All About the Solo: Week 12

Eric Olinger

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.

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Wait, what’s this? A bonus table!?!?! Get excited kids, I know I spoil you. In addition to the top ten tacklers for the week, I have included all of the players who registered more than one sack in week 12. The tackle chart is more of the same and mostly guys we’ve talked about plenty this year. Kory Toomer and Daryl Worley are the exceptions to that statement. Toomer made the list based on having nine assists to just four solos but the guy is playing 97% of the defensive snaps and continues to shove Denzel Perryman to the side lines on passing downs. Worley was on the field a ton in an entertaining shootout versus the Raiders. You can’t expect him to pop back up.

Everyone knows plenty about Jason Pierre-Paul and his half a hand. He is having a great season and will undoubtedly go to the Pro Bowl this year at the defensive end position. He now has seven sacks on the season after racking up three more against the hapless Browns. Joining in on the action were teammates Olivier Vernon and Johnathan Hankins each with 1.5 sacks. The Giants defense has turned into a fourth quarter dominator, much like the Raiders.

In the Broncos and Chiefs game, Von Miller and Justin Houston put on a clinic Sunday night with three sacks each. Miller now leads the league with 12.5 sacks and Houston was playing in just his second game of the season. Bringing down Alex Smith looked a little too easy in this game. Without his ability to move around in and outside of the pocket he’s just a sitting duck, and Miller went duck hunting.

Marcel Dareus hasn’t quite had the 2016 season anyone had hoped for with having to serve a four game suspension, voluntarily entering a rehab facility and then dealing with hamstring and groin injuries prohibiting him from appearing in all but three games total. When he has played though, he has played effectively by registering one sack, half a sack and then the two sacks on Sunday for the Bills.

A couple other tidbits on my mind for this week: The patella injury to Danny Trevathan of the Bears made me want to vomit. I’m not a Bears fan by any stretch but I am a fan of good football players and solid IDPs. Trevathan is both. Patella injuries often end or greatly diminish NFL careers, look at the struggle Victor Cruz is still fighting. As a player I thoroughly enjoy watching I hope he can make a full and speedy recovery.

Unfortunately, Lavonte David is in the midst of the worst statistical season of his five year career and people are asking why that is, and the answer is the Tampa Bay defense is better. He is still playing at an All-Pro level and his play was a huge part of the team’s upset win over the Seahawks in week 12. This year he’s not a no-brainer weekly LB1 but he still carries that ceiling and is definitely still in play as your LB2 or LB3.

Khalil Mack entered 2016 with monumental hype surrounding him after his position was switched from linebacker to defensive end and on Sunday he delivered. Mack was a beast versus the Panthers a la Von Miller in last year’s Super Bowl. He finished the day with an interception returned for a touchdown, a forced fumble and recovery and a sack on top of his six tackles. He now has nine sacks on the season and all of them are over the last eight games. With J.J. Watt on the shelf, the Defensive Player of the Year award appears to be a two man race between Mack and Von Miller.

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Follow me on Twitter @OlingerIDP.

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eric olinger
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