IDP Start/Sit: Week 8
Jake Kohlhagen, lead IDP contributor for Reality Sports Online, shares his IDP starts and sits for Week 8.
This article is presented by our friends at Reality Sports Online.
Week 7 is in the rearview mirror and we have a smaller amount of byes this week, but we still want to dig into our lineups and find those ideal matchups, positive or negative trends, or some potential buys/sells. For those who are not familiar with this article, we are trying to identify some of those fringe players or deeper plays for our IDP lineups. Before we dive into Week 8, I always like to look back at the previous week. Week 7’s starts and sits played out pretty well for the most part!
Week 7 Recap
DL:
Start: Dorance Armstrong (1 solo, 2 assists, 1 sack, FR, TFL, QB hit) 👍
Sit: Emmanuel Ogbah (Inactive, hopefully you pivoted to have a backup)
LB:
Start: Nicholas Morrow (3 solos, 2 assists) 👎
Sit: Cody Barton (5 solos) 👍
DB:
Start: Deshon Elliott (5 solos, 4 assists, TFL, snaps trending down—pay attention) 👍
Sit: Justin Simmons (3 solos) 👍
Week 8 Starts & Sits
START: Kayvon Thibodeaux, New York Giants, DL31
Since returning from injury, Thibodeaux has seen consistent usage in this Giants defense. Since Week 3, he’s averaged 77% of snaps, including 84.3% in the last 3 games. He’s also seeing unique utilization and pre-snap alignment in Wink Martindale’s defense, which is thriving with blue-chip talents like Thibodeaux. The pressures have been there too, with 13 over the past 4 games. However, those pressures have only resulted in 1 sack. While the conversion rate of 7.6% is disappointing, keep in mind Thibodeaux just finished his 5th NFL game.
What should be encouraging is the number of pressures because that tells us: the sacks are coming. And there’s room to improve that pressure rate, which has been 10.7% over the last 4 games. Week 7 looks like a favorable matchup against Seattle, which allows a slightly below-average pressure rate, but the conversion-to-sack rate is one of the highest so far this year. And with the amount of pressure that the Giants have been bringing this year, it looks like a great time to fire up Thibodeaux!
START: Rasheem Green, Houston Texans, DL51
Green doesn’t have perfect usage, but it is still ideal as a baseline. His snap percentage over the last 5 games has been 57%, good for 38 snaps a game. The Texans put Greenard on IR this past week, creating a bigger need from the DL rotation. Green has shown increased success in the run game in the past weeks (73.2 PFF grade in Week 4, 89.2 grade in Week 5) along with a good 11.2% pass-rush pressure rate.
The upcoming matchup with the Titans offers two paths to success with Tennessee’s current QB situation: 1) Tannehill plays behind the Titans’ 31st-ranked offensive line in terms of pressure rate allowed. Green should find a way to get after an injured Tannehill with the favorable matchup and previous success. 2) If Malik Willis is taking snaps, you might think he is too mobile for Green to be effective. But younger, mobile QBs tend to hold on to the ball much longer in an attempt to make plays or due to inexperience reading a defense. This leads to increased sack opportunities in its own right. Green is an upside play, but this is a great week to go for it!
SIT: Chandler Jones, Las Vegas Raiders, DL38
Chandler Jones is a well-known IDP name for veteran managers. However, it’s likely he’s past his prime. Chandler converted his first sack (only a 1/2 sack, mind you) this week. He has had below average pass-rush pressure rate of 7.6%. This week he gets a below-average matchup against New Orleans. They are allowing only a 23% pressure rate (tied for 9th best) and 14% sack conversion (tied for 14th best). On top of the poor IDP performances, his PFF grades are some of the lowest of his long career. The final kicker to this? He is doing this while Maxx Crosby is dominating and drawing almost all of the attention along that defensive front too. It might be time to move on from all of our shares of Chandler Jones if you are still holding.
