Fantasy Football Daily - IDP Corner: 2022 Training Camp Watch

Episode Date: August 3, 2022

The IDP guys are back! Justin Varnes (@downwithIDP) is joined by Tom Simons as they discuss some of the biggest news and headlines on the defensive side of the ball. --- 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. This is our first IDP corner of the 2022 season as we get ready for training camp and then we'll roll into preseason. We'll probably do one podcast a week as we prepare for the regular season. And once we get into the regular season,

it'll be like we normally do here, fantasy points we're covering the IDP section. Myself, I'm Justin Varns. You can follow me on Twitter at Down with IDP. Myself and Mr. Thomas Simons will take you through each weekly matchup and see if we can't find you some IDP gold out there. Speaking of Thomas, Simon, how are you doing tonight, Thomas? I'm doing well, Justin, very, very well. Glad to be back with you in 2022 and ready to pound out some of this information and call through all of this piles and piles of research that we have done and still need to do.

Yeah, speaking of doing more research, this. really is a crucial time of year. It is on both sides of the ball. But, you know, one thing that you'll hear Thomas and I harp on is there's so much more information getting put out there on the offensive side of the ball that the defensive side of the ball can be a little harder to kind of trudge through to get enough good information. So that's one of the things that we're going to try to do this preseason. So to prepare you for that, what we're going to do today is talk about the things that we will be watching for as we watch preseason. season reports, training camp reports as we watch the preseason games, things that we're looking

for that are going to help us make some last-minute adjustments. There might be some pretty big moves in our projections and our, you know, overrated and underrated players heading into the season so we can help you hopefully help you avoid overdrafting someone whose role has shifted in the opposite direction and possibly grab some few people late in the draft who have a bigger role than most people seem. So Thomas and I are going to go through a handful of ones that we have each that we're going to be looking for over the next couple of weeks. Thomas, why don't you start us off? Well, I think I'll start off in Minnesota, the state of 10,000 lakes.

De Nia Hunter is obviously going to be a big spotlight for everybody who's a fantasy owner and wondering how he's going to rebound. after having that serious neck injury and being out for so long and missing so many games, will he be able to bounce back? And then you complicate that with the fact that they're going with a 3-4-based defense, which means that he's now going to be playing linebacker and not defensive ends. So people are wondering, is he still going to be worth, you know, a top five pick in my league? as a defensive end or defensive lineman goes, well, you know, that's going to be complicated by depending on what your league rules are and how they're going to use position changes.

In some leagues, they allow you to use him as a defensive end, but in other leagues, you're going to have to put him in as a linebacker. And I'm not sold on him being hugely productive as a linebacker in this new system. We still have to watch this closely during the preseason to see exactly how this Vic Fangio-style defense is going to unfold for the Vikings. Now, Adonatel is going to be the one that's going to be, he worked with Fangio in his days with Denver, so he's going to be running this type of scheme,

which is kind of a two-high, three-four defense. So the problem that you have in this is that it is well known for blitzing. So I can see Hunter being more active. or getting close to the double digits in sacks, but I just don't see his numbers and tackles being impressive. And if you're going to be using them as a defensive end, okay, you might be able to get away with low tackle numbers and high sacks, especially in a big play scoring league or one that is equal to, you know,

tackle heavy and big play. But if he's going to be a linebacker in your league and you're relying on tackles, you might be looking for some trouble there. Yeah, this is going to be an interesting defense to watch as they completely switch around. One thing that we have seen with these Fangio-style defenses is sometimes those defensive ends who move to outside linebacker when he comes in, sometimes they underperform. Now, Hunter is a monster player, but, you know, there is one of the things that we have on our projections is an entire section. that's based on stability. How familiar is this player with that role?

