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.
Gus Bradley got his start coordinating NFL defenses in Seattle, where he put the Legion of Boom on the map. His successor, Dan Quinn, coordinated the Super Bowl defenses this series covered in its first edition of 2021 about the Dallas Cowboys. Like Quinn, Bradley implements a base Cover-3 defense that characterized so many of the successful defenses of the second decade of the 21st century. Also like Quinn, Bradley has come to understand that opposing offenses have learned to exploit undisguised Cover-3 defenses. Bradley implemented Cover-2 and Cover-4 looks as change-ups in 2020.
For our purposes, the beauty of a base Cover-3 defense and the 4-3-under fronts that often accompany it are typically the fantasy assets it delivers. The defense has a dedicated pass-rusher for big-play scoring leagues, a high-volume tackler in the middle of the field, and two safeties with disparate roles – one deep man and a second that frequents the box.
Safeties
As indicated by the stratospheric ADPs of second-year running backs, upside has rarely been more in vogue than in 2021. The safety position is one where chasing ceiling makes sense.
The huge seasons that Kam Chancellor and Derwin James posted under Quinn’s leadership have IDP fantasy gamers aflutter over what could be in Vegas. They’ve identified their man in Johnathan Abram, a 2019 first-round pick.
The safety position is the foremost reason your author writes about defensive schemes and what they mean for IDP fantasy football. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read in September something akin to, “Welp, how could we possibly have known Team X would deploy that player differently this year?” I once heard a podcaster describe Bradley McDougald as a reliable weekly starter. He at that moment was 40th among defensive backs in fantasy points per game (FantasyPros.com scoring) through eight weeks. The reason was that the Seahawks were playing McDougald deep much more often.
Clues as to how a defense will utilize its safeties typically surface before September. In many cases, players and coaches will provide insights that can be verified in practice. Sometimes, there are even descriptions in reports on the team’s own website! If all else fails, an IDP writer can simply watch preseason games to observe changes in scheme and player deployment. Your author imagines you’d expect no less reading content behind a paywall.
There is, of course, no exact science to decipher what a defensive scheme change means for a player’s IDP value. Even preseason deployment can lead us astray. A player can appear in a plum role for two weeks in August, fall on his face, and get cut! (Thanks, George Iloka!)
Kam Chancellor and Derwin James have been impactful players in real life and in fantasy football not because they’ve played one role very well but because they’ve taken on multiple roles in Gus Bradley’s defenses. Both Chancellor and James excel at all three levels of the defense even while known primarily for big hits in the box.
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Early off-season reports indicate that Johnathan Abram is struggling to hold off challenges for the starting strong-safety role from Karl Joseph and Tyree Gillespie. He’s unlikely to develop in training camp a trajectory that portends success in significantly more duties. That said, Abram could still hold value if he can earn a full-time job. Bradley’s strong safety in 2020, Rayshawn Jenkins, collected 84 tackles in 15 games, suggesting Abram has low-end S2 potential. A wisp of high upside is tantalizing but offset by the risk that Abram leaves the field in two-high sets, playing a part-time role similar to that of Adrian Phillips in Los Angeles under Bradley.
Rookie Tre’von Moehrig is expected to start at free safety. He’ll play primarily deep in single-high and two-high safety looks. The deep role will keep him away from much of the action closer to the line of scrimmage, making him largely irrelevant for fantasy purposes.
Cornerbacks
Gus Bradley prefers long, rangy cornerbacks who play aggressively. Press-man coverage with safety help over the top enables his CBs to get their hands on the ball and play closer to the line of scrimmage than in the more conservative Tampa-2 defense Bradley experienced as a position coach in Tampa.
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Travyon Mullen broke up 14 passes in 2020, tied for eighth in the league. Among those tied with Mullen was Chargers cornerback Michael Davis, fantasy’s 13th CB in total fantasy points.
While Mullen had only two interceptions, his opportunities to get his hands on the ball provide upside for more turnovers. Mullen projects as a low-end CB1 for fantasy gamers for 2021.
The second cornerback, Casey Hayward, follows Bradley from LA. A smaller player on the back end of his career that Bradley inherited with the Chargers, Hayward isn’t a fantasy option.
Linebackers
Gus Bradley’s defense includes four primary linebacker roles: a run-and-chase weak-side LB, a read-and-react middle LB, an edge-setting strong-side LB who will rush the passer more often than drop into coverage, and a coverage specialist that plays in the apex and slot in addition to the box.
