With a solid matchup and moderate ownership, the Steelers make a great streaming option
Dylan Lerch is one of the pioneers of combining Las Vegas with fantasy football, and he has been writing his Defense Wins Championships column for four straight seasons. Each installment can be found at Empeopled.com every Tuesday morning. You can follow him on Twitter @dtlerch.
We’re getting to the point in the season (and have been there for some time) where the top D/STs projected each week are starting to repeat themselves. By now, we have a pretty damn good idea that the Broncos are very good. We’re pretty sure the Panthers are basically matchup-proof as well. The Rams and Jets are two more D/STs that are virtually plug-and-play, and an argument can be made for perhaps the Seahawks, Patriots, Cardinals, and/or Eagles as well.
That makes 8 defenses at the very maximum that we can be relatively happy with starting in most every week. Owners of those 8 – give or take a couple depending on bye weeks and matchups – might look down on the streaming strategy and wonder why we even bother. For now, though, the answer is obvious: we do it because we have to. Ideally, we would have stumbled upon one of the matchup-proof options during the draft or early on in free agency. But failing that, we need to just do the best we can.
In a year in which the general consensus seems to be that streaming defenses profitably is more difficult than ever, 2015 has still been relatively safe for streamers. The expected value for “pure” streaming (which takes each week independently and assumes defenses are never stashed or planned ahead for) has been approximately 7-9 points per game, depending on the projection model you use. That’s somewhere in-between the 11th and 20th ranked D/ST in MFL Standard scoring. Surprisingly adequate, when you consider that streamers are often choosing with a pool of 12-16+ D/STs unavailable due to being owned or on bye.
Averages by tier:
1 & 1.5: 7.6
2 & 2.5: 8.3
3 & 3.5: 6
Note that this past week had more line movement than usual in Vegas, and after running the numbers on Sunday morning, the results were much more kind. Tier 1/1.5 scored 9.1, tier 2/2.5 scored 6, and tier 3/3.5 scored 7.5 on average. The average D/ST in week 9 scored just 6.5 points.
It was a very low-scoring week for the position.
New Orleans was the biggest disappointment, scoring -1 points against the Titans, but it was also warned that Mettenberger was the reason for the play to begin with. Once Mariota was confirmed the starter, they dipped from a tier 1 projection at #5 overall to a tier 2 projection at #9 instead. Some of us would have been stuck with the Saints regardless, and they still failed to come through. We can’t say the same however about Green Bay, who were a solid tier 2 option either way. The Packers have now had two bad weeks in a row, and owners will now face a difficult choice with a good matchup on the horizon.
Otherwise, the highly-projected defenses all came through with relatively satisfactory scores. The Jets and Giants paced the league, and other than the Chargers, every D/ST scoring 10+ points this past weekend were easily justifiable. San Diego scored almost as many points in week 9 (12) as they had in the 4 weeks prior combined (15)!
Other than the Packers and Panthers, the only defenses on our list last week that scored below average were Minnesota, Jacksonville, and St. Louis. The Rams scored just 4 points, but could have easily had more. The Vikings gained just 293 total yards, but their score of 21 barely kicked them down from an above-average 7, down to just 4 points. Meanwhile, the Vikings D/ST scored 5 points in a similar performance, and they failed to commit a single takeaway. Finally, the Jaguars defense couldn’t quite keep the score down despite an OK performance otherwise; Blake Bortles threw 2 interceptions, and short fields kill D/STs.
Back to the grind!
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Week 10 D/ST Scoring (Team – expected value – tier)
- Denver Broncos – 12.2 – 1
- Carolina Panthers – 12.0 – 1
- Green Bay Packers – 11.7 – 1
- Philadelphia Eagles – 11.4 – 1.5
- St. Louis Rams – 10.5 – 2
- New York Jets – 10.2 – 2
- Pittsburgh Steelers – 10.0 – 2
- Cincinnati Bengals – 9.9 – 2
- Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 9.7 – 2.5
- Arizona Cardinals – 9.6 – 2.5
- Oakland Raiders – 9.4 – 2.5
- Baltimore Ravens – 8.6 – 3
- Tennessee Titans – 8.5 – 3
- Kansas City Chiefs – 8.1 – 3.5
- New England Patriots – 7.8 – 3.5
- Cleveland Browns – 7.7 – 3.5
It should be noted that Seattle is also Tier 3.5 and ranked #17 with 7.6. On bye this week are Indianapolis, San Francisco, Atlanta, and San Diego. Each can be dropped without regret.
Tier 1: Denver, Carolina, Green Bay
It’s rumored that every time someone sits the Broncos defense, Aqib Talib will poke somebody in the eye. Which one of you sat them this past week? I hope you learned your lesson. The Broncos have scored a whopping 27 points more than the second highest-scoring defense (NY Giants), and are scoring almost 7 points per game more than the average defense thus far. It would take multiple duds in good matchups before I’m willing to reevaluate Denver as a plug and play stud.
The Panthers are still undefeated, and they’re still scoring above-average at the D/ST position. Scores of 11, 11, and 10 points in their last three weeks have been a godsend at the position for anybody who kept them through the bye week. Their opponent this week, the Titans, are the second-best D/ST matchup by the raw numbers and have conceded three 20+ point games this season. Start Carolina with confidence.