How healthy are they, et cetera? Daniel Hunter has been high on the stability range in years past, but this is the first year we're going to see a pretty big scheme shift. And it's certainly enough to give you pause if you're grabbing your very first edge off the board and Hunter and some other players who maybe have more stable roles are there. So hopefully we can get enough information. this preseason to be able to say, oh, he's going to play defensive end enough in these sub packages. So I'm going to move on to Baltimore. I'm very curious as to how the Ravens are going

to use Kyle Hamilton. I am not convinced that he's immediately this full-time box-heavy safety that ever, I mean, he was drafted highly and I think he's one of, if not the most talented safety to come out of this draft. And immediately, people, assumed that Chuck Clark was going to get traded or he was going to get dropped or he was going to get cut. But Chuck Clark has been a very good player for this Ravens defense. And they've got Marcus Williams, who they brought in from New Orleans. And I'm sure he's not going anywhere. So are we instead going to see a lot of three safety sets? And if that's the case, where exactly does Kyle Hamilton fit into that? So I'm not immediately anointing him as the new strong safety there or

the most productive of those safeties. Clark, I don't see Chuck Clark just bouncing to the bench. Now, the one thing I will say about all three of these safeties is, if I'm running that defense, and I understand how poor my linebackers are in coverage,

I mean, they have been a liability in that defense, and there are a lot of defenses or there are some defenses that are set up to really not need a strong linebacker because they have so many defensive backs. So if I'm the defensive coordinator here, I would be looking to get as many of these safeties on the field as possible.

Do we see that in training camp and in preseason? Do we see all three of these safeties up there? And if so, which safety is spending the most time kind of as that dime linebacker, if you will, somebody up there who's actually hanging in the box for coverage purposes since I don't think they trust any of those linebackers in coverage. So that'll be one I'm certainly watching in training camp and in preseason. And if I don't hear any rumblings about Chuck Clark getting benched or dropped, I'm really going to pump the brakes on Kyle Hamilton immediately being a DB1 or a DB2. Yeah, I have to agree. I think the point that you brought up here that everybody should be really, really focused on at least early in training camp is the fact that

they may go with three safeties because of the lack of confidence that they have in their linebackers. and Hamilton could be one of that hybrid type, nickel-type linebackers where they use them in the box a lot more than they use them deep in his early in his rookie season. You know, when you take a look at what they have at linebacker, they have Josh Bines and Patrick Queen starting inside. They've got Malik Harrison, but he's he has underachieved and they haven't really been very high on him. And they really don't have a heck of a lot outside of that. They do have bodies, but they don't have quality snap count players that will eat time on the field. And this is where Hamilton may see a lot of his playing time. I totally agree with you on that.

But let's move on to the next one. I want to take a shot at Tampa Bay because everybody's talking about Tampa Bay and Brady coming back. And now Julio Jones joins Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and Leonard Furnett and blah, blah. blah, blah, blah, blah, this offense is this, that, and the other thing. Well, this defense has kind of evolved and changed a little bit. No longer with the team is Jason Pierre, Paul, and he's hit the road and isn't there anymore, as well as Indomac and Sue. Both of them were key and integral pieces to that defense last year.

And I think missing those two is affecting their depth chart, and that's what bothers me about this defense, is they brought in Akeem Hicks, and now you and I have talked off-mic a little bit about Akeem Hicks and the fact that he's injury-prone, and we have a lot of concern regarding him playing a full season and giving them quality production and being a fantasy relevant defense event.

So when you take a look at their line, yes, they have Hicks and Vita V. and they have William Golson starting. But then the depth behind that is really, really thin. They have Rakeem Nunes Roches and the rookie Logan Hall is going to try and get his, you know, his feet wet this season. They have Patrick O'Connor and Edron Sanat, I think, is from, or Senet. How do you pronounce that, Sanat? Yeah, Sanat.

Sanat. They picked him up, I believe, from Atlanta. So now you have just those four guys backing up those three starters. You and I both know that they're going to go out and sign some form of players and or scour the waiver wire when cuts start happening. But there's Vita Vevae has an injury history, so does Hicks. And the depth behind them is really, really weak. So you've got to wonder if this defense is going to be able to,

withstand a weak front three or four. Moving on to Detroit, watching their linebackers will be crucial this year. Are they really going to run Alex Hanzalone back out there for every snap like they did last year? The problem is, who would that other person be? They brought back Jared Davis, who was a colossal failure the first time. He obviously didn't do well enough at the Jets. So Detroit picked him up. Now, he is, you know, he was a high draft pick, and he did show flashes, you know, early in his career.

