Feels good doesn’t it? Well, for most of us. I’ll just pretend that the Rams-49ers game on Monday Night Football never happened, but other that, it’s a nice feeling to be poring over box scores and fantasy matchups with an eye to grabbing some guys off waivers to bolster my rosters. Before we get to some potential pickups, let’s recap the highs and lows of the Week 1 action from an IDP perspective. Below that, we’ll have some top waiver options for Week 2, and some quick start/sit thoughts.
Week 1 recap
There were two standout IDP performers on opening weekend, and both are emerging players with plenty of fans, so unless you’re in a shallow league, it’s unlikely either will be available to grab off waivers.
We’ll start with the week’ top performer, Tampa linebacker Kwon Alexander, who posted 15 solo tackles (two for loss), two assisted tackles, and a sack. He was on the field for 65-of-68 snaps, of which he dropped into coverage for 43 of them, an interesting point to note considering he allowed 6-of-7 passes to be completed in his coverage for 45 yards and a touchdown. Alexander gets a slight bump in value from being a top-end LB3 to a mid/low-end LB2 as unless he tightens up his play against the pass he’ll continue to see targets.
Eric Kendricks was the second of the week’s two standout IDP performers, returning an interception 77 yards for a touchdown, on top of his six total tackles (five solo). Kendricks, starting his second year as a pro, was touted as the best coverage linebacker in last year’s draft class and his display in Week 1 certainly backed that up, allowing just 2-of-4 passes to be completed, for 18 yards. Keep an eye on his play against the run though, as our analysts graded his run-defense performance in Week 1 as 68th of 70 qualifying linebackers, thanks to two missed tackles. While teams might shy away from targeting players covered by Kendricks in future contests, if he can’t improve against the run, teams will look to exploit that deficiency. Kendricks as a top LB2 with LB1 aspirations is unchanged.
We also saw solid IDP performances from one of my preseason favorites, Ryan Shazier (six total tackles, an interception and forced fumble); Alec Ogletree (11 solo tackles and one assist) who looked comfortable in his new role in the middle for the Rams; NaVorro Bowman (nine total tackles, one for a loss and an interception), who appears to have fully recovered his devastating knee injury from two years ago; and Luke Kuechly, who posted 11 total tackles, the first of many expected double-digit tackle games in 2016.
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