In my “big-money†home league which drafted last week, the Seattle Seahawks D/ST went off the board at pick 8.02. I’m sure many of you reading this probably have a similar story to tell regarding how early the first defense was picked in your draft.
While the Seattle defense was certainly terrific last season, spending an eighth-round draft pick on them (or any defense for that matter) is simply lunacy in any standard league. Instead of filling out a starting lineup, you want to focus on finding breakout candidates at the wide receiver and running back position in the middle rounds before snagging your defense at the end of your draft.
To illustrate my point, three of the top five fantasy scoring defenses from last season weren’t even drafted in 12-team standard scoring leagues.
This is the first installment of a season-long series where I'll give you the best streaming defensive options for those willing to work the waiver wire looking for favorable matchups.
I'll focus on defensive units that have a 50% or lower ownership in both ESPN and Yahoo leagues to avoid obvious choices like Seattle.
While there's no guarantee of a perfect hit rate on these picks, the hope is to give you, at worst, a start-worthy defense who can keep place with your opponent, while your other positional players vault you to victory.
Let's get started.
New York Jets
Owned: ESPN - 4.7% Yahoo - 10%
Week 1 numberFire Rank: 10th
The Oakland Raiders were bad last season, ranking 23rd in Adjusted Although new offensive coordinator Jay Gruden claims he isn’t worried about Griffin or his offense in general, most outside of the organization, including myself, aren’t quite as confident.
The strength of Houston’s defense is the front seven, highlighted by All-World defensive end I’m not the only one who envisions massive growing pains coming.
The Lions ranked second against the run in 2013 according to our metrics, and return the majority of their fantastic front-seven which is bad news for Rashad Jennings and Andre Williams. If the Giants fail to establish some semblance of a run game to keep the Detroit pass rushers honest, Eli and company could easily implode.
Feel good about starting Detroit in Week 1.
Deeper Streamers
Philadelphia Eagles (vs. Jacksonville Jaguars), Oakland Raiders (vs. New York Jets)