You can blame a lot on Matt Patricia for turning him around. But at the end of the day, you know, I think it's a pretty steep hill for Jared Davis to climb to be trusted enough on this defense to take a ton of snaps. And if it's not Jared Davis, then they'd be looking at Derek Barnes. Now, Derek Barnes was a rookie last year. he had a rough season last year trying to get acclimated, but that isn't uncommon for rookies. So perhaps Derek Barnes can make that move. And that's really what I'm watching.

Can Derek Barnes leapfrog Alex Anzalone on this defense and become the three-down linebacker? It doesn't even really matter how good Derek Barnes is. Alex Anzalone had a pretty poor season last year. But just by virtue of being on the field so much, he basically fell into an, LB2 or LB3 role. So who of these three, if they don't sign somebody, who of these three linebackers will either A, be the three-down roll. Now, not every team has a dedicated three-down linebacker, but last year, Detroit did,

and I'm expecting to see that again this year. So watching the rotation here to see if anyone is the three-down linebacker and who it is, because I don't necessarily think it's a lock that it will be Alex Anzellone. Agreed. And, you know, they brought in Chris Bord from Baltimore, and they're hoping that Julian Okora, who was a rookie last year, can get over this injury bug he had in that first season. But then after that, like you said, there really isn't much behind these guys.

I mean, they drafted Malcolm Rodriguez out of Oklahoma State in the sixth round this year. And you mentioned Derek Barnes. They have Sean Dionne Hamilton who played with Washington, but couldn't seem to secure a middle linebacker position or inside linebacker position on a team that really needed it. So, yeah, you got to wonder, Jared Davis and Anzalone are the two top prospects as their middle linebackers. That's kind of a walking on thin ice and eggshells type of situation. Well, I'm going to move on to Seattle. this team is they there's a whole bunch of changes going on in Seattle let's just put it that way

you sound so frustrated at them already you can't even get the words now it's totally frustrating okay so they go and they change their defensive scheme they change their defensive coaching staff and now they're going to be running a three-four system okay this new system is going to allow them to be more flexible with Jamal Adams and they're going to use him like they did in the first season he came in here and oh wait a minute, Jamal Adams has a hand injury and it seems to be a serious hand injury. It's the one I believe he had surgery on. So now all of a sudden, before we even, it was the first week of training camp and he's already hurt. So you got rid of a lot of the veteran leadership in Bobby Wagner and on the defensive side of the ball. And,

And, you know, Carlos Dunlop has gone to Kansas City. And you have to, they're very, very, very young. They're very, very fast. But this defense is going to make a lot of mistakes. And if that offense can't get going and be competitive, this defense is going to spend a lot of time on the field getting burnt by offenses who are going to be just rolling through them. Now, there is one guy I definitely would.

point out that you want to keep an eye on is Kobe Bryant. He's apparently doing really, really, really well in training camp, and he may even push for a starting job. There's a couple of guys that they picked up in free agency that you have to keep an eye on. I mean, Nuwasu, Oceno, Nuwasu, who came from the Chargers. He was signed and then just quietly has been going about his business and people have lost track. of the fact that he's going to be playing most likely a defensive end position, but he could be playing for the outside linebacker. They have Darrell Taylor going into his second year,

and they're hoping that he could be very productive off the edge, which is what they're really trying to do is bring a lot of speed and aggressiveness off the edges. Two guys that you really want to pay attention to in the linebacking core are Jordan Brooks and Cody Barton. Brooks struggled a little bit in past coverage last year, and he's now going to be counted on to be the Bobby Wagner of this defense. And to be seen whether or not he can do that.

