Fantasy Football Daily - IDP Corner: 2021 Week 1 Preseason Review

Episode Date: August 18, 2021

Justin Varnes (@downwithIDP) and Tom Simons recap the first week of preseason from an IDP perspective. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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to help you score more fantasy points. Welcome to another edition of the IDP Corner, sponsored by FantasyPoint.com. My name is Justin Varns. I'm one of the IDP analysts at FantasyPoint.com, and you can follow me on Twitter at Down with IDP. Someone else who's down with IDP is our other IDP analyst and projections specialist over at FantasyPoints.com,

Mr. Thomas. Simon, how you doing tonight, Thomas? Hello, neighbor. I'm doing quite well. you. Glad to have you back on here through the beauty of technology. You're some, you know, 3,000 miles away from me. I'm down in Atlanta. You're up in Seattle. But here we are. It's like we're side by side. Indeed. So let's, we're going to break down the preseason week one action. We'll go over some notable injuries. And then we're going to wrap this up with some discord questions of

questions from some of our Discord mates there who are fantasy points subscribers who get kind of elite access to everybody on the Fantasy Points team, including IDP. We've asked them to pull up some questions and hopefully some of these questions will resonate with you all as well. But let's dive into the preseason one action before we do. We got a couple of things to preface what we might have picked up from week one, right, Thomas? Yeah. Well, first of all, you have to take week one with a grain of salt. And what I mean by that is many of the game books for the 32 teams had as many, if not more, players listed as did not play as they were active. So you got a lot of teams who aren't starting their main starters. There's a lot of players who are not getting any action. It is only three preseason games, not including the Hall of Fame, which to me is not really a couple. preseason game. That's more of a scrimmage. But the first three weeks, now there's only three weeks this year, so you're looking at pretty much a lot of players who are just getting a lot of playing time,

who are bubble players or players that are back up, you know, second or third on the depth chart. So like I said, you have to take it with a grain of salt and understand that you may see some starters in there and you may see some trends early on in this first week. But what's going to really come out for you is going to happen in week two and most likely in week three. In week three, you're probably going to get starters going at least a quarter if not a half. Yeah, this is uncharted territory. This is the first time the NFL has only had three preseason games. Normally, it's that third preseason game where we get final confirmation on what we think is going to happen in the regular season. And that fourth preseason game is essentially a throwaway in terms of starters.

But this year, it's a little hard to tell. So we're hoping that. at least week two, if not week three, turn out that way. What happens in week one, or I should say what happened in preseason week one this time, is that some teams played their starters, but only for a series or two. Other teams didn't play any starters at all on the defensive side of the ball, and others might have just sent out the starting linebacking core and not the safety. So in terms of starters, we're dealing with a very small sample size, and often we're not privy to why the coaches might have sent out the starting linebackers,

but not the starting safeties. So I agree with Thomas. A great assault here. But if you put together what we've read about training camp, what we've read from the coaches, what we saw in the draft, what we saw in free agency in the offseason, we have these tea leaves kind of laid out.

So we picked up some things that either line up with that and start to build a narrative to say, I think we can push forward thinking that these guys are going to be where we think they're going to be, or we might have gotten some stuff that created some, cognitive dissonance and said, okay, what way we have to pump our brakes on that? So we're going to dive into some of those notes right now. Thomas, you want to start us off?

Yeah, let's start in Buffalo. I know that last year when they had AJ Epinessa, they didn't play him much in his first year. And we thought, well, here we go again this year when they drafted Gregory Roussel. And Roussel is having a great camp. And he recorded a sack while starting for Buffalo against the Lions. And he went up against the lion's seventh pick overall this year in Penae Soule. So Russo, you know, he did extremely well, and he had three total pressures, including a sack.

And he took 12 pass rushing snaps. And that alone deviates from what the bills did last year with Epinessa. So we're beginning to see that they're having or gaining a lot of confidence in Russo. Now, speaking of the Lions, they went with a two inside linebacker set in five dvies to start the game. Now, a note here is that it was Jamie Collins and Alex Anzalone who wore the green dot for the Lions in play calling. They were the starting inside linebackers. Yeah, we've heard in camp that Alex Anzolone was going to be next to Jamie Collins,

and Anzolone was going to wear the green dot. So to put our eyes on it in the first preseason game helps us believe that maybe Anzolone is one of those players who might be undervalued in your drafts. Now, Anzalona's had plenty of shots to have a three-down role at Carolina and New Orleans and has never really developed, but particularly late in the drafts because he's almost forgotten about it, not necessarily a terrible stab there. Speaking of linebackers, let's talk about the Arizona group there. Zaven Collins and Isaiah Simmons are indeed, they're starting inside linebackers.

