This is it. Your playoffs have either started or begin this week. There is a good chance that your playoff picture was altered by the explosion of Derrick Henry (50.8 half-PPR points) or Amari Cooper (46.7). Maybe one of the teams was tanked by Todd Gurley (7.3), Antonio Brown (6) or Jared Goff (-0.3). Either way, the fact that you’re reading this probably means you were on the winning side (or had already locked a playoff berth/bye week), and have your eyes on a trophy.

If you are in the playoffs, I hope you’ve been stashing defenses. You might be OK if you don’t already have someone for this week because there are a lot of options, but that is significantly less true of weeks 16 (and the dreaded week 17, if you’re in one of those leagues). My current projections for week 16 are less certain because we don’t have Vegas lines to base them off, but at this stage, we have a good idea which matchups are favorable. If you’re looking to stash someone now for the finals, the Patriots, Rams, and Bears are unlikely to be available. Washington (@TEN, week 16 rank 4) is currently 33% owned and usable this week, Green Bay (@NYJ, rank 6) is 43% owned, and Miami (vs JAC, rank 7) is only 19% owned. Those are your most likely options to stash.

Let’s Talk About This Week

This is actually a pretty good week, in that there are a lot of viable defenses. With Atlanta facing the Cardinals at home and only 16% owned, I would be surprised if there weren’t a team in Tier 1 available in your league. The Rams deserve an honorable mention here – I don’t rank them as starters because there are so many other teams in good situations, but if you don’t have the space to stash them on your bench, I have no major objections to playing the Rams against the Eagles this week.

Tell Me About This Week’s Top Picks

1. JAC vs WAS: Jacksonville has been very up-and-down this year. They shut out a red-hot Colts team in week 13, only to turn around and record just 1 fantasy point against the Titans. Fortunately, they get a stellar matchup at home against a Washington team that has just fallen apart. Their implied point total of 14.5 is rock-bottom. In fact, the only time a team had a lower total this season was the Bills against the Vikings in week 3 with a total of 12.25. (In fairness, the Bills crushed the Vikings that week.)
2. HOU @ NYJ: In my first article this year, I declared that the Texans D/ST was overrated. They were being drafted as the second D/ST off the board. I still stand by the claim that no team is usable every week, but if you started them all year, you could have done a whole lot worse (especially if you waited until week 4 to begin starting them). They’ve taken advantage of their beautiful schedule, and it stays good – they get the Jets this week, the floundering Eagles next week, and the Jaguars in week 17.
3. MIN vs MIA: The Dolphins kept up and won in a shootout against the Patriots last week, but they’re still not a team to be afraid of. It’s hard to understate how much better the Vikings defense is than the Patriots.
4. ATL vs ARI: The Falcons are the first defense likely to be available in your league, and that’s because they suck. Fortunately, the Cardinals suck even more. They haven’t exceeded 21 points since week 5, and they’ve faced several similarly-bad defenses in that stretch, including the 49ers (15 points), the Chiefs (14 points), the Raiders (21 points) and the Packers (20 points). I would not hesitate to use Atlanta this week.
5. CHI vs GB: The Bears are just silly at this point. The Rams are one of the three best offenses in the league in the highest-scoring year in NFL history. The Bears held them to 6 points, including picking off Jared Goff four times. He had only thrown six picks in 13 games up to that point. You’d start the Bears against anyone, and the Packers are not nearly as scary as they usually are.
6. SEA @ SF: Seattle held San Francisco to 16 points just two weeks ago, and there’s no reason to think they can’t do it again.
7. BUF vs DET: I was surprised to see Buffalo favored in this game. Going into last week, the Lions had been struggling against a string of good defenses (Rams, Vikings, Bears twice). It was supposed to be a get-right game against Arizona, but the Lions scored just 17 points again. Now they’re back to facing a top-tier defense in Buffalo.
8. BAL vs TB: Playing a D/ST facing Tampa Bay is inherently risky because they’re so boom-bust. They’ve also been the most turnover-prone offense in the league. Baltimore is a good enough defense to take advantage, so there is a ton of upside here.
9. DET vs CLE: Baker Mayfield is the future of the Browns, and it’s a bright future. In the present though, they still struggle against above-average defenses, and this week they get the above-average Broncos defense, in Denver. Hopefully, the Browns hire a decent coach this offseason and improve their receiver depth. A big red-zone target like Dez Bryant or Josh Gordon would be a great fit.
10. DET @ BUF: Detroit is the underdog here, but they’re still a great start. I think the Lions only scoring 17 points against Arizona was a big part of that (the line opened as a pick’em before that game), but that was a 17-3 win. The Bills offense is nearly as bad as that of the Cardinals, so this should be a low-scoring rumble where both D/STs are viable.
11. WAS @ JAC: Despite being 7-point underdogs, the over-under of just 36 points means Washington is viable here too. While the terribleness of Washington’s offense is largely due to injury, Jacksonville is a team with a lot of soul-searching to do this offense – they are genuinely bad.

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Jacob Herlin is a Senior Data Analyst for FantasyPros. For more from Jacob,  follow him @jacoblawherlin.

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