IDP Analysis: Dennis the Menace

RISING

Khari Willis, S, IND

Injuries and modest pedigree might have prevented the realization from becoming widespread, but Willis is a DB1 in IDP leagues by now, and for the foreseeable future as well. Through 803 snaps this year Willis has produced 79 tackles (63 solo), one sack and two interceptions, making him a fine candidate for triple-digit tackles if he logs 1,000 snaps. He won't be able to get there in 2020 due to missing one game, but Willis looks like a breakout safety in 2021.

Brandon Jones, S, MIA

Few current backups offer as much obvious 2021 IDP upside as Jones, Miami's third-round pick out of Texas this year. According to Pro Football Focus, Jones produced 54 tackles on just 356 defensive snaps to this point – a borderline outrageous pace for a safety. None of this makes Jones a guarantee to play a three-down role in 2021, but if he does his upside should prove compelling in IDP leagues. As much as the floor is not assured in the meantime, Jordan Chinn's move to linebacker makes Jones the only realistic candidate to compete with Budda Baker for the DB1 title anytime soon.

 
Terez Hall, LB, NE

Hall is an extremely tentative 'riser' entry because he only sees reliable playing time when Ja'Whaun Bentley or/and Josh Uche do not, but Bentley left Week 15's game with an arm injury and we should note that Hall went nuts upon replacing him, generating 13 tackles on 64 snaps. Hall produced 10 tackles on 55 snaps against the Ravens in Week 10 as well, so this is something of a trend. If Hall needs to play more due to injury or whatever else, we have reason to think he'll post big tackle numbers.

 
Trey Hendrickson, DE, NO

This might seem like bizarre timing since Hendrickson suffered a stinger in Week 15, but his entry here is more so with the future in mind. Hendrickson broke out in a highly convincing way in 2020, generating 12.5 sacks on just 535 defensive snaps, and now he's an unrestricted free agent. With the Saints already invested in the likes of Cam Jordan, Marcus Davenport, Sheldon Rankins and David Onyemata, it seems like they'd be hard-pressed to keep Hendrickson around. The franchise tag is a risk, but dynasty league IDP players should consider Hendrickson's upside if he can earn a proper starting role, be it on the Saints another team. Talent like his merits 1,000 snaps per year, not this 600-snap sort of workload the Saints currently have for him.

Dennis Gardeck, LB, ARI

Like Hendrickson, Gardeck's inclusion here might be weird given the leg injury he suffered in Week 15. But also like Hendrickson, IDP investors might want to consider what Gardeck might be capable of with enhanced playing time. Gardeck really might be the next James Harrison – he saw no playing time in his first two years as an undrafted player out of Sioux Falls (???), then proved a pass-rushing demon when given defensive snaps in 2020. Gardeck has seven sacks on just 93 defensive snaps – absolutely comical.
 

FALLING

Jalyn Holmes, DE, MIN

Holmes was a fine enough prospect out of Ohio State when the Vikings selected him in the fourth round of the 2018 draft, but to this point it sure looks like he will not pan out. He has just 43 tackles and one sack on 750 career snaps – absolutely brutal. Danielle Hunter (neck) will hopefully be back in 2021, and if he is there will be no room for Holmes. DJ Wonnum and Ifeadi Odenigbo should both jump Holmes on the depth chart for good by then, too.

 
Brian Burns, DE, CAR 

Burns is a beast – he won't be 23 until late April yet already has 15.5 sacks on 1,204 snaps in the NFL – but he suffered an unspecified MCL injury against the Packers on Sunday and might find his season over as a result. Yetur Gross-Matos would probably need to pick up a lot of his snaps if so.

Derrick Brown, DT, CAR

Perhaps Brown will prove a useful pick for the Panthers, but so far it doesn't look like it. His two sacks from Sunday give him two all year, on 651 snaps. This is no Quinnen Williams case – Williams was more productive as a rookie than Brown, at a younger age, and his athletic testing is much better aside from that. This isn't even a Kenny Clark case. No, the Panthers will be lucky if Brown amounts to so much as a Daron Payne type, though even Payne had sub-5.0 speed to work with. On pace for roughly 37 tackles and two sacks as a 16-game starter, Brown might need to earn his pay by eating up double teams rather than doing anything useful for IDP investors.

Xavier McKinney, S, NYG

It's far too early to bury the guy, so he's more of a 'hold' than a truly falling long-term IDP asset, but the early returns on his first 90 NFL defensive snaps are less than encouraging from an IDP perspective. Playing all over the place as a safety-rover hybrid, McKinney has eight tackles on those 90 snaps but only three of which are solo tackles, which means five of those tackles are assists – basically shared tackles. Normally you can expect a safety's assist production to settle in at about half of their solo tackle volume over a longer sample, which means we might consider McKinney's expected tackle count to look more like four or five rather than eight. Again, it's too early to declare McKinney anything in particular – he was a good prospect this year and showed strong IDP tendencies at Alabama – but his early trajectory suggests the risk that he might turn out a better real-life defender than an IDP one.