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The Raiders hired veteran defensive mind Gus Bradley to coordinate their defense in 2021. Bradley has a long history of creating studs for IDP fantasy football. This track record, however, has delivered no shortage of teases to the game as well. For every Derwin James, there has been a Ronnie Harrison and a Kyzir White for each Telvin Smith. The 2021 Raiders are sure to have equal parts boom and bust among their defensive players.
Spring of 2018, scrolling through my Twitter feed I stumbled upon a tweet about a 24-team 2-copy Superflex IDP Dynasty League. I didn’t know what Superflex or Dynasty meant but it sounded fun. In my mind, it was like building a Madden franchise, so I joined the league. I really had no idea how to draft or what rankings to follow. I was always very good in my redraft home leagues, but it was difficult to adjust my rankings. It was the middle of the offseason; I had no rankings for 2018 yet. I ended up opening FantasyPros and using the consensus rankings for dynasty. The problem was, I didn’t realize the rankings were for 1QB leagues.
Accountability is paramount in this business, and last season your author swung big on both Montez Sweat and Ifeadi Odenigbo. One was a home run and the other was a strike-out. Montez Sweat broke out for a double-digit sack season playing across from top draft pick Chase Young, as well as in tandem with fellow defensive interior players Daron Payne and Jonathan Allen, who each boast first-round draft capital of their own. Ifeadi Odenigbo, on the other hand, was not accompanied by perennial all-pro Danielle Hunter, who threatened to hold out before opting for surgery to repair an injury. He ended up missing the entire season and the Vikings’ entire pass rush struggled.
We learned that tackles are king at safety! The top five finishers in IDP scoring at safety all finished with more than 100 total tackles each through week 16. The top five stars of the safety position included Jordan Poyer, Budda Baker, Jessie Bates, Jeremy Chinn, and Adrian Phillips. Of those finishers, three are under the age of 26, and amazingly, Jeremy Chinn was able to crack the top five as a rookie. Chinn looks primed for another excellent year of production in 2021, so if you roster the Carolina safety, you are looking fine.
Each season in dynasty leagues there are post-rookie draft waiver targets that provide a tremendous value for owners who were savvy or lucky enough to find them on their roster. Some provide an immediate “home-run” return like Kamren Curl did last season or Maxx Crosby in 2019. Others make great taxi squad stashes that provide value later (think Jerome Baker, Josey Jewell, Jeffery Simmons, Dre Greenlaw, D.J. Wonnum, Alex Highsmith, etc.). The majority will fall flat as expected.
We learned that the young star linebackers were prepared to dominate once again! Both Roquan Smith and Devin White came into 2020 with extremely high expectations, and both delivered with resounding success. These two superstars combined for 280 total tackles (140 each), 32 tackles for loss, and 13 sacks on the season. Finishing just behind these two phenoms was a trio of consistent veterans in Zach Cunningham, Blake Martinez, and Joe Schobert. Barring any major unforeseen changes, the 2020 top five should produce well again in 2021.
In 2020 Dynasty Football Factory launched a series titled “Schemes Are Ch-Ch-Changing”. Each edition of the series explored how a new defensive coordinator would affect defenders as fantasy assets. The David Bowie song “Changes” would roll through my head as I started each article. I admit it; by the sixth or seventh article, I began to cringe at the title. I reached out to the team at DFF for ideas. Thus, I give you “Scheme or Scam.” The premise remains. I will investigate for each article how a new defensive scheme will deploy defenders and how that will translate to fantasy value. I write about this because it’s information I sought out and could not find when I began playing IDP fantasy football just a few years ago.
Jamin Davis entered the 2021 NFL draft as a redshirt junior. He was a starter for the University of Kentucky Wildcats for just one year. Davis topped off a very productive year with a break-out bowl game versus North Carolina State. He collected 13 tackles, was in on a QB sack, and picked off a pass to secure a victory. He ended the season with 102 tackles including four for loss and four forced turnovers.
Nick Bolton played in all 13 games as a true freshman where he recorded 22 tackles, one sack, and one TFL. He developed from promising up-and-comer to SEC defensive star in 2019, earning first-team all-conference honors after leading the league with 8.9 tackles per game (107 total, 8.5 for loss), intercepting two passes, and breaking up eight others in 12 starts.
Micah Parsons was regarded as a top-ten prospect out of high school across the nation and was honored as the American Family Insurance National Defensive Player of the Year. Although he was not nominally a starter in his first year in Happy Valley, he earned Freshman All-American honors while leading the Nittany Lions in tackles. Parsons took a step forward as a sophomore, earning all-conference honors.
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah | Notre Dame 6’1½ ” […]
Jaelan Phillips is a story where potential finally met opportunity and production in 2020. Phillips began his collegiate career with accolades and notoriety as he was ranked a top-three recruit in the nation in 2017, even ahead of Chase Young. He chose to stay close to home and attend UCLA, where a string of bad injury luck awaited him. Phillips started in four of the seven games he played as a freshman (21 tackles, seven for loss, with 3.5 sacks) but struggled through an ankle injury and suffered a concussion. In 2018, he suffered a wrist injury when he was hit by a car and later suffered another concussion during the season. He gutted through four games compiling 20 total tackles, with one TFL and one sack.
Zaven Collins was a three-star quarterback and all-state defender coming out of Hominy High School in Oklahoma. The athlete played tight end as a redshirt freshman before switching to linebacker for Tulsa. Defending, in his first season as a starter, came naturally to Collins who garnered Freshman All-American honors in 2018. After that, in his sophomore campaign, Collins accrued plenty of accolades, including the Brokno Nagurski Award and Chuck Bednarick Award. Let’s just say, the star linebacker used his talent to make a name for himself as a high-end NFL talent.
Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah was a two-sport star at Bethel High School in Hampton, Virginia. The stud defender came to Notre Dame as a three-star prospect and the 17th rated overall player coming out of Virginia in 2017. (247sports.com) Once he cracked the Notre Dame starting lineup, Owusu-Koramoah made national headlines with his play, winning the Butkus Award as the country’s top linebacker. He was also named first-team Associated Press All-American, ACC Defensive Player of the Year, a finalist for the Bednarik Award, and a finalist for the Nagurski Trophy. In 2020, Owusu-Koramoah led the Irish to an NCAA playoff birth and the Rose Bowl.
Kwity Paye came out of Bishop Hendricken high school as a three-star defensive lineman with plenty of accolades to his name. Coming out of Rhode Island, Paye was at a camp where he clocked a spectacular 4.5 40-yard dash, vaulting him to the top-ranked player in his state for the 2017 recruiting class. A high 3-star recruit, Paye was a First-Team All-State pick. Off the field, Paye won the Rhode Island State Championship in Long Jump with a mark of 21 feet and 5 inches. The stud defender had his choice of multiple offers but ultimately decided that Ann Arbor was the right place for him. While at Michigan, Paye carved out a solid career for the Wolverines.
Monday, the news became official that J.J. Watt had accepted an offer from the Arizona Cardinals for two years and $31 million with $23 million guaranteed. For the two and a half weeks he was a free agent, Watt had been linked to the Buffalo Bills, Green Bay Packers, Cleveland Browns, and a few other teams. For Watt, it is the end of an impressive era with the Houston Texas, who selected him 11th overall in the 2011 NFL Draft. The fan-favorite won the hearts of millions with his work ethic, integrity, and authenticity. Heading into his age 32 season, J.J. Watt embarks on the twilight hours of his career as he chases the ever-elusive Lombardi trophy.
A few weeks ago, I was scrolling the Twitter timeline and saw several tweets about the value of rushing quarterbacks, and how the “Late Round QB” (LRQB) strategy in fantasy football (popularised by JJ Zachariason) was on the wane. Seemingly, the consensus was that capturing the upside that rushing quarterbacks bring to your lineup, was worth the opportunity cost of selecting one in the early to middle rounds of your draft. As a fervent proponent of the LRQB theory, my immediate thought was to dismiss it, but my curiosity got the better of me – so I went to the data to see what I could find.
At 6’6” and 265 pounds, the Hurricane defensive lineman has excellent height for a pass rusher. Rousseau has a good base weight but should be able to add even more muscle as he develops in the NFL. His size, explosion, and speed are already above average coming into the NFL, but within a few years, I would expect Rousseau to play at 280 to 290 pounds and become the prototypical size for an NFL defensive end.
In this series of articles, we discuss some players from each defensive position group that are poised to break out this season. These players should put up a floor of respectable, fantasy starting lineup stat lines with the potential for positional top-15 ceilings. These are players that can be drafted or acquired with minimal draft capital in most full IDP leagues. An examination of the factors promoting these ascending players will take place in each article. Remarkably, there are quite a few players that are among the “IDP unseen,” as of now. The series began with the defensive line last offseason, followed by linebackers a few weeks ago.
Houston is experiencing one of the most turbulent years in sports history. No other time can I remember a city losing four superstars in a matter of just three months. In December, former MVP Russell Westbrook was jettisoned to Washington. Just a month later, Houston lost another former MVP in James Harden to Brooklyn. Yesterday, Houston “mutually agreed” to part with the face of their football franchise J.J. Watt. Lurking around the corner for Houston is a parting with star quarterback Deshaun Watson.
A devy league is like being an investor and trying to find the perfect initial public offering (IPO) to invest in. These player assets are similar to investing in new companies that are just hitting the market. You can make a small investment in a player and see massive gains by the time they enter the NFL. On the flip side, you can make a rather large investment in a player who never ends up playing in the NFL. The type of league you choose is all based on how risk-averse you would like to be. Let’s look at how to find the perfect devy league and detail what to expect in each.
In 2017 as a freshman, Dylan Moses came to the Alabama campus as a 6-foot-3, 235-pound freshman and proceeded to run a 4.46-second 40-yard dash. He then bench pressed 405 pounds, squatted 500 pounds and power cleaned 335 pounds. Four years in the Crimson Tide program has allowed Moses to add muscle weight without sacrificing explosion. Moses’ SPARQ rating (according to ESPN.com) is 132.48, which is extremely high for any athlete and elite for a linebacker.
The Super Bowl betting scene comes with many different kinds of bets. Some of them are related to the game’s outcome, but I think the fun lies with the side bets. I’ll cover both of those in this piece. Let’s get started!