IDP Fantasy Football Primer for 2022

Jul 15, 2022

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You’ve been on the fence about joining an IDP league, and are considering trying it out in 2022.

You’ve seen IDP bantered about and have seen the acronym. No, it doesn’t mean Incredibly Diabolical Possums. So, just what is IDP? It’s individual defensive players. Instead of drafting the Los Angeles Rams defense, you can draft Aaron Donald and he accrues points like the other positions in fantasy - except you're scoring tackles, sacks, interceptions, and forced fumbles (among other stats).

As someone who's played IDP fantasy football for a while, like enjoying a PB&J sandwich for lunch, it's good to get back to basics.

Different scoring systems and lineup structures play an important part in lineup construction and play a major part in your draft strategy. Tim Duncan is the "The Big Fundamental" and it's important to get back to those fundamentals. Whether this is your 500th IDP league or your first, getting back to the fundamentals will help keep your IDP game sharp.

Know Your Scoring

This is as basic as you can get and even I'm guilty of looking past scoring rules. We preach this for drafting offensive players and I'm doing the same for IDP. You value positional players differently in a PPR and half-PPR, it's the same with different IDP scoring formats.

IDP is still in its infancy, even though it’s starting to gain in popularity. Scoring still hasn’t reached a standard, so you’re going to see terms like “Big Play”, “Balanced”, and “Tackle Heavy” mentioned as scoring formats. The first stop in your fantasy manager should be the scoring rules or setup.

So, what do the scoring systems mean?

Big/Splash Play Scoring

In this scoring format, the emphasis is on the big/splash plays. So, you're targeting the sack and interception leaders. Because you're focusing on the big plays, you're prone to volatile weeks where your guys could get you 20 pts one week and three pts the next. Here's an example of what a big-play scoring league might look like:

Big Play Scoring Example
Sacks	8pts (4pts for a half-sack)
QB Hits	2pts
Interceptions	5pts
Fumble Recoveries	4pts
Forced Fumbles	4pts
Defended Pass	2pts
Solo Tackle	1pt
Assisted Tackle	0.5pts

This scoring keeps the tackle compilers at bay and devalues them, somewhat. In this format, your sack monsters are valuable, so you may want to target Myles Garrett and TJ Watt a little earlier than normal. In this format, I want to land at least one edge rusher who can get 12+ sacks, as those guys will dry up quickly.