IDP Wednesday: Week 9

IDP Wednesday is dedicated to the stepchildren of the Fantasy Football world—Individual Defensive Players. And it's broken up into six parts:

1. Go and Get 'Em: This section is dedicated to players you should think about for the rest of the way.

2. The Favorable and Formidable Fives: This section lists the five best and worst teams allowing points to the DL, LB and DB positions this year.

3. Bye-Week Fillers: This section is dedicated to the players who may not be great, but should have a solid, if not spectacular week because of the situation they're in.

4. IDP Opportunity: The average NFL game has 125 plays (average for one team is 63 offensive plays and 62 defensive plays). This section illustrates the top and bottom five teams that are above and below that average for both offense and defense, showing you which IDP players are getting more opportunities to pad their stats.

5. Playoff Considerations: This section is devoted to what you need to be thinking about with playoffs coming up.

6. IDP Injury Considerations: This section is devoted to who's out and who you should get as a replacement.

Please keep in mind that for the purposes of this article, I am excluding the top 20 linebackers, top 15 defensive backs and top 10 defensive linemen as I'm assuming they are already on someone's team.

Go and Get 'Em

Defensive Line

Previous Recommendations I Still Like:

Andre Carter, Elvis Dumervil, James Hall, Anthony Hargrove, Jason Taylor, Jimmy Wilkerson,

This Week:

1. Greg White (DE, Tampa Bay Buccaneers). Alright, I'm a little late on this horse, but if he's available, pick him up immediately. For the season, he is averaging two solo tackles and one assist. In the last three games, he's averaging four solo tackles, one assist and one sack. This week he gets Green Bay ... enough said. Expect big things from White.

2. Robaire Smith (DE, Clleveland Browns). Yes, I know the Browns are on a bye this week, but you need to consider picking Mr. Smith up this week. We all know that they have been decimated at the ILB position this year (more on that a little later) and their second best amount of defensive plays played this year might even make a push on Buffalo as the NFL's best now because of it.

Overall this year, Smith has averaged four solo tackles and one assist. After D'Qwell Jackson's injury, Smith has been averaging five solo tackles and two assists. If you're in a tackle-heavy league, he just might be your man.

Linebacker

Previous Recommendations I Still Like:

Eric Barton (Injured), Keith Brooking (downgraded as Bobby Carpenter replaces him on 3rd downs now), Keith Bulluck, Brian Cushing, Andra Davis, Keith Ellison, Larry Foote, David Hawthorne, LeRoy Hill, Hunter Hillenmeyer, Thomas Howard, Calvin Pace, Mike Peterson, Paul Posluszny, Stephen Tulloch, Will Witherspoon

This Week:

1. The best LB the rest of the way (MLB, Jacksonville Jaguars). Simply put, if you are in a tackle-heavy IDP league and he can stay healthy, I believe Justin Durant will be the No. 1 overall LB the rest of the way.

In my opinion, the Jaguars offense is not that good, which should keep him on the field. If you take out the games he's missed due to injury, he is averaging eight solo tackles and two assists a game. To this point, his worst game of the year was against Houston when he had five solo tackles and three assists.

If you are in a shallow league and he's available, get him. If you have Patrick Willis and your league is tackle-heavy, trade Willis for him ... yes, I understand just how crazy that sounded. Other than maybe Kirk Morrison, there is no other LB I want to own the rest of the way this year.

Also, if you have Barrett Ruud, now's the time to start thinking about trading him. His schedule the rest of the way is pretty brutal. Alright, now you can't say I didn't tell you so when I remind you about this post at the end of the year.

2. Nick Barnett (ILB, Green Bay Packers). Barnett started the season off slow, but has really come to life of late. On the season, he's averaging five solo tackles, one assist and has one sack and two pass deflections. Over the last three games, he is averaging seven solo tackles and one assist. If he's available and you're in need, pick him up.

3. Kaluka Maiava and David Veikune (ILB, Cleveland Browns). Eric Barton appears to be done for the season. Though it's a big loss for the Browns, it was a bigger blow to his IDP owners as he was in for a remarkable second half.

As if the D'Qwell Jackson injury wasn't enough, the linebacking situation in Cleveland has just passed Buffalo as the worst in the NFL. Up to the time they both were hurt, Jackson and Barton were averaging 11 solo tackles and five assists per game combined.

