LOGIN

It’s draft day, and you’re in an individual defensive player (IDP) league because you want the ultimate fantasy football experience (read here first if I lost you at IDP). You’ve downed a dozen wings and enough of your drink of choice to settle your nerves, but not so much that you draft Younghoe Koo in […]

Please, blog, may I have some more?

Well, my precious goblins and ghouls, the football season is finally upon us. And naturally, with that, I have the grave responsibility to inform you fine specimens of the injuries that can and will impact your Week 1 fantasy rosters. 

Such is life. 

Let’s jump in and see who might be available on your waiver or can receive a bump in production from the gaps left by these poor, hurt souls. 

Shall we? 

The first injury to look at is… *checks notes* Oh the entire Ravens backfield. That’s not good! In just a few days the Ravens have lost their breakout star J.K. Dobbins, Justice Hill, and the most recently Gus Edwards to terrible season-ending injuries. In response, the team has signed Latavius Murray along with Le’Veon Bell and Devonta Freeman to their practice squad presumably to try to keep Lamar from having to rush approximately 10,000,000 yards per game. As of now, it looks like the Ravens are going to start the last running back left standing before the leg injury bloodbath, Ty’Son Williams, who might just have an opportunity against an uncertain Raiders pass rush under new defensive coordinator Gus Bradley and a reshaped defense. Look for Latavius Murray and Ty’Son Williams as a possible pick-up in leagues you might have had one of the injured fellows in and if you are feeling very adventurous maybe take a look at Le’Veon Bell or Devonta Freeman for a possible bounce-back campaign. I’m still not betting on that though, sorry Blair. 

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.  

Please, blog, may I have some more?