After fantasy football's regular season has concluded in most leagues, the holiday season offers the opportunity to reflect on player results to date and implications for line-ups. Reading the Defense will review defensive tackles this week, followed by edge defenders, linebackers, and defensive backs to close out the column for 2023.
Overview
Fantasy football rarely breaks as expected. The top tier of edge defenders could not have come much closer. Footballguy Aaron Rudnicki's top tier, largely a consensus quintet, are all currently atop Pro Football Focus's report card for pass-rush grade. T.J. Watt, Maxx Crosby, Myles Garrett, Micah Parsons, and Nick Bosa all rank within the top 17 scorers of fantasy points at their position through Week 15.
The balance of the Footballguys' leaderboard includes as many surprises as ever. Four of the top 24 edge rushers by fantasy points entered training camp without starting roles locked down on their own teams. Talented players, meanwhile, are buried down the list. Carolina's Brian Burns is setting a new career-high pass-rush win rate (23%), but it's largely for naught on a defense that is almost always playing uphill. Unfortunately for fantasy gamers who drafted Burns as a low-end DE1, talent does not always translate into production, even among pass rushers.
Volume
Playing time continues to drive fantasy output for all positions, but it matters least among edge defenders versus other defensive positions. Only Maxx Crosby has played more snaps than Michael Hoecht and Byron Young. However, the Rams' starting duo rank just 24th and 25th on the Footballguys' leaderboard.
Volume is the most important but not the only component of opportunity. Khalil Mack has played the tenth-most snaps among edge defenders while ranking second in fantasy points through 15 weeks. He collected a quarter of his fantasy points at the expense of Aidan O'Connell in Week 4. In his first career start, the rookie quarterback allowed Mack 6 sacks.
Danielle Hunter is no stranger to fantasy leaderboards. He is on pace for career-high volume and has already set new bests in total quarterback sacks and combined tackles. According to Pro Football Focus, he has played the fourth-most snaps and rushed the passer more times than everyone but Maxx Crosby.
Hunter does not appear among league leaders in PFF's pass-rush grade or ESPN's pass-rush win rate. In his blog Trench Warfare, Brandon Thorn reports that Hunter has collected four coverage sacks and one clean-up sack to buttress his total among league leaders. His sack total includes running a tight end out of bounds (0:19 mark in the following clip). Hunter's high volume and his unit's surprising improvement in pass defense have vaulted Hunter over Garrett, Parsons, and Bosa, all of whom trail Hunter by at least 100 snaps.
Danielle Hunter 2023 NFL DPOY Candidate - Week 15 All-22 Highlights Minnesota Vikings at Cincinnati
— @NFLStudy (@NFLStudy) December 18, 2023
Hunter had 5 total tackles, 2 sacks, 2 TFL, and 2 QB hits in week 15.
#fantasyfootball #football #highlights #Cousins #Jefferson #Injury #Mullens #Chandler #LSU #jamaica #Skol pic.twitter.com/FyJwMwUDRO
The Vikings signed Marcus Davenport as an unrestricted free agent to start opposite Hunter. The former Saint has only played two games wire to wire, presenting an opportunity for former mid-round picks on a thin depth chart.
Minnesota's D.J. Wonnum is completing his fourth NFL season. PFF has graded his pass rush nearly identically in each of the four. Wonnum is twelfth in snaps by edge defenders, an opportunity he has parlayed into 56 combined tackles and 8.0 sacks. The situation and opportunity translate Wonnum's mediocre performance into 15th place on the Footballguys leaderboard through 15 weeks.
Tackles
Maxx Crosby is on his way to leading all NFL edge defenders in snaps and tackles for the second consecutive season. He entered the league as a traits-based pass-rush prospect and mid-round pick and has evolved into an elite player versus the run and the pass. Commensurately, he stands fourth among all fantasy edge defenders.
John Jenkins (yellow) knocks his block back & drives the center into the RB. Maxx Crosby (red) sets the edge with a quick club/swim. Run play goes nowhere! #stoptherun #raiders pic.twitter.com/ug4luM8JEv
— DLineVids (@dlinevids1) October 2, 2023
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Eleven of the top thirteen edge defenders on the Footballguys' leaderboard have recorded 9.5 or more quarterback sacks. Only four more have a double-digit total, including Parsons and Bosa. Bosa's wide alignment and upfield mission in the 49ers' defense have long kept his tackle numbers down. Parsons is well off his 2022 pace.
