The Colts’ D/ST presents a boom-or-bust streaming option for Week 17
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.
If your fantasy football season carries on past Week 16, you are doing something wrong. Nothing good comes out of Week 17. In 2015, all but one playoff spot is virtually clinched, and most divisions have been clinched as well. Starters could be rested after 1, 2, or 3 quarters, regardless of the scoreboard. While this extra wrinkle could be fun to deal with in Week 1, or in Week 10, it’s absolutely maddening to have to worry about it in a championship game.
In a game where we have to deal with variance on an incredible level to begin with, it’s just an extra shot of randomness that no one wants to deal with. Start your playoffs one week earlier, or allow fewer teams a bid to the playoffs, or eliminate your “two week” finals entirely. Whichever solution you choose is better than the alternative of playing into Week 17.
Alas, it is far too late to change that for anybody stuck in the Week 17 quagmire right now. Work on changing it for your league next year, but for now, we have another game to win. Week 16 was a fairly tame one, unless you were hoping on most of the Pittsburgh Steelers to carry you to victory. Or Odell Beckham, Alshon Jeffery, Danny Amendola, or any of the thousand injured running backs.
Then again, some players stepped up huge for owners. Blake Bortles, Drew Brees, Tim Hightower, Brandin Cooks, Allen Robinson, and Allen Hurns all scored ridiculous scores for owners in Week 16, and you didn’t even have to leave the Super Dome for any of them. Kirk Cousins and Jordan Reed were the overall top scorers this past weekend, and yes, I liked that.
Averages by tier:
1 & 1.5: 6.7
2 & 2.5: 8.8
3 & 3.5: 17.5
The average D/ST in Week 16 scored 8.9, which is relatively high. Huge scores by Arizona, Houston, St. Louis, and Minnesota (33, 22, 20, and 20 respectively) kept the average sky high. The other 28 teams averaged just 6.7 points per game.
Note that the original publication ranked Houston, Minnesota, and Arizona relatively low, however once Vegas released lines on the Texans/Titans game, they shot up in the rankings. Line movements throughout the week favored both the Vikings and the Cardinals, so savvy owners could have been a little heavier on each team than originally expected.
By kickoff, Houston ranked 4th, Minnesota ranked 18th, and Arizona ranked 16th and each projected a higher score than on Tuesday. Does that cancel out the failure that was the Pittsburgh Steelers? Probably not, although their D/ST score of 5 was still more than Ben Roethlisberger. Ouch. DeAngelo Williams kept up his end of the bargain, but the rest of the Pittsburgh Steelers ruined many fantasy championship games this past weekend.
Seattle and Philadelphia were the other two big stinkers on the weekend. The Seahawks probably didn’t sink any championship bids on their own, but the Eagles might have. Sometimes you just roll snake eyes and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Import your team for free to get waiver wire advice 
Week 17 (yes, really!) D/ST Scoring (team – EV projection – tier)
- St. Louis Rams – 11.0 – 1
- Denver Broncos – 10.9 – 1
- Carolina Panthers – 10.7 – 1
- New England Patriots – 10.7 – 1
- Indianapolis Colts – 10.5 – 1.5
- Pittsburgh Steelers – 10.3 – 1.5
- Cincinnati Bengals – 10.3 – 1.5
- Kansas City Chiefs – 9.6 – 2
- New York Jets – 9.5 – 2
- Houston Texans – 9.3 – 2
- Arizona Cardinals – 9.3 – 2
- Washington Redskins – 9.1 – 2
- Green Bay Packers – 8.1 – 3
- Chicago Bears – 7.4 – 3.5
- New York Giants – 7.3 – 3.5
- San Francisco 49ers – 6.9 – 4
On the same tier as SF are Detroit, Buffalo, Atlanta, Oakland, San Diego, and Dallas, but I would hesitate to start any of them if you can avoid it. Most waiver wires should be entirely untouched at this point in the season, so you should have your pick of the remaining options (if anything even remains!).
Tier 1: St. Louis, Denver, Carolina, New England
If you have any of these D/STs, you’re just going to start them. None should be available on waiver wires, each shows a very clear edge over the options behind them, and each of them have flashed throughout the year as top options (some more than others, of course).
St. Louis gets the 49ers, one of the best matchups in the game at the position, in a game which Vegas has pegged for just 37.5 total points. St. Louis’s share of that is just 17 points allowed. That’s the second lowest total on the board, and it should be pretty obvious that the Rams are in a great spot this weekend.
