Welcome to Fantasy Football Demystified: NFL Frequency-Adjusted Scoring in IDP, a novel concept designed to improve the playing experience for IDP Fantasy Football managers by correlating today’s most popular scoring settings with the prevalence of some of the most basic as well as impactful plays made by defenders in the NFL today.
No other topic in the arena of fantasy football, in my 20 years of playing this game, has brought more debates, arguments, bitterness, jealousy, and flat-out anger than that of the topic of IDP scoring. The inability to concede that one person’s point has validity while another’s does not is laughable at best and moronic at worst. So naturally, being the smartass that I am, I’m going to stir the pot and piss off some people while enlightening others. Therefore, let’s navigate through the fog of IDP Fantasy Football scoring and tell you the importance that NFL Frequency-Adjusted Scoring should have in IDP Fantasy Football and the IDP Fantasy Football community!
Popular IDP Scoring Formats
Here is a brief breakdown of each of the three most popular IDP scoring settings in the fantasy football space today, and the perceived value they bring to fantasy managers:
IDP123 or Sleeper HQ IDP scoring, since its popularity took off in 2020 by creator Jordan Rains, has swept and continues to sweep the IDP fantasy football landscape in terms of being one of the most used scoring settings in IDP Fantasy Football based on simplicity in the scoring itself: Simple. Unified. Balanced, as the slogan states.
The goal of this scoring setting is to elevate the point totals for impact plays such as Sacks and Interceptions so that Defensive Linemen and Defensive Backs can help bridge the gap between high-volume Linebackers and their counterparts on the offensive side of the ball.
FantasyPros IDP scoring is also a common scoring setting, often referred to as a pure, tackle-heavy system. It has been criticized for not offering enough upside across all three individual defensive positions (DL/LB/DB) and is thus perceived as one-dimensional.
The Big 3 IDP Scoring settings, developed by The IDP Show, are meant to restore the value of impact players such as Defensive Linemen and Defensive Backs by increasing the value of plays such as Sacks and Interceptions, and downplaying tackle production to curb tackle inflation in fantasy scoring.
Now that we have explained what these scoring settings are, let’s discuss how terms such as Big Play, Tackle Heavy, and Balanced have been used to describe them, and how the concept of simple scoring ratios, typically used to calculate them, is actually a flawed method.
Ratio, Ratio For Where Art Thou Ratio?
Back when I had my first beer with a nipple on it, when I really started deep-diving into advanced IDP analysis, I was obsessed with scoring settings and trying to find the best one out there that hit all the popular terms and phrases: Balanced with Offense, DL friendly, DB friendly, Balanced within IDP position groups, etc. However, it wasn’t until years later that the concept of scoring ratios entered my thought bubble arena.
Enter Matt Cannata.
His article over at ProFootballNetwork on IDP scoring ratios was the first piece of IDP writing that purely blew my mind. It helped revolutionize my perception of what a perfect IDP scoring setting could be. It made sense too: “I’ll just take stat A and divide by stat B, and BOOMSHAKALAKA…IDP scoring categories defined!“
However, flash forward a few years- after training for an International Beer Drinking Competition as well as honing my craft as a fantasy analyst- I realized that plain and simple, “A+B = C” logic isn’t exactly how the world works, nor does fantasy football.
But wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s finish up my intro to scoring ratios. Every IDP-friendly site in the fantasy space has written about scoring ratios, specifically the Solo Tackle to Sack ratios outlined below:
A 3:1 ratio of solo tackle to sack scoring system is considered Balanced Scoring.
4:1 or 5:1 ratios of solo tackle to sack scoring systems are considered Big Play Scoring.
A less than 3:1 ratio of solo tackle to sack scoring system is considered Tackle Heavy Scoring.
Therefore, if using that logic:
IDP123: 6pt Sack/2 pt Solo = 3 or 3:1 ratio or “Balanced”
FantasyPros: 4pt Sack/1.5 pt Solo = 2.67 or 2.67:1 ratio or “Tackle Heavy”
Big 3 Scoring: 5pt Sack/1.25 Solo = 4 or 4:1 ratio or “Big Play”
I used quotes just then because those definitions become very fickle when comparing those lines of demarcation to two factors: Compound Scoring and NFL Statistical Frequency, and how that impacts scoring.
Let’s tackle Compound Scoring first.
Compound Scoring
In compound scoring, additional plays and points are added to the original stat to help bolster the value of the original play. Sleeper HQ is an example of a platform that does this. Below is a breakdown of what the Compound Scoring of a Sack would look like for the three main scoring settings discussed here:
IDP123’s Value of a Sack: 1 Solo Tackle (2) + 1 QB Hit (1) + 1 TFL (2) + 1 Sack (6) = 11pts per sack
If you calculate the new ratio of solo tackles to sacks, that scoring ratio becomes: 5.5:1, making the scoring setting now Big Play Scoring.
FantasyPros’ Value of a Sack: 1 Solo Tackle (1.5) + 1 TFL (2.5) + 1 Sack (4) = 8pts per sack
If you calculate the new ratio of solo tackles to sacks, that scoring ratio becomes 5.3:1, making the scoring setting now Big Play Scoring.