Carl Granderson and Jonathon Cooper have each cleared 40 solo tackles and stand among fantasy DE1s despite single-digit sack totals. Granderson emerged from a camp battle with former first-rounder Payton Turner as not just Cameron Jordan's bookend but also the Saints' leader in all statistical categories among defensive linemen.
Like the Saints' defensive ends, Denver's Cooper is vital to his team's run defense. The strong-side outside linebacker in Vance Joseph's defense has collected tackles at a high rate of one per every eleven snaps. Cooper has been 50% more efficient as a tackler than Denver's other regular edge defenders in 2023 and more than twice as efficient as Philadelphia's Haason Reddick in tackles per snap.
Sacks
Two of 2022's top ten NFL draft picks have each played 809 snaps. One boasts a PFF pass-rush grade of 90.1 on a 10-4 team. The other has graded 65.2 as a pass rusher on a 5-9 team. The preseason draft decision between Aidan Hutchinson and Kayvon Thibodeaux has seemingly rewarded the fortunate over the astute. Thibodeaux ranks 13th among fantasy edge defenders with 11.5 sacks, while Hutchinson lags at a disappointing 22nd with only 6.5 sacks.
Sacks often but not always follow performance. An edge defender must beat his man (or a double team) within 2.5 seconds (a pass-rush “win), reach the quarterback before the offensive play develops such that the passer is affected (a “pressure”), and bring down the quarterback before he releases the pass to record a sack. Ten edge defenders rank among the top-20 graded pass rushers at the position by Pro Football Focus as well as the top 20 edge rushers in pass-rush win rate reported by ESPN. Five of them – Parsons, Watt, Garrett, Crosby, and accomplished sack artist Trey Hendrickson – are among the 15 players with 10 or more sacks in the 2023 season to date. Also in this elite cohort, Bradley Chubb has silenced critics this season with 9.5 sacks through 14 games.
Entering Week 16, @_TJWatt leads the @NFL with 16 sacks, closing in on his 3rd season as the league leader (2020 & 2021).
— Troy Vincent, Sr. (@TroyVincentSr) December 22, 2023
He could become the first player to lead in sacks in 3 seasons since sacks were first tracked in 1982.#OnWisconsin pic.twitter.com/JrymKk3AGo
The 2022 breakout, Alex Highsmith, has fallen into a fate similar to that of Aidan Hutchinson. His play has improved, according to analytics, but sacks have been elusive despite him playing opposite Watt.
Like Highsmith, Bryce Huff ranks among the top 20 edge rushers in PFF grade and pass-rush win rate. Huff has played just over half as much as Highsmith. The Jets' undersized situational pass rusher has more value to an NFL team than a fantasy team.
The remaining two unnamed players on both analytic leaderboards might be more surprising than Bryce Huff. The Ravens are scraping free agents off the street to play ahead of Odafe Oweh. The third-year Penn State alum continues to develop as a pass rusher but must show coordinator Mike McDonald more in run defense to earn a larger role. The street free agents and breakout defensive tackle Justin Madubuike have all been more fortunate in reaching the quarterback.
Oweh's classmate Malcolm Koonce was thought by some observers to be on the roster bubble last summer. Koonce was pressed into service as a starter when Chandler Jones suddenly left the team. His trial by fire is beginning to pay off. According to Pro Football Reference, 13 of his 16 quarterback pressures and all 4 of his sacks have come since Week 8. His place among the top-20 pass rushers in both PFF grade and pass-rush win rate is remarkable and simultaneously unnoticed by most fantasy gamers.
In Conclusion
The top tier of edge defenders supports the early selection of elite players in summer fantasy drafts. Four of them were NFL first-round picks that developed quickly. The fifth, Crosby, offers evidence of an alternative solution to the position. In fantasy leagues with sufficient roster size, players who have flashed can be collected in hopes that they develop consistency. Malcolm Koonce and Samson Ebukam (14th on the Footballguys' leaderboard with 9.5 sacks and a 20% pass-rush win rate) might demonstrate that fantasy gamers and NFL teams alike are too impatient with pass rushers' development.
Reading the Defense drops each Friday. This column seeks to identify whom to target or fade and why. Analysis at Footballguys aims to equip fantasy gamers with the confidence to acquire players for their rosters and deploy them on Sundays. Readers are welcome to contact and follow this writer @DynastyTripp on the website formerly known as Twitter.