Now, Cody Bryant, Barton, excuse me, will most likely surprise a lot of people. He's been injured throughout early in his career, and he hasn't really done much or shown much to fans. But this defense, yes, on the back end, they have Jamal Adams and Quadrae Diggs, but these two have to be healthy in order for them to solidify that secondary, which is very young with Trey Brown, Kobe Bryant, and, you know, they have Hugo Amadi, and there's a lot of young guys that are playing here. So this defense is evolving as we go. I just, I can't see them winning more than six games.

Yeah, I'm really interested to watch Cody Barton, too. Brooks, when they drafted him, we knew he was a sound tackler and also had an edge presence where they could get some pass rushing snaps out of him. And so far, he's shown to have advantages in both of those categories. He's been a pretty solid pass rusher from the linebacker spot and from the edge spot. And he's done pretty well against the run, but coverage has really been bad. So, and he's, you know, he's now into year three. Does he make that leap? And I know, Thomas, you live there in Seattle, so you get to hear this a lot more. But everything I've read is just how much the coaching staff loves Cody Barton and they want to see him on the field more. So there's certainly an element of

uncertainty in just handing Jordan Brooks what we think of as the Bobby Wagner role. He's going to rack up 160 tackles playing every down. I don't think that's the case. And there might be even even more of a lower floor for him if Barton ends up splitting time or if as this defense shifts, do they not rely on a three-down linebacker anymore, considering that they might have to piece together that. And if Adams does end up coming back from his hand injury enough, do they use Adams as a linebacker. And basically, that would also put Brooks in a position where we're not sure he would play enough snaps to be, you know, I mean, he's highly drafted this preseason. Everybody's, you know, giving him these Bobby Wachter type production. And it's just assuming that he's going to be the man

now. And I remember we saw this a little bit with Devin White. I mean, White had a phenomenal, you know, first couple of seasons. But he definitely showed weakness. and, you know, he had an amazing pass rush season a couple of years ago, which was unsustainable. And you and I, about this time last year, about 365 days ago, tried to tell everyone that White is a very good player, but, you know, we did not see him as the overall number one linebacker last year because there were, you know, there are very few Bobby Wagner's and Patrick Willis's and Luke Kikleys, these like bulletproof no doubt linebackers. And we saw that Devin White had a few of those holes,

and we saw some of that crop up last year. And we still had a solid season. But in other words, pump the brakes on Jordan Brooks, just running with this. Let's see what happens this preseason and see if Barton or some safety or something starts coming in there in third and long situations. Agreed.

Now let's move on to, Houston, I want to talk a little bit about their safety situation. So they've got Eric Murray there for safety. Obviously, they don't have Justin Reed, Justin Reed left via free agency. So what exactly is going to happen with that safety core? They have Terrence Brooks. They have Eric Murray, M.J. Stewart as well. But they drafted Jalen Petra 37th overall.

He's somebody that can absolutely fit in this Levy Smith, Tampa 2 defense. I think he's a really good fit for them. So will Jalen Petrae out of the gate be able to supplant Eric Murray as that strong safety role in this defense? Thomas and I are always hesitant about giving rookies the benefit of the doubt that they're going to start. We see it every single year. Everybody gets super excited about the draft and all these highlight plays from these college players. It is a huge jump to the NFL. And so in general, we don't expect that these rookies are going to make a huge splash.

And we see it time and time again that we're proven right. However, this might be one of those times. So watching Murray's snaps and Brooks's snaps against Petra's I think is going to tell us a lot as we look through the preseason and through training camp. Yeah, and you and I both know that the Tampa 2 defensive system that Houston employs is tough on younger players because they have to be very disciplined within that system. And Petrie is going to be getting his feet wet, sort of speak, and cutting his teeth on while trying to pick up this very complicated system that Houston is going to try and run. And again, you brought up a very valid point that the snap count is going to be critical to keep an eye on to make sure that Petrie doesn't basically run away with the starting role over Murray and or Brooks. I'd like to go to at least away from the central part of the states into New York, into the Big Apple, and touch on a player that I'd really want to keep an eye on this.

summer and that's Blake Martinez. Now Martinez was, you know, he got hurt last year and was totally useless for fantasy owners when they needed him the most. And then when he went down, that defense completely, I wouldn't say it fell apart, but it changed drastically. I mean, guys like Aziz O'Diolari, his numbers, they went, so they skyrocketed up when because of the fact that, the statistics and the numbers that Martinez would normally get were now available to other players. The key with Martinez is that he's a huge tackles number guy. He's not a major big player. He won't give you a lot of sacks.

