Fantasy football individual defensive player (IDP) leagues aren’t for everyone, but if a new experience is in your 2022 wheelhouse (because, why not?), having a few sleepers and breakouts in your back pocket is a great place to start.
IDP leagues tend to work counterintuitively, especially in the secondary. Star defensive backs, like Jalen Ramsey or Darius Slay, often don’t get thrown at enough to rack up the necessary counting stats to comparatively shine in fantasy. Ramsey, for example, is arguably the best corner in the game and rates as a low-end No. 2 fantasy defensive back — playable, but hardly the superstar impact we see in real life.
Identifying players that will get picked on by offensive coordinators is a good place to start, and understanding matchups is imperative, particularly once we start setting lineups.
Linebackers are the engine powering an IDP lineup. Aside from a handful of linemen and safeties, few defensive players will score anywhere close to even midrange ‘backers. As a result, many leagues are moving away from the old-fashioned tackle-heavy scoring standard and implementing bonus points for sack specialists and ball hawks to more closely align the positions.
As with non-IDP leagues, knowing your scoring system is essential in recognizing which players to target. We will focus on the classic scoring design, unless otherwise noted.