Reading the Defense: Week 1

Photo: USA Today Sports

Reading the Defense is a weekly column that contemplates the effects of coaching tendencies and schematic trends on individual defensive players’ fantasy value. 2024 is the third season in the second generation of the column. Revered IDP mind Jene Bramel wrote Reading the Defense for eleven years on this site. This writer aims to continue Dr. Bramel’s tradition of analyzing team context to inform IDP potential.

This, the second generation of Reading the Defense, has grown as defensive schemes showing two high safeties proliferate. Linebacker snaps, the decline of which was long a concern of Bramel’s, stabilized with nickel subpackages. IDP fantasy football began to embrace grouping pass rushers together rather than fuss over labels like ‘4-3’ and ‘3-4.’

The game of IDP fantasy football has matured to infuse data into decision-making. While NFL coaches have stopped punting on fourth-and-one from midfield, IDP gamers have begun considering player deployment’s influence over statistical output. A safety who lines up close to the line of scrimmage is more likely to make a tackle. A linebacker in man coverage versus a running back on a wheel route is less likely to make a tackle because his back is to the passer.

#FFIDP - Most efficient coverage schemes for LB tackling in 2023:

Cover-2: 16.1%
Cover-6: 15.6%
Cover-3: 14.7%
Cover-4: 14.6%

AVERAGE LB TKL RATE: 13.4%

Cover-1: 10.2%
Cover-0: 9.0%
2-Man: 7.9%

Reminder: Zone-heavy defenses are a cheat code for IDP while man-heavy ones hurt… https://t.co/8DELTJojhx

— Jon Macri (@PFF_Macri)

May 9, 2024

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The top three linebackers on the Footballguys leaderboard all keyed defenses that played zone coverage more than 79 percent of the time, according to FantasyPoints.com. Foyesade Oluokun’s Jaguars, Zaire Franklin’s Colts, and Bobby Wagner’s Seahawks ranked among the top four in use of zone coverages in 2023.

While Franklin returns to the same team and coaching staff in 2024, Oluokun has a new coordinator, and Wagner has moved from Washington state to Washington, D.C. Ryan Nielsen, the new Jaguars coordinator, and first-year Commanders’ head coach Dan Quinn ran zone coverages at below-average rates in their 2023 locales.

After three seasons atop fantasy leaderboards, Oluokun is the consensus top IDP target for 2024. Gamers should know the tailwinds behind his tackle production are likely to shift. As expected, Nielsen’s Jaguars played man coverage at an above-average rate in August. A zone-heavy defense in Jacksonville would be a significant departure from Nielsen’s 2023 play-calling in Atlanta as well as his preseason implementation.

The NFL's coverage usage from the '24 preseason.
-- pic.twitter.com/FaHCJBgXat

— Cody Alexander (@The_Coach_A) August 27, 2024

Bobby Wagner joins Frankie Luvu in the middle of the Commanders’ defense. Both players were drafted among the top 16 at their position, on average, in dozens of IDP-only best-ball drafts held by The IDP Show this summer. No Dallas linebacker finished better than 47th in fantasy points per game during Dan Quinn’s three-year tenure.

Quinn deployed dime personnel (six defensive backs, typically with one linebacker) 21.1 percent of the time in 2023, more than twice the league average. To be fair, the 2021-2023 Cowboys didn’t make the investments in the position that the Commanders did last spring. Luvu might still need to take a significant number of snaps on the edge to maintain a fantasy-relevant role. No one played more Cover-1, the most common man coverage, than the Cowboys last year.

While some fantasy gamers are oblivious to coaching tendencies, others insist they won’t evolve from year to year or coordinators won’t fit their approaches to their personnel. If that were true, Dan Quinn wouldn’t be Washington’s head coach. Atlanta would have been his last job.

The Bills played more dime in 2023 than in 2022 because Matt Milano got hurt. Milano is hurt again, out until December. Drafters and Footballguys rankers alike expect his replacement, Dorian Williams, to occupy the part-time role that Tyrel Dodson played last year rather than take Milano’s full complement of snaps.

Dodson, meanwhile, has moved to Seattle. He will relay signals for Mike Macdonald’s defense. The career reserve has little experience wearing the green dot and will play alongside veteran Jerome Baker. The Seahawks signed both Dodson and Baker in unrestricted free agency this spring. Baker has barely practiced with the team due to injury. Based on Macdonald’s offseason impression of Baker, his lack of availability might have cost him the green dot.

Footballguy Gary Davenport tracks the wearer of the green dot for each team. The responsibility of relaying defensive signals from the sideline to ten teammates is no guarantee that the wearer will play full-time. It is, however, another indicator of the player’s value to the team in addition to athletic performance. Value typically equates to volume. A high snap count is the top consideration of prospective fantasy value. Efficiency, such as that yielded in zone coverages, is subordinate to volume.

Our rankers are no more enthusiastic for Dodson’s 2024 prospects in Seattle than they are for Williams’s in Buffalo. Macdonald fielded two full-time linebackers in Baltimore last year; however, the Seahawks have invested a fraction of what the Commanders have in their linebackers. The Ravens’ Roquan Smith represents the biggest investment at the position this decade. Dodson owns the 38th most lucrative contract by average annual value, according to OvertheCap.com. The one-year, incentive-laden $4.26 million contract suggests Seattle’s front office needs to see it to believe it.

Week 1 Storylines to Watch

Seahawks vs. Broncos

The volume and the quality of Tyrel Dodson’s play must be monitored. Any observations from coaches or beat writers about on-field communication would add context important to projecting fantasy value for the season going forward. Dodson could prove one of the summer’s best draft values.

Jaguars at Dolphins

In Ryan Nielsen’s last two stops, one linebacker has played downhill more than the other, leading to better tackle efficiency. Nate Landman of the 2023 Falcons and Pete Werner of the 2022 Saints each made tackles on about 13.5 percent of their snaps. Kaden Elliss’s tackle rate was 11.2 percent last year. Demario Davis failed to crack 10 percent in 2022.

Last year, Foyesade Oluokun posted lower (more fantasy-friendly) numbers than running mate Devin Lloyd in average depth of tackle in run defense (per Pro Football Focus) and defensive average depth of target (per Pro Football Reference). Oluokun, who played just six snaps in August, has posted tackle rates above 15 percent for three straight seasons. He’ll likely need the shallower role in Nielsen’s defense to clear 150 tackles for the fourth straight season.

At the opposite end of the fantasy value spectrum, a Jacksonville safety is a free square for gamers. Darnell Savage is the leading candidate, but he played all 20 of his preseason snaps at nickel. Watch for Savage as a safety in base and the primary nickel in subpackages. Antonio Johnson, the draftnik darling who fell to the fifth round last year, is the sleeper here if Savage doesn’t play full-time.