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The Cincinnati Bengals defense has been anything but trustworthy, but the unit has a great schedule for fantasy purposes down the stretch. (Photo by Ian Johnson/Getty Images)
The following is an excerpt from the latest edition of Yahoo’s fantasy football newsletter, Get to the Points! If you like what you see, you can subscribe for free here.
Let’s get defensive, people. We are running out of ways to improve our fantasy rosters as we approach the money weeks, but tinkering with our team defense is always in play.
Generally speaking, fantasy managers tend to approach team defenses in one of two ways: We either draft-and-hold a highly-ranked D/ST, giving the position little in-season consideration, or we prefer to churn defenses throughout the year, streaming based on matchups.
The problem with the first method is that we are collectively awful at identifying great defenses during the preseason. This year, the consensus top-five were the Niners, Ravens, Jets, Browns and Cowboys. None of those D/STs are currently relevant in fantasy; none rank inside the overall top 10.
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The problem with streaming isn’t the concept itself, but rather our execution. We often focus on not-quite the right things when we do it. We go looking for quality defenses facing losing teams. It’s an approach that can certainly lead us to the right destination — picking on Will Levis has been a winning move — but there’s a more reliable way to get where we wanna go.
Fantasy scoring at D/ST is almost entirely driven by splashy game-changing events — turnovers, sacks, defensive touchdowns — which are not actually the easiest things to predict. But we know those events are much more likely to occur when a quarterback is dropping back to pass. We don’t get sacks and pick-sixes on hand-offs. It’s no accident that Dallas, Cleveland and Las Vegas — the three teams currently leading the NFL in…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/terrible-nfl-defenses-that-could-help-you-during-the-fantasy-football-playoffs-153932191.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-12-05 15:39:00
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