He won't give you a lot of picks and PDs and fumble recoveries and forced fumbles. But he will give you a ton of tackles when he's out on the field. Now, we need to keep an eye on whether or not they're going to monitor or, controlled his snap count early on and whether or not they are going to use him like they had used him prior to him getting hurt. I think that if they do use him on a regular basis, you know, on a normal basis, then the other peripheral IDPs on that defense are going to see a slight drop in their statistics. You know, you're adding pivoted to this whole mix, the rookie who will most likely be a linebacker, a weakside linebacker

for this defense with Leonard Williams on the front and Jihad Ward probably starting at left defensive end. But, you know, if you take Blake Martinez out of this equation, there's really not a lot of depth on that defense. So players like O'Jolari could see a spike again. Yeah, which would be nice to see. We've seen this New York defense when it comes to how the edges and how the defensive line play, how much of that can really be centered on having that solid inside linebacker. And, yeah, before he went down with injury, Martinez was the man, both in Green Bay. and then, you know, like, well, okay, you know, they let him go and he went to the Giants and what's he going to do?

And he went right back to just like racking up tackles. So could be a lot of fun to watch. He could be somebody that people are sleeping on a little bit due to his injury history. I want to move on to Indianapolis. I'm going to talk about another rookie safety. Before I do that, you know, now they've got Gus Bradley there in Indianapolis. And Gus Bradley is one of these Seattle coaching tree defense defensive coordinators who've run that, that, you know, single high cover three defense for such a long time.

And we've slowly but surely seen that fall out of favor. You know, so many offensive coordinators have things to beat that defense. And we've seen some of that coaching tree start to make some pretty big adjustments. We saw Dan Quinn last year. We talked about this a little bit too last year. moved to Dallas and he had a he said plenty of things that let you know that he probably wasn't going to just continue to run that that single high cover three defense out that that he was raised on and he didn't and Dallas had quite a turnaround so will Gus bradley stick to his guns he

has been one of the last um uh you know the the last soldiers of this defense who really has stuck to it so if we assume for a second that Bradley keeps that defense one of the key players in that defense is this strong safety role or a role that he would often call the robber. This is the guy who sits in the middle of the field. The safety that sits in the middle of the field doesn't have as many coverage responsibilities. And I always call this player the water boy. Just kill the guy with the ball kind of mentality. So there exists the possibility that that player is on this team.

And that player would have been Kari Willis. but Kari Willis suddenly retired. And they have yet to replace him. So right now, their options are Rodney McLeod, Julian Blackman, Armani Watts, and Nick Cross. Nick Cross, they drafted in the third round. So during training camp and preseason, are we going to see Nick Cross basically fall into an incredibly productive safety role? Now, a lot of things have to happen here.

He's got to outright win that job. And they have to elect him for that role versus Rodney McLeod. And McLeod, I think, is still a very good deep or post safety. That's where he excelled when he was with the Eagles and things with the Rams before that. And then things got muddier for him when he started getting moved around in defenses. So if they leave him at the post, they could put Nick. cross in that position. And again, that relies on Gus Bradley to play that kind of single high cover three. So we're going to watch Bradley's defense and we're going to watch where Nick Cross

lines up. And if he, by that, by that crucial week three of preseason, is he basically running with the starters. The last thing I'm going to say about this is so far, you know, I'm one of those people that I really try to, I assume that all of the great glowing reports that we get from training camps are just fluff pieces. It's rare that you hear that somebody had, you know, a bad day. Everybody, of course, is in the best shape of their lives, yada, yada, yada. You can only read this stuff and be fooled by it so many times every single preseason before you kind of get numb to it. Yeah, you know, you just brought up a huge point that a lot of people don't quite understand, you're running around without pads and you're not having, you're not, there isn't really

