James Bradberry delivers once again
Welcome to Johny The Greek’s Cornerbacks Corner week fifteen. Week fourteen was solid as we put in yet another week of good results and effective streams. Last week and were at 75% accurate for the week, that keeps us around 75% for the season which is pretty pretty good for a position as naturally spotty and inconsistent as cornerback. As the season continues I’m becoming more and more comfortable with the rookies and injury replacement corners I haven’t had a ton of experience streaming with before and the overall accuracy has drastically increased since the first couple weeks of the season. As we know what each teams offensive and defensive strengths look like and continue to learn more every week we should get better and better as the season continues. Let’s get the usual stuff out of the way and get into our options for streaming corner.
If you’re new to this article series the idea behind it is that in the IDP world cornerbacks are the red headed step child, often neglected or scoffed at. Not here. I freaking love streaming corners and have for some time now. We’re going to be looking at things like expected game script, opposing offensive tendencies, snap counts, role and historical production to inform our weekly decisions on what corners are an “ideal” streaming option. By giving this entire thing more than two seconds thought we will have a distinct advantage over our opponents who are not doing this over the course of the season. We are going to put ourselves in the best position possible every week to score the most IDP points humanly possible from our cornerback slots.
Just a little background, I’ve been playing IDP for seventeen years now and streaming corners for well over a decade of that time. I have won many titles in both redraft and dynasty and also in best ball and DFS as well as college fantasy football. I am a true degenerate. Personally I like to stream not only whatever the current week is but if my bench is big enough I’ll load up two more ideal streamers for the following week and by doing so I’ve already taken my pick of the litter a week before anyone else is even thinking about their corners. Corner is a naturally spotty position but by looking at all the factors I listed above we will have better outcomes than the majority of IDP owners who simply put in a “known” corner with a big name (Richard Sherman for example) into their corner slots and ride out the production whether or not that matchup makes sense each week. That won’t be us, we’re going to waterboard our opponents with ideal matchups all season until they drown from our flood of IDP points.
It looks like we’ll have some pretty solid matchups this week and we’ll continue to target those for our ideal matchups but in today’s NFL where passing is the name of the game I’m sure we’ll find solid streaming options in just about every matchup so even those of us in the deepest of leagues have some options. Alright let’s have a look at how we did last week with some transparency and have a look at this week’s matchups. I always give last weeks results as well as an overall season long accuracy because it’s important to be honest and up front with stuff like this, if I’m in a slump and making bad decisions you’ll know it and can decide if you want to follow these streaming suggestions or not.
Last week I made 50 recommendations, of those 9 were declared inactive or injured, 31 were correct (met or exceeded projection) and 10 were incorrect (below projection). We don’t count acts of God here and I specifically ask people to check for inactives before each game so discounting those I was 75% correct last week, 75% accurate for the season overall. Of those 31 correct calls last week 13 of them were “massive hits” (doubled or tripled projection) for a 41% massive hit rate this week which is excellent yet again, over one third of all the correct calls blew up for a huge week for your IDP defense. This is the way.
Disclaimer Time! I’m not going to get all of these correct. Cornerback especially is a wildly inconsistent position for production in IDP fantasy football. That’s why most people hate it with a passion. My whole thing is to put yourself in the best position to succeed by looking at all the variables and making the absolute best streaming call possible. After that you pray. Your team is your responsibility and yours alone, you set the lineup not me. Take ownership if things go south, these are only suggestions. I will do my absolute best to make sure that these recommendations are the best possible and will base these on factual information and statistics from places like NFLGsis.com, PFF and other fantasy and NFL data and statistics sites. I will also use the force, sometimes a gut feeling is all I have to go on in an unknown situation but if it comes down to that just know this isn’t my first rodeo.
I don’t work for the NFL, I don’t get to sit in on defensive team meetings for all thirty-two teams, I don’t get inside information. If a player has looked solid all season and has been playing a ton of snaps and they get yanked right before a game obviously I had nothing to do with it and since I don’t work for said team no one told me. (See Vernon Hargreaves 2019). If someone goes down with an ACL it’s not because I made a voodoo doll of them and stuck it with pins. These decisions are the same ones I’m making for my teams so if things go bad for you they go bad for me as well. I’m just here to help, don’t kill the messenger.
