IDP Leagues: DB Draft Strategy

May 30, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Strategy, IDP Rankings, IDP Report, Roster Strategy |

Defensive backs are like the kickers of IDP leagues. There really aren’t too many players that need to be picked early in your drafts. They are also like tight ends after the first 5 or so where streaming on a week to week basis can be the way to go based on the weekly matchup. Outside of some top end safeties who rack up tackles, guessing who will finish near the top of DB scoring is a crap shoot. In tackle heavy scoring systems it’s a little easier to go after safeties, but in big play leagues, trying to predict who will garner interceptions, passes defensed, and sacks from this position is tough. A typical drafting strategy for DBs in IDP leagues is to wait and here’s why.

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IDP Rankings for 2020 Fantasy Football: Top 25 Defensive Linemen

May 29, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Rankings, IDP Rankings | 7 Comments

by: GasDoc

In the trenches of their team defenses, linemen can be the key to your IDP draft. Until I’m blue in the face I will say it over and over again: make sure you know your scoring system. Do you want a lineman with a high sack upside or someone in the interior who will produce tackles? Does your league separate out DE/Edge and DT? Does the hosting site have TJ Watt and Shaq Barrett as linebackers or Edge rusher? It’s simple to state that you need to know your rules but you’d be surprised at the number of fantasy players that don’t. Another aspect of drafting IDPs is how does their scoring compare to their offensive counterparts? This will help you decide when to jump into the defensive side of your draft. For those starting out with IDP, I’ll be covering draft strategies in upcoming articles and you’ll find out why you may want to prioritize this position over the more popular linebackers.

My rankings are based on a balanced scoring system (3:1 ratio of big play points to tackle points). If your league leans big play or tackle heavy, then some adjustments may be necessary.

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Fantasy Football Show: The Art of Buying and Selling Dynasty Running Backs

May 28, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Podcast | 2 Comments

by: Donkey Teeth

Dr. Donkey Teeth and The Boof, aka Ralph Macchio, are back on the YouTube talking fantasy football for your viewing pleasure. After discussing the BIG news of the week—Carlos Hyde signed with the Seahawks—the guys taking a stroll down memory lane, reminiscing about some of their favorite fantasy players from past years including Rob Gronkowski, Randy Moss and Antonio Brown. Later the Karate Kid opens up about his anxiety in regards to trading for running backs in dynasty leagues which leads to an in depth strategic discussion about how to approach the buying and selling of RBs in dynasty. Tune in and subscribe to our YouTube channel now!

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RazzBowl II: Judgment Day

May 27, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, RazzBowl | 6 Comments

by: Donkey Teeth

Year one of the RazzBowl was a great success. Very nice. Sexy time. Wawaweewa. Sorry, I had Borat playing in the background while working on my 2020 fantasy football rankings.

So last year we were graced with a loaded field for the inaugural RazzBowl better ball tournament. It was a real who’s who of the fantasy football world, including Heath Cummings, Jake Ciely, Andy Behrens, Brad Evans, Michael Salfino, my cousin Goncharius with the lazy eye who claims he’s the greatest fantasy footballer of all-time, plus many more of the industry’s biggest guns. But it was Mike Beers of RotoViz who took us all to Kazakhstan, hoisting the RazzBowl Cup with the help of his three-headed-monster backfield of Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook and Derrick Henry.

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Top 20 for 2020 Fantasy Football

May 26, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Rankings |

by: Donkey Teeth

I watched The Match on Sunday featuring Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning battling against Phil Mickelson and Tom Brady. The echo chamber said Tiger had a huge advantage playing at his home course. The echo chamber said Tiger wouldn’t lose two matches in a row to Phil. Turns out the echo chamber sometimes echos for good reason, as the Tiger/Manning duo held off a later charge from Phil and Brady to hoist the Pandemic Cup. But the echo chamber isn’t always right, especially in fantasy football. Remember last years mad chants of David Johnson and Le’Veon Bell as surefire first rounders? And JuJu and OBJ as top 15 draft pick elite WR1s? Well, I’ve stepped outside the echo chamber and into a private padded room to compile my 2020 fantasy football rankings. Over the weekend I gave you my overall top 10 for 2020 fantasy football which were crazy as a pack of unicycle-riding-gorillas. The only echos you’ll find here are the friendly, completely sane, voices inside my head. Anyway, here’s my top 20 for 2020 PPR fantasy football:

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IDP Rankings for 2020 Fantasy Football: Top 50 Linebackers

May 24, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Rankings, IDP Rankings | 3 Comments

by: GasDoc

I know you’ve been on the edge of your seats waiting for the second half of my linebacker rankings to drop. Well probably not but since you probably have to draft more than 2 in 12 team leagues, this should be useful. We see the debut of three rookies for those who asked “Where are the rookies?” in response to my top 25. We have three tiers here in the second 25 because, well, the differences between these players start to get smaller.

