Introducing Interestingness Rating
Years ago, when I was writing at SB Nation, I came up with a fantasy football concept I called “Interestingness Rating.” There’s absolutely nothing analytical about it; it is simply a measure of how much it might have been worth caring about a given team the preceding year.
It was never a fit at PFF (and I wouldn’t have blamed them for saying no had I asked), but now that I can pick my own topics, I’m bringing it back. It was (and is) a painfully simplistic measure of how interesting each team was the year before. The method? Get out your calculators, because this gets technical. (It absolutely does not get technical.)
Take every team. At each of the four positions (QB, RB, WR, TE), mark down where that team’s best finisher wound up at the position (Lamar Jackson would get a “1,” for example). Once all four positions are done, add the numbers together.
That’s it. It doesn’t go deeper than that, it doesn’t tell you anything about, for example, Mike Evans, since he was the No. 2 WR on Tampa Bay. It just tells you how well each team’s best finishers fared. The purpose? Like I said, interestingness. A team with a score of 4 (i.e., a team with the No. 1 fantasy finisher at every position) would, I would posit, be the most interesting dang team in the world. There’s no real upper bound on the scores — a team can have an individual number far worse than 32 — but obviously, the higher the number, the less fantasy managers need to have worried about monitoring that team.
This year, the best score was 26 (the lone team with a top-12 finisher at every position). Two teams scored worse than 130. Today, I’m going to look at each team, in order. Don’t worry, most of them will be short.
1. Dallas Cowboys (QB 2, RB 3, WR 10, TE 11, total 26)
You’d be forgiven for not realizing Jason Witten technically finished the year as a TE1, given he never had a 60-yard game all season and only scored 4 touchdowns. But a healthy dose of receptions and never missing a game will get you there at a light position, even if fantasy managers weren’t exactly climbing over one another to grab the ex-MNF announcer. The others — Dak Prescott, Ezekiel Elliott, Amari Cooper — you know about.
2. Los Angeles Chargers (18-4-6-9, total 37)
3. New Orleans Saints (21-9-1-7, total 38)
4. Los Angeles Rams (13-14-4-8, total 39)
5. Atlanta Falcons (11-20-3-6, total 40)
The Cowboys were the clear winners here, but the next four teams were all nicely lumped together. You can credit injury for three of these teams not finishing better, with Hunter Henry, Drew Brees, and Devonta Freeman/Austin Hooper holding back the Chargers, Saints, and Falcons, respectively. Meanwhile, the Rams were still perfectly fine, albeit with a disappointing finish at running back.
6. Seattle Seahawks (3-12-13-23, total 51)
T7. Green Bay Packers (9-2-22-21, total 54)
T7. Houston Texans (4-28-5-17, total 54)
9. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (5-25-2-24, total 56)
These four teams were largely fine-to-better, but struggled to put much together at tight end. Will Dissly got off to a hot start for Seattle, but got hurt. Darren Fells had a hot stretch for Houston, but it didn’t continue. Jimmy Graham (old) and O.J. Howard (inexplicable) held back the Packers and Buccaneers.
10. Carolina Panthers (28-1-16-13, total 58)
11. Minnesota Vikings (15-6-24-14, total 59)
12. Baltimore Ravens (1-11-46-5, total 63)
I almost want to give the Panthers and Ravens 0’s at their respective 1’s, since Christian McCaffrey and Lamar Jackson were even better than the typical No. 1 finishers. Both teams had frustrating down positions (QB for Carolina, WR for Baltimore) holding their overall total in check. It was the opposite for Minnesota, who could describe each position’s finish as fine-to-better.
13. Tennessee Titans (22-5-21-20, total 68)
14. San Francisco 49ers (14-26-31-2, total 73)
Both of these teams had one big-time player (Derrick Henry and George Kittle) and a bunch of fine performers and/or short-term stars. Ryan Tannehill, A.J. Brown, Raheem Mostert, and Deebo Samuel could all fare better in 2020 if they do what they did over part of 2019 for a full season.
15. Cincinnati Bengals (25-13-18-19, total 75)
T16. Cleveland Browns (20-8-12-41, total 81)
T16. Kansas City Chiefs (7-41-32-1, total 81)
Joe Mixon, Nick Chubb, and Travis Kelce buoying their otherwise-underwhelming teams, with injuries to Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill holding the Chiefs back. Obviously, this is one of the failings of this method, because I don’t think anyone in the world would actually describe the Chiefs as “not interesting for fantasy.” But it does illustrate the results.
18. Oakland Raiders (16-21-47-3, total 87)
19. Philadelphia Eagles (10-15-59-4, total 88)
T20. Denver Broncos (35-19-19-16, total 89)
T20. Jacksonville Jaguars (19-7-17-46, total 89)
22. Buffalo Bills (6-32-20-32, total 90)
T23. New England Patriots (12-18-7-54, total 91)
T23. New York Jets (27-16-26-22, total 91)
The Eagles would have fared better if any receiver had been healthy for more than a day or two at a time. The Jaguars, surprisingly enough, might have been fine if James O’Shaughnessy (who averaged 8.3 points per game over five games before getting hurt) had stayed healthy. And the Patriots did pretty well overall; they just forgot the tight end position even existed after Gronk retired.
25. New York Giants (24-10-45-18, total 97)
26. Miami Dolphins (17-62-11-12, total 102)
Health was the only thing keeping the Giants away from being a really interesting team, with all five of their top fantasy names (Daniel Jones, Saquon Barkley, Golden Tate, Sterling Shepard, Evan Engram) missing time for one reason or another. Meanwhile, I bet you didn’t realize the Dolphins actually had top-20 finishers at three different positions, with only their comical running back position holding them way (way, way, way) down.
27. Indianapolis Colts (23-22-52-15, total 112)
Man, was this not how Colts fans (hi) would have projected 2019 to go when training camp started a year ago. But as I’ve mentioned, this is my pick for biggest team riser of 2020.
28. Detroit Lions (29-54-9-31, total 123)
29. Arizona Cardinals (8-37-35-45, total 125)
30. Chicago Bears (26-24-8-70, total 128)
The Lions lost Matthew Stafford and Kerryon Johnson. The Cardinals cycled through a bunch of different running backs. The Bears … Trey Burton stopped existing, I guess?
31. Pittsburgh Steelers (30-35-39-30, total 134)
32. Washington (31-33-29-42, total 135)
The Steelers were the only team in the league with no players finishing better than 30th in scoring at their respective positions, and for a team that probably won this measurement several years in a row before last year, it was a pretty big upset. Washington? Well, if you create a measurement called Interestingness Rating and the 2019 Washington team finishes last, you certainly feel pretty good about the validity of that measurement.