Week 8 Fantasy Football Defensive Streaming: Buying the Bengals

New Orleans Saints

Yahoo Ownership: 44%
numberFire Projected Rank: 10th

After years of being one of the worst defenses in the league, the New Orleans Saints have been much improved in 2017, along with being productive from a fantasy standpoint as well. The Saints have finished as a weekly top-three defense in three out of six games, while being the highest scoring defense of the week twice.

Now in Week 8, they host the Chicago Bears who are 2-1 with Mitchell Trubisky starting at quarterback, but that record has largely come on the back of Jordan Howard, who is averaging 25 rushing attempts in those games. The Bears' rookie quarterback has only thrown more than 20 passes in one out of three games. Just last week against the Carolina Panthers, he attempted just seven pass attempts.

Despite dropping back so little, Trubisky has been sacked often. He's taken four sacks in each of his last two games and could be hitting the turf often in Week 8 -- the Saints rank 12th in the league in sacks (17).

While Trubisky hasn't been asked to throw much, that could change on Sunday. The Bears are a nine-point underdog in New Orleans, where the Saints are always apt to putting up big numbers. This week, Vegas has given the Saints an implied team total of 28.5 points, the second-largest total of the week.

If game script goes as expected, Trubisky could be throwing the ball a lot more than he has in recent weeks and that should lead to a big fantasy day for the Saints defense.