Article Key:
Outlook: This will be a brief overview of the two offenses and how that will effect the outlook for each teams cornerbacks corps. We’ll look at offensive ranks, expected game scripts and how the game should go. This will help us identify if this is a matchup we want to target for streaming corners or not.
Ideal Matchup: This is the best possible matchup for this teams cornerbacks, streaming any corners from this team, especially guys that are talented and play all the snaps gives you the best chances at excellent production from those corners.
Solid Matchup: This isn’t a perfect matchup to stream corner but it’s still pretty good, if you’re in a deeper league and have fewer options to stream from this matchup is still a better option than most.
Avoid: This matchup will likely be terrible to stream corner from, due to anything from a god awful opposing quarterback who can’t complete passes to a banged up wide receiver corps or even a run first offense like the 2019 Ravens were (they didn’t pass all that often because frankly they didn’t need to, their run game was ridiculous) there’s something that makes this a bad matchup to stream corners from, avoid if possible. However there may be specific corners who get a “solid” in an otherwise “avoid” matchup simply due to their talent and ability to make plays in all aspects of the defense (see Logan Ryan (CB)).
OK: I get it, you're in a 32 team single copy league and you don't have any options, yes this guy plays enough for you to start but that's about the only thing going for this corner. This is not a recommendation I'm just confirming this guy plays more than half the snaps minimum so if you're forced to play them it may not be a complete disaster.
This is the way: If you see this it means this game has the seal of Baby Yoda and is "The Way". These are my favorite matchups to stream from this week and have the blessing of the child.
This is not the way: If you see this it means this is probably not a great game to stream corner from, this game does not have the blessing of the child. It is not the way. This game could be possibly cursed by the "wat".
***There will be games where I don't recommend streaming from one team or another but still have someone listed as solid despite that, in those situations it's talent over matchup. Tre'Davious White (CB) might have the Jets and their worst in the league passing attack but at the end of the day he's still Tre'Davious White (CB) so I'd start him if I didn't have any better options***
Bills @ Broncos
Outlook: This one's easy, start your Broncos corners and sit the Bills corners. The Bills passing offense is excellent and Denver's is not, plus on the Buffalo side of things we saw some wacky playing time for all the corners beyond Tre'Davious White (CB) last week against the Steelers so there are questions there anyways, best to just avoid their side of things. One half of a good matchup.
Buffalo Bills
Tre'Davious White (CB) Solid
Levi Wallace (CB) Avoid (OK)
Taron Johnson (CB) Avoid (OK)
Josh Norman (CB) Avoid
Denver Broncos
Kareem Jackson (CB) Solid
Micheal Ojemudia (CB) Solid
De'Vante Bausby (CB) Solid (But risky, have only seen one week of him so far so it's anything but set in stone)
Panthers @ Packers
Outlook: Middle of the pack and second overall passing attack outside in Green Bay in December, cold and windy, not ideal. We can certainly start our Panthers corners and Justin Burris (S/CB) if he's designated as a corner in your league and the two studs on the Packers side are a go as well, we'll leave the rest, could be decent but not perfect due to weather and just one of these offenses is incredible through the air.
Carolina Panthers
Justin Burris (CB/S) Solid
Donte Jackson (CB) Solid
Troy Pride (CB) Avoid (OK)
Green Bay Packers
Jaire Alexander (CB) Solid
Kevin King (CB) Solid
Chandon Sullivan (CB) Avoid
Buccaneers @ Falcons
Outlook: The 11th and 6th best passing offenses respectively indoors in a division showdown with neither team having a great passing defense by any means means fireworks, this is the way, this matchup is blessed by the child.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Carlton Davis (CB) Ideal
Sean Murphy Bunting (CB) Solid
Ross Cockrell (CB) Avoid
Jamel Dean (CB) Solid (If healthy)
Atlanta Falcons
AJ Terrell (CB) Solid
Sharrod Neasman (CB) Avoid (OK)
Darqueze Dennard (CB) Solid
Isaiah Oliver (CB) Avoid
49ers @ Cowboys
Outlook: Two middle of the pack passing offenses, indoors, and two solid top ten pass defenses means a lot of crap that could cancel out. Could be terrific, could be crap, I'm going with the middle road, start the studs and guys that play enough and leave the rest. Mediocre overall.
