Ian Allan answers your fantasy football questions. In this edition. Scheming to land Justin Jefferson. Scouting the kick returners. Weighing half versus full PPR rankings. And zero-RB draft strategies.

Question 1

Though I don’t mind doing research; why isn’t there any ratings/recognition of kickoff and punt returners? Many a league have return yards on their point value list.

TOM MICHAELS (Hoffman Estates, IL)

We project kick returns for every team. On those, we’re focusing on touchdowns, but there aren’t many of them. Over the last three years, there have been 22 touchdowns scoring on kickoff returns and 13 scored on punt returns. Those numbers suggest the average team should be scoring on a kick return about once every 46 games. On our current board, we’ve projected the probability of every team scoring a touchdown on a kick return between 20 and 74 percent.

If we want to get into yards, there could be three plausible ways to look at it. If we’re weighing team yards, I would focus on the teams I expected to have the worst defenses. As teams allow more touchdowns and field goals, they get to return more kickoffs, and there typically are over twice as many return yards on kickoffs rather than punts. Of the five teams that allowed the most points last year, four ranked in the top 10 in total return yards, with the fifth ranking 13th. Only one of the top 5 defensive teams, on the other hand, ranked higher than 15th in kick return yards.

If we’re looking at individual kick return yards, I imagine some will be interested in which players will finish with the most kick return yards, while others will be interested in the subset of players who put up viable stats as regular on-field players and also return kicks. In that arena, there aren’t many. I see only 19 players last year who caught at least 20 passes and also had over 100 yards on kick returns. That includes four who are now on new teams (tagged with black dots). Of the guys listed below, I see Rashid Shaheed as the most relevant. I expect he’ll return kicks for the Saints while also serving as their third wide receiver.

If we’re trying to focus on who’s “good” at returning kickoffs, there were three standouts last year: Keisean Nixon (G.B.), Dallis Flowers (Ind.) and Velus Jones (Bears). Nixon and Jones were the only two were more than 3 returns of 40-plus yards. Flowers, meanwhile, averaged over 2 more yards per return than either of them.

For punt returns, Marcus Jones (N.E.) and Trent Taylor (Cin.) were the only two with 5 returns over 20 yards, while DeAndre Carter (LAC) and KaVontae Turpin (Dall.) each had 4. Turpin scored 2 TDs on returns in a preseason game against the Chargers last year. With him returning both kickoffs and punts, I kept waiting for him to hit on one in the regular season, but it never happened.

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Question 2

PPR (sadly) Keeper League - keep 5. I have Burrow, Fields, Ekeler, Barkley, D.Cook, Adams and Christian Watson. Considering keeping Burrow, Ekeler, Barkley, Adams and trying to trade Fields, D. Cook and Christian Watson for Jefferson? What do you think?

Jeff Zwiers (Bellingham, WA)

I’m all for it, if you can pull it off. The opposing owner may figure that he’s got you over a barrel. Essentially, you’re trying to turn Watson into Jefferson by trading two players you otherwise would release. He reasonably might try to squeeze you to replace Cook with Barkley, Adams or even Ekeler.

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Question 3

I'm in a 10 team ESPN standard scoring league. In general, what do you think of a zero RB draft strategy? I've been toying with the idea for a couple of years but have been too much of a wimp to actually try it. It seems like every year I draft a RB early only to have him get hurt or miss significant time with injury and then I'm kicking myself for not having grabbed a top receiver or TE early instead of a RB. With the RB landscape this year, maybe this is the year to try it? It seems like there could be lots of RB value in the middle rounds.

Rudolph Woodhouse (Lafayette, LA)

I’m not sure what the question is. By “zero RB”, I’m not sure if you’re talking about a league where RB, WR and TE are all lumped together into one position? If that’s the case, I wouldn’t be opposed to selecting no running backs – I would be focusing on the highest-rated player each time I was on the clock, with the potential I picked all RB or no RB.

Or, by “zero RB” are you talking about not taking any running backs in the first four or so rounds? It does seem like there are some solid running back options in the middle rounds. I’m participating in a draft right now and was able to get Kenneth Walker with the 36th pick (last pick of the third round). Since that time, Travis Etienne, Breece Hall and Rachaad White have been picked in the fourth, Miles Sanders, Cam Akers, Alexander Mattison, Dameon Pierce and Isiah Pacheco have gone in the fifth, and James Conner, D’Andre Swift and Dalvin Cook have gone in the sixth. In that draft (which is a PPR format) it’s been reasonable enough to skip running backs in the first three rounds.

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Question 4

Our 10-team league is changing to a PPR scoring system this year and are debating 1/2 vs full point per reception. We award 1 point per 20 yds receiving with QBs getting 6 points per TD and 1 point per 40 yds passing. What are your thoughts? Obviously, it is going to increase the value of WRs and TEs in relation to RBs and QBs, but how much is the question.

Scott Carlson (Franklinton, NC)

I’m not sure moving to PPR is a great idea. I get letters from readers complaining about it. It devalues running backs who don’t catch many passes. Even more so in your league, where a running back who ran for 100 yards would be worth 5 points – the same as a running back who caught 4 passes for 20 yards.

But you asked about full versus half PPR. Using the stats from last year, I don’t see a ton of difference. Using the traditional value-based slotting levels, I generated a top 40 at each position. This is assuming that one could find (through later-round picks, waiver moves, trades, etc.) production on par with the 13th QB, 25th RB, 25th WR and 13th tight ends. Using those as the benchmarks and then looking at how much better the key players were, the top 40 lists are below. For full PPR, I see 8 QB, 15 RB, 13 WR and 4 TE. When you switch to half PPR, I see one more QB and one fewer RB.

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