All About the Solo: Week Five

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. On the flip side, if your league doesn’t score solos and assists too differently, you’ll have a better idea of what teams hand out assists like candy. Not everyone 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 the news and websites. 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. There is a still a large discrepancy 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.

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At the top of the list, you see two San Francisco inside linebackers – Navorro Bowman and Michael Wilhoite. Their 32 combined total tackles accounted for over a third of the 49ers’ 92 total team tackles last week. They’re making a ton of tackles but not close enough to the line of scrimmage, therefore they’re unable to get off the field. As this team continues to struggle in every facet of the game, Bowman and Wilhoite are going to maintain huge weekly tackle opportunities.

Telvin Smith is second in the league in total tackles with 52, trailing only D’Qwell Jacskson’s 58. He continues to play every snap and is a matchup proof weekly LB1 starter and a top 12 dynasty asset.

I’ve been slow to come around on Vincent Rey in Cincinnati, but he’s third in the league in tackles as a 4-3 SAM linebacker and he’s played 99.1% of the team’s snaps. No other Bengals linebacker has played more than 62.4% of the snaps. Even if Vontaze Burfict comes off of the PUP list after week eight (which there’s no guarantee), Rey appears to have solidified his spot in this linebacking group.

Arizona continues to be IDP heaven for defensive backs. Jerraud Powers, Tony Jefferson and Deone Bucannon all finished with 11 total tackles in week five, and it wasn’t just the score keeper dishing out assists like Matthew Stafford was dishing out interceptions on Sunday. Bucannon and Powers both had nine solo tackles and Jefferson finished with seven. Not on the list, Tyrann Mathieu had five solos and an assist, Rashad Johnson had two solos, three assists and two interceptions and Patrick Peterson finished with four solo tackles and a pick of his own. This secondary is elite.

Follow me on Twitter @OlingerIDP.

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eric olinger
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