Let’s Stream Defenses: Week 1 (2020 Fantasy Football)

Football season is finally upon us! Sports content is actually at an all-time high because sports that wouldn’t usually be playing this time of year (hockey, basketball) have resumed. Still, football is the first sport to start when it was initially planned to. Fantasy drafts are pretty much done, and hopefully, you spent your last pick on an extra RB instead of a defense. Now it’s time to drop Dare Ogunbowale and pick up a defense.

If the title didn’t tip you off, I am an advocate of streaming defenses – that is, picking up a new defense every week based on matchup. There are a few facts that inform this approach:

1. Preseason rankings for DSTs aren’t very good. Every year, there are one or two defenses people will reach for as early as the 10th round. This is usually the top-scoring defense from the prior year, but it never works. Over the past three years, the top draft defense has failed to finish in the top half of the league every time. (Chicago finished 20th in 2019, Jacksonville finished 16th in 2018, and Denver finished 18th in 2017) If you drafted a defense ranked in the top 5 any of those years, there was only a 6/15 = 40% chance they would finish in the top 10 at all. You were more likely than not to get a defense that wasn’t a fantasy starter.
2. Fantasy scoring is mostly about sacks and turnovers. Last year, sacks accounted for 35.7% of DST fantasy points. Interceptions accounted for 23.0% and 16.7% each, for a total of 39.7%, not including defensive touchdowns, which were 11.6% of fantasy scoring. That means just 13% of fantasy scoring came from points allowed. When choosing matchups, we prefer when the offense is projected for 21 or fewer points, but having a turnover-prone offense is much, much more important.
3. Most fantasy points occur when the offense is intending to pass. This is true for sacks and interceptions, but a full 50% of fumbles happen when the QB is getting sacked. That accounts for over 80% of fantasy points. That’s why the best targets are poor offenses who pass a lot, like last year’s Bengals and Dolphins.
4. Who’s playing QB for the opponent is the best predictor for turnovers and sacks. In my model, which is based on the past four years of NFL data, who the quarterback is more than 8x as important as who the defense is when predicting sacks. The quality of the defense does not correlate at all with how many interceptions there will be – it’s entirely up to the QB.
5. Vegas is the best source of points allowed projections. If you aren’t familiar with sports betting, two common ways to bet on a game are to bet on the total (points scored by both teams combined) and to bet against the spread (margin of victory). For the total, sportsbooks will publish a line for you to bet over or under – for example, you might bet on if the total score of KCvsHOU is over or under 54.5 points. The spread for that game is KC -9, meaning you would either bet that KC would win by more than 9 points, or bet that HOU would cover the spread, meaning they would either win or lose by fewer than 9 points. The sportsbooks invest massively into making these lines good predictions – if you could consistently do a better job than the books, you could make a ton of money. We can also combine them to get the point totals for each team. If the books are projecting KC to win by 9 in a game with 54.5 total points, that implies they are projecting KC to score 31.75 points, and HOU to score 22.75. I use these point totals directly for the PA portion of my projections.

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Rankings Time

Only two teams are home runs this week, but even those are more uncertain than usual simply because it’s Week 1. There are plenty of good choices in the second tier, however, including one team with rock-bottom rostership. You can grill me on my ranks on Twitter. Rostered numbers are from Yahoo.

Explanation Time

Every week, I share a short analysis of every pick that I rank in a startable tier.

1. PHI @ WAS: Dwayne Haskins’ rookie season was disappointing, to put it kindly. In seven starts, he was sacked 25 times – about 3.6 per game, and well within the “tasty” range for opposing defenses. Excluding his 3-interception debut where he replaced an injured Case Keenum, Haskins’ saving grace was a low interception rate, but his TD rate was low to match. His 7 TDs to 4 Interceptions is a ratio of 1.75, just below the threshold of 2 between “good” and “bad.” It’s plausible for him to take a step forward this season, but we’ll have to see it. Until then, Washington is an excellent target for defenses.
2. BUF vs. NYJ: At 16.5, this is our lowest implied point total of the week. We’re interested any time a team is projected for fewer than 21 points, but below 18 is must-start territory. While Sam Darnold hasn’t been a disaster, he’s still plenty friendly to opposing defenses in 2019, with 2.5 sacks and 1.85 turnovers per game.
3. PIT @ NYG: Compared to what’s typical for my projections, we have a pretty significant drop off after the top two teams, with nobody else projected for 7.5 points. That said, the 6.5-7.5 range is perfectly acceptable to start, and the Steelers lead that group. They’re also tied for the second-highest sack projection this week a 3.3.
4. NE vs. MIA: New England was the highest-scoring defense by a country mile last year, but that was mainly due to the high rate at which they scored on turnovers, which is more or less random. They still have significant value due to the weakness of the rest of the AFC East. The Dolphins have chosen not to start Tua Tagovailoa, which leaves every DST streamer’s favorite QB, Ryan Fitzpatrick. There’s always a risk in targeting Fitzpatrick – every once in a while, he’ll get lucky, and there will be guys wearing the same jersey in the general vicinity of his passes, and his numbers will look excellent. The upside is significant, though, because his gun-slinging approach lends itself to interceptions as well.
5. SF vs. ARI: The 49ers defense was excellent last year, and the Cardinals were a fantastic matchup, but Vegas seems to think the addition of DeAndre Hopkins lifts them enough that this isn’t the home run it would have been last year.
6. DEN vs. TEN: In a game like this where both teams are projected for just 20.5 points, either could be viable at a glance, but the fact that the Broncos are at home and are very good at avoiding sacks means Tennessee isn’t a great pick. Tannehill, by contrast, allowed four or more sacks in five of his 11 starts last year, for an average of 2.8 per game. Bradley Chubb‘s return from missing most of last year to a torn ACL will undoubtedly be a boon to Denver’s ability to take advantage.
7. BAL vs. CLE: Oh, Cleveland. This time last year, the Browns had the most hyped [passing offense in memory. In reality, they ended up being anemic, with Baker Mayfield only surpassing 250 passing yards in 4 of 17 games. Baltimore has one of the better real-world defenses in the league, and at home, they won’t make things easy for Baker and company.
8. LAC @ CIN: This is an interesting one. Joe Burrow is as hyped as a Rookie QB can be, but we’re always willing to target rookie QBs with fantasy defenses until they prove otherwise. Adding to this is the lack of a preseason, meaning he has even less experience than he would typically have. Also, the fact that two prior first overall picks – Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray – have been pretty good fantasy DST targets themselves.
9. IND @ JAC: After leaving the Jaguars and signing with the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers, Leonard Fournette was quoted as saying, “For the first time in my life, I really have a quarterback.” That tells you most of what you need to know about Gardner Minshew. He became the starter last year after a Week 1 injury to Nick Foles, who shouldn’t have been a starter either. I have no hesitation about starting whoever is playing Jacksonville, even when the Jaguars are at home.
10. DET vs. CHI: I generally prefer not to rank teams projected for under 6.5 points as starters. Still, Detroit is just below that cutoff and deserves special consideration because (A) they’re the 10th-ranked team, (B) rostered in only 5% of leagues, you can get them in pretty much any league, and (C) Mitch Trubisky, y’all.

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Jacob Herlin is a Senior Data Analyst for FantasyPros. For more from Jacob, check out his archive and follow him @jacoblawherlin.