The Lions offense is just bad enough that the Packers are an extremely tempting option once again. Though they’ve scored 2 points combined in the last two weeks, Green Bay is at home again finally, and they’re heavily favored over a Detroit team that’s given up more than 10 points per game to opposing D/STs. Sign me up, and if they get dropped anywhere, I would consider it a very easy decision to grab them except with a small handful of alternatives.
Tier 1.5: Philadelphia
The Eagles are allowing a ton of yards, aren’t getting enough sacks, and have been buoyed by two defensive TDs. But even still, they’ve been forcing takeaways at a superb rate. They’ve been averaging more than two per game! With a matchup against a relatively generous Miami at home, they can be started with confidence as a boom/bust option that’s far more “boom” than “bust.”
They also make a very easy swap for the Packers in case they’re available and you don’t trust Green Bay.
Tier 2: St. Louis, New York Jets, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati
Two of these defenses, St. Louis and the Jets, are very unlikely to be available in any league, and each should be started by basically everybody who can.
Cincinnati makes a curiously low showing here in a home game against a bad Texans team. Houston is a fairly generous team to opposing D/STs at 10 points per game, and the Bengals have been averaging over 9 per game. However, the Texans sample still has the 22 point game against Atlanta in it, and I don’t think they’re quite as bad as they’ve been. The question is, if you do like the Bengals (and you should!), just how highly can you start them? Surely, they can’t be better than the tier 1 teams, and both St. Louis and the Jets seem better on their own merits. That suggests they’re roughly correct.
Pittsburgh is a great option for streamers if they’re somehow still available, or if they get dropped this week. They’ve quietly been one of the better D/STs, they get a very good matchup, and they’re at home. If there were no questions at QB, they’d be a slam dunk tier 1 play. Even with Roethlisberger out, they should be solid.
Tier 2.5: Tampa Bay, Arizona, Oakland
Arizona is the one option here that stands out over the others, and it’s mostly because of their YTD scoring. They’re still one of the top teams in the conference, but then again, so is their opponent. The Cardinals are also on the road. This projection and situation remind me a lot of Carolina @ Seattle from a month ago. Be wary when it comes to fading decent offenses at home, but the Cardinals are still good enough to start in a pinch. With their bye behind them and a relatively kind set of matchups going forward, I would be inclined to consider the Cardinals at the middle/end of tier 2 rather than the top of tier 2.5.
Tampa Freakin’ Bay… Oh, how I hate it when they rank highly. As always, though, we’ve got a decent set of reasons to like them. First, you get to fade the third best D/ST matchup, Dallas. The Cowboys are giving up almost 12 points per game and have given up scores of 13 & 25 to the Giants and 11 & 13 to the Eagles. They let the Saints get 7 and the Patriots got 14. Looking at these past D/STs, they are relatively strong scorers; however, I suspect they look so strong in part because they’ve played the Cowboys so many times.
That leaves the Oakland Raiders, who have been among the most surprising teams in 2015. They’ve been a joy to watch, and while their secondary and linebacker corps needs a lot of work, this team has the pieces in place to make some really good things happen. That said, their appearance on this list should come with a great big red WARNING sign. They are one of the league’s worst D/STs. If Teddy Bridgewater sits, I could get behind this, but otherwise stay away if possible.
Teams I’d definitely consider starting over Oakland: New England, Baltimore, Tennessee, and Cleveland.
On Playoff Defenses
One of the most interesting D/ST strategy questions is when, or if, we should start stashing playoff D/STs. While it is critical to always favor the depth of the rest of your roster, it’s also true that bye weeks are largely over now. The following are educated guesses as to what things will be looking like in weeks 14-16:
Denver and St. Louis are every-week playoff starters. Seattle probably is too.
NY Jets and Arizona are playable in week 14 and 15, but neither is very appealing in week 16. New England is close to the same situation. All of these teams pair well with Philadelphia (WAS), Houston (@ TEN), or Cincinnati (@ DEN).
Philadelphia is playable in weeks 14 and 16. They pair well with New England (TEN), Cincinnati (@ SF), NY Jets (@ DAL), Minnesota (CHI), Atlanta (@ JAX), and Pittsburgh (DEN).
Cincinnati looks good in weeks 15 and 16 but might want help in week 14. That depends on Roethlisberger’s status and/or how the Steelers look without him. The Jets, Eagles, Cardinals, or Patriots are the top options, but also consider Carolina (ATL), NY Giants (@ MIA), Green Bay (DAL), or Cleveland (SF) as well.
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This is by no means a comprehensive list! I’m sure there are plenty more playable pairings, but if we’re going to stash them for 4-6 weeks, we need them to be better than just playable. Streaming is also possible in the playoffs, and I think it’s reasonable to expect the same 7-9 points per game from a playoff defense. One way to combine the two strategies is to keep one defense that you know is going to be playable in a playoff week, and then stream a second option with an extra roster spot. As long as you have a roster spot to leverage, you get most of the benefits of stashing a playoff defense with being locked into carrying two D/STs the entire time.
Thanks for reading, and best of luck in week 10!
