Back in the day, we considered any fantasy manager a heretic if they didn’t draft running backs in the first, second and third rounds. RB hoarding was an entirely noncontroversial practice. Go find an ancient draft board if you don’t believe me. Maybe you weren’t the guy who went James Stewart-Duce Staley-Michael Pittman at the top, but someone did it. The opening rounds of any draft became a thoughtless recitation of running backs.

It was a bleak and terrible time. But our draft habits reflected the NFL’s reliance on every-down workhorse runners, guys who routinely handled 320-plus touches per season. Back then, it seemed impossible to win a fantasy league without a 1400-yard, 16-touchdown running back on your roster. Receivers and tight ends were more like decorations for a fantasy lineup.

As a way to end the tyranny of RB-heavy drafting, point-per-reception scoring (PPR) began to boom. It was a patch for a fantasy bug, and it worked more or less as intended. PPR increased the value of wide receivers and tight ends relative to a certain sort of running back; the T.J. Duckett-types became less appealing. The early rounds of PPR drafts definitely contained more positional diversity, a welcome change.

Somewhere along the way, a weird sort of PPR snobbery took hold — particularly among fantasy experts. Hardcore zealots emerged. They told us, among other things, that PPR was a smarter way to play, that it better represented the tendencies of a changing game by rewarding a critical skill. And we all played along, reshuffling cheat sheets, building rosters around the exquisite skills of Marty Booker and Larry Centers.

But here’s the thing: Within the context of an actual NFL game, a 5-yard reception is not substantially more valuable than a 5-yard run. No reasonable person would argue that a catch for no-gain should be scored the same in fantasy as a 10-yard rush (or 5, or 3). Receptions have no special meaning in reality, beyond the yards they generate. This seems fairly obvious.

So while we may have enjoyed the impact PPR scoring had on draft boards, we’d begun awarding points for a common event with no inherent value.

Oddly enough, as PPR scoring became more widespread in fantasy, offensive strategy in the NFL shifted in a way that devalued running backs. Committee arrangements became the norm. Passing stats surged. Before long, the game’s best receivers were routinely finishing among the league leaders in scrimmage yards.

View photos Larry Centers, PPR legend. (Bernstein Associates/Getty Images) More

Back in 1998, for example, the NFL produced only two 4000-yard passers, Brett Favre (4212) and Steve Young (4170). Eleven running backs finished with 300 or more carries that season, and Jamal Anderson handled 410. These were the NFL’s leaders in scrimmage yards in ’98:

1. Marshall Faulk, 2227

2. Terrell Davis, 2225

3. Jamal Anderson, 2165

4. Garrison Hearst, 2105

5. Barry Sanders, 1780

6. Curtis Martin, 1652

7. Fred Taylor, 1644

8. Ricky Watters, 1612

9. Eddie George, 1604

10. Emmitt Smith, 1507

Nothin’ but running backs. Four of the next five names on the leader board were RBs as well: Duce Staley, Robert Smith, Robert Edwards and Warrick Dunn. Antonio Freeman was the only receiver to crack the top-15. In that sort of statistical environment, it’s easy to understand why so many fantasy owners adopted PPR scoring.

Fifteen years later, however, things had changed. In 2013, nine different QBs exceeded Favre’s passing total from ’98. Peyton Manning and Drew Brees each topped 5000 yards. Only two running backs reached 300 carries, LeSean McCoy (314) and Marshawn Lynch (301). Four receivers cracked the NFL’s top-10 in scrimmage yards — Josh Gordon, Alshon Jeffery, Antonio Brown and Calvin Johnson — and a dozen finished among the top-25.

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