Fantasy Football Daily - 2023 Off-Season IDP News Recap | IDP Corner

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

The true hardcore fantasy footballers are the IDP players and we've got a show just for them! Hosts Justin Varnes (@downwithIDP) and Tom Simons get us up to speed on the comings and goings in the IDP landscape. We've got newly drafted players, free agency moves, and scheme changes that will affect our IDP draft decisions. Listen as the fellas go around the NFL on the first 2023 edition of the IDP Corner. FantasyPoints.com is your home for fantasy football news, DFS and best ball strategy, and NFL betting odds. Use code "FantasyPTS" at UnderdogFantasy.com and get up to a $100 first-time deposit bonus. Simply put, you deposit $100 and we'll match it. Easy. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time to the Fantasy Points podcast brought to you by FantasyPoint.com. Top level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome to the 2023 first edition of the IDP Corner. My name is Justin Varns. You can follow me on Twitter at Down with IDP. I'm one of two fantasy analysts handling the IDP section of the FantasyPoint.com website. With me, as always, is the other, my better half of the IDP department, Mr. Thomas Simons.

I don't know about the better half here part, but it's good to be working back with you again, Justin. It's weird coming out of hibernation for the offseason, but looking forward to it. Yeah, and it's funny you say hibernation because I'm going to talk about exactly that in my little segment here. So we're going to run over. This is a little bit of a recap of what has happened so far. If you have also been in hibernation and it's time to start, you know, you're starting to get the notices, email notices that your leagues are firing back up. You want to kind of get caught back up as to what all happened, you know, in the offseason.

We're going to do a rundown of all of that. What we think are the bigger moves and somewhat has happened with the rookies. But before we get into all that, we're going to start. Thomas has done some really good research on run pass ratio, how that affects us in IDP land. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about the quote unquote hibernation process, what I think is good and bad about it as we try to, you know, handle all the, you know, football is a 12 month operation. And as a fantasy player, that might be difficult for you to kind of hang into. So we're going to talk about some strategies for that. Thomas, tell me what's been going on with run pass ratio.

what have you found in all of your digging? Well, first of all, you mentioned that we're going to run over, and I bet a lot of people out there who are listening to this feel runover after just getting like we said, getting out of hibernation and starting the engine back up. With run-pass ratio, this is a tricky statistic and tool that we can use. And what I mean by tricky is that you have to be really careful on the run aspect of the run pass ratio. And to give you an example what I'm talking about, the Chicago Bears ran the ball

60% of the time more than anybody last year in regards to their statistics. They had 558 rushes to 377 pass attempts. The problem is with this statistic is that 18% of those rushes were quarterback runs. So the top three teams that rushed last year were the Bears, the first year, Falcons and the commanders, and they ran 60, 57, and 56%. And there's only eight teams that ran 50% or more of the time. If you take into account the quarterback running the ball, then you can turn around and look at per game rushes. And the Cleveland Browns actually ran the ball more than anybody per game.

They ran it 30.2 times a game. They had only 8% of their rushes were quarterback rushes. They ran the ball 48%, but 8%, just 8% was quarterbacks. And the Washington commander, same thing. They ran the ball 56% of the time with only their quarterback rushing 6%. That's 29.8%. So if you deviate away from or eliminate the quarterback running the ball, because that can be a planned attack by a team like the Bears or,

the Ravens or teams that have rushing quarterbacks or they're scrambling for their life's type of rushes by the quarterbacks like the commanders and the Falcons and so on. Well, you take those percentages out and the top three teams were the Browns, the commanders and the Falcons who ran either it was 29.6 rushes per game or more. And then you start falling into Dallas, San Francisco, then Philadelphia, who Philly is another weird one because they were ranked sixth overall with 52%. They were tied for fourth, rather, because they tied with the Ravens, Titans, and themselves at 52%. But they had a quarterback that ran the ball 17% of the time of those rushes.

And the same thing with the Ravens. 15% of the time of their 561 rushes was their quarterbacks, mostly Lamar Jackson before his injuries. So when you turn around and you start looking at the, the passes, then you got a team like Tampa Bay, obviously, with Brady at the time, throwing the ball 64% of the time. 64%. That means they only ran the ball 36% of the time. And they weren't even leading the league in pass attempts.

The Chargers, who ranked second, had more pass attempts. They had 17 more pass attempts than the Bucks. So here you are. You've got two teams, three teams, that, including the Vikings, who were, 63% of the time or more, they pass the ball. In fact, six teams threw the ball over 60% of the time. Now, that's crazy statistics. And of these teams, all six of them, only the Cardinals were 9% quarterback runs. Everybody else was 6% or less. So they're throwing the ball and not running the ball very much. And that is something that you have to be really, really careful of. Because if you

take a look at the total number of plays run, the teams average around 67 and a half. Well, I shouldn't say teams average. They average around 59 percent, but the Browns had 67.5 plays per game. And of those plays, 48 percent of them are rushes and 52 percent were passes. So they're a balanced team. And the reason why I bring all of this up is if you're sitting here thinking about IDP, and how your IDPs are going to match up on a weekly matchup and you're streaming and you're thinking your defenses or your individual players, you have to take into consideration these statistics because they're vitally important.

