2017 IDP Projection Marking: Carolina Panthers

Tom Kislingbury Posted On January 15, 2018

Hi everyone and welcome to the fantasy off-season. It was a wild ride in 2017 and I’m still recovering, but there’s no real off-season in the dynasty world. In the summer I made projections for every IDP in the league I thought would be relevant. You can go back and read all of the 2017 IDP Projections here.

I was right in some places. I was wrong in some places. But either way, it’s important to be accountable and honest so I can figure out why and make adjustments in the future. I’ll be going through every team and noting where I was right and where I was wrong. To do that I’ll show what my projections were, how players actually performed, and how big the discrepancies were.

car team

Defensive Tackle

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Wow. I’m actually pretty impressed with myself here.

Kawann Short was one of my favorite players at the position until recently but his 2017 seemed disappointing. However, looking at these numbers, they’re very close to what I was expecting. I predicted 27 solos (he had 31), 21 assists (22) and six sacks (eight).

Star Lotulelei is an overrated player. That happens a lot for IDPs with unusual names. I had him down for 17 solo tackles and 14 assists but he only managed six solos and 19. It wasn’t a million miles away, but significant at this level.

Kyle Love managed four sacks on just 379 snaps. Aside from that, I was pretty close on him and Vernon Butler.

Defensive End

End was far less impressive in terms of accuracy. I went with Charles Johnson as the lead man ahead of Mario Addison which was a big mistake. Addison was in the top ten of sack efficiency in both 2015 and 2016. I liked him in 2017 but climbed down when a fairly prominent writer ridiculed that take on Twitter. I’ll have the courage of my convictions next time!

My Charles Johnson prediction was way out and goes down as a big miss. I was closer with Addison but still four low on his sack total of 11, which ended up being shared out across the other players.

Julius Peppers was a tough one for me too. He had significantly more tackles than I expected and his 11 sacks smashed my prediction of four.

Linebacker

I was a bit overoptimistic on Luke Kuechly. He was the top linebacker in my projections and I thought he’d have a huge season. In the end I was over by 14 on solo tackles and four over on PDs. I was very close on assists (one out), sacks (one out) and interceptions (bang on) but I’d like to have been closer on solos.

Below Kuechly, I was a bit all over the shop. Thomas Davis was way lower than my numbers by a whopping 36 total tackles. He also managed nine fewer cover plays than I thought. Those aren’t good numbers at all.

Also, I thought Shaq Thompson would be behind David Mayo in playing time. There’s no way to hide from how bad a take that was. Thompson had another fairly unimpressive season but I was way wrong here.

Cornerback

This position was a mixed bag. I was very close to all the top three options in terms of sacks, PDs, and interceptions, but I had a huge miss in solo tackles. I thought James Bradberry would manage 44 solo tackles. He smashed that with 66 and was actually more efficient in every category than in his impressive rookie season in 2016. I was, however, close on solos against Daryl Worley (three out) and Captain Munnerlyn (four out).

Safety

Mike Adams was my top option at the position. I predicted him 53 solos (he managed 48), 28 assists (he managed 21), nine PDs (he managed 12) and five INTs (he had two). Aside from the interceptions which are probably the least predictable stat in the NFL, I was fairly good here.

The other starting safety Kurt Coleman is another one of those overrated players. He was immense in the season the Panthers went to the Super Bowl and many fans still think he’s as good as he was then. He’s not, but I was still a bit low on him. He beat my solo prediction by 11 and assists by six, He did, however, have three fewer PDs than I thought and two fewer interceptions (he had none).

At third safety, I had them the wrong way round. I thought Dean Marlowe would be the top backup but Colin Jones outperformed him. Swap them over and it wasn’t far away. I’m at peace with a few errors at the bottom of defensive back depth charts.

In summary

I’m not happy at all with my performance here at DE. I should have had more faith in Mario Addison and not believed in Charles Johnson. But I did what I did and I have to live with it – not a good position for me.

However, I’m very happy with my performance at tackle, linebacker, and corner – with the exception of a couple of specific player stats. The Panthers should have a bit of turnover on the defensive side this season.

I expect at least one new end to come in to compete for major snaps and likely a defensive back or two as well. The defensive coordinator Steve Wilks is getting interviews for head coaching gigs at time of writing so this is a team that could have a fair amount of flux. I’ll be watching carefully.

Thanks for reading.

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Tom Kislingbury

Contributor at Dynasty League Football

Being from England Tom only discovered American Football in the late 90s. From there he's gone from casual defender to devoted obsessive and likes to delve into deep data primarily about defensive players. He spends his days trying to pretend the spreadsheets and graphs he makes about football are actually work for his day job. No-one is fooled.

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