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 and sees how good or bad they were.
Chicago Bears
The Bears’ top nose tackle Eddie Goldman was a good prediction. He was five solos and four assists out. Nick Williams did a bit better, but he was well off the IDP radar.
Star DE Akiem Hicks was hurt a lot of the year and came in well short. Roy Robertson-Harris picked up a lot of his volume and beat his numbers. He had a little bit of hype due to his four sacks, but you’ll note that was exactly what was predicted in this column. Bilal Nichols was pretty close as the third main end.
Roquan Smith had a relatively disappointing season. He played just 719 snaps in the end and came in 14 solos short of his target. His assists and sacks were close though – he goes down as a successfully conservative projection. Danny Trevathan also failed to hit his snap target and finished 13 solos down. Nick Kwiatkoski was the main beneficiary and did well against targets. He’s still just a guy no matter how excited people get about him.
On the edge Khalil Mack was a major success. He was uncannily accurate for snaps, solos, assists and sacks. Leonard Floyd was also relatively close, even though he played a lot more than expected. He’s a poor player and could well have played himself out of a full-time job.
CB Kyle Fuller came in well over in terms of tackles. That was a bad prediction. His cover plays were very good and the other corners were much better, but Fuller was poor.
Eddie Jackson and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix were in the right ballpark but the wrong way around. If they’d been swapped in order, they’d have been just one combined solo out. But they weren’t and so they were merely OK predictions.
Detroit Lions
A’Shawn Robinson was an excellent prediction. He was just three snaps and two solos away from target. Damon Harrison was less impressive. Not terrible but not good.
DE was a problem for the team all year long. Trey Flowers happily was fairly accurate across the board here though. Sadly, the others all disappointed.
Jarrad Davis goes down as a hit at LB. He was just four solos and zero assists out. Even his pressures were bang on. Jahlani Tavai and Christian Jones were neither good nor bad. Devon Kennard played a lot and beat all his targets. He was a poor prediction.
The top two corners (Darius Slay and Justin Coleman) were pretty close, but Rashaan Melvin doubled his tackle targets.
Safety was hard to predict. Quandre Diggs was bad, but he was traded away mid-season. That’s tough to see coming. Tracy Walker enjoyed a real breakout. He piled up 26 more solos than anticipated. Tavon Wilson ended up playing 840 snaps and was way more productive than expected.
Green Bay Packers
Kenny Clark was a real model-breaker this year. He’s a nose tackle – but he’s doing so much more than that these days. He was kind of close in tackle numbers, but smashed his pass rush targets. And the rest of the linemen were frankly poor, too. Dean Lowry the best of the bunch, but he managed zero sacks against a target of six. It’s hard to call that good.
LB was very imbalanced. Blake Martinez had a season for the ages. He played over 1,000 snaps and was absurdly efficient. This was likely his career year. Oren Burks and B.J. Goodson had very low target numbers (this column never expected them to be full-time players), but even so they disappointed.
On the edge predictions were mixed. Both Za’Darius Smith and Preston Smith came in close on tackles (just seven solos and five assists out between them), but they both destroyed their pass rush predictions. What a great season by them as a pair.
Some better results came in at corner. Jaire Alexander and Kevin King were both within three solos and one assist. King had five interceptions, but that’s not a shocking thing to happen. Predicting interceptions is hard.
The safeties were OK. Just six and four solos and a handful of assists out for both of them. The important thing was that neither was predicted to be an elite safety and they weren’t. This is a scheme consideration.
Minnesota Vikings
DT Linval Joseph performed mostly as expected – although he didn’t generate any real pressure. Shamar Stephen was just disappointing.
Danielle Hunter and Everson Griffen were both acceptable. Hunter was just one solo out although his 15 sacks were 50% more than expected. Predicting high-end sack numbers is a black-swan problem. Griffen was close across the board. Three solos, one assist and zero sacks out.
Eric Kendricks had a fantastic year at LB. He finished 12 solos and eight PDs up against predictions. Anthony Barr was much closer. He had more solos and fewer assists but he goes down as a win on the whole.
The corners were all OK but not great. Within 15-20% in tackle numbers.
Harrison Smith was pretty accurate. He was just three solos out in the end. Anthony Harris was a bit short in tackles (against low targets), but his owners thought he was great because of his six interceptions. That’s not happening again!
Thanks for reading.