Yes, the Bears ran the ball 60% of the time, but of that 60%, 18% were by their quarterback, mostly Justin Fields. So if you're playing the Bears, you've got to consider, well, you know, wow, am I going to be getting statistic, you know, tackles and everything from my DBs or from my linebackers or even my defensive linemen. In a case like this with the Bears, you're most likely going to get them from the DBs because they're scrambling. And chances are they're in a pass-oriented offense. But again, when you look at the Bears, they only threw the ball 377 times. Now, was that designed rushes by their quarterback?

Or is that just the fact that they had actually 400 or so. more pass attempts, but they ended up running the ball because the pocket broke down or their receivers recovered or whether the case may be, they limited the number of pass attempts that they had. So you have to be really careful on how you judge and juggle these statistics in the run pass ratio, but you can use this in your favor on a weekly basis if you know that a team like the Tennessee Titans, they're going to run the ball. and, you know, Travis, if they have Travis Henry on the team, there's always talk of Henry being moved.

But if he's running the ball a lot and, you know, you've got teams like the 49ers, the Titans, Carolina, they run the ball 50% or more, then okay. And if their quarterbacks aren't throwing, you know, Carolina 5% quarterback runs, Tennessee, 7% quarterback runs, San Francisco, 6%. okay, now you can sit there and say, my linebackers are going to be probably faring well against these three teams because they run the ball at least half the time, if not more, and their quarterbacks aren't scrambling on those rushes. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I mean, as far as using that to your advantage, it's one of the things that I was actually going to talk about,

which is learning how to more or better embrace variance when it comes to your idea. P scoring because a lot of what you will see on your stat sheet, unless you are watching that game, which nowadays is really hard to do. We all play fantasy. It's only so many, you know, you only have two eyes. You can't watch all the games. It's hard to understand why a player might get only three or four tackles for a couple of games in a row.

Then next week they get 10 or 12. You know, how do you, did all of a sudden the player get good or did they get worse? all those sorts of things. So much of it comes down to, obviously it's like the defense, their role in the defense. And a quote-unquote strong safety's role in one defense is very different than a strong safety in another defense. And some defenses, some defensive coordinators will change their, let's say, safety's roles on a not only game by game basis, but sometimes quarter by quarter basis.

And that creates so much variance that it can lead you down some bad paths where you think, okay, well, I'm going to get rid of this player. Or, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to dump the player I have who's okay because this guy's picked up 10 and 12 tackles and back-to-back game. So I'm going to go ahead and grab him when it had nothing to do with him being where that would necessarily be sustainable. So run-pass ratio is a great example of that. I talked last year a lot about, you know, you can picture it with Tom Brady and the, and the Tampa Bay Bucks, right? You can picture that Brady is going to want to control the offense. So he wants the ball in his hands.

So it makes perfect sense that the Bucks through so much last year. That's going to affect tackles. It's going to affect passes. Defense. It's going to affect all that sort of stuff. Now, all of a sudden, Tom Brady is gone. And so, you know, the Tampa Bay offense is probably going to be. a completely retooled thing. And this is what kind of leads me to the embracing various part

and how to process the offseason because so much changes from one year to the next. And if you have a particular linebacker or a particular safety or a particular cornerback and they happen to run up against, let's say in their division, right, let's say we have some pass heavy teams in a particular division for one year, some cornerbacks in that division are going to have higher tackle rates than others. But then the next season comes around. And then all of a sudden, those offenses make some adjustments because their personnel changes. Somebody retires. They realize, you know, they draft a better running back, you know, whatever the case may be, they're going to make these changes. And then you're going to, and if you're not careful, you'll go and

draft that cornerback next year thinking that they're going to be able to repeat that when things happen to line up variance-wise for that player's favor, and it might not be the case next, you know, in the next season. Run pass ratio is a great way to kind of look at that because I love that you mentioned, like, you know, you can, as I just talked about with Tom Brady, you can picture the Tampa Bay Buccaneers running a very pass heavy offense. That makes sense. You You probably also can see that a little bit with the with the chargers, you know, because they've got Justin Herbert. Yeah. Justin Herbert is a pass-oriented quarterback.

Yeah, absolutely. And but what makes that a different twist than, for example, Tom Brady is they pass a lot to their running back. So Austin Echler is heavily involved in the offense, but often it's, you know, it's maybe more via pass than the Cleveland Browns. And you can picture the Cleveland Browns. They've got, you know, they've got a great running back. They have a great offensive line. Of course they're going to run the ball a lot. So when it comes to the following season, how do you shake off the last season and then get into the new season?

For me, and this is just my own offseason strategy, and this has come through my own experience of how I've done, you know, in the next year. the 12-month news cycle for football, to me, muddies the waters. It becomes hard to get what I call clean information. Here is an example of dirty information. You read a blurb from somebody on Twitter or you read some article and it says, you know, hey, you know, what might be a really good idea is they should consider moving this guy over here. And somewhere in your brain, you think, okay next year they're going to move they're going to move that lineman uh inside but that was just one random article trying to basically forecast the future as opposed to waiting toward the end of the off season and and having a clean slate you don't remember the last couple of weeks of last year

so you're not as pissed at those players who earns you and which means you're you know you might not draft them as much next year, which is, you know. You learn your lesson. Yeah. You know, so you don't want to think about too much about what happened at the very end of last year. It's very easy to get caught up in rookie height, right? If you get too into this, you know, we obviously are going to pay, pay attention to

the draft, which is what we did. But if you, for the month leading up to the draft, every rookie just seems like they're going to be in the Hall of Fame. Thomas, you know, you and I have talked about this so often, the rookie hype and how often it burns us particularly with with defensive linemen. Especially right now because you you have these rookies who are getting touted as the next coming of a great player and yet they haven't even put pads on yet. They haven't even made contact.

