Defense Wins Championships in FF?

[jman3134]

Another important distinction is great defense vs great fantasy football defense. A solid cohesive unit like Minnesota may not score top tier fantasy defense numbers, which is based predominantly on turnovers. That is, unless you have modified standard scoring dramatically to include points for third down stops.

[joeylitz]

If no one ever trades defenses, then your league must be pretty full of owners that don't place much value on them, or they would at least at times seek to obtain them. It should, therefore, be easy enough to go get the Rams D. Go get it done.

He's showing little interest. Offered me the Rams defense for Tevin Coleman straight up. No place really to go after that. I'll try again during the season. The Vikings defense isn't a liability.

Vikings D is a cohesive unit that has largely played together and under the same system for years, and has its share of pro-bowlers. The Rams D looks good, but has a share of pro-bowlers just brought in, with less cohesion and some of them having no time in the system yet.
As good as the Rams look on paper, the Vikings D might be better anyways.

Except the Eagles lit them up for 43 (Rams) and 38 (Vikes)! Sorry - couldn’t resist.

[ppm]

Top defenses can potentially provide a lot of value. In 0.5 PPR ESPN scoring Jacksonville D/ST finished 0.1 point higher than Julio Jones on the season. The difference in points per game between the #1 Jags and the Bears at #6 is about the same difference there was between Julio (#4) and Sammy Watkins (#38).

The main problem with investing in defenses is that they just tend to be very inconsistent year-to-year. Compared to an individual player there's so many more factors that can affect an 11+ player unit. Weak links are created and exposed fast. You'll also get consistently more production playing matchups with a replacement defense than you would a RB or WR. But for the short-term I do think defenses are an underrated target to push for a championship.

[RCS]

Almost exclusively draft IDP players from the 2nd round on in rookie drafts. A much more reliable investment at that point, especially in IDP heavy scoring

Myself as well, I'll always play idp from now on

[hockeyBjj]

Defenses are erratic and useful ones are always available on the wire each season. I'm glad my leagues in recent years either are IDP or eliminated them altogether.

Like I said, depends on your league. Because they change so much from season to season you never know which ones are gonna be "studs" each year. Which is why in my leagues every single D is rostered year round, and they can actually have short term one season value (or more than one in rare cases).

My league has deep enough rosters, every single one is owned. It's a domino effect. The "extras" on waivers start getting snagged, I realize I need to get one now before my actual D's bye week. Now with another usable one gone, others grab one, and now with only 5 left I may as well grab one so that I have 3 options to 'stream' from if my main runs into bad matchups

Wait, I take that back, just checked, and in my 10 team league the waiver defense options are the Browns and Colts. Stream away lol

We saw a few times this year of a good D being traded for a bad D plus a 2nd or equivalent player. I got Pats D and a 19 2nd for Carolina D as they'd been doing good but had stellar week 15 and 16 matchups and I was gonna use my Vikings anyway

[joeylitz]

You'll also get consistently more production playing matchups with a replacement defense than you would a RB or WR.

This is great insight

[Valhalla]

You'll also get consistently more production playing matchups with a replacement defense than you would a RB or WR.

This is great insight

Unless the league is one to hold multiple defenses...
It's one thing to say "I have success in my league streaming defenses" when your league members are holding 1-2 defenses per team so maybe 16-20 defenses are rostered with at least 12 streamers. Some leagues...the streaming option might be picking between four bad defenses, and if that's the case, I highly doubt you'll get "consistently more production playing matchups with replacement defense." It all depends on the replacement level, like any other position...so this is a league dependent question.

[Bot101]

There were teams in my league that held 2 and on a couple occasions 3 defenses during the season. Streaming isnt an option unfortunately.

[fakespike13]

My team became The Jaggernaut when it became evident that Jax D was putting up 20 ppg in our scoring (291 points in 16 weeks). Went a long way in helping my team dominate the league in scoring (133 ppg)