• Azeez Al-Shaair reunites with Demeco Ryans in Houston: Al-Shaair should be viewed as the new leader of the Houston Texans‘ young and developing linebacker corps.

• A potential bounce-back for Jeremy Chinn: The Washington Commanders may be a new hope for this former IDP star to thrive in Dan Quinn’s defense.

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With NFL free agency creating a flurry of signings all across the league, players moved to new homes and shifted the IDP landscape for fantasy managers to sort through. It’s still very early in the offseason to lock these “winners and losers” in for Week 1, but as of now, this is where I’m at with the changes we got through the start of the new league year.

WINNERS

LB Josey Jewell, Carolina Panthers

With Frankie Luvu departing in free agency, that vacated a significant amount of snaps at the linebacker position in Carolina, and while Shaq Thompson should be back in 2024 after missing almost the entire season due to injury, there’s going to be an opportunity for Jewell to play significant snaps. Carolina's 2023 linebacker corps, outside of Luvu, didn’t inspire much confidence and resulted in a heavy rotation at that second spot; however, defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero has familiarity and seemingly trust in Jewell from their time in Denver together, which should allow for more consistent and reliable usage for IDP.

Under Evero, in 2022, Jewell averaged 95% of his team's defensive snaps when he was healthy and delivered the most productive fantasy season of his career. His +11.2 tackles over expected in 2022 ranked in the 90th percentile for his position, and he was better in terms of PFF grades in Evero’s system (71.7) than he was without him in 2023 (67.2). This should be a great bounce-back spot for Jewell in 2024.

LB Azeez Al-Shaair, Houston Texans

Another linebacker reunited with his former defensive coordinator, Al-Shaair joins Demeco Ryans in Houston to help boost this ascending roster and bring some stability to the linebacker room. With Christian Harris and Henry To’oTo’o still young, developing and going through the ups and downs of the NFL, Al-Shaair makes perfect sense to bring in as a player familiar with Ryans’ defense, as he can play well enough to be an every-down starter.

LB Kenneth Murray, Tennessee Titans

Murray has yet to deliver on both his first-round draft capital, but landing with the Titans as one of the better opportunities for snaps should be viewed as a positive for him to be fantasy-relevant in 2024. The Titans linebacker room is one of the thinner groups due to Jack Gibbens being the only one with starting experience, which only happened on a smaller sample size in 2023.

Murray has been a starter in the league and now has a relatively strong contract to suggest that he’ll start again here with the Titans. Murray’s inefficiency as a tackler is going to be the primary reason to fade him for IDP purposes, and if he had landed in a more crowded linebacker room, there would be little reason for excitement about him considering his ineffectiveness in that past. However, as far as this landing spot, he should get every opportunity to be productive, for fantasy managers who are just looking for snap volume.

EDGEs Andrew Van Ginkel/Jonathan Greenard, Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings had one of the highest percentage of snaps vacated at the edge position via free agency, as Danielle Hunter, D.J. Wonnum, and Marcus Davenport all departed. This meant that any competent edge rusher who landed in Minnesota would likely see a value boost for IDP. With Van Ginkel and Greenard, they’re not only competent, but they’re both coming off of strong seasons which happened to be the most productive of their NFL careers.

New Vikings edge rushers pass-rush metrics and ranks in 2023:

Both players should see plenty of volume in Brian Flores’ defense which should allow them to be productive, putting them in weekly starter territory for IDP leagues, especially if they maintain these positive pass rush metrics from last season. 

EDGE Dorance Armstrong, Washington Commanders

Much like the exodus of edge rushers in Minnesota, the Commanders have also been left with gaping holes after trading away both Chase Young and Montez Sweat in-season and James Smith-Williams and Casey Toohill, who were the next men up on the depth chart, also departing in free agency. Armstrong continues a trend of defensive players reuniting with past coaches as he joins Dan Quinn in Washington.

Armstrong has spent the last six seasons with the Dallas Cowboys as more of a rotational option in the defense, as he's never exceeded 56% of his team's defensive snaps in a season. With Washington’s current edge group, he should have no problem exceeding that threshold in 2024. Armstrong has been productive despite the lower snap share over the past two years, totaling 78 pressures and 16 sacks since 2022. He also set a new career high in PFF pass-rush (69.7) and overall grade (69.6) this past year and should get a lot of opportunities to develop and contribute on this defense, improving his IDP value along the way.

S Brandon Jones/P.J. Locke, Denver Broncos

Long-time starters Justin Simmons and Kareem Jackson are done in Denver as the team has gone younger at the position, which led them to productive IDP contributors, Jones and Locke. Both players have had limited starting opportunities during these early years of their NFL careers but have delivered strong IDP production when on the field. Locke got a chance to showcase what he could do in this same defense last year when he took over for the oft-suspended/eventually cut Jackson, posting a strong 9% tackle efficiency to go along with three sacks and two forced fumbles in games where he started.

Jones had starting opportunities with the Miami Dolphins as well, though not always in a full-time role, and he dealt with multiple injuries during his time there. However, over the past three seasons, he has consistently delivered strong tackle production as one of the most efficient tacklers at his position, which includes finishing in the top 90th percentile in tackles versus expected in 2021 and 2022 — hitting the 78th percentile in 2023 on just 538 defensive snaps. There won’t necessarily be a designated box or deep safety in this system, based on what they did last season, but assuming both players split those duties they should have opportunities to thrive for IDP.