Now this confirms what we had heard all summer about Jordan Hicks, basically getting moved out of that starting lineup. Both Collins and Simmons played well, and they seemed to be comfortable as a duo in terms of working together. And to me, the arrows are pointing way up on both of these guys. Sometimes when you've got these rookie linebackers, they get a lot of hype, and then, you know, before long, they're not actually out there playing three downs.

But Collins wore the communication helmet, the green dot. if you will, and both of those players are likely going to be three down options for them. So if I had to go with one of the other, it would be probably Collins because they drafted him to be their every down play calling linebacker. And I believe it would be Simmons who might do a little bit more of the moving around. So I think Collins might be a little bit more, might provide a little more value in terms of consistency, whereas Isaiah Simmons might be a little more inconsistent, but also. also get a little bit more big play opportunity.

But I'm liking both of these linebackers. And I also like what Arizona is doing on their defense. I think they're a little bit of a sleeper defense. Yeah. And, you know, one of the Discord board members, Schimanski, posted his current IDPs that he's been drafting. And I, excuse me, if I say he and it turned out to be a she. But this person has Chandler Jones listed as a defensive lineman. Now, as you had mentioned, these Collins and Simmons are inside linebackers.

So they're more still going with their three, four base, and Chandler Jones will be the edge-rushing, defensive, outside linebacker. And if you can get them as a defensive line or defensive end, all the more better for yourself. Now, as far as another linebacker, this one, a rookie in Cleveland, is Jeremiah Uwasu Koremora, He's more of a linebacker with a box safety frame, but man, is this guy fast? He has blazing speed. Now, we talked him up early on this summer, early back in late July and early August, and he's living up to these expectations.

Now, it might take a few games to be more productive, but man, this kid is really special, and he has the closing speed like you haven't seen very often. So while he may not be a big name for the Cleveland defense, I guarantee you he's going to have a big involvement with them this year. Yeah, his dynasty stock is rising rapidly. And what we might see out of this, out of JOK, as they call him, is it might take him. We've seen this plenty with really talented linebackers.

They may not get a huge snap share to start the season, but we'll watch this carefully if we see his snap count. start to pick up, this could be a mid or late season addition to your roster as he kind of gets more and more comfortable in that defense. Moving from Cleveland to Cincinnati, another semi-confirmation, if you will, about a linebacker and their three-down role would be Logan Wilson. We had been reading all summer from beatwriters, from, you know, coach speak, from, you know, from Wilson himself about them really believing that when they drafted him last year, that he was going to be their future three-down linebacker.

Last year, of course, was a weird year with COVID and not being able to get a real preseason or training camp. He was slow to come on, but they handed him with the keys of the defense now. He is their three-down linebacker. He started and stayed on the field for all six of the starting defense snaps. I know it's weird to say all six snaps, But, you know, they'll play just for a series. And if Wilson.

And it'll go back to that grain of salt. It really does. But things to notice are if, you know, if a team believes that they already have that position set, they won't put them out there for any more snaps than they need to. So the fact that Wilson came off the field with the rest of the locked-in starters means that they didn't feel the need to see how, they didn't need to see more of Wilson. They weren't unsure about whether he can take. this role. If they were, they probably would have left him out there for longer.

So Wilson is another guy, I think, that's getting undervalue just because this news isn't reaching IDP drafters fast enough. So look for Wilson to be somebody. Don't be surprised if he's not a three-down, 100 tackle option for you this season. He's continued to have strong practices. And you noticed some other things, Thomas, about the Bengals game. Yeah, Cincinnati came out and they started five defensive linemen. Now, normally you come out with a nickel package or something like that, okay. But they started five defensive linemen, and they basically didn't use more than two linebackers for almost, I wouldn't say the whole game, but pretty darn close to it. And, you know, that's an eye catcher when you think about it.