The Broncos are the lowest scoring profile on the board this weekend, and I would favor Denver over the Rams if given the choice. They have been killer for most of the year, and looked very adequate on Monday Night against the formerly great offense of Cincinnati.
If you have been starting the Panthers this year, you’ve got no reason to stop yet. Just plug them in. Unless you somehow have access to the Broncos as well, there’s no reason to deviate. They have a great matchup at home, although with a bye locked up, they could take their foot off the gas at some point. The Cardinals should keep them honest at just 1 game back, but if the game gets out of hand early in either direction, you could see starters get pulled on either side of the ball. Tread carefully but expecting big things is fine.
The Patriots are in the driver seat for home field advantage, but like Carolina, they have somebody (multiple somebodies, in this case) keeping them honest. Just one game separates the Patriots from Denver and Cincinnati thanks to the result on Monday Night Football. The Patriots get a horrible Miami team, albeit on the road, and should romp to an easy victory. They could use the tuneup game and I would expect them to keep their starters in for most of the game. We’ve seen some huge road favorites come up short, so temper expectations, but the Patriots are a clear start over the choices behind them.
I would rank this tier Denver, St. Louis, Carolina, then New England.
Tier 1.5: Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati
Full disclosure: I handicapped the Colts game myself, since no line is available in Vegas yet due to another QB injury. I used Indianapolis -7, over/under 46. If the line differs significantly either way, it could change their projection, and they could become unstartable by Sunday morning. Keep a close eye on this one. However, with Houston dismantling the Titans and Indianapolis winning on the road last weekend, it seems like a reasonable starting point. The Colts are not good, but neither are the Titans. Tread carefully but they could be a huge boon off the waiver wire.
The Pittsburgh Steelers failed to come through last weekend, but can owners still trust them? In a word, probably. They get the Cleveland Browns and they’re going to be fighting for their playoff lives. Regardless of whether they have a shot at the playoffs, the Steelers need to win, and they’re a team that can pile on points in a hurry. I would love to be starting the Steelers this week in my championship game, although trusting the Steelers is never a fun proposition.
Baltimore allowed Ryan Mallett to do his best Joe Flacco impersonation in Week 16, and he looked like an NFL quarterback. Shocking, wasn’t it? He’s performing just in time to lock himself up a decent contract and torpedo another team in 2017. It’s quite remarkable, really. I would not be too worried as a Cincinnati owner, but it’s definitely enough to give me pause. However, the Bengals pass rush was dialed up something fierce in Week 16, and that should be enough to keep Mallett on his back and the D/ST score up toward the double digits.
Baltimore and Cincinnati are great starts for sure, and Indianapolis is strictly dependent on their final Vegas line. I’ve got no real preference otherwise among the tier. Cincinnati is probably safer than Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh probably has more upside.
Tier 2 and below
There’s a lot to like here, more than usual. Some highlights:
The Chiefs have been bosses all year long, and they have an OK matchup this weekend. Oakland has looked more mortal on offense, and the Chiefs are good enough to take advantage. This time they get the Raiders at home, too. I would not expect as much of a romping as the first matchup, but I would expect a solid 8 or 9 points with upside.
The Texans have been clicking for the most part, and they’re going to be playing for their playoff lives (even if they’re virtually locked in with a loss). NRG Stadium is going to be loud. Bortles has looked exceptional at times, and he’s looked like a total turd at times. I would expect more of the latter than the former as he’s on the road. Game script should ensure he has more than his fair share of garbage time, leading to some high leverage situations for the Texans pass rush. I would look out for J.J. Watt to sit out a majority of this game unless things somehow go very poorly.
Washington and the Jets both have a favorable rating from Vegas, but that’s about all they have going for them this week. Both would be much stronger plays at home (shocking, I know), but on the road you get an extra bit of variance in there and a lower floor, which sinks their overall projection a little bit. If I had to pick one, I would rather be on the Jets. They’ve been a better D/ST for most of the season, and they’re not yet locked into the playoffs like the Redskins are.
Get Start/Sit & Waiver Advice with My Playbook
Friends don’t let friends play in Week 17, but with money on the line, I’ll forgive you this one time. Just promise me you’ll try and change things for next year?
As the season wraps itself up, I would like to extend the sincerest of thanks to everybody who has been reading along with me this year (and in years past). It was a very successful season for my own teams and I hope it has been for yours; and remember, success isn’t just measured in championship wins. There are so many ways to judge a season as successful – Did your team lead the “points scored” category? Did you do better than last season? And most importantly, did you have fun?
I did, and I hope you did too.