As Bradley has sought to make his defense more multiple, none of these are full-time roles any longer. A linebacker that sees every snap will need to show proficiency in multiple roles.
The Raiders have three linebackers whom they’re paying significant money: Cory Littleton ($11.67M), Nick Kwiatkoski ($7.5M), and Nicholas Morrow ($4.5M). Littleton fits best on the weak side while the middle suits Kwiatkoski. Morrow is thought to be useful in either spot opening training camp as the third linebacker. Gus Bradley has expressed considering Littleton on the strong side in 4-3 sets with Morrow as a base WILL.
The Raiders’ two recent third-round picks, rookie Divine Deablo and sophomore Tanner Muse seem well-suited to the coverage role, but both have been invisible to date.
Raiders’ defensive ends have demonstrated no ability to contribute as off-ball linebackers. Bradley’s deployment of the strong-side edge defender will be largely limited to blitz packages featuring three pass rushers – Maxx Crosby, Yannick Ngakoue, and Clelin Ferrell – or rely on pure off-ball linebackers like Littleton. This look will be Bradley’s well-known “50 front,” including two defensive tackles.
Littleton will almost certainly have the first opportunity to emerge as the leader among linebackers in snaps. His inadequacy in the middle (evident in both 2019 in LA and 2020 in Oakland), however, exposes him to a challenge from Morrow. The lesser-known man will earn more than Eric Wilson and Anthony Walker, apparent starters for their respective franchises.
In four years as the Chargers’ defensive coordinator, Bradley never deployed full-time linebackers. That appears unlikely to change in 2021. Expect no more than two full-time equivalents in the group. Littleton, Kwiatkoski, and Morrow are depth options – in that order – in deep leagues.
Edge Defenders
For the second year in a row, the Raiders made a surprisingly large investment in an edge defender. They have certainly needed help at the position, but the players at the prices were interesting, to say the least: Carl Nassib for $25.25M over three years and Yannick Ngakoue for $26M across two years. They combine with young draft picks Clelin Ferrell and Maxx Crosby to make a deep but uncertain defensive end rotation.
Both Nassib and Ferrell have experience playing over the offensive tackle, making them candidates for the “big end” job in Bradley’s base 50 front. Ngakoue has identified Crosby and himself as the top pass-rushing duo, suggesting that Ferrell, the #4 overall pick of 2019, may need to earn time in the interior.
Crosby and Ngakoue each have a season-long double-digit sack total to their credit. Both are interesting late DE2s or EDGE3s with upside for fantasy gamers.
Interior Defensive Line
Gus Bradley has been known to feature a disruptive interior pass rusher, so the termination of Maurice Hurst’s contract was a bit surprising. No current player on the roster fits that role very well. One possibility might be to allow Ferrell to earn time there in four-man nickel fronts. Fantasy platforms are not likely to change Ferrell’s position designation to reflect such a change before the season starts even if we do see glimpses of it in the preseason. Unfortunately, the Raiders will bear no fruit at the position for fantasy purposes.
In Conclusion
As the Jaguars’ head coach, Gus Bradley ran a simple, aggressive defense that was loaded with high-volume tacklers at linebacker and strong safety every year. Since arriving out west, he’s made his defense more multiple since offensive coordinators have learned how to attack his core Cover-3 defense. A virtue of Bradley’s defenses in Seattle and Jacksonville was that players could play fast and learn simple roles well, enabling them to function well as a unit. His desire to retain that dynamic has contributed to heavy rotations of players who specialize in part-time roles. Bradley has also kept up with league-wide trends toward two deep safeties and quarters coverage (a zone coverage with the four base defensive backs dropping back).
Sadly for IDP gamers, Bradley’s newfound multiplicity and rotations eliminate the ceilings that safety Johnathan Cyprien, middle linebacker Paul Posluszny, and weakside linebacker Telvin Smith hit in the middle of the last decade. Raiders can be largely ignored in shallow leagues. The edge defenders should be monitored there and drafted later in full-IDP leagues. The starting linebackers and strong safety are nice dart throws if they’re free in auctions and drafts. The Raiders defense is an IDP scam.
Clemson and Michigan alum…Panthers and Cowboys fan…I try to see both sides of every debate and each trade. Find me on Twitter @DynastyTripp.
