This article is part of our IDP Analysis series.
-Grant Delpit cruelly suffered a torn Achilles' tendon Monday, depriving the Browns of their second-round pick and potentially top safety. Delpit is a rangy athlete who was generally expected to play a free safety role opposite Karl Joseph, the more sturdily-built of the two and therefore the assumed strong safety. Andrew Sendejo and 2019 fourth-round pick Sheldrick Redwine are the main candidates at the moment to replace Delpit, but Sendejo is more of a head-hunting safety than a centerfielder type, a bill that Redwine likely fits better thanks to his his 4.44 speed and elite leaping ability. Then again, as of Tuesday morning Adam Schefter linked the Browns to Earl Thomas, and a Thomas signing would come with a starting guarantee as the expense of Redwine or/and Sendejo.
-Speaking of Earl, Thomas' release from Baltimore, DeShon Elliott is believed to be the new starting safety next to Chuck Clark. A sixth-round pick out of Texas in 2018, Elliott went on IR his rookie year with a forearm injury and had his 2019 season ended after six games due to a knee issue. He mostly played special teams up to that point, playing only 42 defensive snaps, so Elliott is a complete unknown as an NFL safety.
As a prospect, though, Elliott looks promising, to the point that I can't easily figure out why he fell to the sixth round of his draft. At 6-1, 210 Elliott offers above-average size at safety while testing slightly above
-Grant Delpit cruelly suffered a torn Achilles' tendon Monday, depriving the Browns of their second-round pick and potentially top safety. Delpit is a rangy athlete who was generally expected to play a free safety role opposite Karl Joseph, the more sturdily-built of the two and therefore the assumed strong safety. Andrew Sendejo and 2019 fourth-round pick Sheldrick Redwine are the main candidates at the moment to replace Delpit, but Sendejo is more of a head-hunting safety than a centerfielder type, a bill that Redwine likely fits better thanks to his his 4.44 speed and elite leaping ability. Then again, as of Tuesday morning Adam Schefter linked the Browns to Earl Thomas, and a Thomas signing would come with a starting guarantee as the expense of Redwine or/and Sendejo.
-Speaking of Earl, Thomas' release from Baltimore, DeShon Elliott is believed to be the new starting safety next to Chuck Clark. A sixth-round pick out of Texas in 2018, Elliott went on IR his rookie year with a forearm injury and had his 2019 season ended after six games due to a knee issue. He mostly played special teams up to that point, playing only 42 defensive snaps, so Elliott is a complete unknown as an NFL safety.
As a prospect, though, Elliott looks promising, to the point that I can't easily figure out why he fell to the sixth round of his draft. At 6-1, 210 Elliott offers above-average size at safety while testing slightly above average athletically as well (4.58 40, 36-inch vertical, 121-inch broad jump). He was 20 years old during his junior and final season at Texas, and he was a central piece to one of the Big 12's best pass defenses, making 63 tackles (8.5 for loss) and six interceptions (two returned for touchdown) in just 12 games. It sure seems like Elliott is a ballhawk, and his high TFL number relative to his low tackle volume indicates an ability to disrupt in the run game despite his centerfielder application.
Unfortunately for Elliott's IDP prospects, it seems that he's unlikely to provide the bread and butter of IDP utility: the all-important tackle production. Clark will probably play closer to the line between the two so Elliott's IDP value will likely depend on his ability to create turnovers, which is at once possible but also volatile even in its higher-range outcomes.
-The Rams have two IDP situations to monitor. One is at safety with Taylor Rapp (knee) sitting out practice, leaving him questionable for Week 1. The second is the starting inside linebacker group, which according to The Athletic writer Jourdan Rodrigue appears to be Micah Kiser and Travin Howard.
In Rapp's case, he's a clear DB1 with top-five DB IDP upside over a 16-game season. The question now is whether he'll play 16 games, or if he'll need to sit out Week 1. If Rapp misses that game or any other, the current assumption is that his replacement would be rookie sixth-round pick Jordan Fuller out of Ohio State. Rapp will be back to a three-down role as soon as he's physically able, but keep Fuller in mind as an under the radar substitute if Rapp misses any game time and you're otherwise thin at defensive back.
Kiser and Howard are both interesting because they are complete unknowns as starters, yet it appears one or both might see a snap count big enough to make them viable IDP starters in 2020. Both were Day 3 picks in the 2018 draft – Kiser out of Virginia in the fifth round and Howard in the seventh round out of TCU – and both were high-volume tacklers in college for multiple years. Both Kiser (6-1, 238) and especially Howard (6-0, 211) were undersized coming out of college, but both are also relatively athletic. Kiser boasts a 4.66 combine 40, 35.5-inch vertical and 121-inch broad jump while at the TCU pro day Howard posted a 4.56 40, 35.5-inch vertical and 124-inch broad jump. Both players fit the prototype of the role previously played by free agent departure Cory Littleton, who posted big IDP numbers as an LB-S tweener.
-The Broncos defense improved last year but could have seen better results from its inside linebacker play. Rookie fifth-round pick Justin Strnad was supposed to help there, but he suffered a season-ending wrist injury. Strnad was a candidate to take some of the passing-down reps from Todd Davis, who raced to 134 tackles on 921 snaps in just 14 games last year but is probably a liability in coverage. The Broncos could still decrease Davis' snap count by giving snaps to one of their other remaining linebacker prospects, but Strnad's absence raises the odds that Davis regains his 2019 workload, which was very profitable for his IDP investors. Davis posted 134 tackles in those 14 games, and Strnad's injury could leave the Broncos dependent on Davis for a similar snap count in 2020.
