fantasy-football-manager

Team Defense Rankings

Updated as of 8/26/2013

When it comes right down to it, I see many people drafting a Team defense way to early on in a lot of fantasy football drafts. Any time you see the top Team Defense go off the board before the 10th round, what you should be saying is "Hurray! More decent WR and RB picks for me!"

The truth of the matter is, I've found that any time that I pick a defense in the middle rounds thinking that I got one of the best, it almost always backfires on me.

You go into the season only thinking about how good the defense is. Unfortunately, the defense can fall apart with injuries or your opponent beats you heads up with a defense he just picked up that has a good matchup.

If you ride one defense for the entire year during your fantasy season, the best that you will do is on average about 2 to 3 points per week better than the 10th - 12th best defense. This means that you are not gaining a lot of advantage, except maybe the one or two games that you can steal against your opponent with a huge game from the defense.

Case in point - in two of my three drafts I picked a defense at the end of the draft. I then found out that Chicago's Defense is playing at home against the Detroit Lions. Chicago has done well at home against the Lions and usually gets up by a couple of TDs early. This leads to more chances at sacks, fumbles and interceptions. Also, Chicago is a threat to score on the special teams as well. I then dropped my drafted defense and picked up the Bears. This may not be a realistic expectation this year, but the theory still works.

Everybody that I have seen has ranked the Seattle Seahawks as the #1 defense this season. However, you have to realize that they always seem to dominate at home and always seem to do pretty average on the road. I'm also looking towards the end of the season and I see that Seattle has a bye week in Week 12, followed by a home matchup against New Orleans (top offense) and road games against San Francisco and the New York Giants. If you get to the championship game in Week 16, you will be rewarded with a home matchup against the Arizona Cardinals.

You are going to need your defense the most in the last 4 or 5 weeks of the Fantasy Football Season. Check the Schedule to see if you like the matchups during that stretch of time.


Here are the overall rankings for Team Defense
It is based off of the overall fantasy points projected

2013 NFL Fantasy Football Team Defense Rankings

DST
Rank
Team Bye
Week
1 Seattle Seahawks 12
2 San Francisco 49ers 9
3 Denver Broncos 9
4 Chicago Bears 8
5 Houston Texans 8
6 Cincinnati Bengals 12
7 New England Patriots 10
8 Baltimore Ravens 8
9 Pittsburgh Steelers 5
10 St. Louis Rams 11
11 Green Bay Packers 4
12 Arizona Cardinals 9
13 New York Giants 9
14 San Diego Chargers 8

Defense Advice for Bye Weeks

I would keep any of the elite defenses on my roster through a bye week. If you notice anyone dropping one of the following defenses, you may want to pick them up for later use: Seattle Seahawks, San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bears, Denver Broncos.

2012 Team Defense and Special Team Stats

If you know anything about the NFL, you should know that last year's stats are just about meaningless as far as it regards how the defense will perform this season. However, a lot of teams have consistently good defense and a lot of the best defensive players don't change teams. With that said, here are the DST stats for the 2012 season.

