All About the Solo: Week Thirteen
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 13.
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View the entire spreadsheet.
It’s nice to finally have the bye weeks behind us and have our entire rosters at our disposal. With more options come more questions. Who do I start? Who do I sit? What is good for the “team defense” players is almost the exact opposite for us IDP folk. When you’re looking for a team defense, whether it is in daily fantasy games or seasonal fantasy leagues, you look for defenses most likely to give up the fewest points and collect the elusive shutout, like the Rams this past week. In those same leagues you usually stay away from defenses playing the likes of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers. They’re nearly unstoppable and defenses rarely produce solid numbers. In the IDP world, however, these are the teams you want to start your IDP against. You want your players to be on the field as much as humanly possible, to be a one man wrecking crew, to fall just short of greatness.
For example, the Broncos had three takeaways, six sacks and a total 16 points scored against their defense versus the Chiefs. A very solid team defense outing. On the flip side, if your IDP didn’t get one of the six Alex Smith sacks, you most likely felt left out of the celebration as the Broncos only had 43 total tackles as a team. Luckily, pretty much all of the heavy hitters got one of the sacks so there shouldn’t have been too many people upset.
Looking at the top ten tacklers from week 13 and it’s just like we had them ranked at the beginning of the season, right? Hardly. If nothing else, it goes to show you’re better off waiting on IDP on draft day and playing the waiver wire throughout the season. Of this list, only Jamie Collins, Larry Foote, Koa Misi and Nigel Bradham were mentioned as viable IDP assets for this year and for the vast majority of the season, Collins has been the only one you could really count on. Misi has been a huge disappointment, Foote has been up and down and Bradham can’t keep Preston Brown out of the spotlight in Buffalo.
With the playoffs upon us in most leagues, it more important than ever to pick the right matchups. When in doubt, I turn to Las Vegas. Well, actually my smart phone and theScore app to look at the total points and spreads. This week, the game with the highest projected point total is the Monday night game featuring Atlanta at Green Bay. Green Bay is currently a 13 point favorite – this means the Atlanta defense should be on the field plenty and puts Paul Worrilow and Kemal Ishmael, specifically. Due to the high scoring potential and the lack of a legitimate run game, the Packers IDP are in a positive spot also – this includes Clay Matthews, Julius Peppers, Ha-Ha Clinton-Dix, Micah Hyde and Morgan Burnett. If you’re somehow in a desperate spot and have to throw a hail mary at defensive end, Mike Daniels is a sneaky start against the buttery soft Atlanta offensive line.
Somewhat surprisingly, the game the next highest point total is the Thursday night game (Dallas at Chicago) with 51 total points. So far this year the Thursday night games have been one sided stinkers and the team looking to do most of the heavy lifting here (Dallas) will be playing their third game in 12 days. This has major letdown potential on Dallas’ side but it would worry me a lot more if the Bears had any idea what a professional defense looked like. If this was the Sunday night game it would be the perfect recipe for a “get right” game for Dez Bryant, Terrence Williams and Tony Romo but regardless of what night it’s played or against who, you aren’t going to sit Bryant or DeMarco Murray in your fantasy playoffs. On the IDP side, it should be a similar defensive game plan as they rolled against the Lions on Thanksgiving. Look for Ryan Mundy and Jon Bostic to lead the team in tackles again. I would not expect Jared Allen to have two sacks against Tyron Smith and this offensive line, though. For the Cowboys, I like Anthony Hitchens, Barry Church, Rolando McClain and J.J. Wilcox. Keep in mind the Bears only completed 31 passes and had eight rushing attempts last week as opposed to their opponent from last week, the Eagles, who completed 20 passes and had 45 rushing attempts. That’s 26 fewer tackle opportunities, so if the Bears offense struggles the IDP numbers could reflect.
If you’re beating yourself up trying to figure out who to start or who to sit this week, this is another variable to factor in. As always, the DLF IDP crew is available on Twitter 24/7.
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
