Reading the Defense is a weekly column that contemplates the effects of coaching tendencies and schematic trends on individual defensive players’ fantasy value. 2024 is the third season in the second generation of the column. Revered IDP mind Jene Bramel wrote Reading the Defense for eleven years on this site. This writer aims to continue Dr. Bramel’s tradition of analyzing team context to inform IDP potential.

This, the second generation of Reading the Defense, has grown as defensive schemes showing two high safeties proliferate. Linebacker snaps, the decline of which was long a concern of Bramel’s, stabilized with nickel subpackages. IDP fantasy football began to embrace grouping pass rushers together rather than fuss over labels like ‘4-3’ and ‘3-4.’

The game of IDP fantasy football has matured to infuse data into decision-making. While NFL coaches have stopped punting on fourth-and-one from midfield, IDP gamers have begun considering player deployment’s influence over statistical output. A safety who lines up close to the line of scrimmage is more likely to make a tackle. A linebacker in man coverage versus a running back on a wheel route is less likely to make a tackle because his back is to the passer.

#FFIDP - Most efficient coverage schemes for LB tackling in 2023:

Cover-2: 16.1%
Cover-6: 15.6%
Cover-3: 14.7%
Cover-4: 14.6%

AVERAGE LB TKL RATE: 13.4%

Cover-1: 10.2%
Cover-0: 9.0%
2-Man: 7.9%

Reminder: Zone-heavy defenses are a cheat code for IDP while man-heavy ones hurt… https://t.co/8DELTJojhx

— Jon Macri (@PFF_Macri)

May 9, 2024

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The top three linebackers on the Footballguys leaderboard all keyed defenses that played zone coverage more than 79 percent of the time, according to FantasyPoints.com. Foyesade Oluokun’s Jaguars, Zaire Franklin’s Colts, and Bobby Wagner’s Seahawks ranked among the top four in use of zone coverages in 2023.

While Franklin returns to the same team and coaching staff in 2024, Oluokun has a new coordinator, and Wagner has moved from Washington state to Washington, D.C. Ryan Nielsen, the new Jaguars coordinator, and first-year Commanders’ head coach Dan Quinn ran zone coverages at below-average rates in their 2023 locales.

After three seasons atop fantasy leaderboards, Oluokun is the consensus top IDP target for 2024. Gamers should know the tailwinds behind his tackle production are likely to shift. As expected, Nielsen’s Jaguars played man coverage at an above-average rate in August. A zone-heavy defense in Jacksonville would be a significant departure from Nielsen’s 2023 play-calling in Atlanta as well as his preseason implementation.

The NFL's coverage usage from the '24 preseason.
-- pic.twitter.com/FaHCJBgXat

— Cody Alexander (@The_Coach_A) August 27, 2024

Bobby Wagner joins Frankie Luvu in the middle of the Commanders’ defense. Both players were drafted among the top 16 at their position, on average, in dozens of IDP-only best-ball drafts held by The IDP Show this summer. No Dallas linebacker finished better than 47th in fantasy points per game during Dan Quinn’s three-year tenure.

Quinn deployed dime personnel (six defensive backs, typically with one linebacker) 21.1 percent of the time in 2023, more than twice the league average. To be fair, the 2021-2023 Cowboys didn’t make the investments in the position that the Commanders did last spring. Luvu might still need to take a significant number of snaps on the edge to maintain a fantasy-relevant role. No one played more Cover-1, the most common man coverage, than the Cowboys last year.

While some fantasy gamers are oblivious to coaching tendencies, others insist they won’t evolve from year to year or coordinators won’t fit their approaches to their personnel. If that were true, Dan Quinn wouldn’t be Washington’s head coach. Atlanta would have been his last job.

The Bills played more dime in 2023 than in 2022 because Matt Milano got hurt. Milano is hurt again, out until December. Drafters and Footballguys rankers alike expect his replacement, Dorian Williams, to occupy the part-time role that Tyrel Dodson played last year rather than take Milano’s full complement of snaps.

Dodson, meanwhile, has moved to Seattle. He will relay signals for Mike Macdonald’s defense. The career reserve has little experience wearing the green dot and will play alongside veteran Jerome Baker. The Seahawks signed both Dodson and Baker in unrestricted free agency this spring. Baker has barely practiced with the team due to injury. Based on Macdonald’s offseason impression of Baker, his lack of availability might have cost him the green dot.

Footballguy Gary Davenport tracks the wearer of the green dot for each team. The responsibility of relaying defensive signals from the sideline to ten teammates is no guarantee that the wearer will play full-time. It is, however, another indicator of the player’s value to the team in addition to athletic performance. Value typically equates to volume. A high snap count is the top consideration of prospective fantasy value. Efficiency, such as that yielded in zone coverages, is subordinate to volume.

