Scott Fish Really Did It in SFB15 by @DmicMedia 

In the Fantasy Football world, there are so many different formats and leagues, but the one tournament that every Fantasy Football “Pro or Joe” wants to win is the Scott Fish Bowl. This league raises a significant amount of money for charity, and it brings the Fantasy Football community together. What makes this tournament unique, though, is its ever-changing rules package that doesn’t get announced until weeks before the drafting begins. This year, the controversy started even earlier than usual when a few savvy drafters noticed there wasn’t the usual round three reversal included, but that was changed up before the first live drafts began. Today, I break down a scientific approach to analyzing the scoring scheme for this year’s Scott Fish-Bowl to determine where the advantage might be. 

Scoring Rules for 2025

Starting Lineup: 9 Flex and 2 Superflex

Roster Size: 22

Passing Points: 1 pt for each 25 yards

Rushing Points: 1 pt for each 10 yards

Touchdowns: All score 6 pts

Rushing Attempt Bonus: ½ pt

Receiving Bonus: 2.5 pts

First Down: 1 pt

TE Reception: 1 pt

Special Teams: TD 6 pts, Forced Fumble 3pts, Recovered Fumble 3 pts, Solo tackle 2pts

Unique Rules Require Unique Approach

This year, the rules eliminate the concept of “Position Scarcity” when it comes to making draft decisions. In theory, you could have a team without either a QB, TE, RB, or WR and still field a legal team every week. The only limitation is that you can only start 2 QBS, but otherwise, you could, in theory, start a team of 11 WRs every week. This unique scheme eliminates most of the higher value that an elite TE has because, after the first few are taken, the other Fantasy Football Managers don’t have to start at least one TE every week. Position Scarcity in Fantasy Football often determines the value of drafting an elite QB or TE earlier in the draft, and that is eliminated in this year’s Scott Fish Bowl draft. 

Data Research to Find the Values

Every league has its own unique set of rules and understanding how to leverage those rules to your advantage is a huge part of preparing for a Fantasy Football draft. If your league starts 3 WRs, you must approach a draft differently than a 2 WR starting lineup. Superflex strategy is also different from the 1QB strategy for obvious reasons due to position scarcity. Before you can understand where the advantage lies, you must do some data research. I always start with a small sample size of data to discover if any advantage might exist before investing the time for a longer-range study to narrow down those advantages. For this year’s Scott Fish Bowl, I selected a nine-game sample from 2024, excluding the non-Bye weeks, to ensure a representative sample of the entire league. This data would then be compared to my MVP Index analysis, broken down by position. Since 12 teams are starting 11 players in SFB15, I wanted to examine a similar number of players and then the top scorers each week, as we aim to have as many of the top scorers on our team as possible each week. All percentages used are rounded off. 

SFB15 139 Players over 15 pts each week compared to 141 players over the MVP Index of 60 

SFB15 QB 19% RB 30% WR 37% TE 15% 

MVP Index QB 18% RB 33% WR 43% TE 6% 

The population of weekly players who might make the scorecard, based on 132 players being in starting lineups, is why the number 139 is worth examining. The only position with a significantly higher representation is the TE position, with more than double the number of players represented in the SFB15 weekly sample. Let’s look at the best scorers and compare those to a similar population of best MVP Index players. 

SFB15 Top 50 Players over 30 pts each week, compared to 60 players over the MVP Index of 90  

SFB15 QB 19% RB 33% WR 35% TE 13% 

MVP Index QB 18% RB 37% WR 42% TE 3% 

This article compares the best of the highest scoring players in SFB15 rules from 2024 every week versus the best players using the MVP Index for the complete season over the last five years combined. This difference in data points is problematic, but it still provides a base comparison worth exploring. The only position with a statistically significant difference is again the TE group. 

Conclusion: The TE Premium scoring rules do make the elite players at that position more valuable when compared to players at other positions. However, we need to remember that the TE Premium bonus is only applied to the number of receptions; it’s not a multiplier for total TE points scored. Volume is what is being rewarded in SFB15, with a bonus for TEs. 

Volume Matters in SFB15

We need to conduct more research before making any determination about which position might have an advantage in SFB15 scoring. Once again, let’s just look at a one-year sample of player volume in Fantasy Football to see what we might learn that can help us this season in SFB15. 

QB Rushing Attempts: Only 4 QBs rushed the ball more than 100 times in 2024. Two more QBs had more than 80 rushing attempts. 

RB Rushing Attempts: Only 6 RBs rushed the ball more than 300 times in 2024. Two more RBs had more than 260 carries, with a total of 12 over 250 carries last season. 

RB Receptions: Only 3 RBs had 60 or more receptions in 2024. Nine RBs had more than 50 receptions, and 18 had 40 or more receptions last season. 

WR Receptions: Only 1 WR had over 120 receptions in 2024. Eight WRs had more than 100 receptions. A total of 18 WRs had 80 or more receptions last year. 

TE Receptions: Only 2 TEs had more than 100 receptions in 2024. One more exceeded 90, one more exceeded 80, and only five TEs exceeded 70 receptions last season. 

Suppose you look at the Top 50 players from 2024 using SFB15 scoring, those numbers by position line up close with the number of players getting the highest volume by position last year for the entire season. If any position deserves a “bonus” when comparing MVP Index data, it might be the TE position after this data review. 

Professor Consultation 

The Scientific Method includes being collaborative in the approach to problem-solving research. Many years ago, when I devised a statistically based forecasting scheme for SFO Airport, I consulted other talented forecasters who were experts in this unique forecasting situation. When it comes to any research in Fantasy Football, I recommend finding another data researcher to review your work.

Professor John Bush and I discussed my data findings for the SFB15 scoring rules. We both agreed that more research would be needed, but given the limited time, that was not feasible. Volume will be key for SFB15, and players will be able to be very flexible with their builds without position scarcity coming into play. The Professor pointed out that I needed to be careful not to reward TEs without a high volume with the same bonus as TEs with low reception totals. My MVP Index does reward volume well enough to account for the differences among RBs and WRs, but it might not be catching the volume bonus for the TE position as well. Only TEs that are expected to see more than 80 passes this season should be considered for an MVP Index increase when building my SFB15 Cheat Sheet. 

Conclusion

Removing position scarcity from the equation in SFB15 has changed how Fantasy Football Managers should approach this draft. RBs need five carries to equal the bonus of one reception, which softens the rushing attempt bonus. But RBs that have a high volume of carries and receptions should shine in this rules package. Finding the top 40 players in SFB15 should be relatively easy if your volume and output projections are accurate, but finding those emerging players later in the draft will be key to success in this year’s format. Rushing QBs will have an advantage, but not as large as the high-reception RBs. Scott Fish did it with the SFB15 scoring rules this year, because there is no single formula for success this season! Good luck in this year’s tournament, unless you are in my division!