Doug's Pro Bowl DFs
Previously: QBs | RBs | WRs | Ks
Defense. Ah, defense. I've had a love and hate relationship with defense in FLOF. FLOF has had IDP since it started. Very proud of that. I've had some decent defenses in the past. But I got away from defense until about mid-last year. Now I'm back on board.
The key to understanding defense for me is tackles. The problem with player stats on the web site is that it calculates bonus points on an individual level because its hard to do it any other way. However, bonus tackle points are not terribly hard to come by and can change a player's score by a couple points pretty easily. So, when I looked at DF and DB player scores I did not use the scores listed on the web site, I used a modified score to take into account the probability that actual bonus points were gained for tackles.
Technical details: over the past 2 years the median number of tackles collected by a single DF is 6 and by a single DB is 5. So for every DF I assume that his teammates have collected 16 tackles already in this game (2 DBs and 1 DF). So I effectively reset the threshold for bonus tackle points from 22 to 6. If the DF got 7 tackles I give him a full point for that 7th one. This can drastically change some player's scores but I think its more representative of their true value.
DFs
1st Team: Paul Posluszny (NY), Vontaze Burfict (Dyn)
2nd Team: Navorro Bowman (Mal), Daryl Smith (Bro)
Posluszny was a beast this year and really in a category all his own. His median score was 12.5! The median for all DFs was 7. Anything 12+ is a top 6th score. He also only had 1 game in the bottom 3rd compared to his 10 in the top 3rd and he did this over 13 games.
Burfict was even better than Posluszny in many ways. Burfict did not have a single score lower than 9.5. His median score was 12. But he did it in 5 games. That's right on the cusp of what I normally consider too small of a sample to work with. But his scores were so good I gave him a pass.
Bowman and Smith just a huge field of excellent DFs for 2nd team honors. Bowman's median score was 10.8, he had only 1 bottom 3rd score against 8 top 3rd scores in 12 games and he averaged 3.1 points over median. Daryl Smith's median score was 9.8, he averaged 2.9 points over median, and he had only 1 bottom 3rd score over 10 games against 7 top 3rd scores.
Lance Briggs, Kiko Alonso, James Laurinaitis, Lavonte David, DeAndre Levy, and Sean Lee all put in great season but I had the make choices. Shout out to Karlos Dansby as well who finally got in a game in week 14 and put up 22 points by my scale.
All told 19 DFs provided positive value to their teams this year. But 23 provided negative value including 15 who played 6+ games this year.
The worst offender was Charles Johnson who played 10 games with a median score of 2.5. His per game value over median was -3.9. Burfict's VOM was +7.1. Even if we use Posliszny's VOM of 4, the spread here is 7.9. (quick reminder: QB: 20, WR: 10.2, RB: 9.5, K: 3.8).
So, next year pay attention to your defense.
Tomorrow: DBs.
Defense. Ah, defense. I've had a love and hate relationship with defense in FLOF. FLOF has had IDP since it started. Very proud of that. I've had some decent defenses in the past. But I got away from defense until about mid-last year. Now I'm back on board.
The key to understanding defense for me is tackles. The problem with player stats on the web site is that it calculates bonus points on an individual level because its hard to do it any other way. However, bonus tackle points are not terribly hard to come by and can change a player's score by a couple points pretty easily. So, when I looked at DF and DB player scores I did not use the scores listed on the web site, I used a modified score to take into account the probability that actual bonus points were gained for tackles.
Technical details: over the past 2 years the median number of tackles collected by a single DF is 6 and by a single DB is 5. So for every DF I assume that his teammates have collected 16 tackles already in this game (2 DBs and 1 DF). So I effectively reset the threshold for bonus tackle points from 22 to 6. If the DF got 7 tackles I give him a full point for that 7th one. This can drastically change some player's scores but I think its more representative of their true value.
DFs
1st Team: Paul Posluszny (NY), Vontaze Burfict (Dyn)
2nd Team: Navorro Bowman (Mal), Daryl Smith (Bro)
Posluszny was a beast this year and really in a category all his own. His median score was 12.5! The median for all DFs was 7. Anything 12+ is a top 6th score. He also only had 1 game in the bottom 3rd compared to his 10 in the top 3rd and he did this over 13 games.
Burfict was even better than Posluszny in many ways. Burfict did not have a single score lower than 9.5. His median score was 12. But he did it in 5 games. That's right on the cusp of what I normally consider too small of a sample to work with. But his scores were so good I gave him a pass.
Bowman and Smith just a huge field of excellent DFs for 2nd team honors. Bowman's median score was 10.8, he had only 1 bottom 3rd score against 8 top 3rd scores in 12 games and he averaged 3.1 points over median. Daryl Smith's median score was 9.8, he averaged 2.9 points over median, and he had only 1 bottom 3rd score over 10 games against 7 top 3rd scores.
Lance Briggs, Kiko Alonso, James Laurinaitis, Lavonte David, DeAndre Levy, and Sean Lee all put in great season but I had the make choices. Shout out to Karlos Dansby as well who finally got in a game in week 14 and put up 22 points by my scale.
All told 19 DFs provided positive value to their teams this year. But 23 provided negative value including 15 who played 6+ games this year.
The worst offender was Charles Johnson who played 10 games with a median score of 2.5. His per game value over median was -3.9. Burfict's VOM was +7.1. Even if we use Posliszny's VOM of 4, the spread here is 7.9. (quick reminder: QB: 20, WR: 10.2, RB: 9.5, K: 3.8).
So, next year pay attention to your defense.
Tomorrow: DBs.
3 Comments:
Don't see how you left off David here.
1st: David, Posluszny
2nd: Lee, Smith
David had an excellent season: 6 top 3rd games, 1 bottom 3rd game in 11 tries. His value over median was 4 pts per game. His median games was 9.5 pts. Those are all great numbers.
None of them are better then Posluszny or Burficts in my opinion. Unless you dock Burfict for games played. But I think you could make a strong case for him as a second teamer.
Lee also had a good year (lots of DFs did). I mainly docked him for a sub-9 pt median score (8.8) because so many DFs had a 9+ median score.
I think the difference between a lot of the top DFs was split hairs at most.
I almost put Burflict in place of Smith. But your right, it was a good year for DFs and other than Posluszny, no one was a slam-dunk over the other.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home