-tier running back. I especially hate seeing productive players being less valuable than fullbacks that only touch the ball at the goal-line. A running back that runs for 120 yards may not have ultimately scored the touchdowns, but most likely set up two or three (or more) scoring drives. Over-valuing touchdowns (or, more accurately, under-valuing yardage) throws player values out of whack.

1 point per 10 yards receiving
Same argument here. 1 touchdown is equal to 60 receiving yards. 120 yards receiving is a monster performance, and it's ridiculous for a single TD catch to be equal to that level of performance.

1 point per reception
This was a newer tweak to my league's rules. The purpose of this rule is to bring wide receivers up to the same level as the two other major skill positions: QB and RB. Under other rules, wide receivers can be second class citizens. Tight ends also become more valuable relative to all other positions, making the position worth paying attention to. It also has a secondary effect of adding extra value to running backs that contribute as receivers. It gives value to pass receiving 3rd down backs.

1 point per 20 yards passing
This was traditionally 25 yards passing, but changing it to 20 counterbalanced the 1 point per reception rule, and brought all three major positions into as near-perfect of harmony as possible. 1/20 is actually more common than 1/25, so this change just brought us more in line with everyone else. 1/25 was more common back when I started playing, and it's just taken me a little while to let go.

-2 points per INT/lost fumble
Pretty common. Some leagues go with only -1, but that doesn't sufficiently punish INT-happy QBs, and with only -1, the QBs start to drift away from other positions in the scoring balance a bit.

EDIT: Forgot Kicking!
3 points per field goal 0-39 yards, 4 points from 40-49 yards, 5 points from 50-59 yards, 6 points 60+
1 point per XP, -1 point per FG or XP miss
Most leagues are like this or pretty damn close, nothing special here.

Defensive Scoring:

My defensive scoring system is still in the process of being tinkered with. This is what it was last year, though it's due to undergo reevaluation by my league's competition committee:

2 points per turnover/blocked kick
1 point per sack
6 points per defensive/special teams TD
2 points per safety
10 points for giving up 0 points
6 points for giving up 1-6 points
4 points for giving up 7-13 points
2 points for giving up 14-20 points
0 points for giving up 21-27 points
-2 points for giving up 28-34 points
-4 points for giving up 35-41 points
-6 points for giving up 42-55 points
-10 points for giving up 55+ points

Scoring Breakdown (2005):

Players in the Top 20:
QBs: 7
RBs: 6
WRs: 7

Average score of starters (and percentage of highest scoring position):
QBs (top 12): 248.75 (100%)
RBs (top 24): 227.375 (92%)
WRs (top 24): 237.209 (95%) / (top 36): 214.778 (86%)

Here we see the balance between the three main positions. Quarterbacks are the highest scoring of the three, but the average running back scores 92% as much as the average QB, and the average starting WRs (assuming 2 starters) score 95% as much. Even if we extend the starting lineups to 3 starting WRs per team, the average starting WR only dips to 86% of that of starting QBs.

Here's how the scoring breakdowns looked under the last GWJ league scoring system (which was 1/50 passing, 1/20 rushing and receiving, 1/3 receptions up to 9, -1 for offensive turnovers) - note, I plugged the scoring system into my league software, so the scores may be slightly different from the actual totals we had at FOX due to rounding differences, etc.

Players in the Top 20:
QBs: 7
RBs: 7
WRs: 3
PKs: 2
DFs: 1

Average score of starters:
QBs (top 12): 151.583 (100%)
RBs (top 24): 128.417 (85%)
WRs (top 24): 116.083 (77%) / (top 36): 100.117 (66%)

Here we see the disparity between the different positions. Quarterbacks heavily outbalance other positions - even the lowest scoring starting QB - Brunell - scored above the starting RB average.

Should Kerry Collins (138 points) be worth more than all but the top 7 running backs and wide receivers? Chad Johnson only managed to outscore Kerry Collins by 2 points. That's a flawed scoring system if you ask me.

