2019 IDP Projection Review: AFC West
All through the off-season we work to give DLF readers an edge in their dynasty leagues. That’s useless unless we can prove we’re OK at actually making decent predictions. This series looks back through our final pre-season projections to see how good or bad they were.
Some were uncannily accurate, some were poor, but we don’t hide behind injuries and other excuses. We were either acceptably accurate or we were not. And where we were not, we take it on the chin and vow to improve.
Denver Broncos
The Broncos were a disappointing team in 2019 and the defense especially so. The arrival of Vic Fangio as head coach led plenty to believe their defense would be immediately turned around to become an elite unit, but that was not the case.
They did finish 10th in points allowed and 12th in yards, but they were just 24th in total pressure and the whole unit had a work-in-progress feel.
The top two tackles did better than expected, with Mike Purcell in particular piling up way more tackles. Shelby Harris also managed an impressive eight PDs.
The ends were more disappointing. Derek Wolfe is an OK player who still enjoys an inflated reputation because of the Broncos’ great title winning defense. He finished on a down note, even with seven sacks. Adam Gotsis also finished low in all categories. This team needs an interior lineman to grab a role here.
At linebacker the story of the year was Josey Jewell totally failing to take his chance and Alexander James “AJ” Johnson winning the job next to Todd Davis. Johnson ended up close to the third LB numbers predicted here, but his value is higher given the excitement about him. Davis also ended up over-performing given he held a starting job and remained mainly healthy.
On the edge Von Miller was fairly accurate. He was two sacks short, but only a few tackles and snaps away from prediction. Bradley Chubb got hurt early and finished way short. Malik Reed actually won the job over Justin Hollins, which explains the inaccuracy. If they had been pegged in the right order, they’d have been much closer.
The corners were all relatively close but disappointing, which describes the unit fairly accurately.
At safety Justin Simmons had a career year. He beat predictions comfortably in solo tackles, PDs and interceptions. He had an excellent year and his value has adjusted accordingly.
Kansas City Chiefs
Chris Jones was a fairly poor projection. He finished with about half the expected tackles but twice as much pressure. In real terms, his tackles were similar year-on-year and he lost 21 pressures and seven sacks from last year. It’s not a great result, but this sort of thing happens when teams change base scheme. Fortunately, Derrick Nnadi was far closer.
At DE, Frank Clark had a weird year. He was awful early on even if he did manage to rally late. As a result, he was quite short of tackles and pressure. Elsewhere Alex Okafor was short but Emmanuel Ogbah and Tanoh Kpassagnon outperformed predictions.
The LB unit was poor all season long with none of them earning a full-time role. Anthony Hitchens fell short of his expected performance and Damien Wilson did well, but neither are IDP answers. This team is in dire need of new blood at the position.
Corner was a major surprise as Charvarius Ward played over 1,000 snaps and was the top option. Kendall Fuller was a star IDP in 2018, but he goes down as yet another example of CB value not holding across seasons.
Both safeties played most of the season, but neither was a very good IDP. Juan Thornhill managed just 43 solos whilst Tyrann Mathieu also got nowhere near ideal numbers.
Los Angeles Chargers
The Chargers were disappointing on a team, defense and individual player level. DT Jerry Tillery is the clearest example. He was a first-round pick and looked set for a good rookie year, but he was abysmal and enormously under-delivered. Brandon Mebane and Justin Jones were close to projections, but no one cared about them.
At DE Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram both came in well above solos, sack and pressure projections. This was just a fairly poor performance. 2020 will be adjusted.
The LBs were much closer across the board. Thomas Davis and Denzel Perryman were the best performers and came in close, but as expected the other players had significant roles too. Drue Tranquill was the biggest over-performer but it’s still very hard to trust any of these players.
At corner Desmond King is the highlight. He racked up huge tackle numbers in his first two seasons. His year showed that there really are very few corners who consistently hold value as IDPs, which is why you don’t ever buy them.
With Derwin James hurt so much of the year safety was a washout, but we knew that going into the year. Adrian Phillips should have been the beneficiary, but his own injury put paid to that, meaning Roderic Teamer became very relevant. He was an excellent in-season pickup. Rayshawn Jenkins was accurately predicted as a don’t-roster-him guy.
Oakland Raiders
The Raiders moved up this year from abysmal to merely a bad defense. They finished 24th in points allowed and 19th in yards – a significant improvement.
PJ Hall was a very good projection in terms of tackles, but he severely under-performed in pressure stats. On the other hand, Maurice Hurst was a much better pass rusher than he has been given credit for. He managed just 11 pressures as a rookie so the leap to 38 is impressive.
The biggest problem with the 2018 Raiders was edge rush, and in Clelin Ferrell and Maxx Williams they’ve found significant upgrades. Neither is close to being the finished article (they missed 17 tackles between them), but they showed enough as rookies that they might be acceptable starters soon. In 2018 the Raiders managed just 146 team pressures. In 2019 that rose to 254. They were still just 28th in the NFL but it was a big improvement.
Regardless, Ferrell performed well against projections. His tackles were just seven solos out, bang on for assists and he had five sacks vs. seven predicted. Maxx Crosby was an outlier though. He secured a starting job and played three times as much as expected. His gain was Benson Mayowa’s loss.
Another player to miss out was Vontaze Burfict. He played fewer than 200 snaps before his latest suspension ended his season (and maybe his career). That meant Tahir Whitehead and Nicholas Morrow both outperformed expectations.
At corner Daryl Worley was very close to his projections. Gareon Conley was traded away and disappointed. He came in short against expectations, while Trayvon Mullen did much better as a tackler.
Rookie safety Johnathan Abram missed most of the season and correspondingly under-delivered. That meant that Erik Harris played far more than expected. LaMarcus Joyner (who played in the slot) and Karl Joseph were both close though.
Thanks for reading.
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