IDP Matchup Plays: Living the Stream: Week 3

Photo: USA Today Sports

Sometimes, IDP managers have to Live the Stream because they are up a creek.

We're just two weeks into the 2024 fantasy football season, and already, injuries are starting to pile up on the defensive side of the ball. New York Jets edge rusher Jermaine Johnson tore his Achilles tendon last week. IDP managers lost one of fantasy's top linebackers for an extended period of time when Terrel Bernard of the Buffalo Bills strained his pectoral muscle against the Miami Dolphins. The No. 1 defensive back in most drafts this year (Antoine Winfield Jr of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers) is out with an ankle injury.

And on and on and on. All these guys are on my team; please pass the Grey Goose.

The thing is, none of this is new. Injuries have always been a part of fantasy football. It's why fantasy teams have benches. Why playing the waiver wire is so important to fantasy success.

Sometimes, you just have to grab a paddle and get to work.

Matchup Play: EDGE Leonard Floyd, San Francisco (at LA Rams)

The 49ers already had one of the top edge rushers in the NFL in 2022 Defensive Player of the Year Nick Bosa, but in the offseason the team looked to upgrade his batterymate by signing Floyd to a two-year, $20 million contract in the offseason. Per Jennifer Lee Chan of NBC Sports Bay Area, head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters that Floyd's relentlessness played a big part in deciding to bring him to San Fran.

"Yeah, his motor's been, he's like that every day in practice," Shanahan said. "Especially for a guy like whatever year it is, 10th or something. To be able to go that hard in practice every day, I don't get how he can keep it up. You could always see it on tape; he's got such a good motor on tape. He knows no other way. He loves playing football, he keeps it very simple, he likes to come out there every day. He goes hard as he can. In the games, he just cut it loose and he kind of took over in that way, and I think he's a real inspiring guy to watch."

Floyd has been consistently productive in recent years—nine-plus sacks in each of the last four seasons, with 50-plus tackles in three of those years. Floyd's snap count is actually up by about 10 percent compared to last year in Buffalo, he already has one sack for the season and this week the 49ers face a Los Angeles Rams team that has lost three starters on the offensive line over the first two weeks of 2024.

Matchup Play: EDGE Za'Darius Smith, Cleveland (vs. NY Giants)

Myles Garrett gets most of the run in Cleveland, but Smith has had a respectable career all his own—61 career sacks and three trips to the Pro Bowl over a decade in the NFL. Last year, Smith played with his hand in the dirt for the first time in a long time. He told reporters that in 2024 he's truly getting the hang of playing in Jim Schwartz's defense.

"For myself, coming from a 3-4 system, I was always a guy who had to stand up," Smith said. "So just being down in the three point now, not really looking at formations was something new for me. But now I'm starting to get the hang of it. And as you can see this year, you see a better Z. I can tell you that much."

Smith's stats in his first year with the Browns were modest—his 5.5 sacks were Smith's fewest in a full season since 2017. But the 32-year-old has already gotten to the quarterback once this season, and Sunday the Browns host a Giants team that allowed an average of five sacks a game in 2023.