When looking at defensive back rankings you’ll notice a fair amount of variance. Scoring systems play a role, but attempting to predict how many passes a player will “defense” or intercept is far from a science. It is why the top of most IDP rankings are filled with safeties with high tackle profiles and not the highly touted cornerbacks. Here I’ll highlight players 26-50 after covering 1-25 last week.
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2020 Fantasy Football Rankings
Defensive back rankings can be highly variable based upon your scoring system and even with that, there is a lot of year to year fluctuations especially at cornerback. If you read my DB drafting strategy article you know that my advice is to wait on drafting them. Yes there are some elite players, but in general, the production from this position varies from week to week based upon who the player is going up against and what you expect the game flow to be. This is the most streamable position in IDP leagues, especially if the league separates out the safety and cornerback positions.
The reliability of the linebacker position to get you points and the lack of depth at the defensive line position should lead you to drafting them first before going after defensive backs. The main exception is if you play in a very tackle heavy format where getting one the top safeties could be an advantage. Regardless, safeties remain the backbone of combined rankings as the volatility of corners on a week to week basis is what makes them streaming candidates.
Please, blog, may I have some more?When I wrote about the top 25 defensive lineman, it was easy to get excited about it. There were players who got you revved up when thinking about their explosiveness coming off the ball, dominating the offensive lineman and putting a hit on the quarterback.
Writing about the next 25 conjures up very little of those feelings. Historically, this is the shallowest position for IDP leagues as once you get past the top 10-20 players, there is very little difference in the next 30-40. Last year in my home league (scoring was 0.5/tackle, 3/sack/FF/INT, so big play skewed), Joey Bosa finished as DL22 with 4.16 ppg. Brian Burns was DL51 with 3.12 ppg. That’s only 1 ppg difference between those two players. Is it better to have Bosa, well of course, but over a season, it probably made little difference in your record on a week to week basis. Now this may change a bit with the change in position designation by some sites as many OLBs will be designated at Edge and moved into the defensive line category. This will expand the choices at defensive line and make this group of 25 more interesting. I’ll cover this topic as we get more clarity as to what most sites will do.
Please, blog, may I have some more?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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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.
Please, blog, may I have some more?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.
Please, blog, may I have some more?A little birdie told me our 2024 Fantasy Baseball subscriptions are live. The little birdie also said it includes our Draft War Room. You really wanna lose in a fantasy baseball league to a little birdie? Would be kinda embarrassing, tbhhttps://t.co/1ag7IFSYS0
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