Forgotten IDPs: 3 Defensive Linemen Who Could Surprise in 2025
Which 2nd and 3rd year DL are we overlooking headed in the season?
They’re in their second or third years, but they haven’t become stars, and are being selected outside the top 24, 36, and in some cases, even the top 100 IDPs in fantasy drafts.
Every season, a few of these players come out of nowhere to outperform expectations. They do the work, stack the numbers, and by the end of the year, they have delivered fantasy numbers to leave their fantasy managers feeling smug at having grabbed a bargain.
We're kicking off our three-part series on overlooked or forgotten IDPs. First up, we head to the trenches and focus on the defensive linemen.
YaYa Diaby, EDGE, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
YaYa Diaby posted an impressive seven and a half sacks in his rookie year despite playing only 515 snaps while splitting time with other Bucs' edges.
If we examine his rookie year a little more closely, Diaby only generated a paltry 26 pressures that year. His 28.8% sack-to-pressure ratio was considerably higher than the league average of 16.4%, leaving us worried that he would struggle to produce similar sack totals unless he created significantly more pressure.
What we didn't see coming was just how much things would swing in the other direction in 2024. Diaby took over as the primary Bucs' edge rusher after Shaq Barrett's departure, generating 65 pressures, but came away with only four and a half sacks, well below the average conversion rate.
Sure, outliers happen. But they're not something we see year after year from the same player. For that reason, we should shelve our concerns about Diaby's yo-yo sack production and rely on metrics that more reliably predict future sack production: pressure rate and win rate. In that sense, there's plenty to like about his 2025 outlook.
According to PFF, compared to the 276 edge rushers with at least 100 pass rush snaps in 2024, Diaby ranked 12th in pressure rate at 14.6%, good for the 97th percentile. His win rate of 24.4% ranked 18th, placing him in the 93rd percentile. And his average time from snap to pressure was 2.65 seconds, a solid improvement over the 2.87 seconds he posted as a rookie.
If those points aren't enough to persuade IDP managers of his chances to go from overlooked to difference-maker, Diaby also ranked well above the average in tackle efficiency, finishing in the 69th percentile with 46 combined, 40 of which were solo efforts.
It's sensible to be skeptical when a player says he's ready to take the next step, as every player thinks they're on the verge of greatness. But when his teammates are backing it up, his coach is all in, and the underlying numbers support the possibility of a breakout, we tend to start paying attention, especially when that player has a clear path to significant snaps.
When we talk about IDP league winners, we often think of the elite 300+ points scoring IDPs, forgetting that players who have a realistic shot of comfortably outperforming expectations can be just as important.
Frankly, it would be surprising if Diaby ended the season as low as the DL28 and shocking if he ranked as lowly as the EDGE44, where his ADP landed in The IDP Show's best ball drafts.
Moro Ojomo, DT, Philadelphia Eagles
I talked about Ojomo on the “What Are Your 2025 Rookie Picks Worth” YouTube video back in May:
Despite all the positive things I said there, it would be a stretch to suggest Ojomo could comfortably finish as high as a DT3 in IDP, but it's not out of the question.
Last year, he ranked 35th among all DTs in pressures despite ranking 65th in pass rush opportunities. Imagine what his year might look like if he inherits some of the snaps Milton Williams vacated? Especially if his sack rate rises to somewhere nearer the league average.
Nolan Smith, EDGE, Philadelphia Eagles
Smith is undoubtedly on the radar of IDP managers, but as the 30th-ranked edge rusher in ADP, placing him behind Dallas Turner and almost two full rounds shy of Harold Landry, he's being overlooked.
His 11.1% pressure rate in 2024 isn’t anything to get excited about, although it does rank in the 77th percentile among all edges. Similarly, his 5.4% tackle efficiency rating didn't help IDP managers in specific scoring formats.
What we sometimes forget when looking at these youngsters is that their development curve is steeper than that of older players. For that reason, we're willing to invest just a little more in what their early-career in-season splits look like. And that's where it gets interesting with Nolan.
Through the first 12 games, Smith generated only 16 pressures and a derisory 9.1% pressure rate. Then the lights came on, and over the final eight games, including the playoffs, his pressure rate skyrocketed to 15%. He also produced six sacks over that same period.
We shouldn't cherry-pick a player's best in-season split and assume he can produce at that level for the entirety of 2025, but we're not talking about just a couple of games. Eight games represent a reasonable window into what Smith can do, and remember, half of those were in the postseason, against the best teams in the league.
When you look at what he did through that lens and consider that his win rate ranked in the 88th percentile, Smith's outlook is legitimately exciting. The fact that he's still only 24 and is suddenly the top dog in Philly's edge room is the cherry on the cake. The former Georgia Bulldog star could feast. An EDGE2 finish is well within reach.
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