Jonathan Impemba opens his 2026 IDP strategy guide with the line that should be taped to every IDP draft sheet: "Your draft strategy is WORTHLESS if you don't know your scoring settings cold. IDP value swings wildly based on how your league scores things."
He is not hedging. Tackle-heavy, big-play, and True Position are not three flavors of the same ranking. They are three different drafts. The rest of this post is a controlled measurement of how far one player pool moves when the rules change, and why True Position is a roster-slot change — like superflex — rather than a projection change.
Three families, three scarcity pictures
Impemba groups 2026 IDP scoring into three families:
- Tackle-heavy. Linebackers and high-volume safeties eat the board. Solos and assists pay enough that every-down MIKE/WILL play is the product.
- Big-play. Tackle values drop; sacks, turnovers, and splash plays carry the score. Edge rushers and ball-hawk DBs climb; pure tackle machines cool off.
- True Position. Close to the default in 2026: edge lives in the DL pool, which changes scarcity. It is not a different projection. It is a different set of starter slots.
Position-required versus IDP-flex moves the same players again. A league that must start a DT or a CB makes those positions scarce; a flex IDP slot lets you ignore them. That is roster construction, not "who is better."
True Position is baked into Impemba's board. Brian Burns is DL1 over Myles Garrett. Carson Schwesinger is LB1, not Roquan Smith. Abdul Carter sitting in the "OLB60s" is a hype-versus-production reminder, not a slight. We are not correcting those ranks. They are the tell that the DL pool includes edge, so the replacement DL is a different object than a 2-DL tackle-heavy sheet that treats edge as its own story.
If those names overlap with our IDP cheat sheet: that sheet is a 12-team, tackle-heavy 2 DL / 3 LB / 2 DB superflex baseline — not Impemba's True Position board. Same players, different slots, different scarcity.
Impemba's other load-bearing rule is the one IDP drafts still break: don't punt your offensive roster to over-draft IDP early. Scoring families change which defenders are scarce. They do not turn defense into a substitute for a starting offense.
How far one pool actually moves
We already published this as a controlled synthetic-pool experiment. Same players, same projections, roster shape held still, only the scoring config changes.
Across half-PPR, full PPR, TE premium, and IDP-heavy, the largest rank span was 52 places. Mid-board skill players, not the elite, absorbed the swing. The names in the fixture are synthetic on purpose; the useful number is the size of the move. The four-format table is the full list.
That is the companion to Impemba's premise. He says strategy is scoring-family-specific. The experiment says the same player pool is a different board once the family changes — by as much as four rounds of a typical draft.
True Position is a slot change, like superflex
We did not run a True Position IDP experiment. What we did run is the roster-slot analogue.
Hold scoring and projections fixed. Add one SUPERFLEX starter. Every quarterback in a 22-player comparison improved overall rank — 22 of 22, mean gain 107.09 places — and projected points moved 0. The extra slot dropped replacement. The same QB production became more valuable because the pool of starter-equivalent QBs got larger. Full write-up: The Superflex QB Premium, Quantified.
That is the True Position lesson in a different uniform. Putting edge in the DL pool does not make Brian Burns rush the passer better. It changes who he is competing with for a starter slot, and therefore who is replacement. Burns-as-DL1 is a scarcity picture, not a projection argument.
If you import a True Position board into a tackle-heavy 2 DL / 3 LB / 2 DB league — or the other way around — you are drafting the wrong replacement line.
Which of his three families is your league?
Read the scoring and the roster, not the commissioner's nickname for the format.
- Tackle values. If solos sit near 1.5–2.0 and assists pay, you are in Impemba's tackle-heavy family. Linebackers and box safeties are the product. If tackles are fractional and sacks/turnovers are fat, you are big-play: edge and ball-hawks.
- Where edge lives. If DE/edge is in the DL pool (True Position), DL scarcity is an edge story. If DL is interior-only and edge is its own slot or lives with LB, Burns-as-DL1 is the wrong picture.
- Required vs flex. Mandatory DT or CB starters make those positions real. IDP-flex lets you starve them. Same player, different demand.
- Starter counts. 2 DL / 3 LB / 2 DB is not 1 IDP. Demand sets when the run starts.
If you cannot answer those four from the settings screen, Impemba's warning already applies: the strategy you brought is for a different league.
Connect the league you actually play
A published family is a map. Your scoring is the territory.
Our IDP rankings are the engine's current output for a disclosed IDP baseline — worth a look for the shape of the move before you connect anything. Once you know which family you are in, Stay on Offense Until Round 7 - Unless Scoring Isn't is the round-clock question inside it.
Connect your league — LeagueFrenzy reads the tackle values and the DL/LB/DB slots, then ranks defense next to offense on one board. That is the move Impemba is asking for, applied to the league on your screen rather than the family you assumed.