The Chiefs have quietly been a solid D/ST in 2015

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.

Welcome back to Defense Wins Championships! As the regular season reaches its climax, is there any doubt that this past week was one of the weirdest in recent memory?

Some Week 10 highlights:

1. Peyton Manning broke the all-time passing yards record, then played poorly enough to get benched (and later was ruled out due to injury).
2. Ben Roethlisberger came off the bench one week after his own foot injury and hardly missed a step.
3. Detroit won a game in Green Bay for the first time since 1991.
4. Johnny Manziel somehow threw for 372 yards, more than Week 10 starters Matt Cassel, Landry Jones, Brian Hoyer, and Peyton Manning combined (367).
5. Underdogs reigned supreme: Buffalo, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Chicago, Washington, Jacksonville, Minnesota, Kansas City, Miami, Houston, and Arizona all won outright as underdogs. New England squeaked by the Giants, Carolina won handily, and Pittsburgh cruised against Cleveland, meaning only two Vegas favorites won decisively.

When underdogs win, we normally lose; however, Pittsburgh (16 points) and Tampa Bay (12) gave streamers some hope against the widely-owned juggernauts of D/ST scoring, who themselves disappointed for the most part. Even though it was a high-scoring week overall, those of us following a sound process for our D/ST starters were likely left wanting.

Averages by tier

1 & 1.5: 7.0
2 & 2.5: 8.6
3 & 3.5: 8.5

The average D/ST scored 9.3 points in week 10.

Weak games by tier 1 Denver, tier 2 St. Louis and Oakland, and tier 3 Cleveland brought things down worse than usual this week. Overall it was a higher-scoring week than usual, but unfortunately a number of the best teams were difficult starts. Buffalo, Washington, Minnesota, Houston, Jacksonville, Dallas, Miami, and Chicago averaged a filthy 13.4 points each between them. Buffalo is the only one of the group that would have been even remotely justifiable in most scoring formats.

Will Week 11 change things, or will we get more of the same? The only thing we can say for sure is that none of us have any idea.

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Week 11 D/ST Scoring (Team – expected points – tier)

1. Carolina Panthers – 10.8 – 1
2. Seattle Seahawks – 10.8 – 1
3. New England Patriots – 10.5 – 1
4. Philadelphia Eagles – 10.3 – 1
5. Denver Broncos – 10.2 – 1
6. New York Jets – 9.9 – 1.5
7. Kansas City Chiefs – 9.5 – 2
8. Tennessee Titans – 9.5 – 2
9. Jacksonville Jaguars – 9.4 – 2
10. St. Louis Rams – 9.3 – 2
11. Atlanta Falcons – 8.8 – 3
12. Oakland Raiders – 8.7 – 3
13. Green Bay Packers – 8.6 – 3
14. Arizona Cardinals – 8.3 – 3
15. Tampa Bay Buccaneers – 7.8 – 3.5
16. Houston Texans – 7.6 – 3.5

On bye this week are New Orleans, Cleveland, New York Giants, and Pittsburgh. The first two can obviously be dropped in all formats (what on earth were you doing owning them, anyway?), and the latter two can be dropped in most formats. The Giants in particular could be a part of a playoff D/ST pairing, however, so check your matchups and defense availability before making that move.

Tier 1: Carolina, Seattle, New England, Philadelphia, Denver, New York Jets

Right off the bat, we see why streaming is going to be a little tougher this week. The top tier is populated with a bunch of universally-owned D/STs, but in the event you have the choice between two or more of tier 1, let’s take a brief look at each.

Carolina continues to top the charts, and once again I expect to hear a number of people say, “Why did you recommend dropping the Panthers in Week 5?” Again, I stand by that advice! In case you haven’t been keeping count, the Panthers are now up to 46 D/ST points since their bye week – 9.2 points per game puts them in 12th place since Week 6 and 16th place since Week 5. Meh. This was after their matchups against Green Bay, Indianapolis, and Philadelphia turned out to be much better than anticipated. Can we finally put this one to rest?

All that said, the Panthers do have a great matchup this week at home against Washington. Even though the Redskins have been better in recent weeks, the Panthers are legitimately good on both sides of the ball. Their DVOA (from Week 10) is 10th for their offense and 2nd for their defense, whereas Washington’s offense is ranked 20th.

The one D/ST I like better than the Panthers this week, however, is Seattle. They’ve been a deceptively decent team this year, with multiple meltdowns against very good teams, and could just as easily be sitting at 8-1 or 7-2 right now. Instead, they are 4-5, and we have people trying to claim they’re a bad team. They get the 49ers at home as 12-point favorites, and the 49ers should struggle to put up more than 14 points. My algorithm rates them 2nd, but I would rate the Seahawks No. 1.

The Patriots continue to be ranked highly, as they have for most of the last few years. They check all of the boxes necessary to qualify as a high risk/high reward D/ST in most weeks, and in weeks where they’re at home, they’re an elite play against most offenses. The Bills are no exception. This isn’t a particularly sexy play, but it doesn’t have to be. With a series of decent matchups each week through the end of the season, the Patriots are fairly matchup-proof and should be started with relative confidence.

