Keeper league (w/IDPs) management: Travis Hunter

[Maximum Overkill 2,175]

1 hour ago, Ray_T said:

in IDP he could potentially be a goldmine.  Especially if he plays both positions

Will he get enough snaps on defense to be relevant? CBs aren't necessarily high ADP scorers, even the best ones. 

I see the value but I can't imagine he'll get enough snaps to be anything in an IDP. He's ranked 37th 

 2025 IDP Fantasy Football Rankings, IDP Cheat Sheets, IDP Draft / Draft Rankings | FantasyPros https://share.google/QwoWP6RxqFa91C5uw

 

[Ray_T 764]

22 minutes ago, Maximum Overkill said:

Will he get enough snaps on defense to be relevant? CBs aren't necessarily high ADP scorers, even the best ones. 

I see the value but I can't imagine he'll get enough snaps to be anything in an IDP. He's ranked 37th 

 2025 IDP Fantasy Football Rankings, IDP Cheat Sheets, IDP Draft / Draft Rankings | FantasyPros https://share.google/QwoWP6RxqFa91C5uw

 

no but if you can start him at CB and still get his offensive numbers, thats huge.

though it may be a case where the only offensive numbers he gets are the TD but thats still large enough.

I suppose it depends on the rules of your league too.

[Maximum Overkill 2,175]

1 minute ago, Ray_T said:

no but if you can start him at CB and still get his offensive numbers, thats huge.

though it may be a case where the only offensive numbers he gets are the TD but thats still large enough.

I suppose it depends on the rules of your league too.

Yup. I was in an ADP league last year and CBs rarely did anything points wise. I'm still shocked that Jacksonville wants to use him both ways. I don't see the benefit, especially if it's taking away from offensive snaps. 

[Ray_T 764]

49 minutes ago, Maximum Overkill said:

Yup. I was in an ADP league last year and CBs rarely did anything points wise. I'm still shocked that Jacksonville wants to use him both ways. I don't see the benefit, especially if it's taking away from offensive snaps. 

most leagues still give the player any TD they happen to score regardless of what role they are playing.      so CB's who get pick 6's tend to be nice draftable players.  in this case even if hes mediocre on offense but gets 6 TD on the year.    if starting him as a defender, all those plus any pick 6/fumble recoverys make him pretty valueable as a defender for fantasy.   I could see some fantasy leagues rewrite the scoring on defense because of this guy.   but we shall see.  he hasnt played a down of pro football yet.   so at this point it is still all speculation

[nobody 2,739]

On 7/24/2025 at 8:33 PM, WhiteWonder said:

Meh. There’s a fair amount of idp info out there. Main difference is people will jump at the big names without realizing that middle linebacker you’ve never heard of on the Raiders is going to be an easy weekly starter (Robert Spillane the past two seasons and hopefully again in New England ). In dynasty format I have a never ending supply of DB/flex options because I use my final round rookie pick on one, or add after the draft… Chinn, Winfield, Branch… Emmanwori this year. 

might add an element of fun but not really skill imho. They are all throwaway positions like DST and kicker once you realize it. Paying up for a Roquan Smith is pointless when an undrafted Spillane will be as good or better. I suppose you could argue it’s skill to know about unheralded or quite honestly average players who will be thrust into starting high tackle roles but you don’t really need skill to use Google. 

Here is what I mean when I say there isn't a lot of IDP info out there...

Nate Landman is clearly going to be the best Rams LB.  He's wearing the green dot, and he's going to play 90%+ of the defensive snaps.

ESPN doesn't have him ranked... But has Troy Reeder ranked.  Troy Reeder might not even make the 53.

