IDP Matchups and Stat Trends - Week 06

The Footballguys IDP Matchup Spreadsheet is used to track trends around the league to help with evaluating IDP matchups. I’ll use this article to call out some interesting numbers in the data each week.

You can find the Microsoft Excel tool HERE

SCHEDULE TAB

Consider this a work in progress, but I’ve added in a new Schedule tab to try and quickly identify favorable matchups each week. I pulled in some key metrics for the defense as well as the offense they are facing this week.

When I look at matchups for this week, these are the matchups that look MOST FAVORABLE from a tackling perspective (with some notes if the matchup is particularly unfavorable for run vs pass):

• DALLAS (vs Philadelphia) – Eagles generating 60 tackle opps/game (36 rush attempts)
• NEW ENGLAND (vs Cleveland) – Browns generating 57 tackle opps/game (36 rush attempts)
• SEATTLE (vs Arizona) – Arizona generating 56 tackle opps/game (29 pass completions)
• NEW ORLEANS (vs Cincinnati) – Bengals generating 55 tackle opps/game
• BALTIMORE (vs NY Giants) – Giants averaging 53 tackle opps/game (32 rush attempts)

In contrast, these matchups look LEAST FAVORABLE from a tackling perspective (with some notes if the matchup is particularly unfavorable for run vs pass):

• LOS ANGELES RAMS (vs Carolina) – Panthers generating 41 tackle opps/game (18 pass completions)
• WASHINGTON (vs Chicago) – Bears generating 44 tackle opps/game (10 pass completions)
• MINNESOTA (vs Miami) – Dolphins generating 45 tackle opps/game (21 rush attempts)
• NY GIANTS (vs Baltimore) – Ravens generating 46 tackle opps/game (19 pass completions)
• PHILADELPHIA (vs Dallas) – Cowboys generating 46 tackle opps/game (17 pass completions)

You may also want some help picking out matchups for pass rushers. These are some that look MOST FAVORABLE to me from a pass-rush perspective:

• WASHINGTON (vs Chicago) – pressure allowed on 27% of dropbacks (4 sacks/game)
• BALTIMORE (vs NY Giants) – pressure allowed on 24% of dropbacks (3 sacks/game)
• CHICAGO (vs Washington) – pressure allowed on 22% of dropbacks (4 sacks/game)
• JACKSONVILLE (vs Indianapolis) – pressure allowed on 21% of dropbacks (4.2 sacks/game)
• LOS ANGELES RAMS (vs Carolina) – pressure allowed on 17% of dropbacks (3.2 sacks/game)

On the flip side, here are some matchups that look LEAST FAVORABLE from a pass-rush perspective:

• SEATTLE (vs Arizona) – pressure allowed on 8% of dropbacks (1.8 sacks/game)
• PITTSBURGH (vs Tampa Bay) – pressure allowed on 9% of dropbacks (1.4 sacks/game)
• INDIANAPOLIS (vs Jacksonville) – pressure allowed on 10% of dropbacks (1.2 sacks/game)
• KANSAS CITY (vs Buffalo) – pressure allowed on 10% of dropbacks (1.8 sacks/game)
• DENVER (vs LA Chargers) – pressure allowed on 10% of dropbacks (1.0 sacks/game)

STAT CREW TAB

This tab offers a look at whether there is any home-field bias in how the stat crews award stats. For example, you can compare SVO and AVO for home team and away teams in each stadium to see if crews show any tendency to award more solos or more assists for either side.

For example, the Miami row shows that there have been 17 more solo tackles awarded to the home teams on average than the away teams so far this year. That is driven by an outlier game in week 3, however, when the Bills controlled the ball for nearly the entire game. If you look at the SVO numbers, you will see the home team was awarded a solo 83% of the time compared to 76% of the time for the road team so the numbers are more balanced when you control for the number of opportunities faced.

One trend that seems to stand out is in Atlanta where the home team has been awarded a solo tackle on 71% of opportunities while the road team has been awarded a solo tackle on 86% of opportunities. As you’d expect, the pattern is reversed for assists as the Falcons were given assists on 53% of tackle opportunities while their opponents were awarded an assist on just 29% of opportunities. The sample size here is just two games but provides some indication that the crew may be more likely to award two assists on a play for the home team and a single solo tackle to the road team.

STAT CREW GRADES

We’ve added another week of data to our grades here so we should start to see some patterns emerging. Most of the teams at the top have remained consistent from last year with the exception of Buffalo. They awarded 1.23 combined tackles per opportunity last year to rank 6^th in the league but this year they are at 1.15 and rank 30^th. Their solo numbers remain high (83% last year and 85% this year) but their assists have dramatically decreased from 40% in 2021 to 30% through their first two home games this year.

There are some crews at the top where you can likely expect more tackles to be awarded on average for each opportunity. These are stadiums which you may want to focus on with some of your IDP matchups as they will tend to inflate the number of IDPs who are involved in each play.

Home stadiums with MOST GENEROUS (tackle per opportunity) stat crews this week include:

• Pittsburgh (vs Tampa) – 1.32 tackles/opp
• NY Giants (vs Baltimore) – 1.30 tackles/opp
• Indianapolis (vs Jacksonville) – 1.27 tackles/opp
• LA Rams (vs Carolina) – 1.24 tackles/opp
• Green Bay (vs NY Jets) – 1.23 tackles/opp
• LA Chargers (vs Denver) – 1.23 tackles/opp

Home stadiums with LEAST GENEROUS (tackles per opportunity) stat crews this week include:

• Kansas City (vs Buffalo) – 1.15 tackles/opp
• Cleveland (vs New England) – 1.17 tackles/opp

Some leagues may place a premium on SOLO TACKLES and award more points for them than two assisted tackles. In that case, you’d want to focus on matchups played in stadiums that award a high percentage of solo tackles. This week that would include:

• LA Chargers (vs Denver) – 88% solos
• Seattle (vs Arizona) – 83% solos
• Miami (vs Minnesota) – 80% solos
• NY Giants (vs Baltimore) – 80% solos

In other cases, you may not want to differentiate between a solo or an assist and want to just focus on total tackles. Home crews this week that tend to award the highest percentage of ASSISTS per opportunity are:

• Pittsburgh (vs Tampa) – 64% assists
• Indianapolis (vs Jacksonville) – 52% assists
• New Orleans (vs Cincinnati) – 50% assists
• NY Giants (vs Baltimore) – 50% assists

Hopefully this helps give you some useful information for creating your lineups this week. Please reach out with any questions or feedback.

Email: rudnicki@footballguys.com
Twitter: @a_rudnicki