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The FFPC and FPC award 1.5 points for a reception by tight ends but only a single point to running backs and wide receivers. How significant is this? How does your strategy change at tight end in this scoring system?
Matt Waldman: It might. If the flex option for tight ends allows you to start two tight ends and keeps your backs limited to two starters and no more than three starters at receiver, then I think it would change my strategy. Now if I can get two of the top-four fantasy tight ends I've projected for the season (Graham-Witten-Gonzalez-(healthy/non-PUP Gronkowski) and still believe I'm in the hunt for quality starters elsewhere, sure.
However, I'm not going to elevate the mid-TE1s (Olsen, Davis, etc) or low end TE1s if that same system allows me to start 3-4 RBs or 3-4 WRs. I'd rather have the backs and receivers and one of the surefire tight ends.
Jason Wood: Having just recently participated in my first FFPC event, this is top of mind for me. The easiest way to think of the 1.5 PPR is that it increases the tight end positions RELATIVE value to all other positions. That said, I think some owners overreact to the 1.5 believing it somehow over inflates the tight ends. It doesn't. This is simple math. The 12th best TE is still the baseline player, and their VBD remains neutral. It's those top end players who can have a more pronounced value.
I took Graham at 1.05 in my FFPC draft and was thrilled with the opportunity. Gronk went at the end of the 1st round and Witten went immediately after Gronk. Vernon Davis and Tony Gonzalez went in the 3rd round. After those TEs, the position took a breather and from there it seemed that TEs were coming off the board relatively close to where you would expect them to otherwise.
Another consideration is replacement value for FLEX positions. If you're looking at a WR6 in the last few rounds that you think can catch 50 receptions for 750 yards, you have to think about whether it's better to take that 2nd or 3rd TE projected to grab 50 receptions for 500 yards. In a standard PPR format, the answer is no. But in a 1.5, it's a closer decision. You're talking about 125 points for the WR versus 125 points for the TE = dead even. I've found it's easier to grab a known starter TE2/TE3 as an end game pick in FFPC scoring than it should be, and there's arbitrage value in that.
Adam Harstad: Like Jason said, it's all about value above baseline. The first thing I do whenever I'm dealing with any set of rules is go back and look at how previous seasons looked under those rules. Most league management software will allow you to look at one or two previous seasons' worth of stats filtered through your league's particular scoring system, so do that. Look at how much it increases the gap between the top TEs and the bottom TEs. Also, if your league allows a flex (and TEs are eligible for that flex), try to predict how many TEs will be flexed in any given week. If you think maybe a third of the teams will be flexing a TE, a third will be flexing an RB, and a third will be flexing a WR, adjust your baselines to account for that. Instead of using baselines of RB24, WR36, and TE12, use RB28, WR40, and TE16.
As an aside, this is the process I go through for any unusual scoring rule. Playing in a league that rewards return yardage? A league that gives a half point per carry? A league that gives a point for completions and subtracts a point for incompletions? A yardage-heavy league? A superflex league? Regardless of the exotic rules you run into, the easiest way to place them in context is to look at previous seasons, use that history to estimate where the baseline will be (i.e. how many players will be starting at each position on a weekly basis), and guesstimate value over baseline based on historical trends.
Andy Hicks: The last four years have seen an explosion of fantasy points at the tight end position. I don't know the history of the 1.5 points per reception, but my gut feel is that prior to 2009, tight ends, with a couple of exceptions, were getting drafted among the 3rd string receivers. To balance out the inequality of a position, upping the PPR for a tight end made them more valuable and put more variety into a draft. Since then we have had a phenomenal group of tight ends enter the league or reach their peaks, as well as offenses tailored to utilize their skills. In each of the last 4 years we have had 4 tight ends get at least 130 fantasy points and 14 tight ends get at least 90 fantasy points. Prior to that we were lucky to get one or two over 130 and eight or nine at 90 fantasy points.
This year however looks like a regression given the injury and otherwise forced absence of top tight ends. Maybe others take their place, maybe not. In this scoring system it depends on the calibre of players available and this year outside my top 4 tight ends (Graham, Gronkowski, Davis & Gonzalez) I have trouble justifying altering draft slots too dramatically. If I miss one of the top 4, I'd just grab about four of them later on and hope for the best. In reality I would be pushing hard and would likely sacrifice a WR2 to get one of the top 4.
Jeff Pasquino: As one of the guys who looks hard at this topic, I am very familiar with the boost in perceived value that 1.5 PPR gives to tight ends. As I pointed out in that article, it is relatively rare for a tight end to have 80 or more receptions in a season. Only 14 tight ends in five years have accomplished this, an average of less than three a year. So if you think that your tight end is going to give you more than an extra 1-3 points a week, you are sadly mistaken. Odds are that a TE1 will get about 4 catches a week or so, so two extra points is highly unlikely to make or break your team. It is true, however, that even with this minor bump up in value, tight ends do go earlier in fantasy drafts and you can expect several to go in the first 3-4 rounds in a PPR bonus league.
The difference for the FFPC and FPC is that not only do you have to start one tight end every week, but the dual flex allows for up to three tight ends to be in your lineup. From the other piece that I wrote about the Dual Flex, having players that can score 10+ fantasy points per week on average is the requirement for getting startable players. About 100 players meet or exceed this level each year, so trying to get more than 9 or 10 is difficult. The breakdown of that 100-ish group is that about 20 of them are usually tight ends, so that expands the group of available starters - meaning that if you were able to do a rear-view draft and see all 100 players after their points were already known, 20 tight ends should go in the first 100 picks on average. Compare that to the current ADP for tight ends in normal PPR and you see TE 20 is Round 14, so there's good reason to go after tight ends earlier with the FPC and FFPC formats given the lineup possibilities.
Will Grant: I'll second what Jason has to say about this - the top Tier TEs are something that you want to target, but be careful not to elevate those mid-tier guys too much. This season, with Aaron Hernandez out of the picture and Dennis Pitta gone for the season, the top tier TE group is pretty thin. I think if you can land a guy like Gronk or Graham in the first round, you might want to do it and Witten is a 2nd round pick for sure (although maybe a little lower than 2.01). After that, I'd back off a bit, pound RB/WR and then wait for a good opportunity to grab back to back TE after the middle tier of RB and WR starts to get thin. If you can land 2 quality RB and WR and then go back to back on TE to get two guys like Cook, Finley or Daniels, you'll have fielded a really competitive team.
The other thing that I might do is reach a little on a value TE like Martellus Bennett. If other owners are blowing him off, I might grab him a little higher than his ADP because I know he's going to outperform it anyway.
Mark Wimer: I've been doing this with Martellus Bennett all season long (in both 1.0 and 1.5 PPR scoring paradigms for tight ends).
If you miss on Graham early in the draft (and he's the only elite tight end I've been considering as a low first/early second round pick - I think Gronkowski has too much injury uncertainty for a premium-round pick) then I'm waiting either for A). Gonzalez to drop due to his advanced age or B). making the move that Will advocates regarding Bennett.
Stephen Holloway: Totally agree with Matt here that the ability to flex tight ends is more critical than the increased scoring. The closely packed and large group of tight ends which follow the top three (Graham, Witten & Gronkowski) enables drafting of multiple other positions while waiting on tight ends, regardless of scoring set-up because the separation is just not there.