San Francisco 49ers
Richard Sherman (CB) Solid
Jason Verrett (CB) Solid
Dontae Johnson (CB) Avoid
Dallas Cowboys
Jourdan Lewis (CB) Avoid (OK)
Chidobe Awuzie (CB) Solid
Anyone else (CB) Avoid
Lions @ Titans
Outlook: These 10th ranked and middle of the pack passing offenses respectively meet up in Tennessee for a possible shootout since neither defense is great by any means, two solid quarterbacks, could be nice. I'm with it. Start the guys that play enough and leave the rest and we should get a good one, it's not blessed by the child because the Titans could just cram Derrick Henry (RB) down their throats all game but it's awfully close. Not bad at all.
Detroit Lions
Amani Oruwariye (CB) Solid
Justin Coleman (CB) Avoid (OK)
Darryl Roberts (CB) Avoid
Tennessee Titans
Malcolm Butler (CB) Solid
Breon Borders (CB) Solid (If healthy)
Desmond King (CB) Solid (If Borders is out, Avoid otherwise)
Tye Smith (CB) Avoid (OK if Borders is out)
Texans @ Colts
Outlook: The 5th and 8th ranked passing offenses meet up indoors in a division showdown that was very solid the first time around a couple weeks back, this one should have some fireworks my only hesitation is the lack of weapons for DeShaun Watson (QB), he'll figure it out though. This is the way, this one is blessed by the child.
Houston Texans
Vernon Hargreaves (CB) Solid
Keion Crossen (CB) Solid (Risky, only seen one week of him so far)
Lonnie Johnson (CB) Avoid (OK)
Indianapolis Colts
Kenny Moore (CB) Solid
Xavier Rhodes (CB) Solid
Rock Ya Sin (CB) Avoid (Solid if Rhodes is out)
Patriots @ Dolphins
Outlook: The Patriots passing offense is 28th in the league and while Miami is middle of the pack most of that was accomplished with Fitzmagic at the helm, Tua is not him and their weapons are all beat to crap, this should be a boring low scoring affair that we should avoid like the plague for streaming corner purposes. This will get a "Wat". With the guys who still get a solid, they are good and the matchup is bad, I'd still play them in crazy deep leagues where it is what it is.
New England Patriots
JC Jackson (CB) Avoid (OK)
Stephon Gilmore (CB) Solid
Jonathan Jones (CB) Avoid
Jason McCourty (CB) Avoid
Miami Dolphins
Xavien Howard (CB) Solid
Byron Jones (CB) Solid
Nik Needham (CB) Avoid
Bears @ Vikings
Outlook: Neither passing offense is good and both defenses are capable of playing well occasionally, mediocre overall, we can start the studs and guys that play enough in deeper leagues. It's inside too so no weather shenanigans. Meh.
Chicago Bears
Kyle Fuller (CB) Solid
Jaylon Johnson (CB) Avoid (OK)
Buster Skrine (CB) Avoid (OK)
Minnesota Vikings
Cameron Dantzler (CB) Solid
Jeff Gladney (CB) Solid
Chris Jones (CB) Avoid
Seahawks @ Football Team
Outlook: Another easy one, we can start our Washington corners without hesitation, as for the Seahawks they get the 25th ranked Washington passing offense outside in Washington in December, not ideal. I'd absolutely start the Washington guys and stay away from Seattle in this one.
