All About the Solo: Week Six

Eric Olinger

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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 six:

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View the complete spreadsheet

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We saw the season’s first zero assist game this week. The Packers were credited with all solo assists while visiting the Miami Dolphins. It’s not all that rare to see single digit assist games for teams (we had nine this week alone), but it’s incredibly rare to see zero assists. The Dolphins increased their margin for being the stingiest assist givers to visiting teams in the league, now at 7.27%. Kansas City is currently only scoring 7.21% of tackles as assists to their home town Chiefs. Overall, the Chiefs are the still the stingiest to both the home and visiting teams.

Luke Kuechly continues his impressive pace of collecting tackles hand over fist by adding 13 more this week, nine solo and four assists. He leads the league with 74 total tackles – ten more than Paul Worrilow in second place.
Nigel Bradham stepped back into the starting lineup this week and immediately made an IDP impact with seven solos and four assists. Unfortunately, it was at the expense of the impressive rookie, Preston Brown, who now goes back to being a worthwhile dynasty stash.

Looking at the top ten tacklers from week six, we find two Tennessee Titans defensive backs and three New York Jets. With the Jaguars’ ineffective ground game and mostly effective passing game, they’ve become a solid matchup for opposing secondaries. Blake Bortles has proven to be more than competent as a rookie and is getting plenty of support from fellow rookie Allen Robinson and the momentarily healthy Cecil Shorts III, aka “Cecil 3-Sticks.”

The Broncos dink and dunk passing game combined with their effective run game led to 35 total tackles for David Harris, Demario Davis and Dawan Landry. It’s not inside information to suggest starting your IDPs against the Broncos, though. This week they will square off against a decimated 49ers defense without Patrick Willis, NaVarro Bowman and Aldon Smith. Replacing Willis and Bowman will be Chris Borland and Michael Wilhoite, both of who will be sneaky streaming options this week.

As far as other games go, expect solid performances from Alec Ogletree and James Laurinaitis against Russell Wilson, Marshawn Lynch and company. Donte Whitner, Joe Haden and Justin Gilbert will be solid plays against the aforementioned Jacksonville Jaguars while the usual suspects from Jacksonville, Jonathan Cyprien and Paul Posluszny, will see plenty of opportunities from the surprisingly effective Cleveland run game. I like Jelani Jenkins versus Matt Forte and the Bears, Tahir Whitehead against the Saints, both Carolina cornerbacks against Aaron Rodgers and the Packers as they try to avoid the beastly Kuechly. Look for Eric Weddle to have a big day against the division rival Chiefs. Expect both Cardinals safeties to be busy against Derek Carr and the Raiders’ aggressive, high risk, high reward passing attack. If Jacquian Williams maintains the starting gig over Jon Beason he will have a big opportunity against DeMarco Murray. It’s a risk though because they could end up splitting time and watering each other’s stats down. Keep an eye on practice reports and the status of rookie Ryan Shazier leading up to Monday night’s game against Arian Foster and the Houston Texans. If it looks like he’s going to start, he has to be in your lineups.

Follow me on Twitter @OlingerIDP.

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eric olinger
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