Remember in leagues where you are starting two linebackers, these are all bench guys/bye week fillers if you were smart enough to take two of my top 25. Here you want to look for upside if you took players towards the end of the top 25 or you just don’t agree with my rankings. If you took Darius Leonard, look for a guy who has a great matchup in week 7 because, well, you’re not benching him. Ever. Or you can just go with the boring guy like Matt Milano who will give you tackles week in and week out.

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IDP Rankings for 2020 Fantasy Football: Top 25 Linebackers

May 21, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Rankings, IDP Rankings | 2 Comments

by: GasDoc

If you play in an IDP league, you already know that linebackers are the bread and butter of defensive scoring. If you are trying to learn about IDPs or deciding whether to convince your fellow league mates to switch from the hum-drum team defense to the dynamic scoring of individual defensive players, this is a good place to start. We’ll start with the top 25 linebackers and then cover 25-50 and the top 50 at DL and DB.

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Top 25 IDP Rankings for 2020 Fantasy Football

May 13, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Rankings, IDP Rankings | 10 Comments

by: GasDoc

Whenever you see an overall ranking for IDP leagues, linebackers will dominate the list. Some will have the top 10-20 players be linebackers and that would be true if you only based the rankings on projected points, but draft strategy has to come into play. As in your offensive player part of the draft, position scarcity and tiers come into play. There is a large core of players in each of the three positions that don’t vary much, but the start of each of these cores varies greatly between positions.

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IDP Fantasy Football Leagues: Let’s Get Started

May 10, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Strategy, IDP Report | 4 Comments

by: GasDoc

Individual defensive player (IDP) leagues have been around for a long time. I’ve been playing in one for over 15 years, but why are they so scarce? “I don’t have time for that” “It’s too complicated” “Makes the draft too long” are the excuses you hear by those who don’t play in this format. These excuses come from the same people who will play in a 50 round dynasty league in both baseball and football. It’s not that difficult and adds a level of competition that goes beyond picking a team defense. Your league can make it as simple or as complicated as it wants. Start with the basics and tweak each year as the owners in your league get more comfortable with the format.

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2020 NFL Draft, Day One: Clyding Into The Oasis

April 24, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Daily Notes, Fantasy Football Dynasty Leagues | 4 Comments

by: Donkey Teeth

As I crawled thru the barren-sportsless Corona Desert, desperately clinging to the last few precious ounces of my own bottled urine, a glorious oasis appeared on the horizon. Was it a mirage!? No! It was the the 2020 NFL Draft, and it was very real! And it was very glorious!

I leapt to my feet, slurped down the final drops of my warm pee rations and sprinted towards the only sports I’d seen in weeks—and likely the only sports we’ll see for weeks to come. There at the edge of the NFL Draft Oasis stood none other than Clyde Edwards-Helaire, waiting to welcome Donkey to the party (scroll to the bottom for my thoughts on CEH, I literally buried the lede). Anyway, here’s what else I saw during day one of the 2020 NFL Draft for fantasy football:

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2020 Dynasty Rookie Mock Draft: Just Give Me One of A.J. Dillon’s Legs

March 29, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football, Fantasy Football Dynasty Leagues | 1 Comment

by: Donkey Teeth

Earlier this week I gathered nine of my closest quarantined fantasy football industry friends for an arguably pointless dynasty rookie mock draft. After all, the NFL draft isn’t for another month; we don’t know what team these rookies will be drafted by. We also don’t know in which round those unknown teams will draft them. And we definitely don’t know what their immediate opportunity might look like on those mystery teams. But strangely enough, some dynasty leagues actually hold their rookie drafts prior to the NFL draft. And honestly, my schedule is pretty open these days other than scavenging for toilet paper and other softish paper products calling my butt’s name. Anyway, this was a 10-team, 3-round dynasty rookie mock draft for PPR, 1-QB leagues:

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The Quarterback Carousel

March 27, 2020 | 2020 Fantasy Football |

by: Sam Shefrin

The shocking news that Tom Brady will no longer quarterback the New England Patriots surprised many. It also ignited a ripple effect through the NFL. While not surprising, Carolina parting ways with Cam Newton added even more waves.

Philip Rivers’ career as the Chargers field general is also done. Jacksonville shipped a former Super Bowl MVP north to The Windy City. What plans might the Chicago Bears now have for their no-longer-our-franchise-quarterback Mitchell Trubisky?

The Bengals are going to draft their quarterback-of-the-future, so what’s the future hold for Andy Dalton? If these changes aren’t enough to cause you to scratch your fantasy head in bewilderment, what about the two former Heisman Trophy winners who may be suddenly available?

The first two draft picks from the 2015 NFL Draft are undoubtedly going to be playing elsewhere, if not this year, soon. Both Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota have been huge disappointments.

However, stranger events have happened to quarterbacks over the years, sudden changes that revitalized their careers. The 2020 NFL Draft will unfold in about a month. This may answer a few questions, but the months leading up to training camp may answer even more.

Let’s take a look at four of these quarterbacks and see what kind of effect they might have on the 2020 fantasy football rankings going forward. We’ll skip Brady as a Buccaneer and look at how much promise these other transplanted quarterbacks may have to lead you to fantasy football glory.

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