unusual scoring and roster

Hi guru, live everyone here I love your site. Anyway, soon to be drafting for a money league with unique (for me) scoring and settings and need your advice. Here's the basics:

Standard League with 3 utility defensive players. The offensive scoring is fairly standard except for return yd pts. Defensive scoring is as follows:

Sacks = 3
Solos = 1
Assists = 0.5
INTs = 3
FFs = 3
INTs, FBLs, and Blocked kicks returned for TDs = 6
Blocked Kicks = 2

So I have two questions.

1. What utility players should I target - LBs, DEs, Safeties?
2. Should I draft my Def players much higher in my draft? Seems to me I should...starting in the 2nd or 3rd round latest.

Any advice is greatly appreciated

Should have mentioned that the league has 10 teams :)

Hey Nibe:

Much of when you start drafting IDPs depends on the skill level of your fellow owners. From my experience, even experienced Fantasy Football owners don't know much about IDP. With this said, I usually wait until the 5th or 6th round before taking IDPs. I usually wait until 5 or 6 of the top linebackers are gone then I select the top defensive end. The reasoning behind this is linebackers are a dime a dozen and generally easy to pick up sleepers late in the draft that will put up LB1/2 numbers (Barnett, Hawthorne, Maualuga, Washington, Butler, etc.) whereas breakout defensive ends are more rare and I'd rather have a couple solid ones that go with risky long-shots at that position. I usually try and grab one of the top 5 safeties as well (Ward, Harper, Chung, Landry, Bell).

Hope this helps!

- The IDP Guru

Thanks, great input. So if I have 3 utility spots to fill, does drafting a LB, a Safety, and a DE make sense? Also, if I use your strategy and take a DE first, who would be your top 3 choices?

mucho thanks...big smooch :)

Sorry, missed the part about utility players. Linebackers are gonna score you the most points in this scoring system. I would try and draft 3 solid LBs and if you miss out on a top level LB, one of those top 5 DBs I mentioned before can substitute as a LB1-/LB2+.

Thanks. I'm thinking I'll try and grab a couple of LB1s e.g. Willis, Beason, Mayo, or Timmons and one DB1 e.g. Ward, Chung.