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 a necessary 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: we aren’t as concerned with good defenses as we are with finding defenses playing terrible offenses. Bad offenses are more likely to keep playing badly because if they knew how to be good, they would already be good. Based on this flawless logic, I will highlight the best streaming options each week.
Cleveland Browns DEF (45% owned) @ Las Vegas Raiders
The Cleveland Browns’ defense is the stone-cold nuts for streaming this week. The Raiders’ offense has the fifth-most turnovers, the eighth-most sacks, and the second-fewest points per game. Myles Garrett is the front-runner for Defensive Player of the Year, and the Browns have the fourth-most sacks and seventh-most turnovers. Plus, Vegas is playing on a short week. I will be playing Cleveland everywhere I can get them.
Jacksonville Jaguars DEF (40% owned) @ Arizona Cardinals
If you can’t get the Browns, the Jaguars are my second favorite defensive stream of the week. The Jaguars have the second-most turnovers, and the Cardinals have the fifth-most sacks allowed. It isn’t an elite matchup, but my model rates it as a plus matchup with the potential for a spike week. As good as Jacoby Brissett has been, the Cardinals are a bad football team, whereas the Jaguars are in the hunt for the playoffs.
Atlanta Falcons DEF (12% owned) @ New Orleans Saints
Call me Charlie Brown and the Falcons defense Lucy, because I am going to keep kicking this ball and hope the Falcons don’t pull it away at the last minute. I have not been right about the Falcons once this year, even though they have the second-most sacks and ninth-most turnovers on defense. The Saints are scoring the third-fewest points per game and have the fifth-most turnovers. The Falcons should be a great defensive streaming option, but you might be better off starting the Saints because I am wrong about the Falcons 100% of the time! The numbers say the Falcons are a great start this week, but the numbers are lying liars!
[Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Myles_Garrett_%2842477061150%29.jpg, cropped under CC BY SA 2.0]
