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 one more seems certain to follow. Anticipating scheme-induced changes in value provides gamers 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 and success regardless of front-office tumult and sideline turmoil. Pro Football Focus’s top three graded pass rushers are Aidan Hutchinson, T.J. Watt, and Myles Garrett – three fantasy cornerstones. Two of 2023’s DE1s, Danielle Hunter and Andrew Van Ginkel, changed teams this year. Each has continued to produce.

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.

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 Week 12'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

After many years of continuity, New Orleans fired Dennis Allen in Week 10. Previously the defensive coordinator, Allen took over head coaching duties in 2022 after Sean Payton’s voluntary departure.

Allen’s defense suppressed tackle efficiency at linebacker. A change might allow Pete Werner to prove more useful to fantasy gamers in 2025.

Defensive ends and cornerbacks seemed to take on the tackle opportunities denied to linebackers in Allen’s man coverages. Next summer, inexperienced drafters are likely to chase previous seasons’ points in the person of Paulson Adebo.

Chicago Bears Safeties

The Bears fired head coach Matt Eberflus the day after Thanksgiving in the middle of Week 13. He cycled through coordinators on both sides of the ball. Game management in Detroit seemed to finish Eberflus.

Eberflus coordinated the Colts’ defense prior to his arrival in Chicago. The Bears’ defense maintained Ebeflus’s imprint throughout his tenure. The unit leans on nickel subpackages and frequent zone coverages with occasional light boxes that necessitate gap control along the defensive line. Its pass rush keys on interior disruption from the undertackle, a role into which Gervon Dexter Sr has grown as a sophomore.

Chicago’s 2024 defense differed incrementally from the 2023 version by utilizing fewer two-high-safety coverages. Playing deep neutralized Jaquan Brisker’s fantasy efficacy in stretches of the 2023 season. Kevin Byard III’s arrival freed Brisker to roam closer to the line of scrimmage in 2024. Unfortunately, Brisker's season was cut short in Week 5 by a concussion from which he has been unable to recover.

Byard has recorded 50 combined tackles and a quarterback sack in the past 5 games. He played at least 21 snaps in the box each week in that time. According to Pro Football Focus, he had not played more than 20 snaps in the box before his recent tear. He has risen to 6th on the Footballguys leaderboard for fantasy safeties.

Chicago has a favorable schedule for fantasy safeties with dates against the 49ers this week and the Seahawks in Week 17. In dynasty formats, he is a risky acquisition for a contender because his 2025 role is unlikely to be as productive after this season.

Can’t pound the table enough how solid do a signing Kevin Byard III was for this team.

Instant leader of this defense. Wish we had him for the last few years. pic.twitter.com/QtOisqIAlc

— Just Another Year Chicago: Bears (@JAYChi_Bears) November 18, 2024

Brisker enters the final season of his rookie deal in 2025; however, Kevin Byard III’s final contract year offers the 31-year-old little job security in Chicago next season. The franchise can save $7 million by cutting him. Byard has had a good season and would be an asset to a new coordinator, but the franchise might choose to reallocate resources in support of their up-and-down quarterback Caleb Williams going into Year 2.

Few safeties can effectively play centerfield in the current NFL. A downgrade from Byard at free safety would spell trouble for strong safety Jaquan Brisker’s value in 2025. We will know more in March and must wish Brisker well with his long-term neurological health.

Fantasy gamers should rarely trade for safeties, but Brisker’s health could make him available as a throw-in by a contender looking for immediate help. Gamers might forget that Brisker ranked third among safeties on the Footballguys leaderboard through five weeks.

jaquan brisker just forced a three and out by himself.

he’s the real deal. pic.twitter.com/m14lXnauiu

— Dave (@dave_bfr) August 13, 2022

Bears Linebackers

Frequent two-high shells fueled a second consecutive LB1 season for T.J. Edwards in 2023. He collected 314 tackles across two seasons first in Philadelphia, then Chicago. With just 93 through 12 games, Edwards is posting 85 percent of his previous seasons’ totals. The margin helps drop him outside the top 20 linebackers on the Footballguys leaderboard.

The former undrafted free agent Edwards emerged in Philadelphia and took command of the Eagles’ defense in 2022. He parlayed his success into a 3-year $19.5 million deal. The contract’s final year has him on the roster for $7 million or off of it for $1.5 million. The numbers make for an interesting decision by the front office in March 2025.

This is excellent vision technique and route recognition by TJ Edwards. Reads the drop understanding what will come from a 3-step drop, tracks the QB’s eyes, makes a play on the ball on a 3rd down. He had a really good season and isn’t getting enough love for the impact he made. pic.twitter.com/bf2lsN2pP2

— Honest NFL (@TheHonestNFL) July 26, 2022

His running mate’s exorbitant contract might jeopardize Edwards’s future in Chicago. Tremaine Edmunds is in the middle of a 4-year $72 million deal that poses a $13 million dead cap number on the Bears should they decide to move on. The potential $4 million in savings wouldn’t fund an adequate replacement.

Unlike Edwards, Edmunds has been a fantasy disappointment throughout his seven-year career. The former first-round pick of the Bills has a career-high of just 121 combined tackles in a season. He’s been unable to capitalize on tackle opportunities underneath frequent two-high shells in either Buffalo or Chicago. Edmunds is still just 26 years old and might have a surprise season in him, but his track record doesn’t justify a fantasy football valuation as anything more than an LB3 for dynasty gamers.

Check out Rasheed Walker of the Packers taking Tremaine Edmunds of the Bears on a little day trip. pic.twitter.com/SjYL24eUJb

— Doug Farrar ? (@NFL_DougFarrar) June 10, 2024

Edwards, meanwhile, has more upside and downside in his fantasy outlook. The right scheme could propel him back to LB1 heights. As a cap casualty, he could find himself competing for snaps as another NFL team’s second linebacker in a 3/4-time role.

Edwards’s lack of name recognition might make him available at LB3 prices as well. His juicy Week-15 match-up with Minnesota makes the 28-year-old a worthwhile gamble for a contender.

Thanks for Reading!

As the 2024 NFL season winds down, more franchises will conclude that their outlooks will improve under new leadership. This past offseason, half of the league changed defensive coordinators. A third changed schemes. Reading the Defense will return next Friday with a review of players undergoing change as their employers look ahead to 2025.

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.