The year is 2009; the aroma of cheap cigarettes and even cheaper beer hangs thick in the room. A semi-buzzed thought percolated through the smoke and formed into a fully-fledged idea… replacing the team defense/special teams (DST) in my fantasy football league with individual defensive players (IDP).
No longer would the fickle nature of DST scoring hold sway over my fantasy football league. IDP scoring rewards talent instead of weekly matchups.
My buddy Jason and I weren’t the first fantasy football managers to seek out this specific challenge. Allow me to be your Sherpa along the winding paths of the history of IDP.
The IDP format shares its inception with the creation of fantasy football in 1962 by Bill Winkenbach (the first fantasy draft was for the 1963 season).
Winkenbach was a part-owner of the Oakland Raiders at the time. He is the O.G. of fantasy sports and a man to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude.
The inaugural fantasy football league was called the Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League. Each manager in that league had to draft two defensive backs or linebackers and two defensive ends.
Points for offensive and defensive players were ONLY awarded for touchdowns and field goals.
The only two ways an IDP had a chance at fantasy points were fumble recoveries and interceptions. The leading IDP scorer in 1963 was Richard “Dick” Lynch, CB, New York Giants.
He returned three interceptions for TDs that year gaining his fantasy manager a whopping 18 points!
Fast forward from the original 12 fantasy managers in 1963 to an estimated 500,000 in 1988, to an estimated 46.3 million in 2017!
It’s safe to say there are many innovative people who have taken IDP scoring and added their blend of herbs and spices.
The evolution of official defensive statistics has substantially increased IDP personalization. Interceptions in 1940, fumble recoveries in 1945, sacks in 1982, forced fumbles and passes defended in 1999, and tackles (really?!) in 2001.
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Follow me here… the more ways for a player to score, the more value he has in your lineup. IDPs became more and more relevant as the NFL legitimized the way they earn their money.
Quick aside: According to an article by PFF, tackles were consistently but unofficially kept by each team between 1994 and 2001. They became official in 2001 and thus became the lifeblood for evaluating and drafting IDPs. Tackles are typically steady from game to game for players; whereas all other production is projectable but fluctuates game to game.
Other fantasy sports hosting platforms may have slightly different scoring settings but they equal the fact that IDP is for the savvy, committed manager.
A dominant defensive performance can genuinely influence the outcome of the entire matchup. Take for instance Fred Warner, LB, San Francisco 49ers, and his dominant performance from Week 16. Eight solo tackles, six tackle assists, three passes defended, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery. That equals 18 fantasy points! The RB2 on the season, Dalvin Cook, scored 17.2 PPR points in Week 16.
The next step on our IDP journey is taking a look at some historical performances. I’ll be using Yahoo! default scoring for these.
Embed from Getty ImagesLawrence racked up a sack, an interception, a forced fumble, and a TD against the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day 1982.
What better way to begin this list than with the greatest defensive player that ever lived? (Don’t @ me Ed Reed truthers). Thanksgiving Day, 1982: The game Lawrence Taylor beat the Detroit Lions all by himself. Oh yeah… he didn’t play until the end of the second quarter. He had a scintillating 97-yard pick-six to clinch the game for the Giants.
Tackles were not an official stat yet, so his fantasy point total is not as gaudy as some on this list. He accounted for all 13 of New York’s points while contributing 13 fantasy points to what I can only assume were ecstatic fantasy managers.
Santa Claus isn’t the only giant man in red with sacks full of gifts (fantasy points) for everyone. Eight years after LT’s domination the late, great, Hall of Fame Derrick Thomas (LB, Kansas City Chiefs) set the NFL single-game sack record with seven sacks against the Seattle Seahawks in Week 10 of the 1990 season.
The total tackle numbers aren’t available for Thomas, but he had at least seven tackles, seven sacks, and one forced fumble bringing an early Christmas present of 23 fantasy points to his teams. Starting an NFL record holder at LB for your team has to be a warm, fuzzy feeling that buzzes in the best of ways.
Embed from Getty ImagesSix tackles, 2.5 sacks, and two forced fumbles = Super Bowl MVP
Von Miller turned in the most dominant defensive Super Bowl performance I have ever witnessed. Six tackles, 2.5 sacks, and two forced fumbles earned him the Super Bowl MVP. He became just the fourth defensive player to win the coveted award since the turn of the century.
Fantasy football is finished at that point, but it was incredible to watch and an apex in a stellar career.
Stuffing the stat sheet is just something a Hall of Fame-caliber IDP does. James Harrison did this in SPADES in 2007 against the arch-rival Baltimore Ravens. Nine tackles, 3.5 sacks, two forced fumbles, one fumble recovery, one interception, and one pass defended. Goodness, gracious!
He was an unstoppable force against movable objects. That was a week-winning performance netting his fantasy managers 26 points. That gym rat mentality and work ethic paid off throughout his entire career.
The last spot on this “list” isn’t for a single-game, but an entire career. A career cut way too short by injury. Luke Kuechly was a cornerstone for IDP leagues over the better part of the last decade. Never dipping below 102 combined tackles on a season.
His ceiling wasn’t Derrick Thomas, seven sack dominance, but he made up for that by having a higher floor than any other IDP in the league.
I could list dozens of more IDPs worthy of inclusion in an article like this. Players who helped pave the way for the facet of the game so many of us degenerates know and love. Brian Urlacher, Ray Lewis, Reggie White, Deacon Jones, Ronnie Lott, and the list goes on and on.
Thank you to the originators of fantasy football for including IDPs in the first fantasy football league. They did it the right way from day one.
Defense may win championships, but IDP makes championships worth winning.
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