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As Axl Rose once said:

And when your fears subside

And shadows still remain, oh yeah

I know that you can love me when there’s no one left to blame

So never mind the darkness, we still can find a way

‘Cause nothin’ lasts forever, even cold November rain

We’re in the darkness right now as a football community. Confusion, injuries, controversy, and most strikingly, tragedy. We’re surrounded by it right now and this is already generally a tough spot in “normal” football seasons but it seems obvious this is anything but normal. This has been a real tough one with some big highs and some of the lowest lows in a long time. 

And it’s my job to help guide you, as a fantasy football player, through these lows to succeed at this game we all love. Is the senseless death of a young woman something I want to cover in what should be an entertaining run-over of your roster options for Sunday football? No, of course not but the dice have unfortunately been cast and this is how they’ve fallen and I’d be remiss to ignore the 2000 lb elephant in the room. I’m going to go from here on without some of the sentimentality and just talk football because frankly, as callous as it sounds, that’s what you’re here for and that’s what I get paid patented Razzball Fun Bucks™ (Redeemable at participating Razzball locations) to do. And who really wants to hear me pondering on these deep ethical and moral questions this week have brought about? I spent most of last week’s article talking about the Monster Mash for crying out loud. 

With that being said, let’s jump into it.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Two weeks to go before the NFL season begins. Training camp coming to a close and position battles and injuries shaping the landscape. There are a few changes we need to pay attention to. Here are my updated LB rankings for your IDP drafts.  

Stock up

TJ Watt moves up from 11 to 8 as a lot of IDP leagues are starting to adjust their scoring systems and I think this helps Watt.  Look for Watt to dominate again this season and compete for the top spot in defensive player leagues.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

One of the keys to IDP leagues is knowing your scoring system. They are sort of like dates, whether it be a guy or girl, they all have the same two chromosomes, but they can all be vastly different. If you’re just starting out playing in an IDP league this is the most important thing to know before you draft. Your rankings will be highly dependent on the scoring system so do not go into it blindly with some list of rankings.

The scoring for IDP generally breaks down into three categories, similar to standard and PPR scoring for offense, and they are based on the ratio of points given to tackles and “big plays”. Balanced scoring systems will have a ratio of big play to solo tackle points of 3:1 to 4:1.  If it’s above 4:1, the scoring is considered ‘big play heavy” and if it’s less than 3:1, it’s “tackle heavy”.

I’ve played in an IDP league for about 15 years and it’s big play heavy.  So what I’ve done is look at two other scoring systems and compared the players who finished 1-25 in my league with how they would finish in the other scoring systems.  It’s obviously not the complete picture, but it gives you an idea of the types of players that are favored in each format. I used the scoring from Fantasy Pros to use as our “tackle heavy” format as their big play to tackle ration is a little less than 3:1.  For the balanced approach I used the IDP 123 system from Expand the Boxscore’s Jordan Rains.  The scoring categories included are Solo Tackles, Assisted Tackles, Sacks, Forced Fumbles, Recovered Fumbles, Interceptions, Passes Defensed, and TDs. Each player’s stats are from MyFantasyLeague.  The scoring systems points are in the chart below.

Please, blog, may I have some more?

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?