So you're getting information out of players that are just running around in shorts and t-shirts. Yeah. And our buddy Greg Kosell is great about this, about saying, you know, this player has, you know, have a certain physical skill set. They have, you know, their arm length is such. And here is what they displayed in college. But again, in terms of variance, there are so many other factors.

How is, how is this kid going to handle, you know, a brand new offense, an NFL style defense? You know, how is he, how is he going to handle being a professional football player and the routine of it and, and all of that sort of stuff? what I like to do is all but like you said Thomas that was a great word for it hibernate I all but hibernate during um you know the the the months right after after the NFL season is over and then I want to kind of wake up have a good clear picture of um where the defensive coordinators have shifted and and kind of look at each team I start by team not by player right uh and and thomas thomas and i will go through this and we'll basically reset all the rosters look at the roster and who they drafted and when they drafted them where they went

where they spent their money not just that they got somebody in free agency but where did they spend their money in free agency um and match that with the defensive coordinator we did this a lot last year one of the reasons why Thomas and I were higher on the Philadelphia Eagles as a team, but also mainly as a defense, when we kind of took that blank slate approach and we put it together, we're like, that's weird. Philadelphia looks like they're going to be really good. And we didn't expect that. And a lot of people didn't expect that.

No. But that blank slate thing, I think sometimes can help. And that's what we're going to try to do today. We're going to try to recap some stuff, what we think would be clean information, things that we feel pretty confident about, less about opinion, less Beat Rider forecasting and more about this is what it's looking like it's going to be. A couple of quick footnotes on what you're talking about. I mean, you know that the Tampa Bay box are going to change. You know their system's going to be completely overhauled because of the fact that Brady's not there. So I don't see them and you don't see them throwing the ball 717 times and running at just 398. That's going to change. But you got a team like Arizona who threw the ball 60% of the time and they were playing from behind.

They were throwing the ball 664 times for a totally different reason, not because their quarterback was trying to run the offense and put it in his hands. It was because they were playing from behind most of the year and they're going to end up doing that again this year. And then you take a look at of the top 10 pass attempt teams this year. Three of them are in the AFC South. You've got Houston, Jacksonville, and Indianapolis all through the ball. 58% or more of the time. So if you've got a team like Tennessee, their DBs are going to do well because they face these three teams six times total.

So there's six games that your cornerbacks are most likely going to have good days against the division. rivals. So yeah, that, that I love that trying to focus on the division because that is something that's a little easier to predict. You can, you can say, well, look, you know, how can you stack all those variables in a way that, you know, I'm forever looking at fantasy football and particularly IDP through the eyes of, of a poker player, a bad poker player, but a poker player nonetheless where in terms of you know you can't play the games for them all you can do is say um this linebacker this cornerback this whoever has you know has a higher percentage of chance of coming through so you have to stack up as many of those odds is it is it a team that plays fast do they

throw a lot will they possibly be playing from behind is it a good tackle crew in terms of the home crew, you know, awards, more tackles, you know, on a regular basis. If you can line all those things up and, and you can even use some of last year's data to help you during draft time, we're going to quickly, you know, over the next couple of podcasts as we get closer to the, we're going to start talking a lot more draft strategy. But right now, it's just almost like a reset of the IDP landscape. And we've got some notes here that we want, that we think, like, It's clean information we kind of want to roll through. Thomas, you want to get started with what you think are some of the more important?

Or maybe even these are free agent moves that either we think are important or it might be that... Whether they're good or bad. Yes, exactly. And, you know, the landscape on free agency moves and the landscape on rosters in general, on both sides of the ball, offense and defense, have totally changed and evolved fans. fantasy football completely. I mean, for example, I've, I've been with John Hansen since 1995, and I have never, ever heard him say, I'm not taking a running back in the first two rounds. I've never heard him ever say that. And this year, he's saying, I'm going wide receiver, wide receiver, because the landscape has changed so much. And again, this all goes back to

what we were talking about with run pass ratio, you have all but I think it was seven teams who were 50% or more through the ball. So 25 teams are throwing the ball 50% or more of the time. And he's in his respect or his outlook, running backs are not as important or valuable as they were in the past. It's the same thing with us when we look at the defense in linebackers in comparison to changing defense. defenses and schemes and teams are now looking for speed on the edge and you're bringing in more

specialists and your middle linebacker is now becoming kicked to the side of the road. So your traditional middle linebacker isn't going to be as prevalent or as consistent as in the past. Now, as far as notable free agents, I'll start with defensive line. A couple of ones that stand out to me are ones that I'm a little bit negative on, and one of them is Kalis Campbell. He just signed with Atlanta this year. I'm not sold on him because he's entering his 16th season. Now, he hasn't posted double-digit sacks since 2018, and this is one of the reasons why Atlanta's bringing them in. Now, he's not had more than 28 total tackles in three straight years and has missed nine games during those three seasons. That's not good statistics. And,

