Ian Allan answers your fantasy football questions. In this edition: How to fairly handle the new guys in your league. Is there a sizeable hole in the Index rankings for Washington? And Ian's pet peeve about the NFL's passer rating system.

Question 1

Hoping you could expound a bit on your RGIII projections. You say in the mag that you expect him to advance a bit as a passer but for the team to be much smarter, using him less as a runner. I agree. However, I was surprised when I downloaded your projections, you cut his rushing production by more than half but only added a handful of passing stats (albeit in 14 games vs. 15 last year). If his rushing attempts go down, his passing attempts go up. By my math, aren't we missing about 50 offensive possessions, or are you projecting a lower completion percentage for him?

L DALE GANDER (SUN PRAIRIE, WI)

I expect the overall offensive production won’t be as good. Last year Washington scored 46 touchdowns, averaging 169 rushing yards and 229 passing yards. On my board, I’ve got them at 41.9 TDs, with 135 rushing yards and 240 passing yards. I’m not looking at it in terms of possessions or completion percentage. I will concede there could be a ying-yang deal with the running (if they’re running less, that could mean their running more). But I think my numbers are in the ballpark.

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Question 2

What do you think is the best way to handle new owners in a keeper league? In the past we've had new owners take over the roster of departing owners (messy, especially with more than one new owners), and/or given new owners first pick (annoys everyone else). I'm now commish and, never having loved either approach, am considering implementing some kind of expansion draft instead, with new owners keeping the draft slots of departing owners to minimize impact to returning owners' draft positions (we use a finish-based draft order). I like the idea but am torn between having the pool of players be comprised of players not kept by returning teams, or the roster(s) of departing owners, or possibly both. This year one of the departing owners has AP who can be kept for a 2nd rounder and Alfred Morris who can be kept for a 16th (yes, a 16th), so the stakes are high.

MICHAEL FERRARA (PHILADELPHIA, PA)

I don’t see the need for any special rules. These aren’t expansion franchises. They’re existing franchises that are changing ownership. So what’s the big deal? When Steve Bisciotti bought the Ravens from Art Modell, he didn’t go to the NFL and ask for extra draft picks or a supplemental draft. He just takes over what’s there. Your league, I think, should follow that lead.

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Question 3

In the magazine there is an excellent article on the last page by Andy Richardson, "Ten Things I Hate About You" and an excellent question in the mailbag about Ian's Dream Rules. In the future I would really, really like an experts contest using rules all the experts could agree upon, said rules to be sophisticated to capture more of the flavor of real football. When I first started playing FF in the early 1990s, the only scoring was for touchdowns, because that was the easiest way to do it before the internet tubes. Today, we have the technology. The inherent problem is that a real football team has at least 24 starters on the field. There is a better way to quantify their performance. It can still be fun, a football game can end in a score of 7-6 and still be fun to watch, whether it's great defense or something like the Seahawks at Chiefs game in 1998. We all know the game is changing, scoring is up, QBs have free reign. Still, the losing QBs in the real world generally have a lower passer rating, throw more interceptions and take more sacks. Of course those are also dependent on WR's running their correct routes and the OL doing its job. I'd like to see the experts score QB's without TDs and yards. Stop scoring for TD's for EVERYONE. I am comfortable scoring RB's based solely on yards. I sincerely don't know what makes a great wide receiver, and how to quantify that. When Deion Sanders was on the 49ers, he covered Alvin Harper when they played the Cowboys. Was Alvin Harper "better" than Michael Irvin? And there are no statistics to quantify good blocking. I apologize for the rambling, you understand where I'm going, I know that the exact thing I want is impossible. I just want something better.

Jose Montana (ROSEMEAD, CA)

I have a pet peeve with quarterbacks. It applies to the NFL’s passer rating, and also to fantasy leagues. I don’t think enough weight (negative weight) is given to taking sacks. That’s about the worst thing a quarterback can do, and with the way the game is set up now (with quarterbacks allowed to throw it away when they’re outside the pocket), a lot of those sacks are bonehead plays. Yet, in the NFL’s passer rating, taking a sack is better than throwing an incompletion. The passer rating, recall, is an average of four categories: completion percentage, TD percentage, interception and yards-per-attempt. So when you take a sack, it has no affect on your passer rating. But if you smartly throw the ball away to save 10 yards and stop the clock, you’re penalized in two of the four categories in the passer rating deal. That makes no sense. And it makes no sense that we’re not including those in fantasy. Quarterbacks who run are richly rewarded with double value for rushing production. I’d like to see the sack yards counted in that category. If on first down you ran for 7 yards, then on second down you lose 7 on sack, to me, that seems like you’re at zero.

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Question 4

Great product. I finished first in all three of my fantasy football leagues last year. I'm working on auction values for a 14 team standard scoring league. 5 point bonuses are awarded for eclipsing yardage totals. Ie: QB 300 and 400. RB 100 and 200. WR 100 and 200. Is there a way to incorporate these bonuses in your custom values? Or is it just something I should keep in mind on draft day ie: In 2012, Drew Breese surpassed 300 yards more often than not, or Dez Bryant broke the 100 yard mark a half dozen times, or AP ran for over 100 yards nearly every week?

