All About the Solo: Week Three

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’ ]

It’s pretty crazy Demario Davis returns to the Jets and instantly goes back to high end LB2, low end LB1 after a ho-hum season in Cleveland. Davis is a tackling machine and playing 100% of the snaps while making teammate Darron Lee invisible. If I’m a Darron Lee owner I’m past the panic point and would look to shop him before bye weeks hit and I’m forced to cut him for nothing.

Cory James is enjoying a solid start to 2017 as a virtue of circumstance. By default, he has “earned” the starting middle linebacker spot for a struggling Raiders defense. For now he has a lot of seasonal value a la Craig Robertson in New Orleans last year, but he’s not someone I’m anticipating holding onto the starting gig long term, a la Craig Robertson.

Josh Jones was an absolute monster against Andy Dalton and the Bengals on Sunday. He racked up 11 solo tackles and an assist while adding two sacks playing from multiple positions. He played base linebacker with Jake Ryan out, lined up in the slot, outside and at safety. He and teammate Blake Martinez were big time reasons the Packers only allowed three second half points to the Bengals.

Tyvon Branch continues his comeback tour with 11 more total tackles while leading the Cardinals defense. There’s no sugar coating it, he’s a DB1 until he gets hurt. The guy still plays with reckless abandon.

It was good to see Bobby Wagner and Ryan Shazier finally show up on the double digit tackles list. Wagner and the entire Seattle defense has gotten off to a slow start but Wagner finally produced solid IDP numbers this week. Shazier was a playing sideline to sideline against the Bears but even though they lost he was an IDP winner with 11 tackles, all solo.

Bill Belichick is doing it. I can’t believe it but he’s actually doing it. He’s making Kyle Von freaking Noy an IDP relevant player in fantasy. We all want Elandon Roberts to be a thing and Kyle Van Noy is the man telling him to grab a Gatorade. All of this can change in an instant when it comes to New England but until there’s a reason not to believe, Van Noy deserves LB1 status while playing 100% of the snaps. Unbelievable.

You can take a lot of what I just said about Kyle Van Noy and copy/paste it about Jon Bostic in Indianapolis. He’s not very good but he’s playing all the snaps on a team mostly struggling on offense. After all, they’re not going to be playing Cleveland every week. His 77 snaps were most among the players on this list so he’s seeing plenty of tackle opportunities.

Preston Brown and Todd Davis both finished the day with 10 total tackles but got there in two very different ways. Brown played all 70 snaps for the Bills and collected four solo tackles and six assists. It was a solid but unspectacular IDP day. Todd Davis on the other hand racked up nine solo tackles an assist and chipped in a sack on just 41 plays or 63% of the snaps. This is the Todd Davis we have been hoping for the last two years but have yet to see and it’s hard to tell when we’ll see it again unless he starts seeing more than 63% of the defensive snaps. Efficiency numbers like these are hard to maintain.

The difference in a key IDP player and a potentially championship clinching IDP player is positional designation. If Melvin Ingram is listed as a linebacker in your league you’re definitely happy to have him but if he’s listed as a defensive end, like on RotoWorld and MyFantasyLeague, he’s as valuable as J.J. Watt and Khalil Mack and will be responsible for bringing championships home for IDPers this Christmas. I think it’s also ridiculous Ingram is listed as a defensive end and Khalil Mack is not.

Now that Demarcus Lawrence is healthy, he’s playing like a man possessed. He is leading the league with seven sacks through three games after following up his back-to-back two sack games with a three sack game. Whoa! He could easily be this year’s Danielle Hunter who provides insane value for where he was drafted in IDP leagues.

I really like what I saw out of Carl Lawson in Cincinnati this week. He’s a hybrid strong side linebacker / defensive end with an unfortunate positional designation. His value would be so much higher if he was labeled as a defensive end that sometimes plays linebacker opposed to a linebacker who also plays on the defensive line. We can hope the Bengals eventually move him to defensive end full time this offseason. He could be an interesting stash and hope player.

I’ve already talked about Josh Jones’ impressive week but this is another example of a positional designation which could greatly benefit IDPers. A couple of years ago IDPers were able to ride Deone Bucannon and Mark Barron into championship weekend as high floor defensive backs who were playing exclusively at linebacker. After the day Jones had it’ll be interesting if he can push Jake Ryan for the full time gig. He offers more scheme versatility when they have both Jones and Morgan Burnett on the field at the same time.

Follow me on Twitter @OlingerIDP.

[/am4show]