good history for you. Now, Dean Lowry was formerly from Green Bay is signed with Minnesota. Sacks are not his forte. Other than the 2021 season when he had five sacks, he has not had more than three sacks in any season since his rookie year in 2016. Now, probably you can target him for 23 to 25 total tackles and maybe three to four sacks. But other than that, yes, it's a new environment for him. new team. He is moving to another three-four system, but you've got those outside linebackers and Smith and Hunter who are edge rushers and Lowry is going to be more take on offensive linemen to free these guys up on the outside. Now, a couple of linebackers that I've noted are, Cazir White is moving to Arizona and he's a starting middle linebacker this year. They're going

into camp with him as their starter. And this is intriguing because, Now Zaven Collins is moving to left defensive end as the Cardinals shift to a more 4-3 hybrid. So Collins' numbers are going to, especially his tackle numbers, are going to go down. So don't expect him to be producing any of the statistics that you had in the past, which have been up and down and were inconsistent to begin with. another setup or another situation that I want to discuss is the Atlanta Falcons and they brought in two new interior linebackers. They are using Troy Anderson. They drafted him last year, but he's going to be playing a lot more and starting at the inside linebacker along with Caden Ellis, who they signed away from the Saints. Now, one of these two is going to garner the bulk of fantasy production.

And if I was going to lean towards anybody right now, it would be Troy Anderson. but I'm not sure which one is because Ellis has the capability showed and flash some fantasy production when he was with the Saints. So that's still up in the air. The other linebacker I want to discuss is Tremaine Edmonds from the Bears. He's going to start most likely at middle linebacker. And the other addition that the Bears made, which was T.J. Edwards, will most likely man the West weakside linebacker.

Now, while starting every game, played, he has missed one or more, Edmonds has missed one or more games in all but maybe one of his NFL, one of his five seasons. So you have to be leery of Edmonds. Yes, he has the potential. Will he post Roquan Smith numbers? Well, yeah, he has the ability to do that as long as he stays healthy. And Edmund's brother moved, didn't he? Yes, he did. Torell Edmins moved from Pittsburgh across state to Philadelphia. Now, the Eagles lost two of their starting safeties to free agency, and they signed Edmonds in the off season,

and Edmonds should begin training camp as the starting strong safety. Now, he's only played a full season once in the last three years, but he could provide you 65 to 70 total tackles if he's healthy, but he could also dip to 35, 40 total tackles if he's not healthy, and that's where you play the gamble game on Edmonds. And then another person moving from NFC to the AFC is Sean Murphy Bunting, cornerback who moved to Tennessee. Now, he should begin training camp as a starting nickel or slot cornerback.

And even though he's the third cornerback, he should see the field plenty as all three division rivals ranked in the top 10 for pass attempts. Houston, Jacksonville, and Indianapolis. Now, India is going to be a little bit different this year. We talked earlier about how things shift from year to year, and Indy is going to most likely start a rookie at quarterback, or excuse me, at quarterback. But you do have Lawrence, and the same thing with Houston.

They could be starting a rookie as well. This could help Murphy Bunting, but it could also turn into a Chicago bear situation where they don't throw the ball that much because the rookie gets happy feet and ends up running. Another person changing teams is Byron Murphy, and he went from Arizona to Minnesota, and he begins training camp as the starting right cornerback.

Now, he missed eight games last year due to a back injury. And when he's healthy, he can supply you 45-50 tackles and reach double-digit big plays. Most of those big plays are going to be passes defended, but he can be productive for you on a team that really needs cornerback help. So I'm going to move on to the rookie IDPs. The only I'm going to say, Thomas, a couple things, notes from the free agent moves. I totally agree with you on Callais Campbell. The factor that Campbell might play for my IDP sense is can he be one of those like endomic and Sue types

where, I mean, obviously they play a slightly different position, but where they, where Campbell can actually free up more Grady Jarrett. So now he has to stay healthy and get a lot of reps in, but Campbell could do that team a lot of good in terms of just soaking up offensive linemen, which actually might help free up Grady Jared a little bit. I do like that. Yeah, and I agree with you about Troy Anderson and and and and Lass. I'm leaning a little bit more toward Troy Anderson as well. They drafted him and, and you know,

they have bigger plans for him. I also want to mention one thing about the whole Kaiser White, Zaven Collins situation. It's, it's, there's a good chance that's going to get even, even murkier,

for all of those linebackers, we actually won't get mercury. I should probably get cleaner. Let's get a clean info. This isn't 100% clean info, but this is something to pay attention to. Isaiah Simmons was talking to reporters, and he had mentioned that he was,

that they're going to move him to like basically a full-time defensive back. Now, whether they really will move him to a full-time defensive back or not is still a little too early to tell. But, I mean, first of all, it makes sense, right? I think he has a good skill set there, and he clearly hasn't been the linebacker, you know, well, we thought he was going to be a lot. I mean, we meaning the, you know, most of the fantasy analysts assumed he was going to play linebacker for Arizona. But he really hasn't had a great fit there yet, even though I think he did play pretty well last year.