That production has to go somewhere. In comes two rookies—Kaluka Maiava and David Veikune—to do just that. In the three games Maiava has replaced Jackson so far, he has averaged five solo tackles and two assists. I believe he's the one you want first, but monitor the production of Veikune to see if he's the one that ultimately starts doing better when things settle down.


Defensive backs

Previous Recommendations I Still Like:

Jordan Babineaux, Atari Bigby, Tyvon Branch, C.C. Brown, Mike Brown, Erik Coleman, Thomas DeCoud, Louis Delmas, Reed Doughty, Abram Elam, Chris Harris, Michael Lewis, Sabby Piscitelli, Bernard Pollard, Bob Sanders, Gerald Sensabaugh, Donte Whitner, (Injured)/George Wilson

This Week:

1. Deshon Goldson (FS, San Francisco 49ers). Looks like Patrick Willis isn't the only IDP stud in San Francisco. Over the last three weeks, Goldson has averaged seven solo tackles, one assist, has a forced fumble and one pass deflection. On the season, he's averaging five solo tackles, one assist, has one sack, one interception and one forced fumble. If he's available, pick him up immediately.

2. Brandon McGowan (FS, New England Patriots): With McGowan taking more and more time away from James Sanders, pick him up if he's available.

On the season, he's averaging five solo tackles, one assist, has two forced fumbles and four pass deflections. Over the last three games, he is averaging five solo tackles, one assist, has one forced fumble and two pass deflections. These numbers should get even better over the second half of the season.

3. Donte Whitner/Bryan Scott (S, Buffalo Bills). Alright, the love I have for the safety positions in Buffalo when it relates to IDP has been well chronicled. After some research, here are a few more reasons.

a. Buffalo's SS Position. So far this year, this position has yielded an average of six solo tackles and two assists per game. This position has also received two sacks, three interceptions, one forced fumble and four pass deflections.

b. Buffalo's FS Position. Thus far, this position has yielded an average of three solo tackles and two solo tackles per game. In large part thanks to Jairus Byrd's crazy year, thus far, it has also provided eight interceptions and 11 pass deflections.

It looks like Scott is going to come back after the bye this week. If I was betting, I would say that Scott comes in after the bye and takes over for George Wilson at SS until Whitner comes back. Once Whitner comes back, I think he takes over as the starting SS,  leaving Byrd at FS to continue the monster year he's having.

Favorable & Formidable Fives

As one looks at the favorable portion below, you will notice that you want your DL players to play Green Bay and your LB and DB players to play New Orleans.

As for the Formidable portion, DLs haven't been successful against Dallas' o-line, linebackers aren't productive against Philadelphia and you already knew to stay away from Oakland with your DBs.

One other note that isn't represented yet in the charts below, St. Louis has been just an awful place for MLBs to play these past three games. In those contests, MLBs are only averaging three solo tackles, so be cautious if your guys play the Rams and truly think about benching them no matter who they are.

Favorable (Ordered w/ Best Team to Play First)

Rank	DL	LB	DB
1	Green Bay	New Orleans	New Orleans
2	Miami	Cincinnati	New York Giants
3	Jacksonville	Tennessee	Dallas
4	New York Jets	New England	Atlanta
5	Washington	Carolina	Pittsburgh

Formidable (Ordered w/ Worst Team to Play First)

Rank	DL	LB	DB
1	Dallas	Philadelphia	Oakland
2	Denver	Green Bay	San Francisco
3	Cincinnati	Dallas	Buffalo
4	Atlanta	Tampa Bay	Green Bay
5	Indianapolis	Denver	Cleveland

Bye-Week Fillers

Week 9 Byes: Buffalo, Cleveland, Minnesota, New York Jets, Oakland, St. Louis

Well, my calls on Jason Taylor and Kyle Vanden Bosch last week allowed me to increase my DL average for the year. As far as my other recommendations last week, George Wilson went off again and everyone pretty much had a productive day, so all is good in numbers and guts land.

So far this year, if you take out the bye week recommendations that were benched after my original Wednesday posting and players that were injured in the first half and didn't return, here are my averages for each position so far:

Using My Preferred IDP Scoring System

Solo	Assists	Sack	Int	FF	PD	TD
2	1	4	4	3	2	6

Avg. Return for Bye-Week Filler Positions I've Recommended

Position	Point Total That Week
LB	16
DB	14
DL	9

IDP Opportunity

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, these four charts are to illustrate which players are actually getting more opportunities to fill up their stat sheet just because they are on a certain team.

