IDP Start/Sit: Week 10

Updated: November 10th 2022

Week 10 is upon us and we are in need of nailing those IDP lineups so that we can make our playoff push. Or maybe we are just trying to find a stash in our dynasty leagues for next year or some trade bait. Regardless, let’s see who is looking good for us in week 10 and see if we can either get them into a starting lineup or on your roster!

WEEK 9 RECAP
DL:
Start: Travon Walker (2 solos)
Start: Gregory Rousseau (1 solo, 1 TFL, injured and considered week-to-week)

Sit: Rasheem Green (1 PD)


LB:

Start: Nicholas Morrow (2 solos, 2 assists, 1 PD)

Start: David Long Jr. (6 solos, 4 assists, QB Hit)

Sit: Isaiah Simmons (6 solos, 2 assists, TFL, QB hit)

 

DB:
Start: Andre Cisco (2 solos, 3 assists, PD)

Start: Xavier Woods (4 solos, 3 assists)

Sit: Jessie Bates III (1 solo, 3 assists, 1 INT, PD)

 

START: Jeffery SimmonsTennessee Titans, DL24

Simmons has been talked about as an elite defensive linemen by plenty of analysts, but tends to lose some face value due the fact he plays as a interior defender primarily. Beyond the position, Simmons delivers all the baseline needs we want from a top DL option. 81% of the snaps for the season on an average of 55 snaps/game. He has turned that into stellar IDP production, his per game averages are: nearly 4 tackles, 0.7 sacks, 0.5 PD, 1.1 QB hits. Along with stellar year-to-date production, he has a positive matchup this week against Denver who has allowed a pressure rate 28% on the season and an 18% sack conversion rate too. Simmons has been on a tear the last 4 weeks with 19 pressures and 2 sacks. Additionally, if anyone in your league is valuing Simmons as low-end DL2, I would recommend trying to buy at that evaluation!

START: Josh Pascal, Detroit Lions, DL79

Josh Paschal has not had much of a chance to shine this season since he didn’t play his first game until 3 weeks ago. In those three games he has managed 8 pressures and 5 in his last game! In those games he has been a strong volume play getting nearly 85% of the snaps for the defense. These strong baseline give him a great chance to produce, now with a positive matchup against Chicago, he is high-end DL3 play. The Bears are allowing 30% pressure rate at a 14% sack conversion rate. Josh is a good play this week and as a rookie with limited overall production, he is someone you could look into buying low on him for your roster.

SIT: Uchenna Nwosu, Seattle Seahawks, DL12

Uchenna Nwosu has been delivering above off season expectations this year and normally has been a strong play. He has has a great baseline of 80% snaps and has had back-to-back weeks of 2-sack games. Normally I would advocate playing through poor matchups, however, Tampa Bay is less than ideal with the low pressure rate of 19% allowed by the offensive line, as well a 12% sack conversion rate. Nwosu still has a strong capability to produce with limited production, but Tom Brady has the fastest time to throw out of any QB this year of any QB with at least 100 attempts. This is not a hard “sit”, but definitely consider all options on your roster before just putting Nwosu in right away.

START: Blake Martinez, Las Vegas Raiders, LB42

Blake Martinez was a name that everyone knew and loved for IDP production, however, after suffering his ACL injury. He went from top IDP performer, to major injury, no team, another chance with his former defensive coordinator with the Raiders and now, ironically enough, an injury to Divine Deablo is giving him another chance for IDP (and NFL) relevance. Last week he saw 91% of the snaps and he saw the same amount of 3rd down snaps and was the leader on 1st and 2nd down snaps too. This is even though he is not the defensive play caller on the defense (that guy is coming up later!), and showed above average tackle efficiency at 17.7% this last week. Deablo expects to be out a minimum of 4 weeks with being placed on injured reserve so let’s keep firing up Martinez as he will continue his old habits working with Patrick Graham (former defensive coordinator).

UPDATE: 11/10/2022, 2:19 PM
Blake Martinez has retired from the NFL! Obviously, not a great addition to your starting lineup. Luke Masterson would be the 2nd LB to consider as a stash at this time or if you truly have a need to get a body into your lineup. Sorry to those who have made moves or efforts around this!

START: Willie Gay Jr., Kansas City Chiefs, LB34

Willie Gay Jr. a strong start to the season and really showed out in week 2. However, he was suspended for PEDs and missed 4 games and is working to find his full-time spot back on the field. He has seen his snap percentage slowly creep back up to regular numbers over the last two weeks and I believe this is going to continue as we move forward. With a week 10 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars, they are running the 11th most plays per this year with slight uptick of that over the previous 3. During the time he has been back on the field his tackle efficiency has been quite strong at 14.7% this last week he is trending towards a strong play as a high-end LB3.