any major contact early on. And until they actually start getting in there and banging themselves around and getting hurt, because every single NFL player plays hurt. I don't care how you look at it. It, it is a definitive in fact that every player gets banged up early on in the season and plays through a season banged up. Now, you brought up a valid point about McLeod. Cloud is a true free safety. And if they keep him in that true free safety position and they use cross in this robber role, I mean, they have two solid cornerbacks in Kenny Moore and Stefan Gilmore, who they signed this off season.

So this could be something that gives him flexibility with Cross and allow him to be a little more risk-taking. And that's a big, big. I would say item for us to keep an eye on during the training camp. Oh, also about the Colts, Darius Leonard is no longer Darius Leonard. He is Shaquille Leonard. Apparently the family refers to him as Shaquille, and that's what he wants to be referred to as. Yep.

Shall we move on? Speaking of Stud inside linebackers. Bobby Wagner. Okay. So here's the situation in Seattle. I watch Wagner for many, many years. And last year in Seattle, Wagner, yes, he was racking up tackles. But I had made note last year, and I'm going to harp on it again this year. A couple of things. One, Wagner has lost a step. He is no longer making the, monster tackles behind the line of scrimmage. He's making them at or beyond the line of scrimmage. So he's kind of slowing down. Yes, his tackle numbers are there,

but offenses are getting more production out of their running backs because of the fact that Wagner is not making the tackles in the back field. He's making them more where he's positioned. Now, where he landed, I'll get to that in the second. And the reason why Seattle let him go was because he was way too expensive for what they want, what they were paying him. And being that, you know, the amount of money that they had invested in him at that point in time, they couldn't afford to do that and get that, get the production that they expected out of him. That wasn't going to happen.

And that was one of the reasons why they made this move. Now, there are those in the Seattle area who will tell you that they got rid of Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson because they're banking the season and they want to go for a quarterback in the draft early next year and blah, blah, blah. These guys in Pete Carroll and John Snyder and the rest of the crew on the coaching staff, they don't like to lose. And things get kind of snarly and ugly around that looming field when they lose. So they are trying to do their best to bring a good product out on the field. But because of the fact that Wagner was slowing down,

they can't afford to pay him the amount that he wanted. They had to let him go. Now, the landing spot, he couldn't have landed in a better place because if you consider the fact that he's got Aaron Donald sitting in front of him, he doesn't have to be worrying about making tackles behind the line of scrimmage. It's got Aaron Donald in front of him. So most of it, he will probably end up being a solid linebacker this year. I would say a linebacker one.

I wouldn't say a top five linebacker one, but pretty cool. close if Aaron Donald stays healthy and that defense rallies around Wagner. Let's move on to the Chargers. Stay over in Los Angeles here. The thing I'm going to be watching, speaking of linebackers, we're on a little bit of a linebacker run here, is have the Chargers completely given up on Kenneth Murray Jr. yet? He certainly was a player that was in and out of the lineup,

benched several times last year, really struggled. You know, we saw, this reminds me of, you know, Patrick Queen, who at times was good and then fell off. I think Murray is a much worse case than Patrick Queen, but we have a lot of these younger linebackers. I think the issue is linebackers nowadays have so many more responsibilities that teams realize if they're going to constantly get attacked from office. is they have to be these complete players.

They have to process a lot more things. Or they'll just get sent to the bench for another safety or another cornerback. They'll work around it. So will Murray blossom into that kind of player? Because the Chargers really could use him. Can he at least maintain a two-down roll or preferably a three-down roll? So watching how the Chargers deal with this preseason with Kenneth Murray, you know, this is a, this is something for dynasty as well.