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/football/story/_/page/FFPreseasonRank25IDP/2025-fantasy-football-rankings-idp-defense-defensive-line-linebacker-defensive-back

Draft sharks has him 60th - behind rookie Pooh Paul Jr who is obviously not even first string.

https://www.draftsharks.com/rankings/lb

Dynasty nerds to their credit at least has him as LB46... way too low for 2025, but at least he's the highest ranked rams LB and they're dynasty focused so this ranking makes more sense since Landman isn't a long term starter.

https://www.dynastynerds.com/idp/idp-rankings-tiers/

Thank god for FFToday with the only reasonable ranking of Landman I can even find at mid-30s.

https://fftoday.com/rankings/playerproj.php?PosID=60

But then look at all the rankings... they're all over the place.  Obviously ESPN is in la la land with their rankings, so maybe we throw them out, but that takes some skill too right, to know their rankings are trash?  So after week 4, when Landman puts up top 20 LB numbers even though he has bad matchups week 1, 2 and 4 against offenses that won't be able to run thus limiting his tackle opps we'll be made to believe that no one could've seen this coming.  To me the skill of IDP comes in when you don't have spoon fed rankings like the traditional WR, RB, QB, etc that are crowdsourced and pretty decent.

I'm going to draft Landman super late.  I'm going to draft undervalued Jamien Sherwood kind of late-ish and I'm going to eke out a weekly 3-4 point advantage by doing it and it sure as sh¡t ain't because some fantasy analyst told me to because they sure as sh¡t ain't on top of it.

[WhiteWonder 2,836]

47 minutes ago, nobody said:

Here is what I mean when I say there isn't a lot of IDP info out there...

Nate Landman is clearly going to be the best Rams LB.  He's wearing the green dot, and he's going to play 90%+ of the defensive snaps.

ESPN doesn't have him ranked... But has Troy Reeder ranked.  Troy Reeder might not even make the 53.

https://www.espn.com/fantasy/football/story/_/page/FFPreseasonRank25IDP/2025-fantasy-football-rankings-idp-defense-defensive-line-linebacker-defensive-back

Draft sharks has him 60th - behind rookie Pooh Paul Jr who is obviously not even first string.

https://www.draftsharks.com/rankings/lb

Dynasty nerds to their credit at least has him as LB46... way too low for 2025, but at least he's the highest ranked rams LB and they're dynasty focused so this ranking makes more sense since Landman isn't a long term starter.

https://www.dynastynerds.com/idp/idp-rankings-tiers/

Thank god for FFToday with the only reasonable ranking of Landman I can even find at mid-30s.

https://fftoday.com/rankings/playerproj.php?PosID=60

But then look at all the rankings... they're all over the place.  Obviously ESPN is in la la land with their rankings, so maybe we throw them out, but that takes some skill too right, to know their rankings are trash?  So after week 4, when Landman puts up top 20 LB numbers even though he has bad matchups week 1, 2 and 4 against offenses that won't be able to run thus limiting his tackle opps we'll be made to believe that no one could've seen this coming.  To me the skill of IDP comes in when you don't have spoon fed rankings like the traditional WR, RB, QB, etc that are crowdsourced and pretty decent.

I'm going to draft Landman super late.  I'm going to draft undervalued Jamien Sherwood kind of late-ish and I'm going to eke out a weekly 3-4 point advantage by doing it and it sure as sh¡t ain't because some fantasy analyst told me to because they sure as sh¡t ain't on top of it.

And I can understand that what you are talking about is skill in the same way it was skill for bigger football diehards even in the early 2000s in respect to offensive players because we didn’t have the abundance of online resources, fantasy shows, YouTube channels, etc that we have today. Everyone at your draft didn’t have the same fantasy pros ADP in front of them.

You could argue that it used to reward those with more time. For me, as an early teenager, the NFL and fantasy football was my biggest hobby. Now there might actually be more real skill in identifying overvalued/undervalued players where as before you sometimes had an advantage just by knowing the names or not using an outdated street and smith magazine. It’s debatable 

as for IDP I can Google sleeper IDP picks, undervalued IDP players and come up with tons of names. Names I can’t even utilize because I’m not going to roster more than 2 bench LBs, 2 DBs and 1 DL. 
 