So imagine that Zavin Collins moves to defensive end and Isaiah Simmons moves to a defensive back role. it might be like a star position kind of a thing or it might be a traditional safety position. Either way, that really does make things look good for Kaiser White. On paper, it might look like he's one of three linebackers, but when you start looking at where they're going, he might be the sole contributor there as a linebacker. So that'll actually be pretty interesting to watch. You know, you also bring up the fact that if Simmons moves to DB,

where are they going to play him? Well, most likely into a safety position, you got to keep in mind, Buda Baker landed on IR at the end of last year with a fractured shoulder and we're not quite sure yet whether or not he's healed. And there's also talk that he could be a cap, a casualty in June. So there's that that Simmons could be turned into the Buda Baker role. And they brought in, they drafted BJ O'Dullari, who's had some issues with injuries during the OTAs in the rookie camp. So again, what you just mentioned on White is, is spot on. So let's hit some rookie IDPs.

I'm going to start with Will Anderson out of, out of Houston, because I think something you said earlier, Thomas, will absolutely apply here. So obviously Anderson was, you know, at least on our board, was the top rated edge rusher. We were hoping he would find a good landing spot, and we think this is actually a really good landing spot. Now, he's supposed to be starting at left end, left defensive end for them. As always with rookie IDPs and particular Ricky DLs, he is likely going to be as inconsistent as, you know, remember everything with Aiden Hutchinson last year, right? Had some huge flashes and then had some plenty of games where he didn't do anything. And to Thomas and I, that's perfectly normal.

That's what we saw was there are, what we saw in the flashes made us feel better about his dynasty potential. But what we saw on the field as a rookie didn't shake our faith at all. That's what we expected. Anderson might be in a similar role. We talk about stacking, stacking variables in your favor. Thomas, I love what you said about the fact that so many, or, you know, in this case, I guess it would have been two of the three division rivals. They threw the ball a ton last year. Yep.

So Anderson might see more pass rush opportunities than other rookie DLs, which just may give him a few more shots at quarterbacks, which really could make the difference between some near misses or possibly being one of the rare rookie DLs to actually post some pretty heavy big play opportunities, I think. Yeah, and there's also the fact that Houston has a lot of veterans. They have Jerry Hughes, Chase Winovich, Jonathan. and Greenard. These guys are also Jacob Martin. They're edge rushers, Derek Rivers, that Anderson will have to, you know, play, rotate with. So yes, but the fact that he's in a division that likes to throw the ball a lot is pointing towards him having a busy season. It depends on whether or not

he reacts to it positively, but still, that's something that you have an upside potential there. And speaking of kind of a crowded defensive line, the next rookie I'm going to talk about is Jalen Carter, who's with the Eagles. Now, obviously, the Eagles had a great, you know, a great 22 season. And in particular, their defense did. And adding Jalen Carter is just such a great fit. I think here's another guy who's University of Georgia. He's going to, he's basically, matching up. I mean, isn't it crazy how he and Jordan Davis are going to reunite on the same defensive line? It's as if, it's not, it's as if I, the tea leaves are pretty clear here. They're trying to build some version of that dominant Georgia defense that they saw. And Nolan Smith

and Nicopi Dean, they've got all these players who played together. Yeah, so, you know, all that stuff starts to start starts to lead to something. I love having Carter on the team. And just a reminder that for years, even through a couple of defensive coordinators, for years, the Eagles had rotated pretty heavily on their defensive line. Like before Jonathan Gannon, we had this kind of, you know, I've mentioned it several times, kind of the alpha and the beta lines where they basically had eight defensive linemen and they would rotate them in shifts, which was great for their defense, bad for IDP consistency. they still have a ton of people on their register. Obviously, we just talked about Jordan Davis. They've got still Fletcher Cox and Brandon Graham, some of these veterans, Josh Schwett, Derek Barnett, Milton Williams.

I mean, that's a lot of IDP talent to rotate in. So I do love Carter going to this team for the team's sake. But how many snaps do you see Carter getting this year, Thomas? I could see him probably in the somewhere in the 30. to 45% range. It could go up if there's injuries to that defensive line. But I think what you're looking at, the best gauge is Jordan Davis. Davis came in the last year with the hype that Carter has this year.

And I think you're going to find Carter is going to perform similarly to what Davis did in his rookie season. And you may not see a lot of him out of the gate, but he could become more involved as a season goes along because of this rotation. And that means that by the end of the year, his snap count is probably going to rise. If there's injuries, obviously that snap count will go even more as long as that injury is not Carter himself. But, you know, you've got a very busy rotational situation. And the thing with the Eagles is that they'll slide some of their defensive ends inward

to bring another, like a Nolan Smith or rookie, bring him in on the edge rush, and they'll slide a, you know, a Graham or a Barnett into a tackle mode and yank Carter or Davis in order to do this. So there's a lot of shifting and moving and going up and down that line with a number of players. Yeah. And, you know, Carter sliding in next to Davis, I think, is the future for this team. So where does that leave Fletcher Cox? So Fletcher Cox has been obviously a stalwart on this team. You know, he's the only team he's played for. But he's heading into his age 33 season. And for the last five seasons in a row, his snap counts, snap percentage is, you know, how they're using him, has slowly but surely ticked down.

It's gone from 80% to 78% to 72%. to 70% last year was 65. Now, all that makes perfect sense. He's getting a little older. I'm sure his legs could use a little extra time off. The drafting of Jalen Carter is yet another step toward giving Fletcher Cox even more time off and saving his reps. So Jalen Carter, I don't see being a major IDP factor.

