Ndamukong Suh and the Dolphins defense are trending up
When you sign up for a fantasy football league, you are committing to anywhere from 13 to 16 games with your league mates. Abandoning a team of any record along the way – whether you’re X-0 or 0-X or anything in between – is just about the worst thing you can do to the rest of your league. If you are on the cusp of playoff contention but ultimately fall short, you owe it to the rest of your league to keep playing spoiler until the very end. At the very least, you owe it to them to set a reasonable lineup every week, even if you lapse on the waiver wire.
Week 10 is in the books, and D/STs were mostly unpredictable. If that sounds familiar, it should! It has been the mantra of this column from the beginning. Even the good weeks are relatively mediocre, because of the highly variable way that D/STs are scored. That said, many of the Week 10 highlights followed through with their expectations.
The top tier last week was just Arizona and Baltimore, with Washington a half-step behind at Tier 1.5. The three teams scored 9, 14, and 9, respectively (for an average of 10.7). The second tier was a little worse, with scores of 7, 9, 16, and 4 (an average of 8.3), but that still represents just one dud score over the top 6.
The big misses for the projection model last week were Miami (projected 22nd, finished 2nd), San Francisco (projected 28th, finished tied for 7th), San Diego (projected 7th, finished 23rd), Minnesota (projected 8th, finished 23rd), and the Jets (projected 4th, finished 17th). Consensus suggested each of those were fine ideas going into the week, but the results certainly did not follow.
Overall, the rank correlation for Week 10 was 0.169. Weeks like these are going to hit most D/ST rankers similarly hard when weird things happen, so that is to be expected.
Week 11 D/ST Scoring (Team, expected points – tier) – all scoring assumes MFL Standard, from www.myfantasyleague.com.
- Kansas City Chiefs, 10.7 – Tier 1 (vs TB)
- Arizona Cardinals, 9.7 – Tier 1 (at MIN)
- Minnesota Vikings, 9.2 – Tier 1.5 (vs ARI)
- Seattle Seahawks, 9.1 – Tier 1.5 (vs PHI)
- Miami Dolphins, 8.8 – Tier 2 (at LA)
- Oakland Raiders, 8.8 – Tier 2 (vs HOU/neutral)
- New England Patriots, 8.6 – Tier 2 (at SF)
- Pittsburgh Steelers, 8.6 – Tier 2 (at CLE)
- Detroit Lions, 8.6 – Tier 2 (vs JAX)
- Dallas Cowboys, 8.5 – Tier 2 (vs BAL)
- Los Angeles Rams, 8.4 – Tier 2 (vs MIA)
- New York Giants, 8.4 – Tier 2 (vs CHI)
- Buffalo Bills, 8.0 – Tier 3 (at CIN)
- Cincinnati Bengals, 7.8 – Tier 3 (vs BUF)
- Carolina Panthers, 7.6 – Tier 3 (vs NO)
- Washington Redskins, 7.1 – Tier 4 (vs GB)
On bye this week are Atlanta, Denver, San Diego, and the Jets. The Broncos are still too good to drop, San Diego has great matchups going forward but can be dropped in most formats, and the other two are easy drops in all formats.
Tier 1 – Kansas City, Arizona
By now, we should be very used to seeing the Chiefs populate the top of the ranks. Their scoring average is over 12 points per game, and they are one of only two D/STs to make that claim in 2016. Since Week 5 of last season, they are the number one D/ST and on a tier of their own – yes, over Denver, over Minnesota, and over Arizona. In Week 11, the Chiefs have a home game against the Buccaneers. That really should be all you need to sell you, but just in case: The Chiefs are favored by a touchdown, play at home, and expect a low-scoring game. The Bucs are an average matchup, but the Chiefs are an elite D/ST, and there really is no need to overthink this one.
Arizona should be no surprise either. They have a top 5 score on the season in average points per game and an obviously playable matchup at Minnesota. Like the Chiefs, the Cardinals are a plug-and-play D/ST in most weeks. Being on the road limits their appeal just a little bit, but the Vikings offense (bottom 8 unit by DVOA) is bad enough to pull the trigger anyway. Especially if the Cardinals get out to a lead, look for their mediocre pass rush to look much, much better than it has been.
Tier 1.5 – Minnesota, Seattle
The most frustrating D/ST in the game right now is clearly Minnesota. We saw their high end – Weeks 1 through 7, they were on a tier of their own with nearly 17ppg. That obviously could not last, but regression has been harsh: they have scored just 4ppg since, and have gone from unquestionable to doubtful in a hurry.
Still, the Vikings are the number 1 scoring D/ST overall. They’re clearly good. Watching them, they have the talent. Real expectations going forward should be more down to earth from six weeks ago, but the Vikings are still fine. Either way, you are stuck: the Vikings’ playoff matchups in Weeks 14 and 15 are in Jacksonville and at home against the Colts, and both games are impossible to get away from. Buckle up and just hope they start playing better.
