by: GasDoc
With news coming out of camps, injury updates, and position battles becoming clearer, I’ve updated my top 50 defensive line rankings. Here are some highlights of the changes. With opening day just a few weeks away, I don’t expect these to change unless there is some major injury news before that.
Please, blog, may I have some more?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.
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.
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by: Pat
I’ve led this article over the past few weeks with details on overarching themes to the entire fantasy football season. We discussed Jon Gruden as a rare fantasy friendly coach in today’s game. We discussed how bizarre of a year 2019 has been. I’m going to continue with these themes as we finish out the season, because the ability to get a grasp on league-wide themes is vital in fantasy football. It is much more important to take a wider lens of the entire league, rather than focus in on singular players that you hope to hit on in drafts. This is a key differentiating factor in fantasy football from other sports, in my opinion. The theme I present this week is distribution in the passing game through air yards.
Please, blog, may I have some more?Jay’s 2015 Rankings: Top-200 | Top-200 (PPR) | Top-200 (Half-PPR) | QB | RB | RB (PPR)| WR | WR (PPR) | TE | TE (PPR) | K | DST | Rookies |
Kevin’s 2015 IDP Rankings: Top-100 | DL | DB | LB
Today we close out the preseason IDP Rankings with my top 100 overall. This can be used as a cheat sheet for your draft, as it mixes all of the positions together, but the most important aspect is the tiering system used. You may have a different preference between Bobby Wagner and C.J. Mosley, and that’s fine! But it’s hard to argue that they don’t belong in the same tier of IDPs, or that one should be taken several rounds before the other. The tiers used in these rankings should help you determine who’s value is similar across all IDPs, and when to expect a run on defensive players as your drafts get past the 6th round.
The obvious gap here when prepping for your draft is the omission of offensive players, so I wanted to briefly hit on that. The most common question I get in the Comments section, on Twitter, and by random strangers stopping me in the streets is, “When do I start taking IDPs in my draft?” It’s a great question, and one without a right answer across the board. The biggest factors that determine when IDPs should go in a fantasy draft are:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Jay’s 2015 Rankings: Top-200 | Top-200 (PPR) | Top-200 (Half-PPR) | QB | RB | RB (PPR)| WR | WR (PPR) | TE | TE (PPR) | K | DST | Rookies |
Kevin’s 2015 IDP Rankings: Top-100 | DL | DB | LB
For the last few weeks, Jay has been unveiling his 2015 rankings on the offensive side of the ball, and now it’s time for IDPs to join the party. If you’re new to IDP leagues, or thinking about joining one, I encourage you to read my annual case for using IDPs in fantasy football. Assuming you’ve already taken the leap into the IDP world, you know that positional rankings are not quite one-size-fits-all. Depending on your league’s roster requirements and scoring system, my DL20 could be your DL5, and potentially even your LB50. I try to cover the most “standard” settings with the rankings below, but if you have questions about a particularly customized league, feel free to post in the Comments section. One of the many beauties of IDP leagues is the level with which they can be customized, and I love hearing about the more exotic options out there.
Without further ado, here are the Razzball 2015 Defensive Linemen rankings, as well as a brief take on each of my tiers below:
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by: Andrew Nordmeier
The Internet nearly broke this week when the Cleveland Browns announced they were going to start rookie Johnny Manziel at quarterback… or so we think. It looks like Brian Hoyer might be sent to the bench to give the Browns a spark, according to published reports. But is he worth it from a fantasy standpoint? We’ll examine that and more as we take a dive into the waiver wire. There are three or four weeks left in your fantasy season, so this is the time to make the solid moves that will get you into the playoffs. So, what about Manziel? Yes, he was a change of pace for the Browns, as he rushed for a touchdown last week, but let’s see why you don’t want him. Tight end Jordan Cameron is questionable for this week after missing his last five games with concussion symptoms. Miles Austin is still hospitalized after taking a hit to his lower back and hurting his kidneys. Andrew Hawkins is the best receiving threat the team has right now that’s healthy. Yes, Josh Gordon is there too, but I would want to see how Manziel works with all of his weapons before seeing how much he impacts fantasy values on Lake Erie. The Browns finish the season with Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Carolina in Week 16 and Baltimore in Week 17. The chances are there for Manziel to throw it a bunch and get the all-important rushing yardage as well with a pair of weak rush defenses during the fantasy playoffs. Dare we say it, Manziel could be a nice play down the stretch if you want a quarterback with a good situation that you can pick up now.