Team Bye
Week
Sack Int Fum
Rec
TD Safety Block
Kick
Kick/Punt
Ret TD
Seattle 12 36 18 13 5 0 2 1
San Francisco 9 38 14 11 3 1 2 0
Denver 9 52 16 8 6 2 1 2
Chicago 8 41 24 20 10 0 2 0
Houston 8 44 15 14 5 1 2 0
New England 10 37 20 21 5 1 0 2
Cincinnati 12 51 14 16 3 0 1 1
St. Louis 11 52 17 4 5 1 2 0
Baltimore 8 37 13 12 2 0 0 3
Green Bay 4 47 18 5 3 0 1 1
Pittsburgh 5 37 10 10 1 0 1 0
Arizona 9 38 22 11 4 0 3 0
New York Giants 9 33 21 14 2 0 0 1
San Diego 8 38 14 14 7 1 1 2
Atlanta 6 29 20 11 2 0 0 0
New York Jets 10 30 11 12 3 1 1 2
Minnesota 5 44 10 12 3 0 4 2
Cleveland 10 38 17 12 2 0 0 1
Tampa Bay 5 27 18 8 4 0 3 0
Dallas 11 34 7 9 3 0 0 1
Miami 6 42 10 6 1 0 3 2
Washington 5 32 21 10 4 0 1 0
Carolina 4 39 11 12 3 1 0 0
Tennessee 8 39 19 5 5 1 2 4
Buffalo 12 36 12 9 1 1 5 3
Kansas City 10 27 7 6 1 1 1 0
New Orleans 7 30 15 11 5 0 2 0
Philadelphia 12 30 8 5 0 0 1 1
Detroit 9 34 11 6 0 1 1 0
Indianapolis 8 32 12 3 4 0 0 2
Jacksonville 9 20 12 11 1 0 1 0
Oakland 7 25 11 8 0 0 3 0

Points Allowed by Defense in 2012

Equally as important with team defense is the number of points that they give up per game. Here are the stats for each team in the 2012 season.

Team Bye
Week
Pts 0 Pts 1-6 Pts 7-13 Pts 14-20 Pts 21-27 Pts 28-34 Pts 35+
Seattle 12 1 2 5 5 2 1 0
San Francisco 9 1 3 4 1 5 1 1
Denver 9 0 2 3 6 3 2 0
Chicago 8 0 2 4 4 5 1 0
Houston 8 0 1 5 3 2 2 3
New England 10 1 0 2 5 4 3 1
Cincinnati 12 0 1 6 3 3 2 1
St. Louis 11 0 1 4 4 4 2 1
Baltimore 8 0 1 3 5 2 4 1
Green Bay 4 0 0 3 7 2 2 2
Pittsburgh 5 0 0 6 5 3 2 0
Arizona 9 0 1 2 8 3 1 1
New York Giants 9 0 1 3 2 6 4 0
San Diego 8 0 0 3 5 4 4 0
Atlanta 6 1 1 3 4 4 3 0
New York Jets 10 0 1 3 2 5 4 1
Minnesota 5 0 1 3 2 5 4 1
Cleveland 10 0 1 2 4 5 2 2
Tampa Bay 5 0 1 1 4 6 1 3
Dallas 11 0 0 1 5 5 4 1
Miami 6 0 1 4 3 5 3 0
Washington 5 0 1 0 3 7 4 1
Carolina 4 0 1 2 5 4 3 1
Tennessee 8 0 1 1 2 5 3 4
Buffalo 12 0 0 1 7 2 0 6
Kansas City 10 0 0 1 5 3 4 3
New Orleans 7 1 0 1 2 4 5 3
Philadelphia 12 0 0 1 2 7 5 1
Detroit 9 0 0 1 4 6 3 2
Indianapolis 8 0 0 5 4 2 2 3
Jacksonville 9 0 0 0 3 9 3 1
Oakland 7 1 0 0 4 4 3 4

Projected Fantasy Value: 1st 4 Weeks and Playoffs

As you can see from the projections, there is not going to be a gigantic difference between the top 10 defenses in total fantasy points projected. There are a few teams every year that are better than expected at creating turnovers or scoring special team touchdowns.