Fletcher Cox, I think what it also does is it signals, which again, All makes perfect sense, but it's going to be harder for Fletcher Cox to all of a sudden bounce back into the 70, 80% range when we're drafting these interior defenders to essentially take over for him because in his age 32 season, 33 season, you know, there's a lot of tread on those tires. So if you've got Fletcher Cox or whatever, it's going to be pretty hard to imagine that he's going to have one of the, you know, last year, Fletcher Cox had seven sacks, which is, which is the most sacks he's, had since 2018 when he had 10 and a half. I think repeating those seven sacks is going to be difficult. Well, one of the reasons why they signed him to a one year, $10 million deal this year was because of

those seven sacks. But the Eagles have shown that they will let a good defensive player go, as they did with Javon Hargrave, who moved on to San Francisco, in order to bring in these rookies in Davis and Carter. So Cox could see the writing on the wall. especially with the fact they only signed him to one year deal. Moving on to the linebacker situation. We do have a couple other rookie DLs. We'll just kind of quickly hit on and then move to a linebacker. Maisie Smith in Dallas, he's a huge dude.

Big time. Yeah, and he's a great run plugger there, which I think is going to help their defensive ends. And then Caligia can't see out of, you know, heading into Tampa Bay. These are two a little bit more, quote-unquote, long shots. I think Maisie Smith is going to be more of a freeing up Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence, whereas Cancy will, his production is going to depend on how he fits with VitaVe. Makes sense.

Moving on to linebackers, obviously one of the bigger linebackers getting drafted was Jack Campbell in Detroit. As Detroit continues to rebuild their defense, they took Hutchinson last year. They grabbed Campbell this year. Do you see him starting weak side, strong side? Where do you see him starting? I see Aaron Glenn in his system. He's going to use Campbell as a strong side linebacker. Now, he's got Anzalone and Rodriguez as his primary linebackers.

So I could see Campbell starting the season as a two-down linebacker on the strong side. And that could create some issues for people who are, if you're dynasty drafting him or auctioning him, that's fine. But don't plan on him being very productive right out of the gate because he most likely ends up as a two-down linebacker. Even though he picked up the Aaron Glenn system really quickly in the first few months of OTAs in rookie camp so far. I mean, at this point, I'm just assuming Alex Anzolone

is going to continue to be in every down linebacker for the Lions into the 2050, 2060 seasons. I mean, I don't know. It looks like he's going to green dot it. So he's going to be the anchor in the middle, and he's most likely going to green dot it. And we know we touted Malcolm Rodriguez last year. You were all over that, and they wanted to use Rodriguez a lot,

but he got hurt. And so that's been kind of an up and down situation there. And that's going to affect Campbell. If Rodriguez is healthy, then Campbell will see limited snaps. The NFL loves versatility, and we have seen a lot more of that on the defensive side of the ball. I have a lot more of these Micah Parsons roles when it comes to a linebacker who is an inside linebacker, but also has tons of edge responsibilities, and that's starting to show up more often around the copycat league. And I think this next player has the ability to kind of fit that role for the Rams,

and that's Byron Young. He's somebody that, you know, he's obviously, he's an edge rusher, but he also can play, you know, more of that weak side spot as well. So this is somebody that could have a kind of a Micah Parsons role. Now, you know, Micah Parsons is an athlete that's hard to duplicate. I'm not saying he's going to be the next Micah Parsons. But think for a second of how frustrating it is to own Michael Parsons. of Parsons and he's one of the best in the game at that.

So watching what happens with Byron Young is going to be interesting. He's not somebody I'm on this year and I'm even a little leery of getting too many shares of him in Dynasty, but he really is an intriguing athlete and I'm really interested to see what they're going to do with him in L.A. I think that with Young, if you're looking at dynasty situations, I think that Young is somebody that you should target later and not put too many early chips on to begin with. I mean, you don't take them too early in drafts or don't spend too much on him in auction. Now, he is a freak athlete, and this guy is just, he has a dual speed off the edge, and as well as being very active in past. coverage. So there is the possibility he could be a three-down linebacker as a defensive end

slash linebacker role rotating into that multi-dimensional role. But we're not, that whole Rams defense has changed so much from last year, especially in the front seven. It just, you don't know what you're going to get out of young. And but they have, I believe it, it's something like seven rookie linebackers and two defensive line, a rookie defensive linemen. Some of them they drafted, some of them they were signed as free agents. So there's a lot of newbie,

newbies going on in that Rams defensive team. So it's going to be unique and funny, or not funny, but unique and different to see how they unfold. And we're going to close up the linebackers with another player who is, I mean, this,

what they're going to do, with this kid. I mean, he's got an amazing set of tools, and that's Lucas Van Ness for the Packers. You know, this guy is an edge. This is kind of a similar, you know, different players, but a similar

situation where he's got, you know, he's got edge capabilities. He can also play inside. He is somebody that certainly could, I think he's going to grow into a very productive and talented,

talented NFL player. The question is, how quickly can he get up to that pace? You know, we obviously already have, you know, quite a few defenders there in Green Bay. Green Bay has, man, they've tried so hard to get not only some consistent and elite pass rushers, but also tried so hard to find more than one solid linebacker. They've tried over and over and over again. And I'm curious to see what they're going to do with Lucas Van Ness. But he certainly, to me, doesn't have an every down, you know,

you know, top 25 linebacker roll out of the gate. It might be a while. But to me, he is a dynasty asset that I'm okay taking a shot at early. I'm going to have to get him early. And I'm just going to have to know that I don't think I'm going to get that much out of him during his rookie year. But do you see it that way, too? Do you see his impact being a little stronger out of the gate? I know I have, I totally agree with your point of view on this, especially with the fact that he didn't start a single game in his two seasons with Iowa.

So he's likely not a starter and especially in his first season. And you mentioned the veterans that they have, they have Preston Smith and Rishon Gary, who's coming back from an injury. They sign, they have Jonathan Garvin. They took Justin Hollins from the Rams. So they have, you know, a plethora of edge rushers. that Van Ness has got to overcome and fit into. And with his history that he hasn't been a starter in college is most likely going to be the fact that I wouldn't count on him this year as well.

He may be a good fantasy stash or a dynasty stash, but not this year. So let's move on to defensive backs. Christian Gonzalez for the Patriots. I continue to loathe any Patriots IDPs just because. You know, there's a good chance Christian Gonzalez is going to end up playing quarterback for them, knowing, knowing how Bill Belichick is. He'll do exactly what we don't expect him to do. I do think he's got, you know, look, if there's anything, Bill Belichick does a lot of things great, but one of the many things he does great is develop cornerbacks. So if he's high on Christian Gonzalez, I think we could see him having a great impact on the field.

but as great as these cornerbacks have been for Bill Belichick, not a lot of them turn into fantasy assets for us. And I'm kind of expecting the same deal for Gonzales. Yeah, and Belichick is known for the quick hook. If the kids making rookie mistakes, Belichick will be very fast on yanking him out of the game. So there's a lot of risk that is involved with Gonzagulls. Alas.

Deontay Banks for the Giants, I like him more. I think just the, you know, playing in that division, I think he also has a shot at starting. And I think he's somebody who can be a factor in the run game as well and match up and kick inside as well. So that versatility, he's got good size. That could be a rookie cornerback who you either, you know, I like to pick my rookie cornerbacks up off the waiver wire. So I'll have Banks kind of flagged as somebody to watch. Let's see how he comes out of the gate.

And Banks is a solid tackler. And as we brought up in the run-pass ratio, there are three of the NFC East teams are in the top six for running the ball. So he's not only a big, you know, a good-sized or rare-sized, cornerback who can cover the big wide receivers and tight ends. He can also be a sure tackler against rushing teams and he has three of them in his

division. I'm going to I'm going to rattle off these last couple of rookie DBs who, you know, we'll be kind of keeping an eye on not only through training camp and preseason, but like I said, also kind of flagged for some potential waiver wire grab if, if we decide to punt on on db sydney brown out of philly has you know did did pretty well during o'ta's you have devon weatherspoon in witherspoon excuse me in seattle joey porter junior of course in pittsburgh julius brints for the colts and jartavius martin for Washington also emmanuel forbes both of forbs and martin as the commanders kind of try to retool their their db room all these are all players i think

we're going to have our eye on um i don't see any of them being surefire immediate fantasy assets. But in general, I don't think any, I think there are very few nowadays, particularly as defenses have shifted into so many two high shells and so much versatility and so many dbs on the field at once. I think the days of kind of locking in a sure fire DB are dwindling, which by the way, again, if you embrace the variance, means that just gives you. you more to draw from and you can if you know that you'll be able to pick up plenty of dbs off

the waiver wire once the season kind of kicks in that just gives you more bullets to fire at you know backup running backs and and and and you know other IDP assets to load up on linebackers etc and you had mentioned last year I was all over the the place with the the defensive backs and they're telling everybody their dime a dozen. And it continues to unfold like that in 2023, especially with the fact that you've got a lot

of rookies who will be seeing a lot of playing time this year and there will be ups and downs. It's a roller coaster ride with these dbs because one week they'll give you 15, 20 fantasy points and next week they'll give you one. Now I like Sidney Brown because of the fact that

he's, and as you mentioned, he's done so well in the OTAs that he's going to challenge Reed Blankenship for the starting free safety job in training camp. And I also like Weatherspoon because they spent a fifth round pick on this kid, and he's most likely going to be a definitive starter. And you had mentioned Porter and Martin and Forbes and Brent's. I think Porter and maybe Martin could be starters. Martin would be most likely a third safety.

But Forbes is also a possible starter, and Brent's could be the starting nickel. So those are some names that you tossed around that are pretty good. Yeah, so lots of intriguing rookie IDPs. Now let's get to everyone's favorite part of the podcast. When we talk about all the people who aren't healthy, who you got for us, Thomas. Well, you know, overall injuries were down, I believe it was 5.6% over 2022 from 2021. But there were 23 more concussions last year than there were in 2021. So, yeah, there's a positive note there, but there's also a negative note on that.

