I’ve been meaning to pen this blog for about a month now, and with Fantasy Championships wrapping up tonight, I could procrastinate no longer. 

The way we play traditional Fantasy football is a complete shit show, and it’s about time we blow up the traditional scoring system. Real talkl: the head-to-head setup is a bigger joke than the Bears’ offensive line. It’s pure chaos. 

(In a traditional, head-to-head matchup, PPR scoring league) You can dominate all year, dropping 195 points a week, but if your opponent has their best week of the season that week facing you, and scores 200, and this happens more weeks than not, you don’t even make the playoffs. 

Meanwhile, there’s always some bum who limps into the playoffs scoring a pathetic 150 points a week, but catches everybody with their key starters on bye-weeks, or their big guys go down with injuries in the 1st half, and they somehow manage to get hot at the right time and steal the trophy. It’s infuriating. Don’t even begin to consider how a single injury or a bye week can completely ruin your entire season.

I’ve been asking around for what other leagues do because this has been driving me nuts for the past few years. Not because it’s necessarily cost me even- but because each week it feels like we’re playing the lottery, or a straight up game of chance, becuase of the fact it all comes down to who your opponent is and how your opponent does as much as your own team’s performance. 

I think the best concept I’ve heard thus far is the “Victory Points” model. 

We’ve got to do better. And I think this is the way. 

As a civilized society, we’ve got to scrap this matchup luck nonsense. Go with total points instead. Let everyone rack up points all year, and the top scorers make the playoffs. Easy. If you’re consistent and actually good at managing a team, you’re rewarded.

If you still want some of that head-to-head drama, try victory points. You get points for winning your matchup and bonus points if you’re in the top half of weekly scorers. It’s like combining the fairness of total points with just enough chaos to keep things interesting.

My barber’s league awards each “head-to-head-matchup” winning team 6 points a week, and the top 6 scoring teams (12 team league) get another 6. So you can lose your matchup but still score 6 points that week. Or you can win your matchup and be in the top half of scoring and score 12 that week. Or stink it up but beat your opponent head to head, but be in the bottom half of scoring and score 6. Or lose and shit the bed completely and score 0. 

I guess if you really want to eliminate the BS, you can always go full-on all-play. Every week, your score gets matched up against everyone in the league. If you outscore eight teams in a 12-team league, you go 8-3 for the week. None of this “you scored 190 points but still lost because your opponent dropped 191” garbage.

At least that way, you’re not punished for having a great week against the one guy who decided to go nuclear.

Another guy I know told me his league found a way to eliminate the “I benched the wrong guy” nightmare. They call it a “best ball league.” 

Best ball leagues automatically play your best lineup every week, which I think is both genius and soul-saving. But it may also reward the lazy fucks who don’t bother to check their lineup for an entire week.

Fantasy football is supposed to reward the grinders. The guys who are wheeling and dealing on waivers, making ballsy lineup decisions, and sweating every snap. 

Instead, it’s turned into a game of pure luck. 

If we’re going to keep pretending this is about skill, we’ve got to ditch the broken system and bring in something fair, like all-play or victory points. 

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of watching fantasy titles get handed out to the league’s equivalent of Kirk Cousins on a primetime stage. We need to figure this out as a group, and do ourselves a favor and fix this mess.

I would love to know what everybody thinks is the best scoring system that has worked for them in the comments.