There's a rookie that they drafted, and Joseph Asai, who looks solid for the Bengals. And he had a sack of Tom Brady, and he had a hurried pass on Blaine Gabbard. Now, he did suffer a wrist injury, which is something in the third quarter that you're going to have to pay attention to down the road. But because of these players that they've got now on the defensive line with Trey Hendrickson and Sam Hubbard and Osai, these players are giving them the flexibility to use more of a five defensive line set or a nickel. scheme on their defensive play calling. And then that means that Jermaine Pratt and most likely, obviously Wilson, but maybe Jermaine Pratt and maybe somebody else could be seeing the

linebacker snaps, but for the most part, it would only be two linebackers. Now, go ahead. You got to comment on that? I was just going to say, if Osai pans out for a minute, it looks like he's going to, you know, just a year ago, they lost It's like on his name. Well, they obviously lost Gino Smith. But he plays for the Seattle now.

Who's the eddresser? Carlos Dunlap. Carlos Dunlap, right? So they lost these like veteran studs there and then very quickly. And also they had DJ Reeder, but then he got knocked out. So all of a sudden they had an extremely thin defensive line. Well, if if Osai ends up being the real deal, all of a sudden, they've got a pretty deep defensive line, which could really do wonders to help this defense snap back, particularly in the run game.

It becomes one of their strengths. I mean, they have Larry Ogun Joby. They have Mike Daniels, DJ Reeder on the inside. They have Trey Hendrickson. They have Osai. They have Sam Hubbard. They will go deep on that defensive line. And you don't be surprised if you see them run out five defensive linemen on a regular basis.

Now, as we expected, Jamman, Davis in Washington on the Washington football team started at middle linebacker, and he took 34% of the snaps. Now, he started in the middle with John Bostic and Cole Holcomb starting at outside linebacker. So this is a trend that we saw happening early in training camp. We were hearing pundits talking about Davis handling the middle linebacker position. So did you see any of the highlights and see whether or not he wore the green dot? I didn't get to see that. That's something I'll do a little more research on.

Shame on us. We're going to continue to discuss linebackers here because in particular, these are big swings for us in terms of whether somebody is then in every down stallwart and potentially 100 to 140 tackles or whether they're a rotational player, which could really, really, swing things in most leagues. So we've talked about a couple of battles that seem to be crystallizing for us. Things are kind of clearing up. One that's becoming murkier is what's going on in Philadelphia.

Eric Wilson was brought over from the Vikings to kind of help solidify this new deepest that they're bringing in. And Alex Singleton, kind of the incumbent that almost fell into that job last year, just for lack of any leadership or linebacker depth on the team last year. Singleton played well last year, and he's had a really good camp, and he had a really good game in preseason. Eric Wilson, on the other hand, didn't necessarily have a very good game. So Wilson is the presumed linebacker target here,

but Singleton continues to play well. He might be more valuable and reliable if he keeps playing this way. Singleton had five tackles and just 19 snaps. So watching the battle over the next couple of weeks between Singleton and Wilson and who ends up being the more productive linebacker and the linebacker that might stay out there on dime and dime plus packages will help us lean either Singleton or Wilson. Or perhaps they'll both be equally productive. But essentially don't count Singleton out just yet. Yeah, especially with the fact that Jonathan Gannon, who's their new defensive coordinator, came over from the Colt.

as a secondary coach. Gannon didn't, he's one of the people that brought in Eric Wilson, and with him not performing well, a lot of people are going to say, well, if Wilson's not performing well, they're going to slide T.J. Edwards into the middle. I wouldn't be surprised if Singleton, like you said, when they go into a three-down linebacker call, Singleton stays, slides inside, and somebody like Davian Taylor comes in on the outside, whereas Wilson comes off the field. So that's something we definitely have to keep our eye on for the next few weeks and pay attention to because there's obviously a new D.C., a new defensive coordinator working with the Eagles and Gannon. And he has ties to Wilson since they brought him in, but Singleton's obviously opening their eyes.

All right. Now we're going to, those are the big ones that we're going to spend. We wanted to kind of delve into. But now we're just going to kind of go through some quick hits that either are not necessarily groundbreaking. or we just don't have enough evidence to do more than just mention it. So we'll kind of spin through some quick hits here. Thomas, why don't you get us started? Well, I'll start with the Raiders.