MIKE RADAKER (CLEARFIELD, PA)

I would work under the assumption that nobody’s going to go over 200 yards or throw for 400. That just doesn’t happen often. For the easier-to-reach triggers, I’d give slight upgrades to some of the guys, but it’s not a huge deal. In a ballpark sense for quarterbacks, I think you’ll see the best guys finish with about 8-10 300-yard games. The worst ones will be down at about two.

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Question 5

I have been enjoying Fantasy Index magazine since I first started playing FF. Index was the first book I picked up for my first draft back in 1996 and never looked at a different since then. I did not pick up a WR till the fifth do you feel the WR spot is still loaded and can wait till then again. I normally have a stud at the main four positions: QB, RB, WR, TE. Last year I went QB,RB,RB,TE,WR. It is a PPR and a 12-team league. I have only missed the playoffs four times in 16 years. Just like to know what your thoughts are? Thanks for your time which I know is very busy this time of the year

BRUCE SADLER (LAKELAND, FL)

In PPR, I want guys are going to catch a lot of passes. Wide receivers, I think, tend to get undervalued. If you can get a corps of players who are going to catch 80-100 passes, things seem to go well. At running back, pay close attention to the guys who catch passes. It sounds weird, but in that format guys like Darren Sproles and Reggie Bush could outproduce backs like Alfred Morris and Stevan Ridley (good runners, but they simply don’t catch any passes).

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Question 6

We have 12-man league with 6 on a side. Each side drafts as its own league and we have inter league play. Which means you could end up playing a guy that has the same players as you. Do you know a Internet service that could handle this for us. As of now we have to do it by hand. Thanks we've enjoyed your magazine for over 20 years.

LEE STEHLING (WEST BEND, WI)

That doesn’t sound too complicated. I would guess that sites like RealTime Fantasy Sports and MyFantasyLeague.com could handle that. When setting up leagues, I vaguely recall seeing the option “allow players to be on multiple teams?”.

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Question 7

I hope you don't get tired of hearing this, but I won my league championship thanks to you and FANTASY INDEX. Thank you, again! My question relates to keepers, and if generalized about "value", may be of interest to other readers. Unfortunately, my decision's deadline is Aug 7, and I'm sorry I haven't given you much time. 8 team PPR Keeper League, 6 point passing touchdowns, we start 10 players - 2QB, 2RB, 4WR/TE, DEF, K....we have a 5 player bench. We're allowed to keep 3 from previous year's 15 player roster; but only if they were drafted in rounds 4-15, or weren't drafted. Eligible players become Keepers 2 rounds earlier than previous year's draft, so a 4th rounder last year is a 2nd round Keeper in 2013; and a 15th rounder becomes a 13th round Keeper. Un-drafted players become 10th rounders. We can keep a player a maximum of 3 times. Finally my question: In your opinion (I won't hold a grudge), which three of the following eligible players, and their 2013 (this year's draft) round, should I keep? RB Lynch - 2nd Round QB Luck - 4th Round TE Graham -6th Round TE Gonzalez - 10th Round K- Gostkowski - 11th Round RB Morris - 12th Round Thanks for your help, or the help of your designate.

Steven Schipper (winnipeg, MB)

Jimmy Graham and Alfred Morris are the two easy keepers. They’d be selected long before the rounds you’ve got them tagged at. The other ones are just so-so. Would Luck even be selected in the first four rounds? Probably not. Lynch would have been scurrying to check if it’s an early second-round pick or late in the second round. If it’s late in the second, that’s the guy I’d keep. Gonzalez would be the third keeper if it were a tight end league. (P.S. -- Do you really think I'm using an office boy to answer these letters?)

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Question 8

For defenses, our league gives 10 points if it holds an opponent under 100 yards, 7 points if under 200 yards, 3 points if under 300 yards and 1 point if in the 300-349 range. Plus defenses get 20 points for shutouts, 7 for under 7 points, 3 for 7-9 points. This in addition to 6 points for touchdowns, 2 for takeaways, safeties, and blocked kicks and 1 for each sack. How would your rankings look for that scoring system?

KEVIN DALLAS (COVINGTON, KY)

I'll be honest. I don’t like these scoring tweaks for points and yards. The scoring blocks are too big, and it’s too arbitrary. In this league, if your defense allows 10 points in all 16 games, it gets nothing. If it allows 49 points in 14 straight games and mixes in two shutouts, it gets 40 points. What the heck? Shutouts are so rare, I would just ignore them. There were only 6 in the entire league last year, and they came at the end in a squirt of games. In only 21 other games did teams allow fewer than 7 points. Only five teams allowed fewer points than the Steelers last year, but they got zero points (for points allowed) in this format. That seems wrong.

On the above chart, by the way, I’ve got the defenses ranked in order of how many points they actually allowed. Just like the yards (per game) chart below. My gripe for the yards bonuses are similar. No defense in the league allowed under 100 yards in a game last year. And isn’t there a big difference between allowed 201 yards and allowing 295 yards? Why not create more of a sliding scale?

The way these things are set up, I wouldn’t give too much weight to defenses.

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