Johny The Greek's Cornerbacks Corner Week Five (5) • IDP Guys

Denzel Ward (CB) was the easiest streaming call ever last week

Welcome to Johny The Greek’s Cornerbacks Corner week five. Week four was another solid week with a ton of excellent corner streams and many massive hits yet again. We took advantage of some solid matchups last week but were definitely hurt by the last minute scratches of both Janoris Jenkins (CB) and Marshon Lattimore (CB) who were both in excellent position with that shootout in Detroit. We did what we had to though and will keep making the best moves possible all season. As the injuries continue to mount we’ll more and more need to have backup plans in mind for when these last minute inactives come down like they did this week and unlike middle linebacker or some other positions it’s not always clear cut who the direct backups are for corner, in situations like what happened with the Saints I would pivot off them entirely and find a corner in a different matchup we know will play every snap rather than look at a depth chart and make a guess based off that. The best ability is availability and usually the sure thing is a better option than a possible backup in a better overall matchup.

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 52 recommendations, of those 12 were declared inactive or injured, 31 were correct (met or exceeded projection) and 9 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 77% correct last week, 71% accurate for the season overall. Of those 31 correct calls last week 11 of them were “massive hits” (doubled or tripled projection) for a 35% massive hit rate this week, the best so far this season.

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)).

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