2017 IDP Projection Marking: New England Patriots

Tom Kislingbury Posted On January 30, 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.

It feels weird to be writing this with the Super Bowl (and therefore the Patriots’ last game of the season) still a week away but the fantasy world does not stop turning for anyone. Clearly being in the Big Game it was another good season for New England. Not just offensively but on defense too. Early on in the year, it was a royal mess, but the team pulled it together and stiffened dramatically.

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Defensive Tackle

Malcom Brown gave me some jitters this season as he missed a long stretch of games but in the end, came through pretty well. He’s lost a little bit of buzz but he’s still a very good player. He was close to projections as he finished just one solo away, four assists and a batted pass. He was bang on with three sacks.

Alan Branch also missed plenty of time over the season and played just 273 snaps. As a result, he was well under the benchmark of 20 solos (he managed just 12) and bizarrely had no assists at all.

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Defensive End

Trey Flowers broke out in 2016 and followed it up with an excellent 2017. He didn’t put up gaudy sack numbers (he hit my prediction of seven exactly) but there isn’t much potential for double digits in this scheme compared to other teams. The focus on gap integrity is just too high. Aside from the sacks, he was seven solos over (acceptable), three assists under (good) and one batted pass under (good).

I had Lawrence Guy listed as an end here. He played much more inside but did move around a bit. He was really close to tackle predictions but way short on sacks.

Behind them, Cassius Marsh left the team halfway through the season and Shea McClellin was hurt for the year.

Linebacker

The Patriots are quite unusual at linebacker. They’re one of the few teams that don’t run a scheme featuring two every-down inside LBs. Really there’s just one interior job and a lot of flexibility.

Kyle Van Noy started the season as the undisputed Mike but when Dont’a Hightower (who was playing on the edge) got hurt Van Noy moved outside and his effectiveness dropped sharply. At that point, Elandon Roberts started playing a lot more inside but given his limitations in coverage he wasn’t exactly an IDP stud.

I predicted Van Noy would manage 52 solos (he recorded 58), 24 assists (just 15), three sacks (six) and three PDs (two). As you’d expect, playing more on the edge made him less efficient as a tackler but better as a pass rusher.

All Hightower’s numbers were, of course, way under. He only played 237 snaps.

Below that, David Harris played less than expected and Elandon Roberts more. There were some good numbers and some bad here but overall it’s a moot point. You shouldn’t have been relying on either of them as IDPs!

There’s a mystery here then. As a unit, the LBs here finished 32 solos short of my total. No one really picked that slack up. Read on to find out where they went.

Cornerback

This was a pretty impressive unit I’d say. Stephon Gilmore finished with the precise number of solos predicted (47) and Malcolm Butler was just six over. Although Stephon Gilmore finished with just nine PDs (I said 15), Butler managed 12 (against a benchmark of 11). Gilmore finished one interception short and Butler was bang on.

Having said that, the pair managed just eight assists between them. That was clearly on the low side.

Safety

Remember the curious case of the missing solos? Well, here they are. Both main safeties managed to smash tackle predictions here. Whereas most teams use two inside linebackers, the Pats like to be much more flexible with Patrick Chung as well as Devin McCourty.

The popular narrative around McCourty is that he plays pure deep safety. He does do that a lot, but when Duron Harmon comes in on passing downs, McCourty is moved around and was more so this season than ever before. The result was a spectacular 77 solo tackles, beaten only by Reshad Jones and Keanu Neal among safeties. At the same time, Chung put up 67 solos which was good in its own right.

So the numbers were out, but as a scheme change. Would that have happened if Hightower had stayed fit? We’ll never know but I doubt it. I think it was an in-season adjustment rather than a long-term shift. Regardless the expected accuracy wasn’t really there with either player.

In summary

Although the safeties were both weird I’m happy with this team result. I was good on Trey Flowers, Kyle Van Noy, Lawrence Guy, Malcom Brown, Stephon Gilmore and Malcolm Butler.

Matt Patricia is leaving after the season though, so can we expect the same magic going forwards? I expect some fairly heavy player turnover as well as some adjustments in the scheme but it’s New England. Until they prove otherwise, I expect stability and excellence.

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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