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by: J-FOH
It’s good to be back after my little mini vacation. I went to serve one of my 72 hour blocks at county as part of my plea agreement. Jay was really understanding of my situation, as long as I brought back some pruno. Enjoy! *shudders* It was a well deserved rest and an opportunity to unplug and shake off the fantasy baseball dust. Now I am 100% yours to have at your disposal for all your fantasy needs. Jeez, I sound like a backpage escort. Except Tight Ends, I can’t figure out the rhyme or reasons going into planning for the week. Look at Larry Donnell last week with his one target and no catches…WTF! Sky shared these nuggets about Donnell with me via Twitter: Falcons sold out to make sure he had very few looks, and added to that: Double cover your guy all game and force it elsewhere. Can’t plan for that. That’s why I hate trying to predict the tight end position. Besides Graham and Thomas, no tight end is a safe bet each and every week. What does this have to do with flex plays? It’s my way of saying I won’t be doing tight ends in the flex battles. Wide receivers and running backs only. Now on to the bye bye bye week ahead.
Please, blog, may I have some more?2014 Rankings: Top-200 | Top-200 (Half-PPR) | Top-200 (PPR) | QB | RB | RB (PPR)| WR | WR (PPR) | TE | TE (PPR) | K | DST | IDP Rankings: Top-100 | DL | DB | LB
We’ve gone through each of the positions individually, so now it’s time to put it all together. When looking at IDPs as a whole, it’s a little bit different than Jay’s top-200 overall list. This isn’t a draft cheat sheet, but more of a tiered approach to compiling your roster. That’s why you’ll see essentially a series of position runs making up this list. The major takeaway is how to view the relative value of each position as opposed to deciding between specific players. I’m still sold on J.J. Watt as the top overall IDP because not only has he done it before, but he’s also still getting better, and now he has Jadeveon Clowney around to draw attention away from him. After Watt, you’ll see a huge list of LBs and DEs before things start to get mixed up in the 50s.
Keep in mind that this is using “standard” ESPN and Yahoo scoring systems, which is why DBs don’t enter this list until the 30s. This scoring system devalues the secondary, while putting an increased emphasis on Linebackers and dominant D-Linemen. It’s not necessarily my favorite scoring system, but it is the most widely used.
Here are my 2014 Fantasy Football Top-100 IDP Rankings:
Please, blog, may I have some more?2014 Rankings: Top-200 | Top-200 (Half-PPR) | Top-200 (PPR) | QB | RB | RB (PPR)| WR | WR (PPR) | TE | TE (PPR) | K | DST | IDP Rankings: Top-100 | DL | DB | LB
Now that Jay has paved the way on the offensive side of the ball, it’s time for me to pull my weight with the 2014 Razzball IDP Rankings. As always I’m starting up front with the big boys. For the second year in a row, J.J. Watt is the class of the position, but he has some company at the top this year. Robert Quinn and Chandler Jones are both coming off breakouts in 2013, and they should be able to challenge Watt for the DL crown if things break right.
After that, things get complicated. There are a number of big names who are looking for a bounce-back after a subpar 2013, in addition to a group of prospects who look primed for the big time. If you can’t land one of the top three, then it’s really a matter of preference. I tend to lean towards DEs who rack up a lot of tackles as opposed to DTs or big-play DEs, but there is no one way to handle your DL lineup slots. My ideal situation is grabbing a Tier 1 or 2 tackler and a Tier 3 sack threat as my starters, with a high-upside youngster to complement them. That strategy gave me Olivier Vernon on multiple rosters last year, and I think of guys like Damontre Moore and Star Lotuleli in that role this year.
Some guys that I’m higher on than most:
Please, blog, may I have some more?Sky (#NeverForget) has been dominating these pages with his offensive positional recaps, while I’ve been sitting back and enjoying the playoffs. But then I saw Navorro Bowman’s knee get mangled while he recovered a goalline fumble in the NFC Championship Game, and it made me reflect on things. If Bowman can keep giving it his all and sacrificing his body after carrying countless IDP teams to championships, why can’t I do the same thing? I thought I was the IDP expert you deserved, but not the one you needed right now, but who am I kidding? There is no offseason. So here is my first batch of 2013 positional recaps.
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by: Kevin Kumpf
Over the past couple of months, you’ve seen the rankings, you’ve seen the sleepers, you’ve seen the busts, and you’ve seen the NSFW Blurred Lines video. Now you’re ready to do two things: Draft and Google Image search Emily Ratajkowski with SafeSearch off. I’ll give you a minute…okay welcome back. Now you’re ready to do one thing: Draft.
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