Projected 1st 4 Weeks

Projected
1st 4 Weeks
Team Pts Allow Sack Safety Int Fum
Rec
Def
TD
Block
Kick
Ret
TD
1 Chicago 70.2 10.4 0 5.4 6.9 2.1 0.2 0
2 New England 81.5 9 0.2 5.2 5.3 1.6 0 0.5
3 Denver 69.4 10.8 0 4.2 2.2 1.6 0 0.5
4 San Diego 84.3 10.6 0.2 4.1 3.7 1.1 0.3 0.5
5 Seattle 59.8 10.3 0 4.1 2.6 0.8 0.7 0.3
6 Cincinnati 79.5 13.7 0 3.6 3.6 0.8 0 0.3
7 New York NYG 84.2 9.1 0 4.8 4 0.5 0.7 0.3
8 Washington 91.4 8.6 0 4.4 3.3 1.6 0.1 0
9 Arizona 93.1 8.2 0 6.2 2.5 0.8 0.5 0.5
10 Houston 84.8 11.8 0.2 3.6 3.3 0.8 0.7 0
11 Minnesota 82.9 9.7 0 3 3.7 0.8 0.2 0.5
12 Dallas 82.2 9.1 0 3.5 2.5 0.8 0.5 0.3
13 San Francisco 70.6 11.3 0.1 2.8 2.6 1.1 0.3 0
14 St. Louis 86.3 12.5 0.1 4.5 0.9 1.3 0.2 0
15 Tennessee 112 11 0.5 4.5 1.6 0.8 0.5 0.5
16 Baltimore 91.2 7.9 0 3.5 3.3 0.5 0 0.8

Week 15 Projections

Projected
Week 15
Team Pts Allow Sack Safety Int Fum
Rec
Def
TD
Block
Kick
Ret
TD
1 Denver 17.4 4 0.2 1.1 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.1
2 Chicago 14.4 2.6 0 1.7 1 0.5 0 0
3 New England 16.4 2.5 0 1 1.5 0.4 0 0.1
4 Minnesota 16.8 3.2 0 0.7 1.7 0.2 0 0.1
5 Arizona 20.2 2.7 0 1.5 0.9 0.2 0.2 0.1
6 Carolina 17.6 3.4 0.1 1 1.4 0.3 0 0
7 Cincinnati 18.5 3 0 0.9 1.5 0.2 0 0.1
8 Houston 20.3 3 0 1.2 0.8 0.2 0 0
9 Tennessee 20.2 2.9 0 1.3 0.4 0.2 0 0.1
10 Buffalo 19 3.3 0 0.9 0.5 0.1 0 0.2
11 Baltimore 21.9 2 0 1 1.2 0.1 0 0.2
12 Green Bay 21.7 2.9 0 1.6 0.3 0.1 0 0.1
13 Cleveland 23.7 3.1 0 1.1 0.5 0.1 0 0.1
14 San Diego 29 1.5 0.2 0.7 1.1 0.3 0.3 0.1
15 Seattle 18 1.3 0 1.2 0.5 0.2 0 0.1

Week 16 Projections

Projected
Week 16
Team Pts Allow Sack Safety Int Fum
Rec
Def
TD
Block
Kick
Ret
TD
1 Chicago 13.3 3.5 0 1.4 2.9 0.5 0 0
2 Seattle 10.5 2.8 0 1.4 1.1 0.2 0 0.1
3 Cleveland 17.8 3.3 0 1.3 1.2 0.1 0.2 0.1
4 San Diego 17.4 1.9 0 1 0.8 0.3 0 0.1
5 New England 22.7 2.6 0 0.9 0.6 0.4 0 0.1
6 New York NYG 21.9 2 0 1.3 1.2 0.1 0.2 0.1
7 Indianapolis 14 2.4 0 0.9 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.1
8 Green Bay 19.4 3 0 1.2 0.5 0.1 0 0.1
9 Washington 25 2 0 1.5 0.6 0.4 0 0
10 Tennessee 20.5 3.4 0 1.3 0.3 0.2 0 0.1
11 Denver 20.7 2.3 0.2 1 0.2 0.4 0.2 0.1
12 Houston 27.4 1.6 0.2 0.8 1.3 0.2 0.7 0
13 Minnesota 23.4 3.1 0 0.7 0.8 0.2 0 0.1
14 Miami 18.7 2.3 0 1 0.7 0 0.2 0.1
15 New York NYJ 19.4 2.1 0 0.7 0.6 0.2 0 0.1