Plugging the Gaps: IDP Waiver Wire for Week 3

There was a time that I played fantasy football before I played in Individual Defensive Player (IDP) leagues, but I genuinely cannot remember what that is like. All I can see in my fantasy football memory of that time is an inky, cold blackness that bears four incomprehensible symbols: “D/ST.”

Then I saw the light. I realized the matchup-dependency -- and worse, the impossible-to-predict inconsistency -- of the team defense position, and I rid myself of it. Why bother trying to figure out D/ST matchups when you have a better chance of winning the lottery by entering ancient Nordic runes onto your Powerball ticket?

IDP, on the other hand, simply offers you more understandable ways of processing the defensive side of the ball in your lineups. Want to start the Indianapolis Colts’ front-seven but hate their terrible secondary? Pick up outside linebacker Robert Mathis and ignore cornerback Darryl Morris. Just need a few safe points this week but all the streamable defenses hold water as well as Swiss cheese? Bad defenses mean the linebackers get to clean up run plays left and right.

In Plugging the Gaps, we help to make defensive fantasy football fun again. We pick apart the best matchups for the week with players almost certain to be on your waiver wire.

Which IDP players owned in less than 5% of ESPN leagues should we look to as waiver wire targets for Week 3?