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Week 12 IDP Hits

Why Not Kamren Kinchens?

Rams S Kamren Kinchens led all DBs in fantasy scoring two of the past three weeks. Yet he remains buried in the Week 12 DB rankings.

Why?

Well, he’s kinda the defensive Marquez Valdes-Scantling right now.

Big Games, Smaller Role

The rookie played just 51% of the defensive snaps in a Week 9 victory over Seattle. But Kinchens made the most of his time:

• 2 INTs
• 103-yard TD return on one of them
• 1 fumble recovery

Throw in credits for a pass-defensed on each of those INTs, and it didn’t matter that he added only 3 solo tackles.

Last week produced similar results.

Kinchens played just 41 snaps again – matching his Week 9 count and beating Week 10 by 2. That amounted to just 54% of the Rams’ defensive plays. But he:

• racked up 8 tackles (6 solo)
• grabbed another INT
• forced a fumble

The Rams tallied a huge 85 tackles overall, which helped. And Kinchens obviously deserves credit for all the turnovers he’s been involved with.

But 40-50% playing time simply isn’t a level at which you can count on a back-7 player to deliver. That would be low even for the D-line, where even starters tend to rotate out more.

Tough Spot for Tackles

Kinchens’ production to date has relied heavily on those big plays, which are volatile.

The Rams’ weakness at LB – no off-ball LB played more than 65% of the snaps last week – could leave room for Kinchens to collect more tackles. But he has primarily played free safety so far.

More time in the box generally means more tackles at safety. But Kinchen’s snaps as the third safety appear to be supporting more box snaps for Quentin Lake and Kamren Curl.

Looking Ahead

This week’s matchup finds an Eagles offense that has supplied the fourth-fewest points per game to DBs over the past five weeks. That makes it even easier to back away from Kinchens for Week 12.

We’ll see whether his playing time grows this year. But the third-round pick has clearly made himself interesting beyond this season for dynasty leagues.

The turnovers are no fluke, as Kinchens grabbed 11 INTs across his two starting college seasons (at Miami).

Now let’s hit some other situations around the league …

Baltimore Ravens

It looks like the Ravens have deemed S Marcus Williams a key factor in the pass defense’s failures.

The high-priced safety went from 99% playing time in Week 10 (and full time since arriving as a free agent in 2022) to just a single snap in Sunday’s narrow loss to the Steelers.

Ar’Darius Washington – who had been running as a third safety and slot corner since Week 3 – took over for that game. Washington had seen his playing time grow during the season, but there had been no reciprocal decrease for Williams.

Washington racked up 11 tackles against the Steelers. He gets a Chargers matchup this week that has ranked among the worst for DB scoring on the year. But that has gotten friendlier (around league average) since L.A. began passing more frequently.

Chicago Bears

CB Tyrique Stevenson did return to the starting lineup the past two weeks after getting benched in the wake of his pre-hail mary antics in Washington. But he has also split time with Terell Smith.

Stevenson has played just 58% and 59% of snaps the past two games. Smith has complemented with 42% and 41% snap shares, respectively.

That’s obviously not an IDP-usable level for either player. We’ll see whether anything changes again going forward.

Cleveland Browns

The past three games have seen Devin Bush lead Browns LBs in tackles twice and then tie for the lead Thursday night against the Steelers. But he has trailed two corps mates in playing time.

Thursday night found Bush playing just 57% of snaps to Jordan Hicks' 90% and Mohamoud Diabate's 81%.

Expect that setup to remain similar until Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah returns from IR. He'll be eligible to return for Week 14.

Detroit Lions

Edge Za’Darius Smith played 77% of snaps in his first game as a Lion. (They made him inactive for Week 10, the first game after the trade.) That marked a season-high snap share for Smith.

He landed a half-sack, making it four straight appearances with at least 1 QB hit.

Smith sits outside the top 50 D-lineman in fantasy points per game for the season. But he and the Lions do get upside matchups with the Colts and Bears the next two weeks.

You could try Smith in a deeper, pressure-friendly format.

Green Bay Packers

LB Edgerrin Cooper’s hamstring injury in practice this week came at a particularly unfortunate time for him.