S Jeremy Chinn, Washington Commanders

There were a lot of IDP managers of Chinn who were flabbergasted with his lack of usage in 2023, playing just 285 defensive snaps, while also dealing with injury. Chinn was mostly used in a designated slot role but never saw the field enough to deliver on the high expectations he set of himself with his strong rookie season in 2021. IDP managers continue to hold out hope that he’ll get back to that form, and he may have that chance in Washington playing for Dan Quinn, who played single-high coverages at the second-highest rate in the league in 2023.

Chinn fits the mold of the safety to rotate down toward the line of scrimmage, support in run defense, and occasionally rush the passer, which also typically translates to better IDP production. He should have the opportunity to do all these things in Washington under Quinn while playing close to an every-down role, and hopefully recoup that long-lost IDP value.

LOSERS

LB Jamin Davis, Washington Commanders

Dan Quinn’s Commanders have been busy so far this offseason, as they not only started free agency by bringing in linebacker Frankie Luvu but also added Bobby Wagner just a couple of days later — both of whom, have been some of the better performers in terms of PFF grades over the past three seasons. Luvu and Wagner are both essentially locks to play ahead of Davis this season when considering experience, skill and contract. Barring an injury, Davis will be third at best on the depth chart.

Davis just hasn’t been able to grab hold of a starting job since being drafted by the Commanders, and it doesn’t bode well for him with a new coaching regime and Luvu and Wagner coming in that he’s going to be able to do so in 2024. Quinn didn’t utilize two full-time linebackers in Dallas last season — often not even one — but based on the personnel now in Washington, it seems Wagner and Luvu should both be close to every-down players in 2024, while Davis won’t come close. For dynasty managers that have been holding Davis in hopes of a full-time role this season, unfortunately, it’s time to cut your losses and move on.

LB Cole Holcomb, Pittsburgh Steelers

Much like in Washington, the Steelers brought in a highly-paid linebacker in Patrick Queen to likely be the lone every-down player for the position, leaving Holcomb, who is also coming off an injury, likely to be relegated to a part-time role. Holcomb had been the leader on the team in snaps prior to getting injured last season, which led to relevant IDP production, but that will be harder to replicate now with Queen likely to play the bulk of the snaps.

LB David Long Jr., Miami Dolphins

Jordyn Brooks agreed to a pretty significant deal with the Dolphins this week, seemingly to lead this Miami linebacker group in snaps going forward. They also added a solid veteran in Anthony Walker Jr., who has worked his way into significant snaps in Indianapolis and Cleveland whenever he’s been healthy.

While we’ve yet to see what new defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver’s scheme is going to look like in Miami, there are just too many options now to be overly optimistic about Long’s opportunity to be IDP-relevant in 2024. While it isn’t an impossible situation to overcome, and there could be two full-time linebackers, the odds are against Long who was exposed in coverage last year, posting the lowest coverage grade (29.8) at his position in 2023.

EDGE Bryce Huff, Philadelphia Eagles

There was a lot of potential for Huff to land somewhere really exciting after departing the Jets, where he was used almost exclusively as a designated pass rusher. And while there’s still hope depending on potential trades that the Eagles make in moving the many edges they have on the roster, as things stand right now, this isn’t an ideal landing spot for IDP purposes.

Haason Reddick, Josh Sweat, Brandon Graham and 2023 first-round pick Nolan Smith are all significant competition for snaps as that roster stands right now, and for a player like Huff, who hasn’t been much of a contributor on early downs, there may be only so many pass-rush snaps to go around. All this to say that things can change as Reddick and Sweat are subjects of trade rumors but based on current projections, there are likely to be limited snaps for Huff, who can still be effective as a pass-rusher, but trying to find the right week to play him is going to be the most difficult part for IDP managers.

EDGE Azeez Ojulari, New York Giants

Ojulari had a strong rookie campaign back in 2021, playing nearly 800 defensive snaps and coming up with 49 tackles, eight sacks and 42 total pressures. Unfortunately, that was the peak of his three seasons in the NFL as he’s struggled to stay healthy and improve his pass-rush metrics in any significant way. Ojulari appeared in 11 games this past year and finished with a career-low 50.7 pass-rush grade which ranked 114th among 122 qualifying edge rushers.

After investing a top-five pick on Kayvon Thibodeaux in 2022, the team clearly wanted more star power to pair with him and made a trade with the Carolina Panthers for Brian Burns, who comes with a big new contract as well. Ojulari, heading into a contract year would have been an expected starter prior to this move but there’s no doubt that Burns will be playing significantly more than him, along with Thibodeaux, which pretty much puts a nail in the coffin of Ojulari’s 2024 IDP value.

The Cincinnati Bengals safeties

Cincinnati seemed to have their safety duo of the future locked in with 2022 first-rounder Dax Hill and 2023 third-rounder Jordan Battle looking to lead the way. However, the team signed Geno Stone in this early free agency period to a two-year $14 million deal which could affect the playing time of Hill, specifically, based on their skillsets. And then they decided to bring back Vonn Bell on a one-year deal, which complicates things even further. Bell played over 1,000 snaps in each of his previous three seasons with the Bengals and now becomes a threat to Jordan Battle’s snaps.

Both Hill and Stone are primarily deep safeties while Bell and Battle have been better when playing closer to the line of scrimmage. Stone essentially outperformed Hill from every alignment in 2023, except for the slot, which could be a role for Hill in three-safety packages if he does lose this starting job, as that’s where he thrived in college. Battle earned some of the best grades for his position as a rookie while working as the primary safety to rotate down toward the line of scrimmage, though, as mentioned before, Bell has a lot of experience within Lou Anarumo’s defense which is difficult to ignore as a favorable advantage for him to see snaps over the younger Battle. Until it becomes clearer how the Bengals are going to deploy this safety group, it may be best to avoid them for IDP purposes.

The Bengals current safety group and how they graded by alignment in 2023: