Welcome to the third weekly edition of “Raiding the IDP Waiver Wire” for 2021! For those returning for another installment of defensive player recommendations, your interest and support are appreciated!
This weekly column will help you, the reader, plunder your league’s waiver wire for real value where it counts: in your line-ups. We’ll dig into the past week’s top performers among available options for repeatable production.
“Raiding the IDP Waiver Wire” is written for fantasy football gamers in leagues that require a full complement of 11 defensive starters in leagues of 12 to 16 teams. We rely on scoring settings from FantasyPros.com, even though their value for passes defensed is a bit low. We’ll look for options at both conventional and true defensive positions as they arise. Players qualifying for this column are those rostered in no more than a third of IDP leagues on MyFantasyLeague.com (MFL). These recommendations further assume you, the manager, have finite roster space with challenging cut decisions to add new names.
The third week of the NFL season offered us opportunities to confirm trends emerging early in the season. Young players are rising as well, especially for deeper leagues. Defensive linemen in particular will gradually earn workload increases as the season progresses. For this reason, “Raiding the IDP Waiver Wire” includes a new wrinkle this weekend: a watchlist.
Watchlist players look like they’re on the way to a recommendation in an upcoming edition of this column. For the time being, players on the watchlist merit preemptive adds in particularly deep leagues with roster space to carry players that could be worth starting later in the 2021 season.
Of course, no waiver wire article is complete without an injury replacement or two. The big news among IDPs in Week 3 is a season-ending knee injury to Giants captain and inside linebacker Blake Martinez. Gamers would be wise to investigate injury news before overreacting to surprises in box scores.
Javon Kinlaw, 49ers DT
The 49ers’ first pick of the 2020 NFL draft will always be compared to perennial Pro Bowler DeForest Buckner. The 49ers dealt Buckner to the Colts for the pick they used to select Javon Kinlaw.
As a prospect, Kinlaw demonstrated remarkable strength and athleticism but lacked the refinement and technique Buckner possessed coming into the league. Kinlaw’s skillset, then, translates to IDP fantasy football as one that will take a year or two to yield a useful fantasy starter.
Kinlaw missed the opener with an injury and, like most 49ers defenders, had a quiet Week 2 versus the anemic Eagles offense. The Packers kept him busier in Week 3. He collected six tackles while leading all 49ers’ interior defenders in snaps.
Everson Griffen, Vikings DE
Everson Griffen is back for his 11th season in Minnesota as he approaches his 33rd birthday. He’s back from the purgatory of playing in the terrible Cowboys and Lions defenses in 2020.
Griffen has three double-digit sack seasons to his credit, and his fit in Head Coach Mike Zimmer’s defense appears to remain true. Playing opposite former Pro Bowler Danielle Hunter could help him to another quality season in 2021.
Stephon Tuitt, Steelers DE
This Pittsburgh stalwart’s widespread availability suggests a lot of leagues need to add IR spaces. Stephon Tuitt could return this week from a preseason injury. He’s an elite option as an interior defensive lineman in true-position leagues and a DE2 in conventional-position leagues coming off a season with 11.0 QB sacks.
Tae Crowder, Giants LB
Tae Crowder might be the most valuable pick-up of the 2021 season. He took over for the injured Blake Martinez (ACL) this past Sunday and collected 11 tackles plus a pass break-up.
The second-year man from Georgia flashed as a rookie in 2021 after working his way up the depth chart as a seventh-round pick. Injuries kept him off the field for all but three games, but he carried his momentum into 2021. Crowder’s status as the second linebacker in New York never seemed in doubt this past summer.
The Giants rely heavily on one-linebacker sets. Lost depth should only further encourage this tendency. Crowder could approach the nine tackles per game that Martinez has averaged for years in similar defenses if he can stay healthy.
Ronnie Harrison, Browns SAF
Your author was trumpeting Ronnie Harrison as a sleeper all summer. We needed to confirm two points about his role to confirm a breakout: full-time play ahead of second-year man Grant Delpit and a significant box role disparate from free safety John Johnson’s duties.
Through three weeks (despite an early Week-1 ejection), the plum role looks solid. Harrison has 11 tackles, a QB sack, and a pass defensed in 103 snaps on the young season.
Watchlist
In recent years, the Seahawks have become known as a team that heavily rotates defensive linemen. In fact, top players have commanded three-quarters of snaps on this team when healthy (e.g., Jadeveon Clowney, Jarran Reed).
The 2021 Seattle Seahawks are working through their rotation to determine their top players. Players trending up heading into Week 4 include former first-round bust Robert Nkemdiche at the 3-technique defensive tackle spot and two young edge defenders, Alton Robinson and Darrell Taylor.
Robinson and Taylor combined for eleven tackles, two tackles for loss, and a strip-sack of Kirk Cousins in Minnesota. While edge defenders who play just half the snaps are common, these youngsters could push veterans like Carlos Dunlap and Kerry Hyder aside in time. (Hyder suffered a concussion in the first half of Week 3’s game.) The scarcity of quality players designated “defensive end” in conventional-position leagues makes this situation worth monitoring.
The Texans also feature a duo of young defensive ends poised to overtake an aging veteran. Jacob Martin and Jonathan Greenard out-snapped Whitney Mercilus as Greenard made his way back from injury versus the Panthers. As the Texans’ hopes fade this season, the organization would be wise to see what they have in Martin and Greenard for 2022.
Happy Bidding!
We at Dynasty Football Factory are here to help you navigate this torrent of information! A Clemson and Michigan alum, a fan of the Cowboys and Panthers, I try to see both sides of every debate and every fantasy football trade. Feel free to reach out to me @DynastyTripp on Twitter.