START: Quay Walker, Green Bay Packers, LB30
Quay has come on strong for a rookie, playing an average of 45 snaps per game and 76% of the total snaps with De’Vondre Campbell entrenched as the LB1. He’s found a way to be efficient with his time with a very good 16% tackle efficiency, which at this point should be indicative of what we should expect to see in most games this year. Even with a less-than-ideal snap count, the Buffalo Bills are the matchup this week and are top 10 in plays run this year as well as top 10 in passing plays ran. Quay has shown a greater strength in coverage while needing some work in run defense. The Bills are an ideal matchup for Quay to produce numbers this week. And we will see the Packers defense in this matchup once more in this article. #foreshadowing
START: Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Cleveland Browns, LB27
The Cleveland Browns have had an ambiguous linebacker room for most of this year. Things only got more unclear with the signing of Deion Jones. However, Jacob Phillips’ injury (pectoral, season-ending) should set us up for the rest of the year. Jones seems to be the one who’ll wear the green dot for play calling and see close to 100% of snaps, if not this week, then the following week. Who steps up into that LB2 role?
It should be JOK. He saw his highest snap count this past week, one of his best-graded games per PFF this year, and made a beautiful punch out to keep Cleveland in the game. The biggest challenge to snaps would be the next LB in Sione Takitaki and his usage would align more with Jones, leaving JOK’s snaps safe for him. JOK may not be a 100% snap player this season, but he will see enough snaps to be relevant. Finally, his matchup this week against Cincinnati and their significant uptick in passing rate in all game scripts, bode well for JOK to be involved quite a bit on Monday night.
SIT: Tae Crowder, New York Giants, LB68
Tae Crowder was the guy to start the year with 3 out of the first 4 weeks having 100% of the snaps. In the last two weeks, we saw it drop under 70%, and with Landon Collins getting acclimated more, Crowder’s snaps are even more in danger. This alongside his bottom-of-the-barrel performances per PFF grading (29.4 overall, worst in the NFL) tells us Crowder’s job is not very secure. He additionally has missed 11 tackles already this season too. He is someone that you should be looking to move on from for the season and if anyone sees value, try and cash out.
START: Adrian Amos, Green Bay Packers, DB50
Adrian Amos has had great usage this year. Outside of Week 4’s injury against the Patriots, he’s played 100% of snaps. Not to mention, his sweet spot alignment (box, slot, DL) has been up over the last 3 weeks at 59%! This is reflected in his production uptick too: 20 combined tackles, 1 TFL, and 1 QB hit in the last 3 games. These games have also seen more defensive snaps versus some earlier games, but that should still be the case this week as the Packers take on the Buffalo Bills Sunday night. This should be a 65+ snap game, and combined with the increased sweet spot usage (which is ideal for DB scoring in IDP), Amos is a strong play this week.
START: Eric Rowe, Miami Dolphins, DB45
This is one of the worst reasons for someone to move up the board, but with Brandon Jones’ season-ending ACL injury, Rowe is next in line to play more snaps. He was already cutting into Jones’ usage when they were both active this season. Miami’s defense loves to utilize their safeties up in the box and blitz them with good frequency too. This is a nice pick-up-and-play option for streaming or taking the big upside swing for a sack or turnover (assuming your league has big play scoring).
SIT: Kyle Dugger, New England Patriots, DB27
Kyle Dugger was an IDP fantasy darling his first two years in the league and has made some big plays already this year (a 59-yard fumble return for a TD in week 5, an INT and 2 PDs in Week 6). However, this season has been plagued with some injuries and with the Belichick-ian way of rotating defensive players. Adrian Phillips, Devin McCourty, Jabrill Peppers, and Kyle Dugger have all been in the mix for the Patriots this year, so missing time is not a great way to try and lock in your spot. Limited usage combined with the matchup of the Jets this week, who are only running 54 plays per game offensively, means a very small pool of opportunities. Now Dugger can make big plays for sure, but with the injury limitations, the reduced snap count, and overall limited chances against the Jets, let’s sit Dugger down this week.
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