Week 1 Injury Report

A couple of big injuries happened, like every season, that will affect the fantasy landscape.

Brian Urlacher, LB; Chicago Bears: Out for season. This injury might not be of huge importance in traditional leagues, but it will still have an effect. The Packers were able to get the running game going while Urlacher was on the sidelines during Sunday night’s game. The Bears will have to find a new identity in Lance Briggs and Hunter Hillenmeyer. I’m not expecting the defense to crumble now, but losing one of the best linebackers can’t help a team. Urlacher’s talent for reading offenses will be sorely missed for the remainder of the season.

In Individual Defense Player leagues this could have a huge impact on a team. Luckily the LB position is very deep, but chance are Urlacher was one of your first IDP’s taken. Briggs is most likely gone as well, but Hillenmeyer should provide a decent replacement if your league is particularly deep. Hillenmeyer was the first LB off the bench, but without Urlacher he will undoubtedly play a larger role. And he has experience from the Super Bowl run a few years back.

Anthony Gonzalez, WR; Indianapolis Colts: 2-6 weeks. Gonzalez is probably Manning’s third target (after Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark) so this isn’t a huge loss. But many thought this would be a breakout year for Gonzalez with the departure of Marvin Harrison. He will return with half the season left, but he may not return to 100% immediately. This opens the door for Austin Collie in the Colts offense as that extra receiver for Manning. Collie will most likely be the hot pick-up this week if wasn’t already drafted in the final rounds of your draft.

Donovan McNabb, QB; Philadelphia Eagles: Questionable. It’s being reported as a ‘fractured rib’ and I can’t imagine that would be fun to play with. Even if he feels good enough to play next Sunday, I don’t see the Eagles choosing to do so. The Eagles offense will have to be firing on all cylinders when the Saints come to town because points will be scored in bunches. The good news is Kevin Kolb could be a sleeper play next week. With how bad the Saints defense is, Kolb might be able to steer the Eagles to victory with the talented playmakers he will have around him.

Argument: Individual Defensive Player vs. Team Defense

Chances are most fantasy football players athletes play in standard leagues with team defenses, but is a team defense really the best option for those looking for an edge?

Last year, according to ESPN’s scoring system, the breakdown of team defenses had only 4 teams (Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Tennessee) scoring more than 145 points, with 11 teams from 142 to 100 points. 17 team defenses failed to score 100 points, and chances are you probably knew someone that stuck with Lions’ defense because they were a die-hard fan never checked their fantasy team. However, team defenses offer an ease of playing for those that are casual players/not addicts. If you are lucky enough to snag a top-5 team defense it seems as though you have another starting RB or WR on your team because of the reliable production you receive. But having to constantly play the team defense roulette each week gambling and hoping that the Chiefs’ defense can shut down that pitiful insert bad team here offense, only to see them implode before you move on to the next available defense is tough to swallow.

Also according to ESPN’s IDP scoring, a total of 74 defensive players scored 100 or more points, with the highest being D’Qwell Jackson of Cleveland with 169 points. IDP scoring is usually only available in custom leagues, but for argument purpose let’s say you custom league had 10 teams with 5 IDP utility positions each. If each team got 5 of the top 50 IDP players, they would score 640 points from defense with each player averaging 128 points. Granted, it is much more difficult to manage skill players on both sides of the ball. But is Player A and Player B both know offensive players really well, but Player A knows less about defensive skill players than Player B, then it stands to reason that Player B would have a significant advantage. For those players that enjoy head-to-head matches where the scores regularly break 150 points then a custom league with IDP is probably for you.

But which league gives you the advantage? If there were 74 defensive players that scored 100 points or more last year then each team has a relatively deep free agent pool to pick from should a linebacker or defensive lineman get injured. Moreso, you have limited bench space in IDP leagues. So you have to choose how many defensive back-ups to keep on your roster and deal with bye weeks for both offense and defensive players. With team defense my philosophy is to only have one defense on my roster at all times until my defense has a bye week.

Team defenses are easy to manage and there are not as many high-scoring defenses in the free agent pool, so drafting an effective team defense provides more of an advantage than individual defensive players. Though, I’m fairly sure, that a dedicated player could probably milk the individual defensive positions for maximum scoring.