Sherwood is a top 10 ranked LB. Admittedly I don’t know much about Landman. I know he was a Falcon just from football knowledge and he did not come up in my 5 min of searching but a little more time I may have found something on him. Maybe I should have clarified that for IDP I didn’t just mean website rankings as much as I meant articles specifically about undervalued IDP plays since very mediocre defensive players can be IDP stars. 

[nobody 2,739]

49 minutes ago, WhiteWonder said:

And I can understand that what you are talking about is skill in the same way it was skill for bigger football diehards even in the early 2000s in respect to offensive players because we didn’t have the abundance of online resources, fantasy shows, YouTube channels, etc that we have today. Everyone at your draft didn’t have the same fantasy pros ADP in front of them.

You could argue that it used to reward those with more time. For me, as an early teenager, the NFL and fantasy football was my biggest hobby. Now there might actually be more real skill in identifying overvalued/undervalued players where as before you sometimes had an advantage just by knowing the names or not using an outdated street and smith magazine. It’s debatable 

as for IDP I can Google sleeper IDP picks, undervalued IDP players and come up with tons of names. Names I can’t even utilize because I’m not going to roster more than 2 bench LBs, 2 DBs and 1 DL. 
 

Sherwood is a top 10 ranked LB. Admittedly I don’t know much about Landman. I know he was a Falcon just from football knowledge and he did not come up in my 5 min of searching but a little more time I may have found something on him. Maybe I should have clarified that for IDP I didn’t just mean website rankings as much as I meant articles specifically about undervalued IDP plays since very mediocre defensive players can be IDP stars. 

You're right that Sherwood should be a top 10 linebacker.  Except most places don't have him ranked that high.  We're still in the dark ages of IDP.

[WhiteWonder 2,836]

3 minutes ago, nobody said:

You're right that Sherwood should be a top 10 linebacker.  Except most places don't have him ranked that high.  We're still in the dark ages of IDP.

Fantasy Pros #7,  ESPN #15, DraftSharks #15, Nerds #13 overall, FantasyData #5.    You know your league obviously but he should be a highly drafted LB, even by players who don't follow defense and will be rankings drafting. 

[nobody 2,739]

Fftoday #16 or whatever it is.  Again... To my point, you kind of have to already know where he should be ranked to even know what a good ranking is.  Skill.

I promise you that if even took 90% of the fantasy players here, they would have no clue because the data isn't all packaged and digestible

[WhiteWonder 2,836]

47 minutes ago, nobody said:

Fftoday #16 or whatever it is.  Again... To my point, you kind of have to already know where he should be ranked to even know what a good ranking is.  Skill.

I promise you that if even took 90% of the fantasy players here, they would have no clue because the data isn't all packaged and digestible

I'm not arguing as much as I just love FF discussion but I disagree as far as the example of Sherwood. There are enough places with him properly ranked, including all the major sites that casual drafters would be utilizing that you won't have much of an advantage with players like that. You may personally think he should be LB #5 or whatever but you're going to have to draft him higher than any IDP should even be drafted if you want him. 

IDP is filled with so much variance, so many mediocre NFL players, so dependent on simply playing inside backer or SS for any team, especially one whose defense will see the field a lot, that it only makes sense to draft them all at the very end or at least very very late. Assuming a 12 team league where you have to or can start 2 LB, You are not getting Sherwood at any sort of discount that involves skill.  I can see your case with someone like Landman but I can very easily google and find info on Cody Barton, Jack Sanborn, Akeem Davis-Gaither, etc. 

If you think other people in your league are just going to go off rankings and not do minimal research on "sleeper" IDPs, then you can gain an edge... really the edge is more about you picking depth offensive players or lottery ticket offensive players while they are over drafting the bigger name defenders. 

[nobody 2,739]

I disagree that enough sites have it.  The first sites people are going to are espn and yahoo.  And those espn rankings are downright shameful (I didn't bother looking at yahoos since even their standard fantasy rankings are garbage).  They should've just linked to a statement that said, "we fired anyone that was qualified to make these rankings."