None of the four teams listed so far should be available in any reasonable league.
Tier 2 – Miami, Oakland, New England, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York Giants
Wow! Here is where everything has been hiding. First, just 0.4 points of expectation separate Miami (at fifth overall) from the Giants (twelfth), so do not worry about parsing them too precisely. There are a couple though that stick out from among the rest.
New England has been a relatively mediocre fantasy D/ST through 10 weeks. Their 7 points per game are basically league average, and they have only passed double-digits twice on the season. However, their matchup is too good to ignore. The 49ers are a top 5 opponent, and even on the road, the Patriots are favored by a wide margin. With games against the Jets and Rams in the next two weeks, the Patriots get a trio of great matchups down the stretch. I would take them over anyone else in this tier.
The Rams are very quietly on a roll defensively. Their last three games were against the Giants, Jets, and Panthers and they held those offenses to 12 points per game, tacking on 2 sacks and a turnover in each. Their Week 11 matchup is Miami, who have found their offensive footing lately, but are still not much worse than a league-average matchup. Everything looks fine… until you look at their upcoming games.
Like it or not, some part of streaming and starting D/STs is a small nod toward future weeks, especially this late in the season. The Rams next few weeks are at New Orleans, at New England, vs Atlanta, and then at Seattle. Given that they are mostly indistinguishable from the rest of the teams this week and clearly horrible in future weeks, they should be the last-place option on the tier.
In between the Patriots at the top and the Rams at the bottom, it’s even more difficult to distinguish the teams from each other.
Miami stands out, in part because of their strong matchup this week, but also because of their strong matchup vs. San Francisco next week. The Dolphins have slipped into the category of being slightly better than streaming, but not quite plug-and-play. That changes this week and should be reevaluated again after Week 12, but until then, the Dolphins are a rock solid choice.
By a similar method, the Giants are in another similar situation, with a strong matchup vs. Chicago this week and another strong one next week at Cleveland. The Giants really need to kick up their pass rush a notch or two, but they have been just good enough to keep them afloat recently. The Bears offense is just the remedy, given they are a top 5 matchup and the game is at home.
The Raiders matchup would look a little more enticing if the game were in Oakland; being a neutral field in Mexico City, they are not getting any adjustment for home field. I am extremely excited to watch this game, but am also cautiously optimistic about the Raiders defense. First, the Texans offense is very, very bad. It is not a home game for Oakland, but it is basically a road game for the Texans, and the Raiders have just enough in their column to bring them into consideration. They also have three home games in a row in playable matchups, so can be targeted next.
The Cowboys are an interesting case. By all metrics, they should be a solid D/ST. Their offense is designed to maximize time of possession, leverage leads, and make the game a lot easier for their own defense. At the same time, their defense is not particularly good. The Cowboys will make a solid, average weekly D/ST (or even average plug-and-play) choice given their profile. Think of that as the lazy way out of streaming. This week, they are favored big at home, and the Ravens are not a good enough offense to get away from here.
Detroit is the worst D/ST mentioned so far, and are decidedly below-average on the season. They have a great matchup though and are a fine option for streamers. With a home game against the Vikings next week they could give you multiple starts, but do not expect anything more than an average score from them. The same could be said for the Steelers with their game at Cleveland. However, the Steelers have also been one of the worst D/STs in the league, so expectations need to be tempered. There is no future value for the Steelers.
That leaves the tier recommended in the following approximate order: New England, Miami, NY Giants, Oakland, Dallas, Detroit, and then Pittsburgh and Los Angeles.
Tier 3 and below
The Buffalo Bills were a hot choice before their bye week, and recall they had a couple of bad matchups (and bad scores) leading up to it. A game at Cincinnati is not quite what we would want to show up just after the bye, but it results in a Tier 3 projection. Not good, but also not bad, and you probably cannot justify dropping them if you kept them through the bye. Maybe use that extra roster spot to bench them this week? (and again in Weeks 13 and 14)
Philadelphia has been doing a number on my own fantasy teams. I have stuck with them in two spots and with 6 points per game, they have been lagging behind average by a point and a half. The matchup here looked beatable a few weeks ago, but at Seattle is not a good place to be anymore. I will be looking to move on from the Eagles finally, but DVOA should still show them to be an elite choice, so either choice is justifiable. Note that through 10 weeks, the Eagles D/ST are still the 3rd highest-scoring D/ST in points per game.
The Panthers are the last team here that deserve mention. They have a matchup against the Saints (bad) at home (good). They scored 0 points against the Saints last time (bad) but then ripped off 41 points over the next three weeks (good). There’s a lot to like here, but with a game at Oakland next week (the worst matchup in the NFL) and then at Seattle the week after, it’s easier to get away from the Panthers right now.
And finally, if you had any hope remaining for the Packers D/ST, it should have been gone by the end of the first quarter Sunday. They can be dropped and ignored going forward.
Best of luck in Week 11!
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