We've talked about Nick Kukowski possibly sliding into the middle linebacker position with Corey Littleton going to the weak side linebacker spot. Well, Kutkowski wore the green dot for Las Vegas against Seattle. The Raiders went with two linebackers set for most of the game. And even though Kukowski only played, you know, like all the other teams, you play a certain number of snaps, a limited number of snaps, it isn't in an eye-opener that he wore the green dot. Let's talk about what's going on in Dallas,

because this is turning into a big mess. They've got, we obviously know they've had Layton Van derrish and Jalen Smith. They drafted Micah Parsons. Dan Quinn brought Kean O'Neill over and swore up and down. He's a linebacker now, which is basically what he was before, not a safety. He's been running with the linebackers. And so now we've seen two games for the Cowboys because they were in the Hall of Fame game. Now that first Hall of Fame game, those starters were on the field for what seemed to be about a snap and a half.

So you can't really judge too much. But they played a little more this time. And we saw those linebackers get mixed up a lot. of the things that stuck out to me was that in third and long situations, that's when Neil came on the field. And we saw Micah Parsons and Keanu Neal kind of take over there. And it does a couple of things to me. It makes me, Van Derresh is all but off my radar at this point. I am deeply concerned that Jalen Smith will be leaving the field on third downs. I'm deeply concerned that Keanu Neal might not play at all until those passing, obvious passing downs,

which means as a safety, before he played every down and then moved up into the box for those obvious passing downs. But he may literally stay off the field because they have other safeties like Donovan Wilson who can play deep. They've got two or three other safeties there. So Neil might be only a third down option. And Jalen Smith might only be a two-down option. But what it also is looking like is that Micah Parsons might be their locked-in three-down linebacker. And he'll have more value than the three of those other quote-unquote linebackers put together. So that's when we're absolutely watching carefully come week two and week three.

Yeah. And you mentioned the fact that Neil was more of a third and long kind of option for them in this game. He did start at linebacker next to Parsons, but that was more of a, not even a nickel, it was more like a dime package that the cowboys ran out there to begin with. And as you mentioned, they're loaded at safety with Casey and Donovan Wilson and Daring and Thompson and Parker and Curse and the list goes on and on. And you're not quite sure how they're going to roll these guys out and who's actually going to make the team. But the only real sure thing that's looking like a sure bet is,

Parsons being a three-down linebacker and the rest of them just getting playing time and sharing snaps. Now, to take this a little further down the road, I want to go back to that Seattle game really quick, Seattle and the Raiders. Alton Robinson and Darrell Taylor defensive ends flash some real serious upside against the Raiders. Now, their stats were so-so, but they applied a lot of pressure, and they did it often. This is an impressive note when you consider that one of the downfalls of the Seahawks defense last year was the lack of pressure.

They got a lot of pressure inside, and Cody Barton was one of the guys that benefited from this because he did have two sacks. Now, granted, it was against Raider backup lineman, and it came in the third quarter, but it was pressure from Taylor and Robinson and a handful of others that gave Barton the opportunity to rack up those sacks. And what's noteworthy about that is that Barton is he's a backup for inside linebacker. And we saw last year that they started blitzing Bobby Wagner more than they ever have before. And Wagner started picking up a few extra sacks more than more than he's used to. So that's another indication that they're going to continue to blitz their inside linebackers, which bodes well for not only Bobby Wagner giving him a little bit more big play upside than normal.

He's already somebody who can pick up extra big plays with the best of them. But this could double his normal sack count. But it also bodes well for second-year player Jordan Brooks in terms of picking up some big. So in big play leagues, you might go for somebody like Jordan Brooks a little earlier, knowing that it seems like scheme-wise, they are dialing up heavy blitzes for their inside linebackers. We got another clue watching the Falcons game. that indeed Eric Harris and Duran Harmon, they look like the starting safety duo for the Falcons. They've been running with the ones all camp.

And they sat out the first preseason game along with Grady Jarrett, AJ Terrell, Foye, Aloekon, and DJ Jones, Dion Jones. All of those players are clearly starters. And Harris and Harmon, who have been running with the ones all training camp, sat with them as well. So this is an opportunity for us to pump the breaks a little bit on Jalen Hawkins and Richie Grant as well. It might be that Harris and Harmon are their starting safeties. We want to see at least one more game with the actual starters on the field to know that for sure. But I'm certainly slowing down any drafting of Grant and Hawkins until I can see this a little bit closer. Of these two, I would lean Harris because he's probably going to spend more time in the

in the box than Harmon, but we want to see some more scheme before we know that for sure. Yeah, and one other note on Richie Grant, he's obviously a rookie. He did start. He did have three solos. But the fact that they didn't start Harris and Harmon could mean that the only way Grant really gets on the field is as a third safety. And with T.J. Green there too, there's a possibility he could see limited snaps and be more of a special teamer this year. I think what you saw to start the game in New England is basically going to be what you're going to get this year at their linebacker position. The Patriots went with Matt Judon and Kyle Van Nuoy as their outside linebackers. And they also went with Joanne Bentley and Donta High Tower inside. Now,

Hightower is coming back from COVID opt out last year. So that's a big improvement for them. They did lose Rayquan McMillan, who's down for the year and is on IR. So bottom line here is I just don't trust the linebackers. Yeah, as if the linebackers are so inconsistent in terms of production that that's the only thing that is consistent about them. I mean, I can't tell you the last time I drafted an inside linebacker from the Patriots just because, you know, I don't want the headache. I don't know about you, Thomas, but I have, I have this like list of players where I'm just, I, think to myself, I just, I'm praying that anyone else in my league takes this headache. So I don't have to stare at that on draft day and Hightower and Bittley are going to, now, it's not that they're

not going to be productive. I just, I'd rather have some, someone who is more consistent and I can, I can bank on just because there are so many other options. Correct. Speaking of more linebackers and some people that, that, that have been inconsistent, this is somebody that Thomas and I talked about over the summer. And as is another linebacker that I've been in some expert league drafts that go pretty deep. And this guy's not even getting drafted in those. And he could easily be a top 25 linebacker. And that's the Jets, Jared Davis. He wore the green dot playing next to C.J. Mosley in their first preseason game. Davis was a top 20, top 25 linebacker when he was with the Lions before Matt Patricia spun his head around and spun that entire defense around.

He's getting a fresh start with the Jets. And if what we saw with him holding onto the green dot, him and Moseley, they'll both be in position to be fantasy irrelevant. And this is really a fresh start. It would be amazed at what this can do for players. But it is still early. We want to see this some more. But there's a good chance that Davis is another one of these players

that's going either completely undrafted or going super late in drafts, that people will be clamoring for after week one or week two when he has like some, you know, 11 tackle game and people forgot he existed. Yeah, and we have to footnote here that with Robert Salah taking over as the head coach and the defensive coordinator now being Jeff Obrit, they're most likely going to go with a hybrid defense that's not really a 4-3 or a 3-4. the Jets are well known for being a 3-4 defense. But Sala ran an oddball 4-3 in San Francisco. And in this game particularly, they started four defensive linemen and only two linebackers. And they went with a nickel package to begin the game.

So Moseley and Davis kind of played inside linebackers with Davis playing more of a middle role. And I think a lot of it has to do with Moseley's first game back from, you know, after having a difficult season last year, obviously, and being nowhere to be found because of injuries and the whole COVID season being a disaster, you got to wonder if Salah is going to run out a 4-3 or a 4-2 with a nickel option for this team going forward. Now, speaking of another quarterback, I mean, excuse me, another linebacker, The Ravens, Patrick Queen, has looked much faster and a lot slimmer than he did last year in his rookie season. Now, he took 20 snaps in the preseason opener, and he was all over the field.

He finished with four tackles. He had two of those were for loss, and he had a sack. So Queen is looking like the linebacker one stud that we thought the Ravens were looking for when they drafted him last year. Let's move on to notable injuries. We're just going to hit these kind of quickly in case they haven't made it across your wire yet. Thomas, I know you've been keeping real close tabs on that. Who do we have? Well, in Dallas, Neville Gallimore defensive tackle dislocated his elbow and will miss six to eight weeks.

He'll probably start the season either on the PUP or the designated to return IR. Mack Wilson has a grade one joint shoulder sprain. He's a middle linebacker for the Cleveland Browns. And speaking of Cleveland, their safety, Grant Delpit, suffered a setback with his hamstring injury, and he's now questionable for opening day. Now, J.J. Watt has been hampered by a hamstring injury, and there is no timetable as to when he'll return.

There is a good chance he'll return before the season begins, but that's something to keep your eye on. Now, Denzo Perryman is dealing with some kind of a strain. We're not quite sure what it is. But in the meantime, Josh Bines, who just got signed by the Panthers, is taking his reps. So that's something to keep an eye on. Nick Bosa, recovering from 2020 week-2 torn ACL, is due back in practice this week. So that's good news for the 49ers defense.

Jaquist Kirt, though, is dealing with a toe injury. And I believe it might be a turf toe, not quite sure yet. but he's not close to being activated off the PUP list, and that's evident when they went out and signed Haha Clinton Dix. And finally, it's Quinnin Williams, who had off-season surgery on a broken foot. He's due to come off the PUP list. Or he, excuse me, he did come off the PUP list today. Thanks for that, Thomas.

So we're going to now move to the last little section here, which we got some questions from our Discord participants over at Fantasy Points. One of the ones was, you know, there's conventional wisdom, which is, which is that you want to wait as long as you can to draft IDPs in leagues that are pretty shallow for IDP, like one to three IDPs. But the question was, when should you target IDPs in a league where you start six? So like, you know, two DLs, two linebackers, two defensive backs. And what's the drop off of offensive players to where it then becomes more valuable to take an IDP versus another offensive? player. Thomas, I know I have some thoughts on this. I want to get yours first, though. Well, one of the strategies when it comes to a six IDP starter league, one of the strategies

I go into is to target a linebacker one in a defensive end, even though you may be just a DL, you usually go with a defensive end before you go DTs. I target them earlier than normal only because linebackers are, look, linebackers are becoming what running are to offenses in, you know, the last 10 years, you had a linebacker that was a three-down linebacker. He was a stud. It was a middle linebacker most of the time. And you had 10, 15, up to 20 of these guys that you could count on. Well, now you're lucky to find 10 of them. And you're stretching, you know, the tiers start to drop off when you start looking for a stud linebacker. So it's imperative that you get one early. Now, I'm not talking for second, third round. Obviously,

you want running backs and white receivers. If you're doing an offense and you only have six IDPs that you're included in your league, yes, you want to target offense. But, you know, you start looking for a linebacker in the anywhere between the fourth and the eighth round. And same thing with the defensive ends. You want to target a top one within the first six to eight rounds. I think two things you can focus on. First of all, I agree, Thomas.

I always call them elite DLs. There's really only a handful of defensive linemen who nowadays play every snap. They put up tackles and they put up big plays. All of your defensive linemen will run hot and cold. It's just the nature of that position. But, you know, there's always a handful of defensive linemen that could have one of those, you know, Aaron Donald or T.J. Watt kind of seasons where they, you know, they'll rack up 20 sacks. And I want a piece of that.

And the drop off from those to that next tier is pretty steep. When you get to a point in the draft where you want to start thinking about taking these players, here's a couple of pieces of advice. One, I'm almost always going to have, let's say, 80% of my starting offensive lineup in place before I start worrying about IDPs. I definitely want at least two running backs, at least two wide receivers, likely a tied-in as well. quarterback is iffy, but that's one part of it. Another thing that's a little bit more of a feel thing, but it's instantly recognizable and you'll know everyone who's listening to this will know this feeling.

There can be a bell that goes off when you're sitting there looking at a group of wide receivers and going, these guys all suck, man. I don't want any of these. I need another wide receiver, but I don't know, Will Fuller. I don't know. All these guys, when you have that feeling, that little bell goes off and goes, you know what? I'm going to go take Devin White and have a player that I'm happy to have and not feel like. And the same thing where you get to a point with running backs, you're like, you know, as Zach Moss, I don't really know at this point.

When that happened. Exactly. Which of these two is going to come out of this? As soon as you get into that area, you can pivot. And yeah, and grab a linebacker or a defensive end. If you're on the edges, if you're on either side of the turn, I like when I'm in that position and I know I have a long time until it gets back to me, I will be a little bit more aggressive when it comes to my LB1 and my defensive end.

I will grab them earlier rather than later. But if I'm not all the way out on the outskirts, and if I'm anywhere in the middle, I prefer to let someone else take the top linebacker and the top defensive. I prefer someone else to start that run because I have a short list of players, but I know it's going to get back to me in time. And that allows me to push it a little bit with offensive players if I know that people have yet to even start taking a linebacker. But that's only if I'm drafting four through eight.

