How to adjust for point-per-first-down scoring in fantasy

Many fantasy football players have heard of leagues that use point-per-first down scoring, but few players have been part of leagues that incorporate the scoring option. With the biggest such league (the 10th annual Scott Fish Bowl — SFBX) getting going as we speak, FTN wanted to give you a rundown of what the system really attempts to accomplish and a way to create your own projections for SFBX or any other league that uses PP1D.

Point per first down basics

The scoring system was created as a way to counteract the perceived notion that PPR scoring was shifting too much toward wide receivers; by incorporating first downs, running backs, especially running backs who do not catch a lot of passes, gain back some of the advantage that was shifted over to heavy-volume pass-catchers. Running backs earn back some of the luster they have lost as they can gain first downs two ways (rushing and receiving), while wide receivers and tight ends primarily only get receiving first downs.

Rushing first downs

I have attempted to do a decent amount of analysis on first downs using results from the top 200 rush-yard seasons over the last three years; after looking at nearly every breakdown of stats available I have concluded that first downs are hard to project accurately, so we need to be okay with this process being a projection and not a clairvoyant prediction.

The first chart shows an attempt to show a correlation between rushing averages (yards per carry) and first down percentage (first downs per yard). Based on the scattering of the data points you can see this did not provide much clarity.

The second attempt was to compare first downs per carry in an effort to see in pure quantity of touches was the magic bullet; the data was better (R = 0.872), but I felt this was a forced correlation and did not result in the best projection method.

The best results came when applying the most simplistic of stats, first downs per yard (R = 0.934). The regression ration for this data resulted in a final equation of y = 0.0508x, meaning you can expect first downs to be approximately 5.1% of a player’s rushing yard total.

Receiving first downs

For receiving, I used the top 500 yardage totals over the past three seasons — those seasons came from 86 running backs, 305 wide receivers and 109 tight ends.

The first chart attempts to show a correlation between receiving average (yards per reception) and first down rate (first downs per yard). While the data was verbose and did not appear to provide much usable correlation, it does show that shorter catches resulted in a higher percentage of first downs. I did not particularly trust this result as it seemed counterintuitive to what I know about running backs, so I decided to break up the results for my next runs into three pots – running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.

First downs per receptions had a positive correlation, but it was much lower (R = 0.645) than the results from the first downs per yard data when that data was broken down by position.

Running back data for first downs per yard resulted in an R-value of 0.9352 and first downs can be projected at y = 0.045x, or 4.5% of a player’s yardage total — this result made much more sense to me with running backs receiving a large portion of their receiving work on third downs that do not result in first downs, and this 4.5% figure ended up being the lowest of all the receiving first down factors.

Wide receiver data for first downs per yard resulted in a strong R-value of 0.9584 and first downs can be projected at y = 0.0483x, or about 4.8% of a player’s yardage total.

Tight end data for first downs per yard resulted in the strongest R-value of 0.9689 and first downs can be projected at y = 0.0503x, or approximately 5.0% of a player’s yardage total.

Summary

First downs are difficult to project accurately year over year, this process needs to be taken loosely, but if you want to project first down for your league, here are the formulas I am suggesting you use.