Reading the Defense is a weekly column that considers the effects of player deployment and schematic trends on individual defensive players’ fantasy value. While analytics take hold in NFL front offices and sidelines, data-driven decision-making also benefits fantasy gamers.

Reading the Tea Leaves

The preseason version of this column, Reading the New Defense offers analysis of how defensive scheme changes could affect players’ statistical output and fantasy values. Recent editions of Reading the Defense have provided players rising or falling in value as the season progresses.

The work of Reading the New Defense for 2025 can begin now, as three teams have fired their coaches and at least another seems certain to follow. Anticipating scheme-induced changes in value provides gamers with opportunities to strengthen their rosters now or over the winter. Unrestricted free agency and the NFL draft will wreak havoc on fantasy rosters next spring.

Dynasty gamers must focus roster construction on durable assets. Quality pass rushers usually find work regardless of front-office tumult and sideline turmoil. Pro Football Focus’s top two graded pass rushers are T.J. Watt and Myles Garrett – two fantasy cornerstones.

Some of the league’s lowest-graded linebackers are now in expanded roles like Jahlani Tavai, Kyzir White, and E.J. Speed who played rotationally for much of their careers. Their current utility to fantasy gamers belies their impermanence.

While a good pass rusher can often reach the quarterback regardless of scheme or team, a linebacker can be more severely influenced by situation. Two of 2023’s DE1s, Danielle Hunter and Andrew Van Ginkel, changed teams this year. Each has continued to produce.

Two of last year’s top three fantasy linebackers entered new situations in 2024. The immortal Bobby Wagner has hardly slowed down, but Foyesade Oluokun has been knocked clear off his perch as the perennial top linebacker in a new defensive scheme.

New York Jets

The Jets fired fourth-year head coach Robert Saleh in Week 6. His defense has been fertile ground for fantasy linebackers during his tenure. Defensive backs and defensive ends, however, have only occasionally delivered for fantasy gamers. Several of the Jets’ 2024 starters appear in last week’s edition with 2025 outlooks considered. Scheme and deployment are subject to change under a new defensive coordinator. Star defensive tackle Quinnen Williams will likely produce regardless of coach.

New Orleans Saints Linebackers

Week 9’s Reading the Defense explored Demario Davis’s short- and long-term outlook regarding role and playing time. The 35-year-old linebacker might not be in the plans of a rebuilding franchise. After many years of continuity, New Orleans fired Dennis Allen in Week 10. Allen took over head coaching duties in 2022 from Sean Payton’s voluntary departure. Allen served as Payton’s defensive coordinator for seven years.

Throughout his tenure in Dennis Allen’s defense in New Orleans, Davis’s tackle efficiency, measured in tackles per defensive snap, has been below the league average for off-ball linebackers. Before this season, Davis provided value to fantasy gamers through big plays. His success in coverage has contributed to the Saints’ man-heavy approach in pass coverage, which has spread tackle opportunities throughout the defense. With his back to the quarterback, Davis has been less likely to make tackles than a middle linebacker sitting down in the middle of frequent zone coverages. The result for fantasy gamers is that Davis’s season-high tackle total as a Saint is just 121. His rate of tackles per snap is perennially below the league’s average for the position.

A change in defensive scheme to more reliance on zone coverages with two high safeties – a regression to the league average – could benefit Pete Werner’s fantasy value. The franchise’s three-year $22.5 million investment in Werner suggests he will play a prominent role even for a new coach in 2025. Werner’s uninspiring 2024 statistics position him as a buy for dynasty gamers.

Pete Werner with the INTELLIGENT Play! ? pic.twitter.com/oCZUmYzOAg

— Saints Happy Hour Podcast (@SaintsHappyHour) October 27, 2024

Saints Defensive Ends

The same defensive scheme that supports lackluster tackle efficiency as the linebacker position spread the wealth to the Saints’ defensive ends in 2022 and 2023. Carl Granderson took over from Cameron Jordan as New Orleans’s DE1 last year. Granderson’s 78 tackles contributed to a breakout season. Granderson’s performance as a pass rusher indicates a good, not great defensive end. The defense’s lack of success in 2024 correlates with a lower number of big plays by Granderson, Davis, and company.

Granderson signed a big extension ahead of the 2023 season and is certainly a part of the franchise’s plans under new coaching in 2025. Granderson’s play makes him a useful but ancillary piece for fantasy dynasty rosters.

Carl Granderson and Darren Rizzi embrace on the sideline pic.twitter.com/R8LZjLaSfB

— Saints Film Room (@SaintsFilmRoom) September 22, 2024

Saints Cornerbacks

Frequent man coverage and run support at the corners have fueled tackle numbers for Saints’ cornerbacks in Dennis Allen’s defense. Paulson Adebo ranked first on Footballguys’ leaderboard of fantasy cornerbacks when he was hurt in Week 7. He, Alontae Taylor, and Marshon Lattimore have all provided fantasy utility in this decade.

Adebo’s rookie contract expires this winter, making him an unrestricted free agent. Taylor, while back, will find himself in a different defense. Lattimore has already been traded to Washington.

Taylor was the team’s primary slot cornerback before the trade of Lattimore. He’s played on the boundary since, his role in college, opposite Kool-Aid McKinstry. Taylor picked up Adebo’s mantle as a prolific tackler from the corner in New Orleans.

Gamers would be unwise to assume the fantasy success of either Adebo or Taylor will continue in new circumstances. Each has been a statistical outlier relative to the league-average cornerback due largely to deployment in the scheme. Neither carries the frame of a box safety.

Thanks for Reading!

The 2024 NFL season is two-thirds complete. As it matures, more franchises will conclude that their outlooks will improve under new leadership. This past offseason, half of the league changed defensive coordinators. One-third changed schemes. Reading the Defense will return next Friday with a review of players undergoing change in Chicago in the wake of Matt Eberflus's departure.

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.