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Buccaneers DT
Warren Sapp
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Everyone knows it’s defenses that win championships in the NFL. It’s an
unwritten rule that has been around for decades. And that begs a question:
If winning in the NFL is all about defense, then why should it be any different in
fantasy football?
If you have any guts, you’ll go up to the rest of the fantasy owners in your
league and say, "Sure, you know how to pick ’em when it comes to offense, but
how about a real challenge: picking defenders?"
They will either laugh in your face or accept the challenge. If they do the latter, it
might behoove you to read this.
The Pro Football Weekly scoring system for individual defensive players really
isn’t complicated, and of course, you can vary your league’s rules to your
liking. Here’s how our basic system breaks down:
- Five tackles: one point. This means the player’s total tackles, including solo
tackles and assists. For every five tackles, the player gets a point, so once he racks up
10 tackles, the player will have earned two points, and so forth.
- Sack: one point. A half-sack counts for half a point.
- Interception: two points.
- Forced fumble: one point.
- Fumble recovery: one point.
Keep in mind that defensive stats, especially sacks, are very prone to change from the
original box scores, and sometimes those changes are difficult to track down. Also,
tackles aren’t official stats; they often are redone by teams throughout the year, so
different sources will give different totals.
We suggest that you pick one source at the beginning of the season — such as the
original box score, which we run for every game — and stick with that source
throughout the season.
Ranking defensive players based on fantasy production is a tough proposition because
predicting defensive stats is more difficult than predicting offensive stats. Hence,
picking defenders is much more of a crapshoot. But if you look at each player’s
history and determine how much action they’ll see this season, you can make an
educated guess as to who will reap the fantasy rewards.
We’ll start on the defensive line, where Buccaneers DT Warren Sapp edges out
Dolphins DE Jason Taylor for the top spot. Sapp registered more sacks (16½) than Taylor
(14½) last season, and despite Taylor’s one TD return, we believe Sapp has a little
more big-play ability. Also, Taylor could be hurt by the loss of fellow bookend Trace
Armstrong, who helped give the Dolphins a phenomenal 1-2 pass-rushing punch.
Saints DT La’Roi Glover rounds out the top three. He led the league in sacks last
year with 17. Glover is able to make big plays in part because of his linemate, Norman
Hand, whose help allowed Glover to have a career year. The question is, will Glover be
able to play at that level again this season?
At the top of the LB list is Steelers Pro Bowl LB Jason Gildon, who was a one-man
wrecking crew last year, racking up 13½ sacks and scoring a touchdown, despite
registering just 89 tackles. The fact that he is a pass-rushing OLB gives him a bit more
value than some of the other ’backers on the list. Gildon should benefit this year
from improvements in the middle of Pittsburgh’s front-seven, freeing him up even
further to make plays.
The next two players have shown the potential to make the big play and find the ball.
The LB list is full of players who rank very high in the league in tackles, which should
make linebackers highly coveted in fantasy leagues.
Buccaneers LB Derrick Brooks and Bills LB Sam Cowart are two examples of players with
high tackle totals and not high scoring totals. Brooks had just one sack and one
interception, but he made the one interception count, returning it 34 yards for a score.
Aside from the touchdown, Brooks’ best fantasy quality is that he racked up 179
tackles in 2000.
Cowart found his way into the backfield more often, registering 5½ sacks, and he
picked off two passes. Cowart registered 181 tackles in 2000. While Cowart and Brooks
didn’t produce much on paper in the way of touchdowns, the fact that they are almost
always around the ball gives them an enormous amount of scoring potential.
At defensive back, things get a little tricky. Take Deion Sanders in his prime for
instance. He was such a good defensive back and had earned so much respect from opponents
that quarterbacks often looked away from him. Hence, his interception totals slipped a bit
because he wasn’t getting as many chances. Therefore, he didn’t make a very good
fantasy player. A similar fate could be in store for several of the players on our draft
board.
As things stand, we give the nod to Titans CB Samari Rolle as the top fantasy defensive
back. He plays on arguably the top defense in the league (the Titans were ranked No. 1 in
the league in total defense), and he came into his own last season, when in Week Nine he
picked off two passes and returned one 81 yards for a touchdown to close out the first
half.
While Redskins CB Champ Bailey and Raiders CB Charles Woodson have not been dominant
scorers, they’ve picked off many passes between them, and we think it’s only a
matter of time before they start finding the endzone.
For our draft board ranking individual defensive players, see Page 47 of the current
print edition of Pro Football Weekly, with a cover date of August 2001, now on sale at
bookstores and newsstands across the country. The issue contains a 28-page fantasy
football pullout section, with a story on the teams who could have a new starting
quarterback this season, the pluses and minuses of the top three fantasy QBs, a
basic-scoring draft board, each editor's ranking of the top 25 fantasy players, an article
on where the drop-off points exist at each fantasy position, a look at teams where hotly
contested battles for starting spots make it difficult for fantasy owners to know whom to
draft, a yardage-league mock draft, likely fantasy breakout players in 2001 and potential
comeback players this season |
