What is a Reception Worth?

To PPR, or not to PPR: That is the question.

Well, at least until the last few years it was a question. It seems more Fantasy Football leagues have some scoring per reception than have the ol' standard format. Before giving points per reception (PPR) became the new standard RBs ruled over all and drafts were so front loaded on the position. To help fix this, giving points for catching passes evened things out some. But now RBs are used differently (not so many "bell-cows", but some grab more receptions) and offenses have changed with tempo and play style that it may be a good idea to take a step back and see how points per reception impacts scoring. 

For now, I'm going to look at this impact over the course of an entire season and make a comparison though overall position finishes from 2013 to 2018 -- so we'll see how the top 60 WRs compare to the top 60 RBs each year and what trends/bits of info we can extract. Per usual, the visual below is interactive and you can slide the PPR value to see how it affects season totals and you can toggle positions as well. Zoom in by dragging a box over some points and double-clicking, double click again to reset. Play around for a little then I'll go over a few things that stood out to me. Quick notes: 

1. When you move the slider and change the PPR value the position ranks are re-calculated. 
2. We don't know who'll be the top scorers at each position but this will help guide the decision making process

Well there's some cool stuff to gather here by taking a look at the trend-lines -- let's start at the good'ol zero points per reception. There is a nice gap between QBs and other positions and it's fairly significant at the top (BTW this is 4pt TD pass, -1pt INT). But what I find interesting is the gap widens as you move past the top 6. Only the top few TEs mean much. RBs > WRs until about 23. 

Sliding up to 1/2 PPR, we see a few TEs actually catch up to WR/RB but still lag behind. If you can, make sure to grab one of the elite tight ends otherwise, well, ugh. RB > WR still, but it's only until the top 7. 

Crank it up to 1 PPR and we start to see a logjam at the top between QB, RB, and WR. The top RBs are still above the top WRs, but only at the very top. Even more, it seems as PPR increases the very beginning (say top 5) of the RB line really jumps up much more than lower ranks. The top RBs are actually helped more by higher PPR than the top WRs. What about TEs?

Moving on and highlighting what's going on at the top of each position's ranks at 1 PPR:

• The RB and TE slopes are the most drastic -- those positions are top heavy so grab the big boys if you can.
• WR slope isn't as severe which suggests waiting might be a good idea.
• QB does a bit of both -- there's a fast drop from 1 to 6 but then levels out, so one can argue to either grab one you're confident in a little earlier or really wait it out. With the QB position seemingly getting deeper each season you might be able to really hold out.

Some of the above may be news to you, some may have been obvious (grab and awesome RBs and TEs, duh) but I think the visualization helps make some things clearer (maybe). Putting some bounds on when the obvious things change is helpful.

But what is a reception worth? Well, it depends. Part of the reason I matched up positions by final point total ranks is to directly make this comparison. Specifically, let's just look at WRs and RBs and pose the question "What would a reception be worth to make the point totals (by rank and year) equal?" It would look something like this (beware, ALGEBRA AHEAD):

RB non-ppr points + PPR×RB rec = WR non-ppr points + PPR×WR rec

RB non-ppr points - WR non-ppr points = PPR×(WR rec - RB rec)

PPR = (RB non-ppr points - WR non-ppr points) / (WR rec - RB rec)­­

So, for each position rank, the value of a reception is the ratio of the difference of points and the difference of receptions (notice the WR and RB switch between numerator and denominator). There are a couple of cases to consider:

1. The PPR ratio is negative (i.e. RB or WR has more points and more receptions)
2. The PPR ratio is positive (i.e. RB or WR more points and less receptions) 

When the PPR ratio is negative, the actual value of a reception doesn't make a difference in terms of getting receivers and backs equal. If a position rank has more non-ppr points and then also more receptions the only way to make ranks equal is to have a negative PPR. When the PPR ratio is positive it shows the threshold to have the matched rankings be equal in points. Let's take a look at a scatter plot (same way to zoom by dragging a block and double-clicking). The points are colored by the position that had more non-PPR points. 

WTF are we looking at? The ratio jumps around some by individual points so we'll focus on the purple trend-line. Also note, as we've seen before, many of the points early on show RBs score more (in zero PPR), only to be overtaken by WRs. 

Matched Position Rank	PPR Ratio
1	3.14
2	2.70
3	1.88
4	1.43
5	1.69
6	2.05
7	0.83
8	0.56
9	0.20
10	0.19
11	0.17
12	0.19

An example of how to interpret the table above: The PPR Ratio for Rank 1 is 3.14, which means that if your league gives that many points for a reception then the top WR should score about the same as the top RB. Any PPR values less than that means that the RBs are going to be outproducing WRs, in general. I don't know too many leagues that give three points for a reception. We see that the PPR Ratio doesn't drop below 1 until Rank 7! Earlier we showed that the top RBs are the bread-winners but now we see by how much. At Rank 7 the PPR Ratio is 0.83 which means if you're in a 1 point per reception league WRs have the advantage at that rank, but if you're in a 0.5 PPR then it's still the RBs. 

Furthermore, the PPR ratio is positive until about Rank 23. (Does that rank seem familiar?) Again a positive ratio means any PPR value will have some impact on closing the gap. I will note that if the PPR Ratio is 0.20 or less, the data is too noisy to make concrete conclusions, maybe it can be a tie-breaker for any decisions you'll be making with this. If you want to see the PPR Ratio for ranks 1 through 60, there is a link to an Excel file: PPR Ratio Excel download

Well I learned a lot by going through this analysis and I hope I gave you some info you can take do your upcoming drafts. As always, feel free to reach out with any feedback via email (math.w.jerome@gmail.com) or through twitter!

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