Week 6 marks the completion point of one-third of the NFL season. Bye weeks and injuries are depleting fantasy rosters. Gamers are forced to turn from early picks due either to availability or performance.

Most fantasy gamers draft players they think will lead them to 4-0 starts. There can be no other explanation for gamers who select defensive backs before filling out their LB corps. Every fantasy roster should starkly differ from its original composition by December. Those gamers who navigate three months of injuries, bye weeks, and busts will make the fantasy playoffs.

“Start Your Stars.”

Most fantasy gamers start the first players they drafted at each position throughout September. This is a defensible approach based on evidence from Footballguy Adam Harstad about preseason expectations. Gamers should wait four weeks (on offensive players, at least), before concluding that a sleeper’s early-season performance merits starting him over an early pick that looks like a bust.

Through Week 5, 15 linebackers are averaging 13 or more fantasy points per game. Most of these 15 are playing full-time loads and should be recognized as LB1s for as long as they remain healthy. Gamers should monitor the workloads of Dorian Williams, E.J. Speed, and Troy Andersen but start them unless their circumstances change significantly.

Early picks Bobby Okereke, Patrick Queen, and Kyzir White are averaging fewer than 10 fantasy points per game. They remain full-time players and should not be dropped; however, fantasy gamers have likely already adjusted expectations downward. They’re not the stars they were in 2023.

IDP Platoons

Twenty-four linebackers are averaging 10 to 13 fantasy points per game through five weeks. Another ten, the last of which is Okereke, are scoring 9 to 10 points per game.

This four-point spread between the LB1s and linebackers who feel unstartable is surmountable. Seven teams have allowed more than four fantasy points per game, on average, to linebackers compared to the number of points per game that team's opposing linebackers have scored in their other games.

Footballguys’ Strength of Schedule Tool reports rest-of-season schedules for each team. The tool enables the user to sort teams by fantasy points allowed to opponents at each position. Higher numbers indicate positive matchups for players on teams in the ‘Y’ axis. For example, the figure of +6.5 under CLE for linebackers means that opposing linebackers have scored, on average, six-and-a-half more fantasy points per game against the Cleveland Browns than against the rest of their opponents.

Averaging just 8.2 fantasy points per game, Philadelphia’s Nakobe Dean feels unstartable. He plays Cleveland this week and is therefore a serviceable option in a plus matchup.

Hello Nakobe Dean ? pic.twitter.com/nptlz3zfkY

— Shane Haff (@ShaneHaffNFL) October 1, 2024

At the other end of the spectrum, Tampa Bay’s perennial struggle in the run game drives down production by opposing linebackers. New Orleans’s Demario Davis is unlikely to improve upon his 2024 average of 9.4 fantasy points per game this week. The Buccaneers are allowing 7.8 fewer fantasy points per game, on average, to linebackers compared to the number of points per game that team's opposing linebackers have scored in their other games.

The message and value of the tool is not that Demario Davis will be limited to 1.6 fantasy points or that Nakobe Dean will necessarily be an LB1 on the week. The tool will help gamers identify linebackers who should outperform their weekly averages. The gamer platooning Davis, Dean, Okereke, Queen, and Kyzir White will find weekly options that keep his fantasy linebacker corps competitive each week.

All five of these linebackers will continue to play full-time. They will post big weeks in good situations. To date, they have combined for 2.5 sacks and 3 turnovers in 23 games. Last year, Okereke and Queen exceeded those totals by themselves, and Davis posted 6.5 sacks alone. Their time is coming this season, just not at the heights of past years’ numbers.

Thanks for Reading!

Reading the Defense drops each Friday. This column seeks to identify not only whom to target or fade but 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.