Ten IDP Fantasy Football Stats You Need to Know after Week Seven
Here’s this week’s column with a triple-helping of optimism!
1. The Jaguars have rushed the passer pre than any other team, but are 11th in pressures, and 27th in sacks.
There are worse pass-rushing defenses in the NFL, but not many.
The problem here is that fans generally assume big-name pass-rushers are good.
And then assume that a defense with one or two good pass-rushers must be good as a whole.
Neither is true and these errors tend to compound.
Josh Allen is a fine player. Travon Walker is a below average one at this point in his career. He’s had tenth-most pass rush snaps this season at his position, but he’s just 26th in pressures.
Add in K’Lavon Chaisson being a huge bust. And the total lack of any good pass-rusher on the interior line and you’ve got a real problem.
2. Christian Wilkins has a below-average tackle efficiency.
He’s recorded 24 total tackles from his 362 defensive snaps so far, for a 6.6% tackle efficiency. Average for a decent interior lineman is about 7.5%.
This column has brought this up before, but DI tackle efficiency tends to be a huge red herring. Which suckers people in consistently.
Stop it. Be better.
3. The Ravens are taking Justin Madubuike and Michael Pierce off on rushing downs.
Madubuike (30%) and Pierce (29%) are both significantly below the other guys in that rotation who are all around 40% for rushing downs.
While Madubuike (222) and Pierce (193) have both played way more pass-rush downs than the others (263 between the other 3 inside guys on the team).
This is interesting because the football world still likes to think of defenders as either starters or reserves. That’s just not the case, AND the Ravens are clearly making decisions here.
They have an excellent defense, but tactics like this tend to really hurt IDPs.
4. Sam Hubbard is on course for his best season ever in tackles.
He has 18 solos and 11 assists through six games. 29 total tackles. Pro-rated to 17 games, that’s 82.
In recent years his totals have been:
2022 34/20 54
2021 42/16 58
2020 46/13 59
2019 51/18 69
2018 26/5 31
So, 92 would smash his previous record from back in 2019.
There’s a long way to go, and injury is an ever-present concern for all defenders, but Hubbard has been a pretty one-dimensional pass rusher for the last few years. He’s been labelled a pile-inspector before.
He’s still not a natural body-on-the-line gap master, but he’s shown some signs of improvement at least.
5. Aidan Hutchinson’s pressure rate has halved in his most recent two games.
He recorded 35 pressures in his first five games this season (average of seven). But just seven pressures in the last two games (average of 3.5).
This column highlighted his early success as being up there with the elite edges in the NFL, but pointed out he is not there yet. If he ever will be. If you’ve been starting Hutchinson the last couple of weeks, you may well have been disappointed. Keep an eye on this.
6. Patrick Queen, Frankie Luvu and Jordyn Brooks have recorded 12 sacks from just 25 combined pressures.
Great news for those guys. Because those sacks have massively boosted some strong weeks for them. But don’t rely on it continuing.
The top 36 linebackers so far this season (based on pass rush snaps) have racked up 42 combined sacks from 236 combined pressures. A finisher ratio of just under 18%.
That has nothing to do with individual talent or skill or whatever. It’s a really good benchmark that has proved reliable over many years.
So expect Queen, Luvu and Brooks to revert to the mean. Which makes all three possible trade candidates.
7. Solo tackles make up 87% of Zaire Franklin’s total tackles.
That’s the highest number of any linebacker with 50 or more combined tackles this season.
There are only a handful of LBs with at least an 80% solo component. 73% is average. So, Franklin has a really weird ratio.
This column has featured a lot of Zaire Franklin this season. Your writer though tit was bizarre that he was being drafted as a top-ten LB based on one good season where he played a huge number of snaps.
So far it looks like he’s on course for another top-scoring season. But there are several weird statistical outliers that are creating it.
So, he’s a good example of how good process can sometimes be trumped by bad decision-making. It happens, that’s not a problem. What’s important is that we understand what is happening and use that information to continue predicting well.
Sure, Franklin might make this writer look silly this year. But there’s a long list of one-hit wonders who we’ve seen coming as draft value busts based on understanding which numbers are predictive and which are not.
8. Erstwhile IDP stud Kenny Moore is currently leading all cornerbacks in tackles.
Great news, and lots of IDP-heads are probably thinking “He’s back!”.
Not so fast. He also happens to lead all corners in snaps so far. Helped by the Colts not having had their bye yet. Expect Mr Moore to display a dip in the coming weeks.
9. Since Kyler Hamilton’s three-sack week back in week three, he has yet to record another.
This column warned you that pass-rush for defensive backs is fool’s gold. Hamilton is a solid option, but there are upwards of 50 decent IDP options at safety. And few leagues require more than 24 starters per week. Even fewer offer a third safety as a sensible choice compared to other flex options.
10. Camryn Bynum is breaking the safety tackle efficiency chart right now.
He’s the green dot on this chart. Way up to the top right.
Great news for him so far, but the theme of this week’s column is “be careful what you trust”.
Bynum is not a box banger (in fact he’s playing deep quite a lot) and he has no obvious reason to support a high tackle rate. Be careful.
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