Reading the Defense: Week 17

Reading the Defense is a weekly column that considers the effects of player deployment and schematic trends on individual defensive players' fantasy value. While analytics take hold in NFL front offices and sidelines, data-driven decision-making also benefits fantasy gamers.

Looking for Lessons

Two weeks remain in the NFL regular season while most fantasy leagues stage their playoff championship game. As many fantasy gamers' roster management ends, this column looks back on the 2024 season for lessons to glean for future application. Last week's edition focused on linebackers. This edition covers the defensive front, leaving the secondary for last.

Through 16 weeks, only eight defensive linemen among the position's top 25 scorers also appeared on Footballguys' leaderboard at the end of 2023. This group includes defensive tackles and edge defenders. Eleven of last year's top 25 have missed at least five games due to health including Christian Barmore, who has spent most of the season on the non-football injury (NFI) list. Bradley Chubb suffered a torn ACL late last year and is one of three 2023 leaders not to take a snap this year.

Last week's column noted that linebacker is, on average, the position that most frequently suffers injuries that result in multi-week absences. The top echelon of NFL pass rushers has been disproportionately impacted by catastrophic injuries in 2024. In contrast, only three players who scored among the top 25 defensive linemen in 2022 missed extended time in 2023.

Talent Matters!

Only two players – Myles Garrett and Danielle Hunter – appear among Footballguys' top 25 fantasy defensive linemen for three consecutive seasons. Nine more might have if injuries had not struck. With two games remaining, Micah Parsons might yet join Garrett and Hunter. The other eight are T.J. Watt, Alex Highsmith, Maxx Crosby, Aidan Hutchinson, Harold Landry III, Cameron Heyward, DeForest Buckner, and Christian Wilkins.

These ten players constitute most of a fantasy DL1 tier that parallels the top wide receivers on offense. These players play reliably high snap counts, play in schemes that provide tackle opportunities, and collect enough quarterback sacks to deliver consistent production in fantasy lineups.

The parallel between fantasy defensive linemen and wide receivers continues down the ranks. Players missing one of the three ingredients of a DL1 often fit into a morass of DL3s, fantasy assets who are match-up dependent or lack big-play upside.

Depressing Situations

Nick Bosa has returned to the top 25 after a one-year hiatus. Reading the Defense addressed in Week 4 why Bosa's scheme-induced scarcity of tackle opportunities lowered his floor as a fantasy asset. Tackles, however, are the lesser part of the recipe for an edge defender's success. After collecting just 10.0 sacks in 2023, Bosa had 7.0 sacks before suffering an injury in the 49ers' 10th game. He returned to action in Week 15 and is hanging onto a top-25 ranking while playing for a struggling team that has fallen out of playoff contention.

Scheme isn't the only factor that can suppress a pass rusher's production. Jacksonville's defense has been a disaster, and it's come at the expense of Josh Hines-Allen's production. The Jaguars' opponents, like those of the 49ers, rotate protections to Hines-Allen because they're not threatened by his battery mates. Moreover, Jacksonville's pass coverage has been head-and-shoulders worse than every other team. Quarterbacks who get the ball out quickly and comfortably don't take many sacks. A top-five DL last year, Hines-Allen is a 2025 bounce-back candidate.

Team coverage rates from weeks 1-16 pic.twitter.com/9offVwR8IO

— Football Insights ? (@fball_insights) December 24, 2024