• Derwin James is as consistent as they come: James is the only safety to have finished among the top-five in Tackles versus Expected for three consecutive seasons.
• Jessie Bates has a career year: His first year with the Falcons delivered high-end production to pair with his career-high PFF grades.
• Desmond King leads all cornerbacks: The Texans nickel was king of the corners when it came to delivering tackles over expected this season.
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
At the end of each NFL season, it’s easy to look at where fantasy performers finished in scoring but understanding why they finished where they did is often more important going forward.
For the defensive back position, tackles are important but what often separates the scoring leaders from the rest of the pack is their ability to make big plays. However, big plays like interceptions, sacks, and fumbles, are also wildly unstable, so focusing more on which safeties and corners can deliver strong tackle numbers is often the best starting point for IDP.
All defensive back expected tackle figures are derived from combing through each player's individual play and situation. Focusing on their alignment, run or pass situation, what type of coverage they’re in, and how many snaps they played, their efficiency is then compared to the larger pool of their peers.
Starting at the high end, the top tacklers at both safety and corner have some repeat names, but not quite as much when compared to the linebacker position. This means that defensive back tackle production is more unstable than linebacker tackle production.
SAFETY
- Jessie Bates, in his first season with the Atlanta Falcons, had a huge year, including career highs in PFF grades and a significant increase in overall production. Bates played slightly more in the slot this season than he has previously in his career, but most of his snaps still came from a deep alignment. He tops the list due to accumulating over 130 total tackles.
- Derwin James is the only safety over the past three seasons to finish inside the top five in “Tackles versus Expected” each year, standing out as the most consistent performer at the position, by a significant margin.
- Much like Bates, Camryn Bynum had previously finished on the negative side of “Tackles versus Expected” but took a huge leap in 2023 with nearly 130 total tackles, mostly doing so from a deep alignment.
- Jaquan Brisker, Kevin Byard and Antoine Winfield all finished as positive tacklers over expected last season, though they finished closer to the middle range and then improved on that in 2023.
- Minkah Fitzpatrick, Julian Love and Budda Baker all had double-digit tackles over expected in 2022 and did so again in 2023, showing strong consistency in their own right, similarly to Derwin James.
- Six of the returning 20 qualifiers who finished among the 80th percentile in “Tackles versus Expected” last season repeated inside the 80th percentile again in 2023, including K’Von Wallace and Richie Grant among the others who were previously mentioned (James, Baker, Fitzpatrick, and Love). That’s a hit rate of just 30% compared to 45% at linebacker.
CORNERBACK:
- Desmond King played just seven games worth of real defensive snaps this season and was so effective as an IDP with those snaps that he delivered more “Tackles over Expected” than any cornerback in the league.
- King had previously finished in the top-five in this metric last season and is one of four corners to repeat among the 90th percentile finishers in “Tackles versus Expected” from last season. The other three are Nate Hobbs, Isaiah Oliver and Taron Johnson.
- Three rookies finished among the top 95% this season with Tyrique Stevenson (+20.0) leading the way followed by Brian Branch (+15.4) and Devon Witherspoon (+14.8).
- Among 21 cornerbacks who finished among the 80th percentile in this metric in 2022, and qualified again in 2023, nine (43%) were able to repeat among the 80th percentile. This was more comparable to the linebacker position, and a much better repeat rate than at safety.
Here are the players who under-delivered from a tackle perspective this season, at both safety and cornerback:
SAFETY:
- Indianapolis Colts starting deep safety Rodney Thomas finished at the bottom of this metric by a mile. This is a combination of Thomas being an ineffective tackler, as he finished with -18.8 “Tackles versus Expected” last season as well, and the Indianapolis deep safety role, as Julian Blackmon had finished among the bottom eight percentile in this metric last year playing the same role.
- Blackmon saw a significant role shift this year and had more IDP relevance than he’s ever had in his NFL career, but that inefficient tackling followed him, as he ranks among the bottom 20th percentile for the second consecutive season.
- Kyle Hamilton often had ideal alignment throughout the year and while he specialized in coming up with big plays, his tackling fell off just a bit in 2023.
- 38% (nine of 24) safeties that finished among the bottom 20th percentile in 2022 repeated in that range once again in 2023.
CORNERBACK:
- Among the bottom 20th percentile cornerbacks in 2023, 52% finished in the same range in 2022, creating the biggest repeat rates across all positions. These are players who will likely be big-play dependent in order to create IDP production consistently.
Finally, the middle group, this is the group of players who performed as expected based on all-inclusive situations on a per-play basis in 2023.
SAFETY:
- Last year’s leader among safeties in “Tackles versus Expected,” Jalen Pitre, unsurprisingly saw significant regression in 2023, and while he still finished 1.1 “Tackles over Expected,” it wasn’t anywhere near the +38.0 that he posted in 2022.
- Jonathan Owens finished second in this metric in 2022 (+26.1) and also regressed into this expected area of production (-3.6) in 2023.
CORNERBACK:
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