Our rankers are no more enthusiastic for Dodson’s 2024 prospects in Seattle than they are for Williams’s in Buffalo. Macdonald fielded two full-time linebackers in Baltimore last year; however, the Seahawks have invested a fraction of what the Commanders have in their linebackers. The Ravens’ Roquan Smith represents the biggest investment at the position this decade. Dodson owns the 38th most lucrative contract by average annual value, according to OvertheCap.com. The one-year, incentive-laden $4.26 million contract suggests Seattle’s front office needs to see it to believe it.

Week 1 Storylines to Watch

Seahawks vs. Broncos

The volume and the quality of Tyrel Dodson’s play must be monitored. Any observations from coaches or beat writers about on-field communication would add context important to projecting fantasy value for the season going forward. Dodson could prove one of the summer’s best draft values.

Jaguars at Dolphins

In Ryan Nielsen’s last two stops, one linebacker has played downhill more than the other, leading to better tackle efficiency. Nate Landman of the 2023 Falcons and Pete Werner of the 2022 Saints each made tackles on about 13.5 percent of their snaps. Kaden Elliss’s tackle rate was 11.2 percent last year. Demario Davis failed to crack 10 percent in 2022.

Last year, Foyesade Oluokun posted lower (more fantasy-friendly) numbers than running mate Devin Lloyd in average depth of tackle in run defense (per Pro Football Focus) and defensive average depth of target (per Pro Football Reference). Oluokun, who played just six snaps in August, has posted tackle rates above 15 percent for three straight seasons. He’ll likely need the shallower role in Nielsen’s defense to clear 150 tackles for the fourth straight season.

At the opposite end of the fantasy value spectrum, a Jacksonville safety is a free square for gamers. Darnell Savage is the leading candidate, but he played all 20 of his preseason snaps at nickel. Watch for Savage as a safety in base and the primary nickel in subpackages. Antonio Johnson, the draftnik darling who fell to the fifth round last year, is the sleeper here if Savage doesn’t play full-time.

Commanders at Buccaneers

Bobby Wagner, Frankie Luvu, and strong safety Jeremy Chinn are competing for a finite number of tackle opportunities in the middle of the field that simply can’t sustain the values their ADPs purport. Playing time will be important for all three players. Alignment will matter for Luvu and Chinn.

Fantasy gamers understandably chased upside in the person of Chinn in summer drafts. The safety/linebacker hybrid posted huge seasons for the Panthers under the regime that drafted him. More recently, he was a bit player in Ejiro Evero’s two-high shells. No safety has played full-time for Dan Quinn since 2021, but that player, Jayron Kearse, is perhaps the most comparable to Chinn in the league.

We need to see a large number of snaps close to the line of scrimmage from Chinn in Tampa to establish a weekly floor. Pass-rush attempts from both Chinn and Luvu will help set expectations for ceiling.

Vikings at Giants

First-year defensive coordinator Brian Flores used man coverage at the fourth-lowest rate in the league last year. Press man coverage, along with blitzing, had been his calling cards as Miami’s head coach.

More balance between man and zone coverage is expected in Minnesota this year. The Vikings didn’t show it in August, but they signed Stephon Gilmore just before the third preseason game.

Flores’s linebackers were never of much use to fantasy gamers in Miami. (His safeties were.) Journeyman Jordan Hicks emerged as one of 2023’s best draft values in IDP fantasy football, finishing as the 15th linebacker in fantasy points per game.

Gamers drafted Minnesota’s starting duo of Blake Cashman and Ivan Pace Jr as LB3s, according to The IDP Show’s ADP data. More man coverage in Minnesota might mean they were going at their ceilings.

Rams at Lions

The trade of Ernest Jones IV from L.A. to Tennessee was the biggest IDP news of the preseason. Jones was a fantasy LB1 last year and the only Ram to play even half of the team’s snaps. Christian Rozeboom and Troy Reeder split the team’s LB2 role last year and appear set as the starters in the Rams’ 3-4 defense. Rozeboom played with the ones alongside Jones in practice this summer. Reeder was the “regulated” linebacker – the proverbial two-down role – when Jones was sidelined by injury. Reeder has experience relaying signals for the Rams, the longest of which came down the stretch in 2020. Complicating matters, undrafted rookie Omar Speights and his stellar preseason appear to have made Jones expendable.

Rams coaches explain that the green dot is yet to be assigned. More accurately, why would they tell us?! We might not learn who relays signals and whether he plays full-time until the game unfolds in Detroit on national television Sunday night.

Bills vs. Cardinals

Linebacker Dorian Williams is just one Buffalo defender to watch. Sean McDermott has lulled fantasy gamers to sleep on his pass rushers with deep player rotations. Last year, three Buffalo defensive ends finished between 46th and 50th in fantasy points at their position.

