Improving Fantasy Football

Every week, millions of Americans set their fantasy football lineups in hopes of a head-to-head victory over one of their friends. They check their score, root for their players, and banter jokingly over the best waiver wire pickups for the week. But despite the enjoyment that so many people take away from fantasy, there are still tweaks that can make it an even more interesting and equitable game.

To start, I'd like to add a little more flavor to the kicking game. I propose that leagues give kickers six full points for a field goal longer than 59 yards and award bonuses for game-winning or record-breaking field goals. The public league I play in already gives bonuses for field goals of 40-49 and 50+ yards, so why not reward special teamers who make even lengthier kicks? I also think fantasy players should receive an additional one-point bonus for any game-winning field goal. That 39-yarder as time expires? It gets you four. And when someone makes the first 67-yard field goal in NFL history, it should count for eight fantasy points: six for the kick and two for breaking the all-time record.

Speaking of breaking records, I would also like fantasy managers to earn bonuses for any record that is broken or milestone that is set by a player they manage during a game. Prominence of the record will play an important role in determining the amount of the bonus. Tom Brady's 600th TD earlier in the year would be worth somewhere around eight to 10 fantasy points, four for the passing TD and four to six for the milestone. Justin Tucker's 66-yarder would be a two-point bonus for the distance record, while an RB surpassing the all-time rushing record would earn somewhere around eight to 10 bonus points. Among other things, this adds to the intrigue and fantasy-relevance of players who are still legends on the field, but no longer produce in fantasy on a weekly basis. Drafts and waiver wires will be more competitive whenever record-breaking opportunities come up as fantasy managers compete for the players likely to receive large bonuses. Managers will need to make difficult roster decisions about who to keep or drop in favor of the legends of the game.

There is caveat here that needs to be addressed, and that's the fact that there could be leagues somewhere in this fantasy football multiverse that already use rules like these. There's no easy way to check an entire planet's leagues, although I have to admit there's something about the task that I find enticing.

As great a game as fantasy football is, it can still use a few tweaks. I think awarding kickers additional bonuses and giving out additional points for record-breaking and milestone performances will make the game even more interesting and add more skill-based incentives to the sport.

Julian Edelman and the Pro Football Hall of Fame

Julian Edelman this week retired from professional football after failing his physical with the New England Patriots. Chatter immediately began as to whether or not the former slot receiver was worthy of a spot among the immortals in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Edelman presents an interesting case as he seems to fall far short of enshrinement standards, but excelled when it mattered most in the postseason. Let's take a look at some arguments for and against the wideout.

Perhaps the best comparison to Edelman is Lynn Swann. Swann is the only Hall of Famer among Julian Edelman's pro-football-reference comparables. Like Edelman, he has relatively weak regular season statistics that were buoyed by excellent postseason play. In regular season scrimmage yards, Edelman bests Swann by just over 1700, though Swann has a huge leg up when it comes to average yards per touch thanks to a shorter career. Swann led the league in touchdown catches in his sophomore campaign, while Edelman has no black ink on his pro-football-reference page.

The differentials between their postseason numbers are similar to their regular season ones. Edelman leads Swann by nearly 600 in postseason scrimmage yards, despite playing just three more games, but Swann's touchdown and yards-per-touch totals are superior to the former Patriot's. So while Edelman and Swann are close, Swann has a little bit of an edge, so if he's a borderline Hall member, that bodes poorly for Edelman.

Edelman is also 156th all-time in receiving yards, sandwiched between fullback Larry Centers and 1960s wide receiver Charley Hennigan. (Hennigan perhaps isn't the worst Hall candidate himself, leading the league in nine categories over two seasons of AFL action).

So I don't think Julian Edelman is a Hall of Famer. These arguments can be looked at from dozens of viewpoints, so maybe there's something I haven't thought of that would give Edelman a better case. Regardless, I have him on the outside looking in right now, an all-time great who will live on in sports history forever, but who falls a little shy of Canton's standards.