The rookie set season highs in snap share each of the past two games. Week 9’s 67% marked just a marginal increase and tied for just his second-largest snap total of the year. But Cooper played 10 more snaps in Sunday’s win at Chicago than he had in any previous game.

Part of that was the defense spending more time on the field (72 plays). But veteran LBs Isaiah McDuffie and Eric Wilson have each seen their playing time dwindle recently.

Wilson, in particular, dropped from 74% in Week 9 to just 18% Sunday, following the team’s Week 10 bye.

McDuffie looks like the better bet to run second among Packers LBs in Cooper’s absence. Wilson’s strongest playing time in recent weeks has primarily coincided with Quay Walker’s absence

That doesn’t make McDuffie a lock to play ahead of Wilson, of course. Most IDP rosters should have better options available than either of these Packers.

Los Angeles Rams

LB Christian Rozeboom tied his season high with 11 tackles in last Sunday’s win over the Patriots. But he also played just 64% of snaps. That marks two straight weeks of less than 70%

LB Troy Reeder is eligible to come off IR this week after missing the past four games with a hamstring injury. But HC Sean McVay has yet to reveal the plan, and IR rules complicate the decision.

The Rams have just one more IR activation left during the regular season, forcing them to decide whether that goes to Reeder or S John Johnson III. 

McVay said early this week that Reeder and Johnson were both “on a week-to-week thing.”

For now, it’s rookie Omar Speights as the No. 2 LB. He played 55% of snaps against the Patriots last week.

New England Patriots

S Marte Mapu went inactive for Sunday’s loss to the Rams after being limited all week with a neck injury and listed as questionable. ESPN’s Mike Reiss called him a “healthy scratch” Monday morning, though.

New England got S Kyle Dugger back from a three-game ankle injury. But they otherwise played just Dell Pettus for 65% of snaps and Jaylinn Hawkins for 44% at the position.

Mapu's questionable once again after remaining limited through the practice week. We'll see about his status Sunday.

But don’t use anyone besides Dugger at the position until we get evidence that we should.

New York Jets

Edge Haason Reddick seems to be settling into a limited (invisible?) role.

He jumped from 39% playing time in his Week 8 debut to 57% the next time out. But that fell to just 37% in each of his past two appearances – losses to the Cardinals and Jets. Reddick also has just 1 QB hit (a half-sack) across his four games.

With other edge guys simply outperforming him, it’s tough to see Reddick rebounding to relevance this season without dramatic improvement after this week’s bye.

Philadelphia Eagles

Rookie DB Cooper DeJean has played at least 72% of snaps in every game since entering the defensive lineup in Week 6.

Five of those six games have found him playing more than 80% of snaps. And the past three weeks have gone:

• 96%
• 87%
• 97%

That hasn’t meant big numbers: just one game with more than 3 solo tackles, with 3 total passes defensed so far.

But DeJean’s more relevant in leagues that count return yardage. He has tallied at least 20 punt-return yards in four of the past six games.

Washington Commanders

Fresh off consecutive 2-sack outings, Edge Dante Fowler posted an empty stat line in last Thursday night’s loss at Philly. He also saw his playing time dip to just 37%, his smallest snap share since Week 1.

It was a reminder that the veteran’s not nearly as good as his recent numbers might suggest.

The 30-year-old has already tallied the second-highest sack total of his career this season (8.5), trailing only 2019. That was his lone full season with the Rams, on a defense that also sported Aaron Donald, Clay Matthews III, and Michael Brockers.

Fortunately for Fowler, he does get positive matchups in each of his next three games:

• vs. Dallas
• vs. Tennessee
• at New Orleans

That third game follows a Week 14 bye that you probably shouldn’t feel compelled to keep Fowler through. We’ll see how he looks by that point, though.

Who Belongs in Your IDP Lineup?

Have trouble figuring out which IDPs to get into your lineup each week? The Team Intel page combines our 3D Projections with the specifics of your situation to give you a clear picture every week.

Matt Schauf, Editor

Matt has earned two Fantasy Pros accuracy awards for IDP rankings and won thousands of dollars as a player across best ball, dynasty, and high-stakes fantasy formats. He has been creating fantasy football content for more than 20 years, with work featured by Sporting News, Rotoworld, Athlon, Sirius XM, and others. He's been with Draft Sharks since 2011.