Once I start pushing out to one, two, or 11, 12, I know there can be a long run until it gets back to me, and I don't want to miss those ones. And that's critical when you're deciding whether or not you want to take somebody. And, you know, you have other things such as there's so much depth at wide receiver this year that you can wait in another two or three rounds to go after your third or fourth wide receiver and still pick up a stud linebacker or even a defensive end. And then a lot of it does depend on the draft position when you're in. in the middle of the rounds, you have the ability to come back quicker, but when you're on the

front end or a tail end of a serpentine draft, you tend to be sitting there and waiting a long time and watching these players go off the board and going, oh, why didn't I take that player? We got another question, and I think this should be a fairly simple answer, but it does hit on something that I think is important. The question is simply, is Jalen Brown a hundred tackle guy this year? And I think the answer is unequivocally, yes, assuming health. I mean, Jalen Brown is one of these linebackers who, you know, doesn't carry the name of a Devin White and a Roe Kwan Smith and doesn't quite put up

those type of numbers. But he's, you know, he has a locked in every down roll on a defense. He might, he probably isn't going to give you 140 tackles. But Jalen Brown is the perfect linebacker, too. my opinion. He has a locked-in role. David Long is a, is a player that they've, you know, been bringing in from time to time. And he's, he's subbed in for Brown when Brown got injured. I think Long is a solid player, but I don't think they believe he's any threat to Brown's position. I also love Rashon Evans next to him, but they, but they like to use Rashon Evans a little bit more

creatively for a lack of a better term. And that kind of creativity in terms of moving him around and putting them on the edge at times, usually causes some inconsistency. So the Jalen Browns, the Alexander Johnson's, possibly the Alex Singleton's, and the Logan Wilsons, these players who are becoming rare and rare that we get a linebacker who's out there for every snap. These are the perfect guys who are going to be stalwarts as your LB2s.

They just don't quite carry the big names. I'm totally happy to wait for a Jalen Brown for my linebacker too. Yeah, and the thing with Jalen Brown is the last two years, he's missed some playing time. Two years in 2019, he only played 14 games. And he ended up with 93 total tackles. Had he played 16 games, he would have had about 115 tackles. Now, last year, he only played 10 games and still had 72 tackles, which was an earmark for 122 tackles if he played 16 games.

Now, keep in mind that this year, they've added another game, so he gets 17 games. I, too, agree with you. I believe that what's around him and if he plays, stays healthy and plays a full 16, 17 games, yes, he will hit 100. Yeah, and we keep saying Jalen, because that's how it was typed, but obviously Jayon Brown is who we're referring to. But yeah, he's in a package of, you know, for lack of a word of term, no-name linebackers who don't get showcased as much on ESP. P.N. or Monday night football and will often drip too low in drafts. And I love to sit there and catch him, Alexander Johnston, those types of players.

Yeah, and that was Vickus Vigis 07 who brought up the J.on Brown. Now, I am not sure if I'm getting that name right. But speaking of names, we'll go back to the Discord board member Schumansky, who asked about late round DB sleepers. think what we can do is talk a little more about sleepers in general. Yeah, I'll start with some defensive backs and then if you want to cover some other sleepers that you had in mind, Thomas, I think that would be great. I'm going to talk about a couple of, depending on league size, two players who I think

if you're drafting, you know, two, one, two, possibly three defensive backs, but mainly one or two defensive backs. These are late rounders that are getting a little bit ignored. First one is Eric Rowe. He's from Miami. He's likely going to be the more active safety in Miami over rookie Javon Holland. The last couple years since Roe has transitioned from a cornerback to a safety. He's done it the last two years. He's put up between 80 and 90 tackles and about 10 past defense per season. I think they really like him in. that role there in Miami. He's a veteran, which means he's going to feel comfortable in that defense, not make any sort of rookie mistakes. He's got a lot of a lot of snaps out of his belt.

But as a quote-unquote veteran, he's still just 28. So he definitely has a few more years. This is not some sort of situation where you've got a 31, 32-year-old, quote-a-quote veteran safety whose legs are probably starting to fail on them. So Eric Rowe, to me, is a name that is falling too far in drafts. Another one, this happened last year. I know he's had some inconsistencies in the past in terms of how they've used their safeties, but this is safety Daniel Sorenson for the chiefs. Juan Thornhill, somebody who was one of their starters last year, has really struggled in camp.

And I think Thornehill is going to have trouble even making it on the field for three safety sets. They've been running Sorensen as a starter this year. Sorensen next to Tyron Matthew. When Sorenson, quote, quote, starts, he's a 90 to 100 tackle guy. Last year, he played 15 games. Not all of them did he start, but he was on the field a whole bunch. He had 91 tackles in those 15 games as their quote unquote third safety. So the fact that he's looking like a starter means that we could be, you know,

anywhere from 80 to 100 tackles from Daniel Sorensen. He's in a good place to meet or exceed what he does. did last year. And last year, he was a solid DB2. Now I'm going to go a little bit deeper. This is for more like three or four DB leagues. This is a, this is a deep, deep sleeper. And that's Antoine Brooks Jr. out of Pittsburgh. They've been using Brooks, who was really drafted as a safety and might be a safety in your league, but they've been using him in the slot. He's played really well there. He played 23 snaps in the preseason first game. He got two quarterback pressures and didn't allow a single completion in his 23 snaps. He could be their new Mike Hilton. Remember, they let Hilton go.

But if you remember last season, Mike Hilton, you know, seemingly came out of nowhere. He was getting sacks. He was getting big plays. He was getting tons of tackles. If they use Mike, if they use Antoine Brooks in that Mike Hilton role, that could be one of those names that everybody's clamoring for at the beginning of the season. The note I want to add is that Cam Sutton is the player who took over the Mike Hilton role last year. But from what I've read, they've tried to get Sutton to focus only or exclusively on the outside. So Sutton should be their outside corner and Brooks should be the slot corner if this holds throughout the rest of the preseason. Yeah, I'll go and attack the linebackers real quick.

In leagues that are going to be one to two linebackers, I would obviously, we mentioned Logan Wilson, and we mentioned the fact that he's a three-down linebacker. He has the potential to be a 90-to-95 tackle linebacker. I would call it a low-in linebacker one, and you can probably get him later in your drafts because people aren't in tune with exactly where he's going to be playing or how he's going to do as far as a three-down linebacker.

You know, it's the same thing can be said with Micah Parsons and that people are becoming more and more aware of Parsons being the go-to linebacker now in Dallas, so his stock in the ADP is rising very quickly. So it's going to be hard to get Parsons later in a draft and count on them. There are a few others that, you know, the Saints intrigue me because the Saints have a couple of linebackers that I'm really starting to pay attention to. and they're in deeper leagues. You know, they just re-signed Kwan Alexander. And, you know, this is a guy who, when he was playing full-time, was a stud.

But obviously, there's been issues with injuries and suspensions. And, you know, this is a guy that you really can't count on. But if you're in a three or four linebacker league, he might be somebody you want to stash as a third or four. Same thing with Pete Warner, who's out of Ohio State, that they just drafted this year. And there's a good possibility that Warner starts in the middle for them. So he's somebody to keep an eye on in the second, especially the third preseason game. And if he's starting as the middle linebacker, that's somebody I would go after in these deeper leagues. One other note, go ahead.

You want to follow up on these three? No, no, no, go ahead. The other linebacker that I wanted to mention, we had mentioned earlier, was Owasu Coromoramora on Cleveland. I mean, this kid's blazing speed. He can supply you with a lot of sacks along with huge hits. I've seen the highlights on this guy. And he's a big time thumper. But he has that amazing, rare closing speed.

There was a play this past weekend where he got cut down at the line of scrimmage. but he bounced up and turned around and chased down a wide receiver on a short flare pass. And what should have been a five to 10 yard gain turned in no gain at all because he closed four yards in like a second. Boom. There he was. Bam. Down he went. It's been a lot of fun finally getting to see some football action this week. I know they're just little morsels, but it's been a fun little investigation to try and solve these. you know, these puzzle pieces of what we picked up from training camp, what we've seen from the draft, and you know, you read all this stuff.

And until you actually see it out on the field, you know, a lot of it is just, you know, conjecture or just, you know, what you think might happen, but you're obviously not in the, in the coaches rooms or in the practices. You're just picking things up here and there. So it's been really great to watch some football. We're going to be back next week and then the following week to dig a little deeper and see if we can't make even more sense of some of these position battles,

clear up some of the murkier ones, and help you get in front of your league makes with some of these players, like possibly Logan Wilson, et cetera. So for my colleague, Thomas Simons, my name is Justin Varnes. Remember, we are the IDP analysts over at FantasyPoint.com. If you are a premium subscriber, you get Discord access to not only us, but John Hanson and Joe Dolan, Graham Barfield, on and on Tom Brawley, Scott Barrett. It's a pretty stacked cast there, and we're honored to be a part of that.

And they've got great, great content pouring out on the offensive side of the ball as well. We're just happy to handle the defensive side of the ball. We're going to see you guys next week. And Thomas, hope your week goes well. Anything you want to add? Yeah, 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.

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