Big 3’s Value of a Sack (assuming 1 Sack Yard since they count this metric): 1 Solo Tackle (1.25), 1 QB Hit (2), 1 TFL (3), 1 Sack Yards (0.1), and 1 Sack (5) = 11.35pts per sack
If you calculate the new ratio of solo tackles to sacks, that scoring ratio becomes 9.08:1, making the scoring setting still Big Play Scoring.
But wait a minute, I thought defining a scoring setting by using simple ratios was supposed to clearly tell you how to accurately define what an IDP scoring setting is?
Instead, they’ve gone and created more ambiguity.
Enter NFL Statistical Frequency.
NFL Statistical Frequency
Since we’ve been discussing Solo Tackles and Sacks so much from a fantasy scoring standpoint, I began to wonder what EXACTLY those numbers amounted to in the NFL this past season.
In 2025, teams in the NFL accounted for 20,814 solo tackles and 1,287 sacks. Divide that total by 32 teams, and each team averaged 650.44 solo tackles and 40.22 sacks. According to Pro Football Focus, an average individual NFL team logged 1,132 defensive snaps over the course of the regular season.
When wanting to identify what percentage of those snaps resulted in solo tackles and sacks per team:
650.44 Solo Tackles / 1,132 Snaps = 0.575 or 57.5% of the time a team defense recorded a Solo Tackle.
40.22 Sacks / 1,132 Snaps = 0.0353 or 3.55% of the time a team defense recorded a Sack.
Why is this important?
It matters because if one play occurs nearly 60% of the time and another occurs less than 4% of the time, that scarcity must dictate value.
NFL Frequency-Adjusted Scoring in IDP Demystified
To give a broad definition of a scoring setting, it’s important to consider how to define it more broadly. The new ratios, shown below, reflect the frequencies, or lack thereof, of Solo Tackles and Sacks in the NFL from this past season. By taking an average NFL team’s seasonal production and multiplying it by a format’s baseline scoring, we can determine the frequency-adjusted point output for a league setting, thereby accurately classifying what that setting should be called.
Let’s start with IDP123 scoring and see how the percentages above help to describe what type of scoring setting it really is.
650.44 Solo Tackles x 2pts per Solo Tackle = 1,300.88 fantasy points from a team’s defense came from Solo Tackles.
40.22 Sacks x 6pts per Sack = 241.32 fantasy points from a team’s defense came from Sacks.
This new type of frequency-adjusted/fantasy scoring ratio is 5.39:1, skewing fantasy point scoring towards tackles, making this scoring setting Tackle Heavy. Sorry to all the “It’s a Balanced Scoring setting truthers out there,” but based on how frequently tackles and sacks occurred last season in the NFL, IDP123 should DEFINITIVELY be considered tackle-heavy.
Next, let’s go with FantasyPros IDP scoring:
650.44 Solo Tackles x 1.5pts per Solo Tackle = 975.66 fantasy points from a team’s defense came from Solo Tackles.
40.22 Sacks x 4pts per Sack = 160.88 fantasy points from a team’s defense came from Sacks.
This new type of frequency-adjusted/fantasy scoring ratio is 6.06:1, skewing this fantasy point-scoring format towards tackles and thus making this scoring setting also Tackle Heavy. However, while the ratio is higher for Solo Tackles than in IDP123, look at the fantasy point drop and the resulting reduced gap in fantasy points scored between Solo Tackles and Sacks from this past season.
That screams to me less tackle point inflation is going on, compared to IDP123, which should be obvious since a Solo Tackle for FantasyPros scoring is 1.5 points and IDP123 is 2 points.
Finally, let’s discuss Big 3 IDP Scoring:
650.44 Solo Tackles x 1.25pts per Solo Tackle = 813.05 fantasy points from a team’s defense came from Solo Tackles.
40.22 Sacks x 5pts per Sack = 201.1 fantasy points from a team’s defense came from Sacks.
This new type of frequency-adjusted/fantasy scoring ratio is 4.04:1, making Big 3 IDP scoring the most balanced of the three. WTF?! But it has the word “Big” in it. How could this scoring setting actually be THE MOST BALANCED scoring setting in IDP amongst the three?
Well, by lowering the value of a Solo Tackle and raising the value of a Sack, you are leveling the playing field in terms of fantasy output when taking trends in ACTUAL NFL performance into consideration.
Amazing. What happens in real-life football can directly impact what happens in fantasy football scoring?!
Who. Would. Have. Known.
To Summarize The Importance of NFL Frequency-Adjusted Scoring In IDP
- 57.5% of the time, a team defense recorded a Solo Tackle, & and a Sack 3.55% of the time in 2025.
- Taking into account this frequency, to create Balanced IDP Scoring, you must lower the points awarded for Solo Tackles and increase the value of Sacks in order to compensate for their high and low prevalence, respectively, in the NFL among defenses today.
- To create Big Play Scoring, you must boost the value of Sack-awarded points even higher than today’s industry norms in order to compensate for their low prevalence in the NFL on average.
- To create Tackle Heavy scoring, you must boost the value of Solo Tackle-awarded points while minimizing Sack-awarded point scoring to mirror the statistical imbalance of how many times a Solo Tackle is recorded versus a Sack in today’s defensive landscape.
- NFL Statistical Frequency MUST be taken into consideration if our goal is to mimic real-life, on-field play in the NFL today as well as truly define what type of IDP scoring is actually being used in our leagues.