Seattle Seahawks
Shaq Griffin (CB) Solid
DJ Reed (S/CB) Avoid (OK)
Quandre Diggs (S/CB) Avoid (OK)
Washington Football Team
Kendall Fuller (CB) Ideal
Ronald Darby (CB) Solid
Jimmy Moreland (CB) Avoid
Jaguars @ Ravens
Outlook: Despite Lamar Jackson (QB) coming back from taking a shit to save the day he still only completed twelve total passes last week against the Browns and their passing offense remains 31st overall, the Jags aren't much better and this one could have weather shenanigans also, this could have some fireworks but likely won't be all that great. Not a "Wat" but close, avoid in general unless you don't have a choice, Humphrey and Peters are always good though, doesn't matter what the matchup is.
Jacksonville Jaguars
Tre Herndon (CB) Solid
Sidney Jones (CB) Avoid
Anyone else (CB) Avoid
Baltimore Ravens
Marcus Peters (CB) Solid
Marlon Humphrey (CB) Solid
Devontae Harris (CB) Avoid
Jimmy Smith (CB) Avoid
Jets @ Rams
Outlook: Another easy one, we can start our Jets because they'll be on the field for 40 minutes but we'll sit our Rams because they won't and the Jets have the worst passing attack in the league. One half of a good matchup.
New York Jets
Bless Austin (CB) Solid
Bryce Hall (CB) Solid
Arthur Maulet (CB) Avoid
Los Angeles Rams
Troy Hill (CB) Solid
Jalen Ramsey (CB) Avoid (OK)
Darious Williams (CB) Avoid
Eagles @ Cardinals
Outlook: This one could have some fireworks and it's indoors, despite neither passing offense being ranked high we saw last week that Hurts actually creates offense for this team and we know the Cardinals can blow up any given week. I like it, however both passing defenses are just outside the top ten so I don't like it enough to bless it by the child. Good not great.
Philadelphia Eagles
Darius Slay (CB) Solid
Avonte Maddox (CB) Solid
Nikel Robey Coleman (CB) Avoid
Arizona Cardinals
Patrick Peterson (CB) Solid
Dre Kirkpatrick (CB) Solid
Byron Murphy (CB) Avoid
Chiefs @ Saints
Outlook: If Drew Brees (QB) plays then this is the game of the week and is blessed by the child, end of story. If he doesn't then I love the Saints options and will be avoiding the Chiefs options like the plague. Could either be blessed by the child or just mediocre, depends on Mr. Brees.
Kansas City Chiefs
Bashaud Breeland (CB) Avoid (Solid if Brees plays)
L'Jarius Sneed (CB) Avoid (Solid if Brees plays)
Chavarious Ward (CB) Avoid
New Orleans Saints
Janoris Jenkins (CB) Ideal
Marshon Lattimore (CB) Ideal
Chauncey Gardner Johnson (S/CB) Solid (If designated a corner in your league)
Browns @ Giants
Outlook: Two terrible run first offenses with very little passing upside plus two middle towards the front of the pack passing defenses outside in New York in December equals a very boring, low scoring, run and play defense affair that will get the seal of the "Wat" from us. No thank you.
Cleveland Browns
Denzel Ward (CB) Solid (If healthy)
Kevin Johnson (CB) Avoid (OK)
Terrence Mitchell (CB) Avoid (OK)
MJ Stewart (CB) Avoid
New York Giants
James Bradberry (CB) Solid
Logan Ryan (CB) Solid
Isaac Yiadom (CB) Avoid (OK)
Steelers @ Bengals
Outlook: Steelers passing offense is middle of the pack but is capable of greatness when this team decides to catch passes, we can start our Cincy corners in much deeper leagues and our Steelers guys based on the big play upside but both sides are risky and I wouldn't do it unless I had to. Meh overall.
Pittsburgh Steelers
Joe Haden (CB) Solid
Steven Nelson (CB) Solid
Mike Hilton (CB) Solid
Cameron Sutton (CB) Avoid (Unless one or preferably more than one of the above is injured and out, then solid)
Cincinnati Bengals
William Jackson (CB) Solid
Mackensie Alexander (CB) Avoid (OK)
Darious Phillips (CB) Avoid (OK)
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