Like, you know, Kenneth Murray is extremely talented. Can he actually turn it around in time? Or is he going to be another one of these linebacker busts like Jared Davis? I still think there's plenty of time for Murray, but the clock is certainly ticking. And this training camp and this preseason, I think, is crucial for Murray's fantasy value and long-term value for the Chargers. Yeah, and they also went out and signed. Troy Reeder from the Rams inside linebacker. So he's got, and he's not only looking over his shoulder, but he has to start performing

immediately because that leash is going to be short. I'm going to take another gander at a bad defense. You know, we kind of snicker about certain defenses that are really bad. And you think, oh, how can I rely on a bad? bad defense. Well, considering that the offense is going to struggle, that means that the defense is going to spend a lot of time on the field, which equates to fantasy production because they spend so much time, so much more time on the field, they tend to rack up more tackles and more big plays. Not as much big plays, you know, being an automatic thing, but tackles definitely go up.

Now, the problem here with Atlanta is that Atlanta is they don't. have a lot of depth. You take a look at their starting 11. And it's, they brought in Lorenzo Carter and Roshan Evans. They let Foyah Olokon go by way of, um, free agency. You know, Michael Walker is, is Michael Walker. He's still backing up Dionne Jones, who's a starter. They brought in Nick Koukowski. Um, you know, so they, they've brought in some, some veterans. Um, But their secondary is still kind of questionable. Yeah, they have A.J. Terrell, but he's injury prone. And Casey Hayward has been, he's been touted as being a stud cornerback,

and yet he hasn't proven that yet to many of the pundits out there. And he also has some injury issues at the time. You know, you've got a logjam in their safety positions with Dean Marlow, Richie Grant, Eric Harris, Jalen Hawkins, and the T's T's Tabor. I mean, who's going to really grab those positions? And there's a lot of question marks. So while you know that this defense is most likely going to spend a lot of time out on the field, it's hard to really sit there and go, well, I like Jones and I like Hawkins and I like Grady

Jarrett. You all of a sudden have to sit back and go, wait a minute, this could turn into a very serious committee approach and nobody steps up and takes advantage of the serious increase in playing time. Yeah. And speaking of Grady Jarrett, we've seen Dean Peas come in and he runs much more two-gap than Jared's run over the last several years. And we saw that in Jarrett's fantasy production or fantasy value last year. He's certainly somebody that I'm, I'm going to continue to fade this year, not because of his talent, but just because this is a new scheme. And we've seen it time and time again.

A new defensive coordinator comes in, gives a talented player different responsibilities, equally important responsibilities on his team, but not ones that are fantasy productive. It would be the, you know, I was thinking of it like a tied in. You can take a very talented tight in. And if you keep him in for blocking, he's doing a great job and he's doing a very important job for his team. but there's no fantasy value there if he's not running routes. So Jared is one of those guys, I think, in this entire, you know, D-Line, it's going to be tough to see too much like major production.

Jared has had runs where he's really been dominant and useful fantasy, but this will be aware of him. Speaking of rotating defensive linemen, I'm going to close it out with a little discussion about the Jets. They'll be running out a lot of defensive. offensive lineman this year. And I don't think it's as clear cut as maybe others think in terms of who's going to start. I know everybody had high hopes for Carl Lawson last year. He obviously got injured before he even got going. But they've got other than Quinn and Williams, which Thomas,

I think you agree with me on this. Quentin Williams, we're not too worried about it. It's all the others. They've got Carl Lawson, John Franklin Myers, which will get to in a minute, rookie Jermaine Johnson, who they took 26th overall. They've got Vinnie Curry, who's a pass rush specialist, and they've got Jabari Ziniga. Yeah, and they got Solomon Thomas. Yeah. So right there.

I'm sorry, they also added Jacob Martin to them. Right, from Houston, right, who definitely showed some flashes last year, didn't he, Thomas? Yes, he did. So you go ahead. I know you have a point you want to make about the rotation here. Yeah. And then I want to get your thoughts on some of these role players like Barton.

