All About the Solo: Week Five
One of the most 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 assists. On the flip side, if your league doesn’t score solos and assists too differently, you’ll have a better idea of which 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 is still the discretion of the home score keeper. Even after this effort 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.
[am4show have=’g1;’ guest_error=’sub_message’ user_error=’sub_message’ ]
Seeing two Browns linebackers on the list this week isn’t surprising with New England in town. To little surprise, they ran away with this game and had the ball for nearly 35 minutes, compared to 25 minutes for the Browns. The situation only got worse when yet another quarterback, Cody Kessler, went down and was replaced by Charlie Whitehurst, who – spoiler alert – also got injured. New England went into clock-killing mode and both Christian Kirksey and Demario Davis benefited. This was the Deone Bucannon we’ve been expecting all season. His 14 total tackles more than doubled his previous season high (six tackles) scored all the way back in week one. This is very encouraging and should signal stronger days are ahead.
Tahir Whitehead looked very healthy and posted his third double digit tackle game of the season against the Eagles. Outside of a week three stinker versus the Packers, Whitehead has been a very steady IDP linebacker. If he could generate some turnovers or sacks he could be an elite player at the position. He’s a clear every week starter for me. Kiko Alonso has recorded 11, 11, 8, 8 and 12 total tackles through the first five weeks of the season and constantly finds himself around the ball. It would be nice if he could add some turnovers or sacks to his resume as well.
Vontaze Burfict finished with 77% of the defensive snaps played this week, second on the team to Rey Maualuga at the linebacker position. Burfict is maximizing his opportunities while on the field but it’s hard to trust him when he’s not playing more snaps. The Bengals linebackers tend to cannibalize each other’s production with Vincent Rey and Karlos Dansby also getting significant playing time. Markus Golden now has at least one sack in every game this season after recording two more against the inept Blaine Gabbert and the 49ers “offense”. Only Lorenzo Alexander and Brian Orakpo can say they’ve done that this year. Who saw that coming?
One of the more interesting tidbits of week five was the Falcons rolling Kemal Ishmael out as a starting linebacker. The hard hitting strong safety had been filling in for the injured Keanu Neal but had been relegated to back up duties. With Deion Jones, De’Vondre Campbell, Paul Worrilow and Sean Weatherspoon all inactive, Ishmael stepped in and had himself a day. If the Broncos offense could’ve sustained a drive it would’ve been even better, but they couldn’t stop Vic Beasley who racked up eight tackles and 3.5 sacks. I tweeted on Sunday that Paxton Lynch was going to check under his bed for Vic Beasley. That’s the player the thought they were getting when they drafted him. Now let’s see him do it again.
Follow me on Twitter @OlingerIDP.
[/am4show]
- 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
