Fantasy Football and Math

Fantasy Football is a big thing.  Adults have leagues where they set up teams, trade, and go through the math to figure out who they want to keep, who they want to trade for, and who they don't want on their team.

Some of this is determined by whether you use the standard scoring system or a point per reception (PPR).  If you use a standard scoring system, you prefer running backs but if you use the PPR system both wide receivers and running backs are about equal. If quarterbacks are worth four or six points, that will determine if you want a normal quarterback at the four points or someone who is much better for the six points.

Once you know exactly what is going on with points and such, you can then begin to put together your draft list.  Instead of looking at the number of points a player makes, look for how points he out scores other people doing the same position.  For fantasy football leagues, this is considered a much better indicator.

Now how do you take this information and put it into the math classroom?  Back in 2011, the New York Times published a lesson plan for the classroom on using Fantasy Football to teach math to students.  It provides links to resources to learn more about the topic so if you need to bring your students up to speed you can.

It has the class divide into pairs and each pair creates their own three person team of a quarterback, a running back, and a receiver using statistics to base their decisions on.  After naming their teams, they will share with the rest of the class, their choices and reasons why they chose those specific players.

The next step is to collect more data on each player to be used for matchups.  They would need to find the passing yards, touchdowns, and interceptions for the quarterback, passing yards allowed, passing touchdowns allowed, and interceptions for the NFL teams.  All this data can be typed into a spread sheet to organize it and make it easier to carry out the math for matchups and other things.

The article also includes a link to a Fantasy Points Scoring guide to help determine which matchups will create the most points.  Once they've gotten everything done, students are asked to monitor the games over the weekend so on the following Monday, they take the results and determine which team one.  The lesson plan also includes an extension.  The great thing about this lesson plan is that you the teacher do not have to know a lot about the how Fantasy Football works.

The above activity can be introduced using a Fantasy Football activity from Yummy Math.  This one has information on how to turn the stats into points and that information is used to answer question on players such as Tom Brady and Carson Wentz.  In addition, it also covers a different scoring system for wide receivers and tight ends. Towards the end, students are required to fill out a chart with players and their fantasy points along with creating an algebraic expression for total points.

The New York Times Activity will take several weeks to complete while the Yummy Math should take no more than two periods but the second gives a good introduction.  Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.