When touchdowns are the only means for your fantasy team to score points, how do you adjust your drafting strategy? Typically, quarterbacks earn four points per passing touchdown, while any player earns six points for scoring rushing or receiving touchdowns, including defense and special teams. This format is both fun and frustrating due to the unpredictability of touchdown scoring in the NFL week to week. Strategy should be based on probabilities and opportunities with a few simple overarching principles.
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1. High scoring teams are easier to predict than individual touchdowns
The best way to zero in on the teams that give your TD-scoring only squad a chance to succeed is to look at the betting lines. Before your draft, you can see all teams’ win/loss lines, but more importantly, their implied team totals for every game and the season. For 2023, the current projected highest-scoring offenses will be, in order: Kansas City, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, LA Chargers, Detroit, Dallas, Baltimore, Miami and Minnesota. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, but you must bear it in mind when you’re deciding between two otherwise similar players. The player on the team expected to score more points is almost always the better selection.
2. Quarterbacks score more touchdowns than any other players
This is why their passing touchdowns are worth fewer fantasy points than others, of course. However, QB scoring in fantasy is the most correlated position with implied team total so ideally, you combine these first two points into a single pick. In many single QB leagues, you’d be ridiculed for taking a QB in the first or second round, but here, I recommend it. If you can snag Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts or Joe Burrow with your first pick of the draft, do it! These guys average at least two touchdowns per game, and with Hurts you get a mega-bonus for all the rushing touchdowns he contributes (13 in 2022). Justin Fields, Allen, Trevor Lawrence, Burrow and Daniel Jones all join Hurts in scoring at least five rushing touchdowns last season. Having consistency at the QB position is crucial to be competitive every week in a TD only league, so don’t be shy about snagging your stud early.
3. Does the team have a “go-to guy”?
Even on a less potent offense, if a majority of the scoring funnels through a specific player, that player is going to be much more valuable than one of five equally utilized options on a higher scoring team. On a team like the Rams, which is expected to be one of the lowest scoring, we can reasonably expect what offense there is to funnel through Cooper Kupp, making him a quality early pick. He’s garnered over 30 percent of the Rams targets when healthy. In addition, Justin Jefferson, Tyreek Hill, Ja’Marr Chase, Davante Adams, Drake London and A.J. Brown all saw a 29 percent or higher target share in 2022. At tight end, it’s Mark Andrews and Travis Kelce drawing all the opportunity. Moreover, Kelce had more red zone targets last year than any wide receiver in the league (30), and 10 more than the next highest tight end (David Njoku). More and more teams are moving to a running back by committee approach, but in 2022 there were several productive players who dominated their respective backfields. Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, Christian McCaffrey, Derrick Henry, James Conner and Jonathan Taylor all saw over 67 percent snap share, and all but Taylor, who played only 10 games, scored at least eight touchdowns.
3a. Tight End. If your TD-only league requires a starting TE, you will want to plan to fill the slot early. Players like Kelce and Andrews will be first round picks for their consistent ability and opportunity to score. If you miss out, you’ll want to pull the trigger on a Tier 2 guy like George Kittle, Kyle Pitts, TJ Hockensen, Waller, Evan Engram, Dallas Goedert, Cole Kmet or Pat Freiermuth sooner rather than later. TE is a premier position to focus on possible QB stacks as well as higher scoring teams.
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4. Take advantage of stacking
If you’re playing in a casual or novice league, you can take serious advantage of your opponents simply by stacking players from the same team. It should be impossible to get the best stacks of Allen and Stefon Diggs, Hurts and Brown, Mahomes and Kelce, Lamar Jackson and Andrews or Burrow and Chase, but if you can do it, you should do it. If you miss out on one of these elite stacks, you can still aim for Jefferson and Kirk Cousins, Fields and Cole Kmet (or DJ Moore, if you’re a believer), Jones and Barkley (or Darren Waller), Lawrence and Calvin Ridley, and so on. Importantly, if you’ve identified a “go-to” receiver (WR/RB/TE) you can draft in the first two rounds, be sure to reach a bit to get his quarterback to create a mini-stack. The rationale is simple – whenever they connect in the end zone, you get 10 fantasy points instead of four or six.
5. Have options
The middle rounds of your draft will be filled with players who have a wide range of outcomes. Rounds 4-8 will be most similar to traditional scoring leagues and depend somewhat on your league’s roster rules (3WR, number of Flex spots, etc.). Get the guys you like from teams with high scoring potential and play the matchups every week.
6. Special Teams stacking is a thing!
It’s a bit rarer than it used to be, but when teams use a wide receiver or running back as a kick returner on their special teams, you can get double the fantasy points if he scores and you roster him plus the teams’ D/ST. Nyheim Hines led all kick returners with two return touchdowns for Buffalo last year, but with a season-ending injury to Hines this summer, Buffalo will be mixing it up. Speedy Khalil Shakir would be the best possible stacking option with Bills’ D/ST if he gets the opportunities. Baltimore’s Devin Duvernay is also an intriguing WR stack with the Ravens’ D/ST. Isaiah Pacheco (RB, KC D/ST) and Ray-Ray McCloud (WR, SF D/ST) are two other names to consider for this stacking strategy.
7. How to handle D/ST?
Although I’ve highlighted two teams in the point above that boast truly good NFL defenses, that’s not a major consideration in TD-only scoring. There’s no good way to predict defensive touchdowns until you get enough in-season turnover data and unfortunately, the statistic is not all that predictive. Last year, the Colts, Bills, Texans, Jaguars, Cardinals, Saints and Bears averaged 1.5 or more turnovers per game. You might expect the AFC South to remain offensively challenged this year and give the Titans’ D/ST a try, or figure that the NFC South might be in disarray with new QBs helming the Bucs and Falcons. This position is like throwing darts, and many TD-only scoring leagues have gotten away from requiring it.
The unpredictable aspect of TD-only scoring formats offers managers a benefit you might not appreciate until you try it. I think and write a lot about cognitive biases in fantasy sports, and how they hinder good decision making. Often that centers around holding/starting players longer than you should, being unfairly greedy in trades, and generally letting your emotions around a player dictate your strategy.
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TD-only leagues force us to be relentless in our pursuit of scoring, so we are more likely to be data-driven in our managerial approach. There is no making up for a failure to get in the end zone. We must react swiftly to changes in red zone rushing attempts or end zone targets. This is no “set it and forget it” lineup as weekly matchups are an even more crucial part of the equation. There is a lot more luck in this format, but remember: luck favors the prepared mind.
(Top photo: Courtney Culbreath/Getty Images)
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