If you read my article on playing the waiver wire game, you know that it is an essential part of winning your fantasy football league. If you haven’t read it, what are you waiting for? I just told you it’s an essential part of winning your fantasy football league! Why do you hate winning? One of the best ways to maximize your weekly scoring is to stream defenses. This strategy is simple: stop being concerned with finding good defenses, and find defenses that are playing against terrible offenses. Bad offenses are more likely to keep playing poorly because if they knew how to be good, they would already be good. Following this flawless logic, let’s find out who we should stream this week!
Denver Broncos Defense (53% owned) @ Carolina Panthers
How in the name of all that is holy is the Denver Broncos Defense rostered in only 53% of leagues? That number alone should tell you the Broncos’ state as a team. This defense should be top-five in fantasy the way they’ve been playing, but we don’t respect them because of the spillover from how little we respect Russell Wilson. The Broncos give up the third-fewest yards per play and the sixth-fewest first downs. It is legitimately hard to move on them. But they are put in such bad positions by their offense that their production has been inconsistent. Nothing gets an elite defense going like facing a Sam Darnold-led Carolina Panthers team. If you watch football, you don’t need me to explain this to you, so I’ll just say the Panthers give up the eighth-most fantasy points to opposing defenses before desperately turning to Sam Darnold to save them.
Kansas City Chiefs Defense (50% owned) @ Los Angeles Rams
I’m not sure there is a safer bet than whichever defense is playing the Los Angeles Rams. There is a reason they give up the most fantasy points to opposing defenses. They give up the most sacks in football. They have the fifth-most turnovers in football. The third-most sacks. Add to that the fourth-worst scoring offense in football and it makes you want to start every defense against them. And they earned that rank when Matt Stafford was their quarterback. Imagine what the Chiefs will do this week against this person apparently named… “Bryce Perkins.”
Indianapolis Colts Defense (45% owned) @ Pittsburgh Steelers
While the Colts have been bad at football, they haven’t been that bad on defense. They have the eighth-highest sack rate, give up the fifth-fewest yards per play, and have the tenth-most turnovers. As a fantasy defense, they have been a pretty steady play. The Steelers, on the other hand, have not been a very good offense. The Steelers have given up the ninth-most sacks, the third-most interceptions, and score the fifth-fewest points per game. If you can’t get the Broncos or Chiefs, the Indianapolis Colts are a very nice consolation prize.
