IDP The Guru and the Godfather: Week 5

John Norton ("The Guru") and Gary Davenport ("The Godfather of IDP") are two of the most experienced and knowledgeable IDP analysts in the fantasy football industry. Every week during the 2024 season here at Footballguys, The Guru and the Godfather will come together to answer five of that week's most pressing questions.

One month in, the 2024 IDP campaign is taking shape—or is it? It’s a tricky time of year, where the margin for error can be slim. One player’s outstanding September is another’s nothing after that. Slow starts urn around—or don’t.

That’s why the smart play is often to take each week as it comes—a season unto itself. Win in Week 5—and then worry about Week 6. As they usually are, The Guru and The Godfather are focused on the here and now.

After a little mea culpa.

That’s Latin for, “oops.”

No One's Perfect

The first four weeks of the 2024 NFL season have been one surprise after another, and it has absolutely extended to fantasy football—there is no shortage of early IDP stars we didn’t see coming and maddeningly slow starts from players we were convinced were set to explode. It’s still early, but what IDP do you feel you overvalued (and undervalued) the most?

Guru: When Patrick Queen signed with the Steelers, I thought for certain they would finally have a linebacker who would play every snap and, at the least, be someone we are comfortable starting every week. At least I was half right since Queen has been on the field for every defensive snap. When it comes to the production part, the joke is on me. Not only has he fallen short of an every-week must-start, but the guy is barely inside the Top 60 at the position and is closer to being waiver fodder than a starter. If it were not for the approaching bye-week apocalypse, he wouldn’t be worth a roster spot.

I was high on Nick Cross of the Indianapolis Colts when he was a rookie. That didn’t work out very well, so I was not all that optimistic when he was named the starting free safety on a defense where the free safety had not been productive in recent memory. As it turns out, the scheme has been tweaked and Cross is not liming up deep on every play. Not only has he been a great play week in and week out, but he is also currently the highest-scoring safety.

Godfather: Really? The first question of the week, and you literally stole both guys I was gonna mention? What the hell, man?

Bobby Okereke of the New York Giants hasn’t disappointed on the same level as Queen, but he ranks outside the top 30 linebackers for the season—and I have no idea why. It’s not like we haven’t seen him produce in this defense—he logged 149 total tackles and finished as the LB8 in fantasy points. Maybe it’s just a slow start, but watching him get out-pointed by Micah McFadden on a weekly basis has been—frustrating.

Since The Guru established a theme for the surprise stars of September, who had Quentin Lake of the Los Angeles Rams pegged as a top-10 safety entering this season? No one—that’s who. Lake had 10 or more tackles in his first three games of the season, and then when that streak broke, he compensated with a sack last week in Chicago.

Guys like Cross and Lake are the reason why you should never pay retail for defensive backs, kids.

Into the Trenches

Enough with the past. It’s done. On to the future—and the defensive line. Which DL is fixing to wreck a game in Week 5, and which one is set to pull a David Copperfield and make his stats disappear?

The Broncos defense has been one of the big surprises of the season thus far. They are playing lights out football including a pass rush that is second only to the Vikings in sacks with 16. Add that to a matchup with the Raiders, who have given up 14, and you have a formula for a monster game from edge rusher Jonathon Cooper.

Danielle Hunter entered the season with huge expectations. He had a big game in week two but has otherwise been very quiet. I’m a believer in him for the long haul and expect a big rebound down the road but I’m not counting on it starting this week. Josh Allen is one of the toughest quarterback to sack, thus the Bills have allowed just five on the season and only one of those was recorded by an edge defender.

Godfather: I just can’t with you this week. Add Cooper to the list. Stop reading my mind, you creep!

Rashan Gary of the Green Bay Packers has been a significant disappointment for fantasy managers this season—just nine total tackles and a single sack in four games this year. But sometimes edge rushers just need some patience, and this week that patience will be rewarded—the Los Angeles Rams have been decimated by injuries on the offensive line, and the team has surrendered the sixth-most fantasy points to defensive ends in 2024.

Norton’s Hunter call is spot-on and applies to batterymate Will Anderson Jr. as well. But there are actually three quarterbacks in the NFL who have been sacked less than Josh Allen, and one of them is Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens. Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson has never been a big tackle producer—he relies on sacks for most of his IDP production. With it unlikely he’ll get one in Week 5, he’s a risky DL2 play.