SIT: Bobby Okereke, Indianapolis Colts, LB41

At the start of this season, many viewed Bobby O as an LB2/3 for sure. However, this season has brought forward a new LB in this group, Zaire Franklin. Zaire has taken the opportunity and ran with it. Earning the captain patch from his teammates and eventually given the green dot eventually by the coaching staff as the defensive play-caller. This along with the other big name, Shaquille (Darius) Leonard, is making it difficult for all of them to find time on the field. Bobby Okereke has seen his snaps dip the last two weeks as Leonard has made his way back onto the field (61% to 46%). This is not stable and should leave us from want to start him our lineups unless it is LB4 or deeper.

START: Duron Harmon, Las Vegas Raiders, DB46

Earlier we talked about Martinez and his return to the field for the Raiders. He is not wearing the green dot because Duron Harmon is the defensive play-caller and this is the strongest indicator of playing time. Harmon saw 100% of the snaps last week as the play-caller and that will hold true for this week. He has taken the opportunity and turned it into solid production this last week with 5 solos and 3 assists. This week against Indianapolis will see a new coach in place for them but still an ideal matchup for a defense. And with 42% of his snaps in the “sweet spot”, against a struggling Colts roster, there should be plenty of opportunity to succeed. This is a strong role moving forward for Harmon now that Abram has been cut (and claimed off waivers by the Packers) and you should consider Harmon a capable starter as a high-end DB3 rest of season.

START: Jalen Ramsey, Los Angeles Rams, DB29

Jalen Ramsey is known for his shut down play as an outside corner by a lot of people around the NFL landscape. He should also be known as a cornerback who provides a solid IDP production from the CB position, even to the point of being a viable DB option in combined position leagues. He has delivered a per game stat line: 4.5 tackles, 0.5 TFL, 1.1 PD. A viable stat line for most weeks, but this is because as an “outside” corner, he still finds 33% of his snaps between the slot and the box alignment. Partnered with his overall snaps he has seen, 98% on the season, he should be considered a low-end DB2 for the rest of the season.

SIT: Justin Simmons, Denver Broncos, DB26

Justin Simmons has been back playing the last 3 weeks, but has been spending a good amount of time on the injury report the last few weeks and as such he has some concern about playing time and performance baked in. Along with that, Justin Simmons is a safety that plays most of his snaps (55%) in the deep safety role. Now this week, the Broncos are playing the Titans who run the 2nd fewest plays per game, and the of those plays, the 3rd most of them are run plays. Which combined with where he plays on the field, this is a negative matchup for Simmons IDP production. Simmons is big name for NFL reasons and has contributed IDP relevance in the past, but this is a matchup to pivot away from.

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2021 RSO IDP Linebacker Review

Updated: April 24th 2022

With the defensive linemen in our rear-view mirror, let’s maneuver our way to the second level like the crafty little scat backs we all are and weave ourselves into some glorious IDP information. Let’s take a look at the 2021 linebackers for RSO and recap what we saw.

As we look at the world of linebackers, we have a bit of the conundrum we saw in the previous article with OLBs who are truly edge rushers (or pass rushers) but end up with the designation of LB, which only muddies our ability to try and makes our analysis a bit more tricky, but we will get there! For those LBs who are in that pass-rushing role, please take a peek at the previous article, 2021 DL Review, for thoughts on how to look at players in that role and designation.

So what did the top 24 LBs look on the RealitySportsOnline platform this last year for IDP123 scoring?

An interesting list with a solid mix of players who are talented NFL performers, some LBs that I like to consider “warm body” LBs, and a few others that you were wondering how are they on this list?!? How do we identify this talent if it is not based on just NFL talent? In this case, we circle back to our first and consistent IDP indicator, the volume of snaps! Snaps! Snaps! And more snaps! #SpoilerAlert, this will come up again in the review of defensive backs in the next article too!

With linebackers, it is not just the volume of the snaps that help indicate the potential success of an IDP linebacker, there are other pieces that are solid indicators to look into. One of the first ones that stand out for me is the number of zone snaps a linebacker takes on a given week and season. This helps show us who is playing on the field for most of the snaps and the very important third-down snaps (and getting that 3-down role on their team). That doesn’t mean we don’t want to see a baseline for just overall snaps and we should be looking for players that are getting close to that 1,000+ snap baseline (which equates to around 58 snaps per game, based on a 17-game season). Lastly, you want to look at the number of snaps per game a team’s defense is actually taking on a per-game basis to understand these baselines for a defender to achieve.

Here is what some of these top performers look like in terms of these numbers. Of course, these are not gospel and the only way to determine things, there are most certainly outliers to any process, some examples not shown are Kamu Grugier-Hill and Alex Singleton both failed to surpass 800+ total snaps on the year but managed to still break the top 24 with above average tackle efficiency (average tends to show around 12-13% for league average) and some massive week performances to boot.