[nobody 2,739]

1 hour ago, WhiteWonder said:

I can see your case with someone like Landman but I can very easily google and find info on Cody Barton, Jack Sanborn, Akeem Davis-Gaither, etc. 

And that's what I'm saying.  The extent of work the average FF player does is to show up with a ranking sheet.  

There's no watching games.  There's no critical thinking about how cam ward has been favoring targets to Ridley or how marvin harrison Jr was slow and couldn't separate and his solution was to add more weight to make himself even slower.  And they sure as hell don't ask themselves who might be a 3 down LB for the rams.  Heck, the guys at espn who are paid to do that clearly don't do that.  

[WhiteWonder 2,836]

13 minutes ago, nobody said:

I disagree that enough sites have it.  The first sites people are going to are espn and yahoo.  And those espn rankings are downright shameful (I didn't bother looking at yahoos since even their standard fantasy rankings are garbage).  They should've just said have just linked to a statement that said, "we fired anyone that was qualified to make these rankings."

i listed 5 sites that have him ranked #15 or better including ESPN and FantasyPros which I would argue is used most by people who are a few steps above casual.  As for ESPN not having better rankings (they still have Sherwood ranked #15 which means you aint getting him if you're smart or your league is all dumb), we agree that IDP is still a niche and big companies like that don't have much incentive to put out content in regards to it. Their bread and butter $$$ maker is typical fantasy football catering to newbies and sheep.  It's not just ESPN... ever watch NFL networks FF shows? I used to watch them sometimes just for entertainment. Cynthia Frelund  , at least a few years ago. But they put out waiver segments full of players who should be rostered in most competent leagues. They use availability % in NFL.com public leagues which we all know are full of absentee owners who just wanted to draft. 

 

Without quoting your second post, if you are playing in a league full of average FF players, maybe you need a more competitive league? My main league certainly has different levels of football obsession but no owners who are just showing up with a fresh printed ranking sheet. Maybe in a work league. Otherwise, i'd like to have some fun and challenge. 

[nobody 2,739]

52 minutes ago, WhiteWonder said:

Without quoting your second post, if you are playing in a league full of average FF players, maybe you need a more competitive league? My main league certainly has different levels of football obsession but no owners who are just showing up with a fresh printed ranking sheet. Maybe in a work league. Otherwise, i'd like to have some fun and challenge. 

weepaws fancies himself an FF expert and confessed that he never watches games and shows up to drafts with three ranking sheets.  He continually admits that he can't think critically and apply nuance to a situation with his "always draft a qb and te after X round."  If a newb is a freshman, then a guy like weepaws is maybe a junior and isn't that much better than a guy that doesn't watch games and shows up to a draft with rankings.  He just has more practice doing it.  I think what I call an average player includes the types like weepaws that think they're good because they have a lot of practice and the ones that just pick the the guys they heard of at the top of the draft list.

It's like poker.  And coaching.  And like really anything in life.  If you do something enough or are exposed to something enough, you can kind of mimic competence and maybe even consider yourself good.  Heck others might consider you good, but you don't really know the "why" you're doing what you're doing.  you're just mimicking what trial and error or observation taught you work without understanding why it worked.

So in traditional formats, most experienced players fall into that category.  They have enough practice to know what it kind of should look like.  In the IDP format, it's clear that most people don't even know what good looks like.  Yes, the variance and player-to-player deltas aren't extreme, but this ain't like kickers.  We can predict who will score more than whom.  And exploiting those 1, 2, 3 point edges is the whole point.  Punting on the whole concept and saying it's unknowable is weepaws sh¡t.

We post at FFToday all through the offseason and contribute to the advancement of the hobby.  We ain't Mike McCarthy and Matt Eberflus and Jeff Fisher and probably Shane Steichen that mimic what they saw some elite coaches did.  We are the elite.  We think critically.  We exploit edges.  We don't punt on something because it's not obvious.