The Eagles have quietly slid into the 2nd highest-scoring D/ST by average points per game, and they’ve done it with a relatively high ceiling and a solid scoring floor. They’ve been one of the more surprising defenses, ranked 6th in DVOA. Even though Jameis Winston hasn’t been as turnover-prone as we thought he’d be coming into the season, he’s still been a solid fade. The Bucs have been the 15th most generous offense to opposing D/STs, and the Eagles are obviously good enough to take advantage.

Will the Broncos be better or worse with Peyton Manning sitting out? It’s hard to argue that they’ll be worse. In terms of fantasy points per game, the following QBs have all outscored Peyton: Colin Kaepernick, Teddy Bridgewater, Sam Bradford, Blaine Gabbert, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Matt Hasselbeck, Brian Hoyer, and Geno Smith, among many others…33 QBs have averaged more points per game than Manning, and the worst part is, he might have been even worse on the football field than he was in fantasy.

It’s hard to say that Denver could be any worse offensively, and that might take some of the pressure off their defense. The overall #1 D/ST on the season has come down to earth a little bit but is still averaging almost three points per game more than #2 Philadelphia. I’m definitely not ready to drop the Broncos’ defense, but Week 12 vs New England and Week 15 at Pittsburgh are going to be really tough sells.

Finally, we come to the Jets. With the exception of Week 7 and 8 against the Patriots and Raiders, respectively (both of which could have been easily avoided for Defense Wins Championships readers), where the Jets scored a total of -3 points, they’ve been very good. Downright elite, even. In their other seven games, they’ve averaged almost as many points as the Broncos have all year! Week 11 provides some uncertainty and some caution, however. First, they’re on the road, which is always a red flag. Second, if Brian Hoyer clears his concussion protocol, the Texans have not been much better than average to opposing D/STs. If you have the Jets, you’re probably starting them, but I wouldn’t be thrilled with it.

Tier 2: Kansas City, Tennessee, Jacksonville, St. Louis

There we go! Streamers rejoice, we finally have some options here. I mean, who wouldn’t be excited to start the Chiefs, Titans, or Jaguars?

Ugh.

Let’s start with St. Louis, and I’ll keep it brief. The Rams are still a great defense, still great down the stretch, and still probably matchup-proof. Don’t let their tier 2 ranking scare you away from them (yet), I would still be starting them with confidence, perhaps not above the tier 1 options above, but definitely above the other streamers on this tier.

Thursday night’s matchup provides a pair of D/STs, and it’s unlikely that both of them score well. But they’re both ranked back-to-back, and there’s a lot to like about both. Unfortunately, the better defense here is on the road, which may just result in everybody being disappointed.

However, this does allow us to narrow down the choices into the safer, higher-floor option (Jacksonville) and the higher-risk, higher-ceiling option (Tennessee). This should be no surprise because the Jaguars are at home and favored, Vegas suggests a game flow that supports exactly that. And because the Titans are the better D/ST – and Bortles the better fade – it naturally follows that the Titans have more upside. All else equal, I’d take the Titans for my own team.

When I first saw the Chiefs ranked this highly, I cringed, but then I looked a little deeper into their D/ST numbers. Quite frankly, they’ve been fantastic. Overall, they’re the #9 D/ST in MFL standard scoring, but I’d contend they’re even a little better than that. Two dud scores in two bad matchups – -5 points combined at Green Bay and at Cincinnati – were relatively easy to avoid, and they’ve destroyed each of their other games. Would you believe that the Chiefs are averaging 13.4 points per game in their other seven games?

Well, they are, and that would be close enough to Denver’s 14.6 to consider the two teams on a shared tier 1. The only thing not to like about the Chiefs this week is that they’re on the road, but the Chargers are dangerously close to running out of personnel on the offensive side of the ball. Kansas City could be a game changer once again this week.

Tier 3 and below

With three great streaming options in tier 2, it’s unlikely that any of us should need to dig too much deeper, even for contrarian GPP plays in DFS. A few deeper options for the desperate:

Baltimore – As a University of Houston student, I love Case Keenum. He’s the NCAA leader in all-time passing yards, and it’s not even particularly close between him and #2 Timmy Chang. That said, he’s got a lot to learn at the NFL level, and even Baltimore’s horrible secondary could do some nasty things to the Rams.

Atlanta – It’s been made clear that the Falcons are pretty mediocre, but as much as I love Matt Hasselbeck for what he did for the Seahawks, he’s a backup QB for a reason. This is a matchup of a mediocre defense at home against a bad offense, and there’s room to profit for the desperate.

Arizona – The Cardinals rate poorly here, but make no mistake, they’re one of the best teams in the league. I hate to admit it after watching them dominate on Sunday night, but they’re the team to beat in the NFC right now, and they have the 3rd best defense in the league by DVOA. However, even at home, the matchup is not very good. They probably should not be dropped in any format unless you’re in a unique situation, but I would not be very happy starting them in any kind of must-win game.

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We’re in the home stretch. Best of luck in week 11!