Moving forward with these thoughts, what are you looking for in building out your roster this year and the following ones? You want to focus on teams that keep their LBs in a strong amount of zone coverage snaps and the LBs who are getting those snaps (pay attention to who is running the defense and how they have historically). See what teams are getting enough snaps to hopefully hit that 1,000 total snap threshold based on the number of defensive snaps they are taking and the snaps a defender is getting (big hint, getting 100% of the team’s snaps is good!). Lastly, tackle efficiency helps us identify outliers a bit more as well with very high tackle efficiencies being an indication of over-production in the majority of instances (think high TD totals for a WR and how those generally are not a sticky stat).

I hope this helps you gain a better understanding of what you can look for based on what we have seen from players in the past as you get ready for your drafts this off-season. As always, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter (@jakekohlhagen) with any thoughts, comments, or general discussions and happy drafting!

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2021 RSO IDP Defensive Line Review

Updated: April 7th 2022

Welcome back you IDP connaisseurs! Let’s continue our journey into the IDP world of fantasy football. We will kick off our review of the 2021 season, with the DL position group. If you recall from our intro to IDP, the DL position(s) is one that can be dictated by two key factors, the first, and most important for all IDP success, is the volume (as it is for most fantasy positions). The second factor is the NFL player’s ability to win their one-on-one matchup at the line of scrimmage. The defensive line is the unique position of IDP that generally correlates IDP success based on NFL success, similar to the offensive side of the ball. These will be things we want to keep in mind as we go forward through IDP.

Before we look at those top-performing pass-rushers from 2021, we must look at who is designated as a DE or DT. Figuring that out though is tough because defense in today’s era of the NFL is not the same kind of football from 1990 through 2010 or even just 5 years ago. Part of that understanding is that so many times people throw around the term “3-4 base” or “4-3 base” as a point of how to identify or designate players. However, thanks to the talented Tom Kislingbury (@tomkislingbury on Twitter), this base defense generally doesn’t account for more than roughly 8,000 snaps across ALL TEAMS AND 17 GAMES! Down from nearly 12,500 in just 2014! The point of this tangent is to call out that NFL defenses run so many different packages and looks, just like NFL offenses do and that has left us in a precarious situation in which we are not always accurately identifying or designating defensive players. And the greatest offender to this is in the DL position group.

Let’s get back on course and take a look at our top 24 (ish) “defensive linemen”, and you will see the top 12 on RSO based on designation and then the other “DL” or “EDGE” players that get LB designation (scoring is based on IDP123 scoring):

Top pass rushers 2021

Cool, a table that shows the top 12 DL in RSO and those you can’t use due to designation, you say. But the table highlights our initial article about understanding your league’s roster composition and the difference between elite DLs and those at the replacement level. If you got inside the top 5 for this position, you were very happy with the production of your DL spot(s). It also showcases the need to understand positional designation for your leagues as well. Then, how do we get it so you can identify these players for you so you can get them on your roster?

For IDP, the first piece is getting on the field, and understanding an IDP’s snap counts is the first step to finding those who will succeed. The next step at the DL level is those who are winning their reps as much as possible each play. When you find that intersection you will see the top of your list here.

Baseline Analytics

After this elite level, you see things start to mix up with either higher snap counts (800+ total or ~50 per game) or consistent QB Pressures ( 50+ total or ~ 3 per game). These are baselines and basic analytics you want to search for to help you with your search for consistent IDP DL production. As for the Pass Rush Win Rate, this is a PFF analytical stat, so you can rely on a source like them to provide this via their site or you can use the eye-test if you are able to watch enough games or replays to see which defensive linemen are winning those snaps each play at a consistent rate and getting to the QB. I like the mix of this to help round out my search for my IDP assets.

Well, picking out All-Pro and Pro Bowl players is easy because that is what this list looks like. While you are correct, there are outliers and information in both directions that can help us avoid making mistakes or help us find the next top performer. Looking at players who had an abnormal amount of snaps (Cameron Heyward is up almost 125+ snaps based on previous 4 seasons’ averages) or one who showed consistent success with QB pressures but just did not find a way to convert this into statistical success. Examples from this past year would be Maxx Crosby (100 pressures, first in the league) and Rashan Gary (81 pressures, third in the league).

The last point I want to call out is to pay attention to players’ and coaches’ movements when it comes to IDP position designation. This is still an inexact science at this point and as you can see from the first table, there are players who are true pass rushers but have that LB designation so they don’t get to score at a DL position. And as defensive coaches and schemes change, LB and DE position changes can change along with it like Chandler Jones moving from Arizona’s “3-4 base” to Las Vegas’s “4-3 base”, will he stay with the LB tag? Will he shift to DE? And the inverse for Danielle Hunter (assuming he stays with Minnesota), where will his designation end up?

I hope this gives you some insight as to who the 2021 successes were, how they got there, and how you can work to understand it going forward for your drafts, trades, or anything else IDP related!

If you ever want to discuss IDP thoughts, IDP strategies, or just talk about fantasy football, you can reach out to me on Twitter @jakekohlhagen.

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