Ten IDP Fantasy Football Stats You Need to Know after Week 12
Week 12 is done already! In about a month and a half, the regular season will be over. How time flies. This is the time of year when we’ve got great data about what is happening, and we can bring it to bear in predicting the future. Good luck this week.
1 NFL cornerbacks are recording 5.9 solos for every assist
This is factored into league scoring and you’re probably very aware of it already at a visceral level but it’s such an interesting wrinkle it’s worth sharing – especially as 2023 data is just bearing out typical ratios.
Defensive linemen record about two solo tackles for every assist. Linebackers are a bit higher at neatly three. Safeties are a bit over three. But corners are wildly, vastly out on their own with very nearly SIX solo tackles for every assist.
In scoring systems where all positions are scored equally, then of course this is not factored in in any way. But even systems where that does happen tend to underestimate this wrinkle. This means assists are a barely seen detail for corner scoring.
Given they’re actually a good indicator for a corner who is willing to get involved beyond his sole coverage responsibilities, this is an oversight.
2 Justin Madubuike has recorded at least one sack in nine straight games
Nine games in a row. That’s an incredible number.
To illustrate it, in 2022 Nick Bosa led the NFL in sacks. His longest streak was six consecutive games with a sack. Myles Garrett never went past a three-game streak in 2022, although he did put together a five-game streak earlier in 2023. Micah Parsons managed a six-game streak back in his rookie 2021 season but has failed to hit four ever since.
Nine sack-games in a row for Madubuike is astonishing.
3 DJ Jones has messed up more tackles than any other interior NFL lineman
The Broncos have won five straight games, and their defense is vastly improved from the start of the season.
One fan site this week even ran an article titled “D.J. Jones a big part of Broncos’ defensive resurgence” this week.
But he’s also been arguably the most error-prone interior lineman in the league. You can see a visualization of that below.
4 The most efficient edge rushers in 2023 are Micah Parsons and Bryce Huff
Everyone is talking about Myles Garrett and TJ Watt who are favorites for Defensive Player of the Year. Both have had excellent seasons. But Parsons (navy dot below) is out in front in terms of generating pressure.
Bryce Huff (green dot) continues to be absurdly efficient on lower volume.
5 Devin Lloyd leads all linebackers in defended passes
Lloyd struggled as a rookie (which rookie LB does not?) and was benched at one point but he’s roared back in 2023 with a vengeance and is arguably a top-20 linebacker.
The differentiating factor for modern LBs is coverage, and Lloyd has made more plays on the ball than any of his contemporaries, by a significant margin.
PDs are still a low-volume, luck-determined stat, but they’re still vastly better than interceptions or sacks as an indicator of quality play.
6 Isaiah Simmons has spent just 42% of his snaps this season playing linebacker
Simmons is the current archetype for the recurring fascination with linebackers who have a bit of positional flexibility. “He can move all over the formation!” “He’s a moveable chess-piece!” Etc etc.
Every couple of years a player like that comes out of college, and everyone loses their mind over the possibilities.
Here you can see how Simmons has actually lined up this season. It is all over the place.
But here’s the secret; positional flexibility is actually bad for IDP linebackers. The most efficient thing a fantasy LB can do is play coverage from the orthodox LB spot. Everything else is less efficient (except for very rare instances where a player gets a wild number of sacks or big plays by luck).
Here’s Simmons compared to the rest of the LBs in the league in pure volume vs tackles:
Average efficiency at low volume.
He’s always been a low-efficiency fantasy player (because that’s what happens for most hybrid position LBs), so average is an upgrade. But the volume ahs made him non-feasible.
7 There is no real link between how good a corner is, and how much he gets targeted
This is a bit of a controversial one, as it’s so engrained in football consciousness. It seems obvious that you don’t throw the ball towards the good “shutdown” corner, and you do throw it at the less-good guy on the other side.
In 2023 (as in recent years) this just does not bear out in practise. This chart shows the Pro Football Focus grade and targets for every corner to have played 100 or more coverage snaps in 2023.
If the two factors were linked then you’d see a pronounced slant to the line of best fit. There would be a clear inverse relationship between ‘bad’ players who got more targets (bottom right of the chart) and good layers who were avoided (top left of the chart). That’s just not the case. The line is almost flat.
In mathematical terms, the correlation coefficient (the measure of how much two metrics are linked) is zero to several decimal places. It’s just not a thing in the way that fans think it is.
8 Jack Campbell is not exactly taking the job over
Everyone gets excited about rookies, especially highly drafted ones. But Campbell has played just 382 snaps for the season so far (63rd among all LBs) and notably his snap share is not increasing as you can see below. His time will come. It’s rare for an NFL team to invest a first-round pick and not give the player a chance (especially at a position like LB where basic volume-based counting stats can ‘demonstrate’ value).
Right now, he’s just not playing anywhere near well enough to warrant more time though. Of 87 LBs to play at least 20% of snaps, PFF has him graded as the 82nd best. He is just ahead of Christian Rozeboom and fellow first-round-bust-who-can’t cover Denzel Perryman.
9 Rodney Thomas has recorded a tackle on just 3.4% of his defensive snaps
The most important thing for IDP safeties is volume. Alignment and the old hard definitions of strong/free safety are much less important to point scoring than being on the field, mostly.
There are still a few coaches who run a very strong SS/FS split, and one of those is Gus Bradley. This has fuelled Thomas’s abnormally low tackling numbers. He’s out there playing, but just nowhere near the ball.
10 The Browns and Ravens are the top defenses in yards per play
Somehow the Jets are still spoken about as an elite defense this year for some reason. It can only be remembered for greatness from 2022.
The best defenses in the NFL this year are the Browns and Ravens (along with the 49ers. And arguably the Cowboys and Chiefs). They have different strengths and reasons for their excellence, but the Browns and Ravens are both just so excellent as low-volume defenses it’s notable. Even with some recent wobbles.
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