I'm not even prepared to go into the fact that two kickers made the top 20. Jay Feely and Neil Rackers were more valuable than Marvin Harrison, Torry Holt, Matt Hasselbeck, Clinton Portis, etc?

This is what I'm talking about with balance. Nothing in the old GWJ scoring system looks "off" - it's all pretty straightforward and the yardage scoring is fairly common. But when we hold it under a microscope, we see how the totals just don't come out like they should.

Conclusion:
As you see, nothing in my scoring system is radical - it's very close to what you'll see suggested in many fantasy football magazines. I think very few fantasy owners realize just how much a scoring system can throw player values all over the place. The default scoring systems at some popular fantasy sites are pretty bad if you actually crunch the numbers and see how they break down.

A good scoring balance helps not only make things more interesting by not overvaluing certain positions, but it actually makes things simpler to understand - it's easier to know if 15 points is a "good" score from one of your top skill position players if the skill positions don't have a 20% variance between them. Plus, a casual fan doesn't have to wonder why Aaron Brooks is outscoring their top receiver - after all, doesn't Aaron Brooks "suck?".

So, mull all that over. I can tell you one thing - anyone that has gone to this scoring system has never, ever wanted to go back to anything else afterwards.

*Final Fantasy victory music plays*

Oh, and for people signing up, make sure you're not clicking the big yellow buttons for the Yahoo Plus! leagues, but rather the less flashy text links in the box beneath that. It took me a minute to realize what I was doing wrong.

I'm going to severely disagree with the DEEP BENCH setup. This will effectively KILL any type of waiver wire action we could have which IMO is a big part of the game. Alsoit will force more trading at injury times which would leave the person with injured people at a huge disadvantage. Instead of maybe picking up a guy in the waiver, they will have to trade a good player for a repalcement instead. In summary, I'd like to stay with the default Yahoo roster size.

Disagree with the -1 pt for missed kicks.

Negative points for defensive might be a bit high, I would go -1 to -5 points if we have to use that.

Never tried the point for reception or 4 pts for touchdown but worth a try.

Other stuff all good.

Signed up... the pre-draft rankings leave much to be desired, so I'll be working on that for awhile. Hopefully I can convince the wife that we can leave early Saturday morning to see her parents that weekend instead of Friday night so I can make the draft.

Everything looks good to me except for maybe the some of the defensive scoring, specifically how far into the minus a defensive unit can pick up, and 2pts per turn over seems a little high.

I don't know... I can think of maybe 10 defenses that I'd play week in and week out, the rest are situational. If we had more than 10 teams I'd be worried, but everyone should be able to pick up a solid DST and a situational DST (whoever is playing SF or Houston that week ) and not lose points. If your options are really bad, I guess you could also just not play one.

EDIT: If possible, factoring in whether the team won or lost would be good too... if it's a 35-0 blowout in the first half, it would suck to not get any points because the second string D came in and gave up 3 TDs.

Nomads signed up.

As *Legion* said, make sure that you're trying to join the right type of league. I got the same thing until I figured it out.

Thanks, went back and found the right link. Redhwk's (Playoff) Tankers are signed up.

Minase, if you arent available for the live draft, the computer will pick for you using your prerankings.

Sorry Mix, the names are listed in the main post for a reason. You missed the sign-up!

NP, my fault for being late to the game. Enjoy the season! I'll be interested to hear how people like Legion's setup. How do you think the rule changes will affect draft order? Still going to be 2 rounds of RBs before QBs and WRs?

Yes!

I took care of it

I know, that's what I'm afraid of. Weird things happen in a live fantasy draft. I've seen all the good DSTs drop relatively early because one person took the strongest one and everyone else followed suit, or vice/versa where the DSTs went late. That means that the autodrafters get screwed on either end. For the early rounds prerankings are OK, but I like to micromanage and analyze every round, not just 1-3, and yahoo's system isn't complex enough for my tastes.

Time to try the 'honey, I think I'll have to work late that night' routine.