But one of the things that we've heard from Sala is that they want to use John Franklin Myers on the edge, or basically is a defensive end in base. And then in obvious passing situations, they want to kick him inside. So if they want to use him as an end in base, is that end position going to be Lawson and Myers? If so, how many snaps will somebody like Jermaine Johnson get? When they kick Myers inside, and we're assuming it's Myers and Williams, will Myers still play enough or will they rotate Solomon Thomas in there? Remember, this is Robert Sala, who had a heavy rotation back in San Francisco,

and that was one of the things that made that defense so strong is they had so many players, by the way, one of them was Solomon Thomas. They had so many players on that defensive line. it was just DeForest Buckner who stayed out there and everyone else rotated. And that could be the case again this year where Quentin Williams plays that DeForest Buckner role, at least in terms of staying out in the field in multiple packages. And it really could just be a giant mess. So what that really means for me is Quentin Williams is the only person I plan on using

until this gets sorted out. And we're going to be watching training camp and watching these preseason games to see if we can see some packages. We know we won't get anything exactly. But we should see some base packages and some nickel and dime packages that will give us some information about snap counts here. But this really could be ugly for fantasy. Yeah, you know, you brought up a valid point about Sala right there is the huge point in

that when he was with San Francisco, you couldn't rely on any of these defensive linemen for the 49ers. Yes, they were really good players. Yes, they were usually fresh and gave Sondon. and gave Sala the impact that he wanted, made that defense really tough. But it didn't translate well into the fantasy world because of the fact that they were, you know, one game they would see 45% of the snaps. Next game, 52% of the snacks. And the next game, 32%.

And it bounced around, which is likely what will happen here with the Jets. And I'm not sold on Jermaine Johnson or Jain Johnson being the rookie. getting a lot of playing time off the edge. Although, you know, especially if Zuninga and Martin start pushing for playing time early on in training camp, that means that Johnson could see a limited amount of packages and certain plays that they'll use for, you know, have designated for him. You know, again, I think you're totally dead on with the Quentin Williams is probably the only one to really count on.

Sheldon Rankins might only be a two-down player at max or best, and he's not going to give you a lot of fantasy production. Franklin Myers is going to rotate up and down that line, that consequently is going to kill his fantasy value. And that's assuming that he sees 55, 60% of the snaps, and that's a big assumption that may not happen. All right, that's going to wrap it up for our first podcast of the 2022 season. Just know that we'll be doing one of these a week,

particularly as we get into preseason games, where we can actually see some real football with pads and consequences. You know, the Hall of Fame game is in a couple of days. So we're just about to get to that point. Hopefully we'll get you all prepped for the season as it is quickly coming up. You can find me on Twitter at Down with IDP. You can find both of us, our projections, articles, even we're going to be doing some IDP props this year as well.

All of that you can find on fans. FantasyPoint.com, which is now has really blossomed into a site that's got, you know, basically everything from, you know, obviously John Hanson and Graham Barfield and all that. They're also covering so many more aspects of the game. And Thomas and I are the ones that are holding down the fort on the IDP side. If you are a Fantasy Points premium subscriber already and you're listening to this, make sure that you have our Discord channel. There's an IDP channel for Fantasy Points, premium subscribers.

For those of you who already know it, we're there all the time. It's a great place to reach out to us with start-sit questions or draft questions. We've even done things in the past where people who are new to IDP and we would essentially help them all the way through their draft, you know, say, okay, wait on a linebacker until about here. Who are your options? Let me know when you get there. where you know it's really easy for us to do we're happy to jump in there and help everyone on the idp side this can be for somebody who plays three or four different idp leagues deep you know full rosters all on yards and it's equally uh important to us to help those people as it is

the people who are like hey i just joined a a league and apparently we have a couple of idps and i've never done it before please for the love of god help uh we're that's what that discord server can can can really do for you if you're a Fantasy Points premium subscriber. All right. We're going to get out of here. Thank you so much for listening. Again, my name is Justin Varns. With me, as always, is Mr. Thomas Simons.

Thomas, for the first time in the fall of 2022, what you got for us? Be well and be safe. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, wait, and review on your favorite platform. And come join the roster at FantasyPoints.com. Oh, no.