IDP Matchups and Stat Trends - Week 07

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):

• NEW ORLEANS (vs Arizona) – Cardinals generating 57 tackle opps/game (28 pass completions)
• TENNESSEE (vs Indianapolis) – Colts generating 56 tackle opps/game (28 pass completions)
• BALTIMORE (vs Cleveland) – Browns generating 55 tackle opps/game (33 rush attempts)
• SEATTLE (vs L.A. Chargers) – Chargers generating 53 tackle opps/game (28 pass completions)
• ATLANTA (vs Cincinnati) – Bengals averaging 53 tackle opps/game
• JACKSONVILLE (vs NY Giants – Giants averaging 53 tackle opps/game (31 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):

• TAMPA BAY (vs Carolina) – Panthers generating 40 tackle opps/game
• CLEVELAND (vs Baltimore) – Ravens generating 45 tackle opps/game
• DETROIT (vs Dallas) – Cowboys generating 46 tackle opps/game (17 pass completions)
• LAS VEGAS (vs Houston) – Texans generating 46 tackle opps/game (22 rush attempts)
• INDIANAPOLIS (vs Tennessee) – Titans generating 46 tackle opps/game (17 pass completions)
• NEW ENGLAND (vs Chicago) – Bears generating 46 tackle opps/game (11 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:

• NEW ENGLAND (vs Chicago) – pressure allowed on 30% of dropbacks (3.8 sacks/game)
• JACKSONVILLE (vs NY Giants) – pressure allowed on 23% of dropbacks (3.2 sacks/game)
• INDIANAPOLIS (vs Tennessee) – pressure allowed on 22% of dropbacks (2.4 sacks/game)
• PITTSBURGH (vs Miami) – pressure allowed on 21% of dropbacks (2.5 sacks/game)
• GREEN BAY (vs Washington) – pressure allowed on 21% of dropbacks (2.5 sacks/game)
• NY JETS (vs Denver) – pressure allowed on 19% of dropbacks (3.3 sacks/game)

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

• CAROLINA (vs Tampa Bay) – pressure allowed on 9% of dropbacks (1.5 sacks/game)
• CHICAGO (vs New England) – pressure allowed on 10% of dropbacks (1.8 sacks/game)
• NY GIANTS (vs Jacksonville) – pressure allowed on 10% of dropbacks (1.7 sacks/game)
• CLEVELAND (vs Baltimore) – pressure allowed on 10% of dropbacks (1.7 sacks/game)
• SEATTLE (vs LA Chargers) – pressure allowed on 11% of dropbacks (1.2 sacks/game)
• DALLAS (vs Detroit) – pressure allowed on 14% of dropbacks (1.4 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 Detroit row shows that there have been 10 more solo tackles awarded to the home teams on average than the away teams so far this year. That is driven by some unbalanced games as Detroit’s defense has a lot of difficulty getting off the field. If you look at the SVO numbers, however, you will also see the home team was awarded a solo 83% of the time compared to 72% of the time for the road team. That seems to indicate Lions players are more likely to be credited with a solo tackle than their opponent.

STAT CREW GRADES

We’ve added another week of data to our grades here so we should start to see some patterns emerging. In week 6, the Rams crew had the highest TVO of any game this year with a value of 1.348. They handed out 67 solo tackles and 53 assists for 120 combined tackles on just 89 tackle opportunities.

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:

• Denver (vs NY Jets) – 1.30 tackles/opp
• Tennessee (vs Indianapolis) – 1.24 tackles/opp
• LA Chargers (vs Seattle) – 1.23 tackles/opp

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

• Arizona (vs New Orleans) – 1.15 tackles/opp
• San Francisco (vs Kansas City) – 1.15 tackles/opp
• Baltimore (vs Cleveland) – 1.15 tackles/opp
• Washington (vs Green Bay) – 1.16 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 Seattle) – 88% solos
• Jacksonville (vs NY Giants) – 87% solos
• Tennessee (vs Indianapolis) – 84% solos
• New England (vs Chicago) – 83% 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:

• Denver (vs NY Jets) – 54% assists
• Carolina (vs Tampa Bay) – 51% assists
• Las Vegas (vs Houston) – 47% 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