All About the Solo: Week 13

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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With injuries really starting to pile up as the season approaches its end, players are starting to be placed on injured reserve, especially for teams who no longer have meaningful snaps in front of them. With the fantasy playoffs starting for most of us this week, there are more than a few names out there who are in line to play meaningful snaps on the IDP side.

Bradley McDougald is now a full time player on a Seattle defense that is seeing more snaps and is no longer a must avoid for offenses. The truth is, the Seahawks struggle to run the ball so this lengthens the games and give more opportunities for the defense to see the field – and this isn’t the Legion of Boom. McDougald may still be on your waiver wire and provides immediate plug and play DB1 value.

Deone Bucannon sat out this past week’s game with a lower leg injury, a.k.a. an ankle, and Josh Bynes stepped in and delivered a solid performance with eight solo tackles, including one for a loss, and a pass defended. Bucannon could very easily be shut down any day after struggling to bounce back from this ankle injury and Bynes could slide immediately into LB2 territory. There’s zero chance Budda Baker is still on your waiver wire but at least verify he’s been picked up.

The Monday night game in Cincinnati was what we expected as far as dirty plays and heavy penalties, but seeing Ryan Shazier go down and not being able to move his legs was pretty scary. While signs are getting more and more positive throughout the week and the expectation is he will recover from his spinal contusion, we cannot expect to see him in the next couple games as a best case scenario. He’s always had a habit of tackling with his head lowered, not in a dirty way, just in a “less than ideal form” kind of way.

With his backup, Tyler Matakevich also leaving the game, Vince Williams finds himself the last man standing at inside linebacker. On Monday night Williams finished with nine tackles, four solo and five assists, while recording one quarterback sack of Andy Dalton. Williams probably isn’t available in most IDP leagues but if you own him he’s going to provide a big time boost in the playoffs.

On the other side of the field, Vontaze Burfict found himself in a weird situation, he was on the other side of cheap, blindside hit. Steelers rookie wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster peeled back and obliterated Burfict and then stood over him as he knocked off the cob webs. I don’t really think he was trying to hurt Burfict, I think he was a small guy trying to put a hit on a big guy without absorbing the brunt of the impact. Unfortunately contact to the head was made and down went Burfict. The early word is Burfict will be fine and probably won’t miss any time, so don’t panic until there’s reason to.

It wasn’t injury related, but New York Jets linebacker Darron Lee was a healthy scratch in week 13 and replaced by Julian Stanford in the starting lineup. This is a huge red flag for a player who has been fairly consistent this year. He was not on the injury report and I couldn’t find any disciplinary news. There’s no way I’m playing him in the fantasy playoffs even if he is active.

Follow me on Twitter @OlingerIDP.

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