Two of those three ends were on expiring contracts. Buffalo brought A.J. Epenesa back on a new deal but let Leonard Floyd walk. Javon Solomon, a fifth-round rookie, now occupies Floyd’s roster spot. Epenesa and Solomon join former first-round pick Gregory Rousseau, 35-year-old Von Miller, and free agent Dawuane Smoot in the Bills 2024 defensive end room. Smoot takes Shaq Lawson’s place.

Rousseau led the group with 585 snaps (60%) in 16 games last year. Floyd’s 577 snaps (54%) will be spread throughout the room. Week-1 snap counts could presage whether Rousseau takes another step forward in his career.

In 2023, the playing time of defensive tackle Ed Oliver, another former first-round pick by the Bills, jumped from 60 percent to 72 percent. Oliver enjoyed his first fantasy DT1 season in his fifth year as a pro.

49ers vs. Jets

San Francisco utilized man coverage at a curiously high rate in preseason games and rarely used the two-high coverages that propelled them to two Super Bowls in the past five seasons. New defensive coordinator Nick Sorensen is the team’s fourth in this decade and the third in three seasons. Offseason expectations include a return to basics and acknowledgment that zone coverage use might have peaked in San Francisco in 2023.

Fred Warner completed a fantasy LB1 season in 2023, thanks partly to big plays. He must keep those coming to offset the loss of tackle opportunities. As Jon Macri notes in the tweet above, linebackers’ tackle efficiency drops off dramatically in man coverage.

Talanoa Hufanga could statistically benefit from a migration away from MOFO structures. His opening-day role is uncertain as he works his way back from a November ACL injury. Week 2’s edition of Reading the Defense will cover schematic developments affecting defensive backs’ fantasy values.

The Eagles traded Haason Reddick to the Jets last spring. Demanding a new contract, Reddick has yet to practice with the team. Will Reddick play? If he does, how much?

A positive #Jets - Haason Reddick update?

Rich Cimini of ESPN told @Willpa11 that there are people in the building ‘who are clinging to some hope’ that Reddick comes in on Monday or Tuesday + still a ‘glimmer’ of hope. ??

Cimini explained that the #NFL is a deadline business… pic.twitter.com/ZiZK4u99cU

— Paul Andrew Esden Jr (@BoyGreen25) September 1, 2024

Reddick has played at least 74 percent of his defense’s snaps since he switched from inside to outside linebacker in 2020. No Jets edge rusher has played more than 66 percent of the unit’s snaps during head coach Robert Saleh’s tenure. That player, Jermaine Johnson, is the only top-24 fantasy edge defender that Saleh has fielded.

Bills vs. Cardinals

Linebacker Dorian Williams is just one Buffalo defender to watch. Sean McDermott has lulled fantasy gamers to sleep on his pass rushers with deep player rotations. Last year, three Buffalo defensive ends finished between 46th and 50th in fantasy points at their position.

Two of those three ends were on expiring contracts. Buffalo brought A.J. Epenesa back on a new deal but let Leonard Floyd walk. Javon Solomon, a fifth-round rookie, now occupies Floyd’s roster spot. Epenesa and Solomon join former first-round pick Gregory Rousseau, 35-year-old Von Miller, and free agent Dawuane Smoot in the Bills 2024 defensive end room. Smoot takes Shaq Lawson’s place.

Rousseau led the group with 585 snaps (60%) in 16 games last year. Floyd’s 577 snaps (54%) will be spread throughout the room. Week-1 snap counts could presage whether Rousseau takes another step forward in his career.

In 2023, the playing time of defensive tackle Ed Oliver, another former first-round pick by the Bills, jumped from 60 percent to 72 percent. Oliver enjoyed his first fantasy DT1 season in his fifth year as a pro.

Eagles vs. Packers

Philadelphia needed reinforcements in coverage after last season’s swoon. First- and second-round draft picks Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean are expected to play the boundary and the slot, respectively. The selections convinced Avonte Maddox, the incumbent nickelback, to switch positions to safety.

DeJean, however, was hurt most of the summer. Mitchell should start in the slot. Isaiah Rodgers is listed as the starting outside cornerback, but he’s injured. Friday night’s primetime match-up could provide a top streaming candidate. Mitchell is a weekly CB1 for as long as he plays outside in base and slides inside in nickel subpackages.

Slot defenders collect more tackles in both phases of the game because they are closer to the ball at the snap. Coordinator Vic Fangio’s two-high shells will add responsibility to the nickelback in run defense.

https://x.com/TheSwoopScoops/status/1831732601108779295

#Eagles Nick Sirianni on Quinyon Mitchell:

“Control what you can control and get better each day and truly enjoy the journey”

“Q’s got a calm, confident demeanor about himself because he knows he’s prepared and put the work in and he knows he’s a heck of a talent. Excited about… pic.twitter.com/ck568xX9KV

— The Swoop Scoops (@TheSwoopScoops) September 5, 2024

Thanks for Reading!

Reading the Defense drops each Friday. Future editions will revisit these storylines and others like them. This column seeks to identify not only whom to target or fade but also 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.