Offensively, what can be gained from these first two charts along with the 'Favorable & Formidable Fives' section is that you want your safeties and linebackers to go up against New England and New Orleans.

As far as the defensive play portion (bottom two charts), if one of your IDPers plays on Buffalo, Cleveland or Oakland, this is primarily why they've been doing so well. If one of your IDPers plays for Miami or Carolina and his name isn't Thomas Davis, this is primarily why he hasn't. Please adjust your rosters accordingly.

Most Amount of Offensive Plays per Game Avg. (League Avg. is 62.5)

Team	Plays	Pass	Rush
New England	69.9	41	28
New Orleans	68.1	33	34
New York Giants	66.6	33	32
Detroit	65.9	35	27
Miami	65.7	29	34

Least Amount of Offensive Plays per Game Avg. (League Avg. is 62.5)

Team	Plays	Pass	Rush
Oakland	54.4	25	26
San Francisco	56.4	30	23
Cleveland	57.9	29	26
Buffalo	58.3	28	27
Washington	58.6	32	24

Most Amount of Defensive Plays per Game Avg. (League Avg. is 62.4)

Team	Plays	Pass	Rush
Buffalo	71.0	35	34
Cleveland	69.4	32	35
Oakland	66.6	29	36
Philadelphia	66.6	35	28
San Francisco	66.4	38	26

Least Amount of Defensive Plays per Game Avg. (League Avg. is 62.4)

Team	Plays	Pass	Rush
New York Giants	53.6	27	25
New England	56.9	31	24
Houston	57.4	32	24
Carolina	58.7	28	28
Miami	59.1	31	26

Playoff Considerations

If your at a point where you're wondering what the SOS (strength of schedule) is like for the IDPers on your squad, take a look at this great recommendation from the Fantasy Football Librarian :

FFToolbox.com's SOS Application

Not quite sure the methodology behind it and would like to see it broken out into DE, ILB, OLB, SS, FS and CB, but I have a feeling those will be coming in the future. With that said, seriously, is there a better SOS fantasy football tool on the web? If there is, I haven't found it yet.

IDP Injury Considerations

Player	Pos	Return	You Want
Michael Lewis	SS	Returned Last Week
Justin Durant	MLB	Returned Last Week
James Hall	DE	Returned Last Week
Patrick Kerney	DE	Returned Last Week
Scott Fujita	LB	Should Return This Week	JoLonn Dunbar
Roy Williams	SS	Should Return This Week	Chinendum Ndukwe
Lawrence Timmons	ILB	Might Miss This Week	James Farrior
Bryan Scott	SS	Might Return Next Week	George Wilson
Donte Whitner	FS	Might Return Next Week	Jairus Byrd
Nick Harper	CB	Might Return Next Week	Elsewhere
Ricky Brown	SLB	Might Return Next Week	John Alston
Antoine Winfield	CB	Out Until Week 11-13	Benny Sapp
Nate Clements	CB	Out Until Week 14-16	Dashon Goldson
Greg Ellis	DE	Out Until Week 11	Elsewhere
Jarrad Page	FS	Out Indefinitely	Mike Brown
Eric Barton	ILB	Out Indefinitely	David Veikune
Brian Urlacher	MLB	Out Rest of Season	Nick Roach
Jermaine Phillips	FS	Out Rest of Season	Sabby Piscitelli
Daniel Bullocks	FS	Out Rest of Season	Louis Delmas
Kenny Phillips	SS	Out Rest of Season	C.C. Brown
Michael Boley	WLB	Out Rest of Season	Chase Blackburn
Antwan Odom	DE	Out Rest of Season	Michael Johnson
Lofa Tatupu	MLB	Out Rest of Season	David Hawthorne
D'Qwell Jackson	ILB	Out Rest of Season	Kaluka Maiava
Will Allen	CB	Out Rest of Season	Elsewhere
Kris Jenkins	NT	Out Rest of Season	Elsewhere
Omar Gaither	MLB	Out Rest of Season	Will Witherspoon
Pisa Tinoisama	SLB	Out Rest of Season	Nick Roach

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Remember to go to NumbersAndGuts.com every Wednesday around noon for new insightful posts on who to get for your IDP leagues this year.

-Justin Curry