Fantasy Football: IDP Rankings
By Chris Smith
Need help with preparing for your fantasy football league? The Fantasy Guru is here once again to give you a few tips on how to play the crazy game of fantasy football.
Individual Defensive Players (IDP) are becoming more and more popular in fantasy football as people not only search for a more authentic experience of managing a team but also the new challenges that the format provides. IDP is always a bit of a crapshoot in my opinion as you’re far more likely to find a good player late than you are at the offensive positions but also the turnover from year to year of the top talent is relatively high. With that said I have received a number of emails asking for IDP talk so I have decided to just give you guys what you want.
A quick note before I get started – these rankings are based on the points system I have seen most commonly used in my IDP leagues with tackles being worth 1 point and an emphasis on impact plays such as sacks, stuffs and picks. They are approximations only and should only ever be used as a guide as there a lot of unique IDP scoring methods out there. Finally, this is the ONLY set of IDP rankings I will so as I don’t intend to continually update them as I do with offense. As said before, this is a guide for drafting only.
Linebackers Top 15
1. James Laurinitis, STL
2. Patrick Willis, SF
3. Jerod Mayo, NE
4. Desmond Bishop, GB
5. Daryl Washington, ARI
6. Navarro Bowman, SF
7. Sean Lee, DAL
8. Derrick Johnson, KC
9. D’Qwell Jackson, CLE
10. Colin McCarthy, TEN
11. Luke Kuechly, CAR
12. Sean Weatherspoon, ATL
13. Pat Angerer, IND
14. Stephen Tulloch, DET
15. London Fletcher, WAS
Defensive Line Top 15
1. Jason Pierre-Paul, NYG
2. Trent Cole, PHI
3. Jared Allen, MIN
4. Mario Williams, BUF
5. Jabaal Sheard, CLE
6. Justin Tuck, NYG
7. Cliff Avril, DET
8. Charles Johnson, CAR
9. Calais Campbell, ARI
10. J.J. Watt, HOU
11. Julius Peppers, CHI
12. Cameron Wake, MIA
13. Chris Long, STL
14. Jason Babin, PHI
15. Bruce Irvin, SEA
Defensive Backs Top 15
1. Tyvon Branch, OAK
2. Eric Berry, KC
3. Charles Woodson, GB
4. Bernard Pollard, BAL
5. Kam Chancellor, SEA
6. Ladarius Webb, BAL
7. Mark Barron, TB
8. Eric Weddle, SD
9. Roman Harper, NO
10. Patrick Chung, NE
11. George Wilson, BUF
12. Morgan Burnett, GB
13. Joe Haden, CLE
14. Cortland Finnegan, STL
15. Louis Delmas, DET
IDP rankings are always tough to do due to the turnover I mentioned earlier and if you have a spare hour or so you should try and make your own based on your league’s scoring. These lists should at least give you somewhere to start from.
As always when I do a rankings post there’s always a bonus article which will be out tomorrow – that’s right, the return of the Fantasy Mailbag! I have tomorrow’s questions all set but if you have a fantasy question you’d like to put to the Fantasy Guru then just send it in to SZSuperLeague@live.com and you could be featured in the next mailbag.
Until tomorrow, this is the Fantasy Guru signing off.