All About the Solo: Week Nine
One of the more frustrating things in IDP leagues is seeing your stud linebacker fly all over the field on game days only to see the home score keeper dilute his performance by divvying up his tackles as an assist. Not everybody knows this, but the NFL does not recognize a tackle as an official statistic. Tackles are scored by the home team’s official score keeper and those are the stats you see on news and stats sites. The league made an effort to standardize what is and isn’t a solo tackle back in 2007 when they sent a video to all NFL teams, but it still the discretion of the score keeper and there is a large disparity from team to team and week-to-week. I will be tracking this throughout the season to give you a better idea of what to expect when choosing your IDPs each week. The chart below shows the results through week nine.
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View the entire spreadsheet.
The streak of “zero assist” games finally came to an end this week, but just barely. The Jets were only given two assists in Kansas City while the home town Chiefs were given just eight. On the other end of the spectrum, the Bengals’ score keeper gave the Jaguars a week high 50 assists to just 38 solo tackles. The Bengals were scored with 43 solos and 26 assists. Oddly enough there wasn’t a single player in this game to achieve double digit tackles.
Following up on last week’s predictions, I identified Chris Borland, Major Wright and Mychal Kendricks as solid plays. It definitely looks like Major Wright is in line to be a solid DB1 for the rest of this season but lacks long term dynasty appeal. Borland is a great sell high candidate as Patrick Willis should return to the lineup this week and the 49ers continue playing Michael Wilhoite next to him until NaVarro Bowman returns from injury, whenever that may be.
Kendricks is back to weekly LB1 status and could be up for huge numbers now DeMeco Ryans is out for the year with a torn Achilles. In other injury news, Prince Amukamara will miss the rest of the season with a torn bicep. This is a huge blow because he was a top three corner back in IDP leagues. In Pittsburgh, Ryan Shazier (ankle) and Troy Polamalu (knee) are both expected to sit this week. Sean Spence could be a nice spot start if you’re in need of a one week fill-in.
Moving on to this week, in the Thursday night game I like Vincent Rey and Emmanuel Lamur of the Bengals against a run heavy Browns team. For the Browns, Donte Whitner and Karlos Dansby are no-brainers but Buster Skrine and Joe Haden, who has been beatable this year but playing better the last couple of weeks, are plus matchups on a short week.
The Dolphins are coming off a dismantling of the San Diego Chargers and heading to take on a now healthy Detroit Lions team welcoming back Calvin Johnson, Reggie Bush and their trio of tight ends. This has the potential to be an unexpected shootout even though the Lions’ defense has been the league’s best this year. Reshad Jones, Jelani Jenkins and the duo of Cameron Wake and Olivier Vernon should all be locked into lineups while Cortland Finnegan should see a ton of targets this week and makes a nice spot start. For the Lions, DeAndre Levy, Tahir Whitehead and Glover Quin are rock solid options, as are their entire front four.
I’m leery of the San Francisco linebackers this week if Patrick Willis returns. He wasn’t putting up elite IDP numbers prior to injury and they could employ and heavy rotation of Michael Wilhoite, Chris Borland and Patrick Willis, rendering them all dicey plays. I actually prefer the Saints front seven in this matchup after seeing the Rams bring Colin Kaepernick down eight times in week nine. This bodes well for Junior Gallette, Cameron Jordon, Akiem Hicks and Curtis Lofton especially.
I’m starting every piece of the Chicago Bears secondary I have this week as they head to Green Bay. Their defense in awful and Aaron Rodgers should eat them alive as both teams come off a bye. In a good old fashioned revenge game, I like Julius Peppers against his old team, as well as Clay Matthews.
My favorite IDP matchup this week comes in the Monday night affair where Mychal Kendricks will matchup against Greg Olsen and Cam Newton. With Kendricks’ blitz ability and coverage skills, he could put up some pretty astronomical IDP numbers this week. Now that I’ve singled him out he’ll probably end up with four total tackles. I apologize in advance.
Follow me on Twitter @OlingerIDP.
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- Dynasty IDP Waiver Wire: Week Seven - October 24, 2018
- Dynasty IDP Waiver Wire: Week Six - October 16, 2018
- Dynasty IDP Waiver Wire: Week Five - October 10, 2018