Now, Chuck Clark was signed away from Baltimore by the Jets, and then they appears to have torn his ACL in an off-season program, and it's evident that they feel it's a definitive tear because they went out and signed Adrian Amos. Now, they already had signed Jordan Whitehead to play their free safety spot off a 10th. Tampa Bay and Clark to play the strong safety. Well, now it looks like Adrian Amos is going to be the strong safety. Von Miller from Buffalo tore his ACL on Thanksgiving, but is hoping to avoid being placed on training camp PUP list to be seen. Rishon Gary, he was seen working on the sidelines during OTAs recently after tearing his ACLs just six months ago.

Shaquille Leonard, Indianapolis, Stud linebacker, has second. back surgery but is targeting week one for a return. The fact that this is his second back surgery, there is a lot of risk there. Baron Browning likely starts 2023 on the PUP list so that outside linebacker is a candidate to miss the first six weeks of the season. Jordan Brooks on Seattle tore is ACL in week 17 and is questionable for week one. He also could be a PUP list candidate. And this is evident in the fact that all those transactions at linebacker that the Seahawks made in the outseason with Devin Bush and Bobby Wagner in particular. Now, Jamal Adams, speaking of Seattle Seahawks, he injured his quad opening day last year and his status is questionable at best. Now, he hasn't played in a full year.

So you have to go through training camp and the preseason, the exhibition games, with the idea that Adams is probably not going to see very much playing time, if any, at all, in that you're going to take a gamble and roll the dice with him for opening day. Now, Rayquan McMillan was supposed to be the starting linebacker from New England. He tore his ACL and was placed on IR back on May 25th. Now, you've got some notes on some players being signed recently, yes? Yeah, I mean, you know, so we've been kind of gathering the stuff up over the offseason for this podcast. And we had like a A little flurry of activity here, basically right before we decided to start putting this together. So just going to go over a few of those for you.

Frank Clark, he signed with the Broncos, you know, the edge rush are out of, you know, played with Kansas City for so long and before that, Seattle. He signed with the Broncos. He should be somebody who starts immediately at their left defensive end spot. Clark's had an up and down career, really has shown great flashes, was injured. You know, a couple of nagging injuries, I think slowed him down in Kansas City. We'll see how he does with the Broncos, but hopefully a fresh start there. We might see some activity.

Nick Quikoski, he should be signing with the Steelers here. You know, they cut Scott Nelson. So to me, that would be a pretty good spot for Quikoski if that transaction kind of goes all the way through. And then one other weird note, I love that I talked to the beginning about all this clean information. And this is going to be the second bit of dirty information I'm throwing out. But, you know, it's, again, this is doing it because it's most likely, and if I'm smelling this right, it's going to be a patriot. Yes. Well, exactly.

Yeah. So, you know, what I mean by dirty information is if it's dirt, to me, if it's dirty information, if it's, if it's, muddy, basically, muddy information. It does not change a single thing for me in terms of rankings. I'm not going to move anyone a single bit. It just means that now I'm looking to see if that does clean up and become something. So that's all this is too. And that's that Jack Jones, the cornerback out of New England,

apparently he tried to board a plane with a gun or two and didn't have his ID. and as you might imagine they don't let you do that. He did just plead not guilty. So they may have a good reason for it. Long story short, these sorts of things. I mean, it could happen that all of a sudden, Belichick just reads this and says, you know what? You didn't play a lot for me last year anyway, so I'm moving on.

It could be the he doesn't care. It could be that the thing doesn't go to trial for, you know, another year. It could be that they clean it up in the next couple of weeks. It's way too early to know that. The only thing I, you know, obviously is something that I think more than anything, I'm looking at Christian, Christian Gonzalez and saying, well, there's an opportunity there that might mean Gonzalez has just a little bit less traffic to go through. Again, I'm not moving a single thing in my rankings or projections,

but just keep your eye on the Jack Jones thing and how it might affect what's going to happen in in in in the db's room and again if jones is for some reason not available um then that does actually kind of uh give us a little bit more of a of hope that gonzalez might actually be a um be a a rookie contributor remember that rookie cornerbacks basically there has to be a handful of things for for them to be effective and this is across the board we hear about the rookie corner rule all the time. Well, that really only applies if a few things happen. Number one, that rookie cornerback has to start out of the gate and play at least a thousand snaps, right? So you can be a talented rookie, but not see the field enough to matter. So it's not just immediate because you're a rookie. You've got

great statistics coming your way. You also have to be drafted highly. You know, you don't have to be drafted highly, but the tea leaves say there's a few factors that would put a player into position to become a fantasy asset as a rookie cornerback. Those things have to happen. Gonzalez's outside shot of being that gets a little bit clearer if Jones isn't on the team. Indeed. All right, my buddy. I think that's going to wrap us up.

We're going to get out of here and right about an hour's time. And for the off season, that's pretty good for us. We've been known to go 90 minutes plus. Really? Yeah, exactly. I sleep through half of it. Yeah, but hey, everyone, I hope this catches everyone up. If you have decided to take the off season actually off and you're firing this podcast up to get caught back up,

hopefully you feel like you have a pretty good idea of some of the major moves that happen. Thomas and I will pop back on and we get a little closer to the, to training camp. We'll do what we normally do, which is check in with training camp, see how things are going, position battles, how these defensive coordinators are starting to look in terms of scheme changes and rotations and stuff like that. In the meantime, hopefully this will get you guys all cut up. Thomas, anything you want to add? Yeah.

Until next time, be well and be safe. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.