IDP

Much has been made of the fact that Super Bowl XLVI (or Super Bowl 46 to normal people) is a rematch of the 2007/08 game which saw the New York Giants upset the 18-0 New England Patriots. Equally so pundits have been clear to point out there has been plenty of roster turnover since that thrilling game in Arizona. It is easy to simply state that the Giants won the last Super Bowl meeting between the pairing, or the Patriots have a superior offense, or the Giants have a better defense, but the game will be won in the one-on-one match-ups on the field on Sunday night. One of the key duels on game-day will be battle between Victor Cruz, who had 1,583 yards and 9 TDs in the regular season, against stand-in defensive back Julian Edelman. Read the rest of this entry »

Players are sorted by rank based on the PFF IDP scoring system in the second to last column. Touchdowns, fumble recoveries, safeties, and blocked kicks are considered random (non-skilled) and are not projected.

Solo Tackles (Tks) – 1 pt
Assisted Tackles (Asst) – .5 pts
Sacks (Sks) – 4 pts
Tackles for a Loss (TL) – 3 pts
Interceptions (Int) – 6 pts
Pass Defensed (PD) – 1 pt
Forced Fumble (FF) – 4 pts

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With the regular season in the books it’s time to look back at the some of the advanced data we collect at Pro Football Focus with an eye to finding some IDP sleepers for next season, as well as players who may be vulnerable to seeing a decline in their fantasy value. Firstly we’ll cast our gaze to the Defensive Ends who, as the NFL becomes even more pass-happy, are getting more opportunities to take over a game with their big plays.

Over-Achievers

We’ll start by identifying players who may see their fantasy significance fall in 2011. Defensive Ends who recorded 7 or more sacks, but had the least amount of pressures (combined hits and hurries) are players who were productive but also somewhat fortuitous. Calais Campbell was a top 5 DE this year as he had a career high 9 sacks, but he only generated 38 pressures, 8^th worst. Although you would expect the former Miami Hurricane to be an improving player in his 4^th year, the 47 QBIs (QB interruptions – combined sacks, hits and hurries) he recorded from 567 pass-rush snaps means he disrupted the play on only 8.29% of his blitzes, 4^th worst. Read the rest of this entry »

Much has been made in the past week about Bill Belichick’s (and Tom Brady’s) unhidden admiration for Ravens superstar safety Ed Reed.

“Can’t say I’ve ever coached against anybody better than Ed Reed in the secondary,” Belichick said in Wednesday’s news conference.

Brady concurred: ”When you break the huddle, you find where he’s at and you make sure you’re not lobbing the ball up in his zones, because as you saw in the Houston game, he’s going to go up there and make the plays. He’s just an exceptional player. I don’t think there is a weakness that he has.”

Though Reed is without question on the downside of his career – and is clearly banged up at the end of a long season – he remains one of the game’s most dangerous and dynamic defensive playmakers. Looking ahead to this week’s match-up with the Patriots, it’s likely that the Ravens will need to get a big game from Reed if they’re to prevail in Foxboro.

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If you’ve been following him since his days as a highly touted recruit at LSU who went by the name Patrick Johnson, his outstanding IDP rookie campaign came as no surprise. He wasn’t picked 5^th overall because he was a longshot to produce. But can we expect him to replicate his freshmen year as the best fantasy defensive back in the NFL next season? In the first of a series of articles reflecting on the seasons of top IDP rookies in 2011, we’ll take a look at Arizona Cardinals cornerback Patrick Peterson.

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Players are sorted by rank based on the PFF IDP scoring system in the second to last column. Touchdowns, fumble recoveries, safeties, and blocked kicks are considered random (non-skilled) and are not projected.

Solo Tackles (Tks) – 1 pt
Assisted Tackles (Asst) – .5 pts
Sacks (Sks) – 4 pts
Tackles for a Loss (TL) – 3 pts
Interceptions (Int) – 6 pts
Pass Defensed (PD) – 1 pt
Forced Fumble (FF) – 4 pts Read the rest of this entry »

The regular season is over more and more people, including myself, are extending their fantasy football experience by playing in playoff fantasy football games. If you are one of the hardcore few who have IDP players included then this article is going to help you get the right players this week.

As there is only two games to filter through for our IDP selections this week there are some clearly superior selections, especially at linebacker where IDP studs Patrick Willis, NaVorro Bowman and Ray Lewis will be popular options. Looking a little deeper, one player I am particularly interested in this week is Jerod Mayo, who played 53 of his 67 snaps as an ILB last week against the Broncos. Mayo has been mainly been employed as a WLB this year, which, combined with a strained MCL injury, has led to a fall in his fantasy production, but a return to the role he played so productively last season could reap benefits. Mayo does also have some history against the Ravens, as New England played Baltimore in week 6 last season when he was playing RILB and he recorded 12 solo tackles and 1 assisted tackle, a performance that would please any owner.  Read the rest of this entry »

The regular season is over more and more people, including myself, are extending their fantasy football experience by playing in playoff fantasy football games. If you are one of the hardcore few who have IDP players included then this article is going to help you get the right players this week.

Defensive Lineman

Following on from last week’s match-up inspired selections, I’ll avoid highlighting any 49ers and Ravens because they have the toughest match-ups against New Orleans and Houston respectively.  Both the Saints and Texans O-Lines only gave up 15 sacks during the regular season, which ranked them =6^th on sacks alone, which means sack artists Terrell Suggs and Aldon Smith should be passed over this week. That being said Drew Brees did get sacked twice last week, and hit the dirt two further times, but the situational use of Aldon Smith limits his upside and the 16 game regular season is a larger sample size to work from. Read the rest of this entry »

Players are sorted by rank based on the PFF IDP scoring system in the second to last column. Touchdowns, fumble recoveries, safeties, and blocked kicks are considered random (non-skilled) and are not projected.

Solo Tackles (Tks) – 1 pt
Assisted Tackles (Asst) – .5 pts
Sacks (Sks) – 4 pts
Tackles for a Loss (TL) – 3 pts
Interceptions (Int) – 6 pts
Pass Defensed (PD) – 1 pt
Forced Fumble (FF) – 4 pts

Read the rest of this entry »

Week 17  for many rookies is the final hoo-rah, a time to show that they’ve got what it takes to take their game to another level next season. It’s also the last look that we fantasy junkies get at many of them and these performances effect our projections for the next year. So what did we witness on New Years Day out of IDP rookies? For starters, there was an unexpected contribution from a player that hasn’t even been active for the past 3 weeks. There were also fine performances from two players that nobody seems to be talking about in rookie of the year discussions. And finally, a linebacker makes quite a statistical impact in limited snaps. Let’s see what else happened in the final weekly IDP rookie report of the 2011 NFL season.

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