Fantasy Football: IDP Cheat Sheet, rankings and tips

Fantasy Football leagues, in their standard setup, will see its players selecting a Team Defense whose points will be based on how many points are allowed during a game and how many big plays it generates, such as interceptions, fumbles or touchdowns. This method is used in most fantasy leagues, but it comes with the downside of their weekly opponent being more important than the defense itself, after all, if they face a bad offense, they’ll allow fewer points in real life, and consequently score more fantasy points.

A great way to fix this problem is playing in leagues with Individual Defensive Players, popularly known as IDP. It gives you a whole new challenge in playing fantasy football, as you have to know lots of stuff to make this possible. It’s not only about picking the defensive stars of the game, but just like you have different scoring options for offense (PPR, non-PPR, etc), there are different ways to play with IDPs, such as tackle-heavy or sack-heavy. The level of difficulty grows much higher.

If you aren’t used to playing IDP leagues, you’ll need to acclimate to a completely new way of drafting. If you pick the best IDP available, his impact probably will not be as useful as most of your offensive players, depending on your league’s settings.

Most IDP leagues don’t have the need for a full defensive team setup, so you’ll find yourself picking only four or five defensive players over the course of the draft. Their point system isn’t fluid as the offensive players, so don’t worry about spending a high pick on an IDP – you can find plenty of useful players week in and week out throughout the waiver wire.

Check out our IDP positional rankings, plus some tips on where to start picking IDPs.

Linebackers:

  1. Darius Leonard
  2. Bobby Wagner
  3. Roquan Smith
  4. Cory Littleton
  5. Zach Cunningham
  6. Blake Martinez
  7. Tremaine Edmunds
  8. Micah Kiser
  9. Eric Kendricks
  10. Devin Bush

In most of the IDP leagues, the linebackers will be the heavy-hitters because of their number of tackles over the course of a season, but there’s much more they can do, from interceptions to sacks to forced fumbles to passes defended.

They play at a vital part of the field for fantasy points and it’s the IDP position you should pay attention to the most, but you can find value pretty much everywhere, so don’t sweat if you miss on guys like Leonard, Wagner or Smith.

Defensive lineman:

  1. Myles Garrett
  2. T. J. Watt
  3. Aaron Donald
  4. Danielle Hunter
  5. Joey Bosa
  6. Nick Bosa
  7. DeForest Buckner
  8. Brian Burns
  9. Chase Young
  10. Haason Reddick

Sacks are an incredibly valuable part as well, so you see only two interior defensive linemen in this top 10 because, well, both Donald and Buckner are a different specimen from the prototype iDL. Superstars like Garrett, Watt and the Bosa Brothers show up on this list because of their incredible pass rush repertoire and quality. Other young players like Burns and Young are on the verge of a breakout and they may be worth a late-round flier when you don’t have much more to do.

Defensive backs:

  1. Jamal Adams
  2. Landon Collins
  3. Jordan Poyer
  4. Derwin James
  5. Marlon Humphrey
  6. Jeremy Chinn
  7. Budda Baker
  8. Tyrann Mathieu
  9. Jessie Bates
  10. Malcolm Jenkins

It’s not a surprise that most of these defensive backs are safeties. That is because, if you are a great cornerback, you will not have the opportunity to make a ton of plays because the ball simply will not be thrown your way, no matter how great you are. Players like Jalen Ramsey and Stephon Gilmore are not good options for an IDP draft.

When should I start drafting IDPs?

Considering the way that fantasy football scoring works, there’s no reason for you to focus on defensive players until your whole offense is set up – including the backups. The thing is that, when an offense is game-planning against a great defender, they will do everything in their power to move the focus away from him. It’s kind of a weird setup: the better you are, the harder it gets for you to score points.

So you should set your entire starting offense first. And then a backup running back. And then a backup wide receiver. Even maybe a backup tight end or a backup quarterback. You should do everything in your power to strengthen your offense, and just then you should worry about your defensive players. The talent pool is deep and the point differential between them is really small.

Playing with IDPs is a new and interesting challenge, but in the end, you should still focus on your offense first if you want to become a champion.