NFL Fantasy Football: IDP Sleeper Da'Norris Searcy

by Arif Hasan

Da'Norris Searcy. Photo credit BuffaloBills.com

When putting together a fantasy team in an IDP league, it’s not unwise to dip into the same well twice. While grabbing a receiver and a quarterback from the same team can multiply the impact of variability, having two IDP players from the same team can often produce the opposite effect—if they are both high performers, one will likely make up for the missed production of another, and smooth out spikes and troughs in production. Shared IDP players will produce stability.

At the same time, IDP players are also unlike selecting two receivers from the same team; should one receiver grab receptions from the other receiver, there’s a “cap” on how many points you can generate. But because players can share tackles and sacks, not all defensive production is limited by the same lack of opportunity.

Should you elect to take my advice from earlier and stay your hand on linebackers long enough to grab Nigel Bradham as a sleeper LB2 pick, you might also want to back that pick up by taking on a strong safety in tackle-heavy leagues.

The movement of George Wilson to Tennessee gives Da’Norris Searcy a shot to make a big difference. Again, much of Searcy’s value comes from the fact that Buffalo’s scheme and extremely generous statistics team will boost his value from a high waiver-priority to solid DB2.

But Searcy also has natural skill that forced the Bills to play him even when they had superstars in Jairus Byrd and George Wilson already manning the deep zones. The Bills played 1115 defensive snaps in 2012, and Searcy saw the field for 279 of those snaps. The fact that George Wilson, Da’Norris Searcy and Jairus Byrd saw more than 2230 snaps in total on the field implies that the Bills were really looking for ways to put Searcy on the field.

The current regime seems to like Searcy, too, and the poor depth behind him assure he gets not just the starting nod, but a large majority of the snaps.

In Mike Pettine’s aggressive scheme with the New York Jets, Laron Landry—the strong safety in 2012—ended with the 9th most tackles among safeties. Given how much Searcy will be asked to play in the box as a run-stuffer and potential blitzer, it looks like his ceiling is even higher.

Traditionally, safeties will score a defensive point from tackles (one for a tackle, one half for an assist) on 7.3 percent of snaps, using data culled from ProFootballFocus. These numbers will vary from the NFL data because PFF uses a universal system instead of 32 different game-scorers, so they are a pretty decent look into whether or not a player has a good nose for the ball.

The top safeties in tackle scoring percentage in 2012 include either high-scorers like Ryan Clark (ranked 3rd overall in tackle scoring percentage, with 10.29 percent) or did not have many snaps (like Reed Doughty, ranked first overall). From year to year, players tend to score in the same range as before, which is why looking at outliers and potential breakout players is useful.

Da’Norris Searcy scored a tackle point on 9.5 percent of his snaps, ranking fourth overall among safeties with more than 250 snaps. While you should expect this to regress, it’s fairly clear that he will more likely grab a tackle than many other safeties, especially once correcting for park effects like the game statistician, the pace of the new Buffalo offense and the opponents Buffalo will have to go up against. Given that LaRon Landry was a high scorer in the previous iteration of the scheme, it’s hard to ignore what potential lays in wait for Searcy.

In IDP leagues that heavily weight tackles, Searcy should be a solid pickup unless the defensive roster requirements are not specific to what kind of defensive player you’ll need to start. In leagues that require a defensive back, Searcy will solidly contribute as a DB2, although it should be easy to grab him in later rounds.

In deeper leagues that require that you roster your cornerbacks and safeties separately, Searcy will be an impact starter.

Don’t ignore Eric Weddle in favor of Da’Norris Searcy, but you can rest assured that you can fill out the all-important linebacker and defensive line positions and still grab a quality starter later.