3 Fantasy Football Defensive Streaming Options for Week 10
I'm one of the 10 or so weirdos on the planet who has a passion for D/STs. In truth, it's a difficult passion to explain to people. Fantasy football is already a niche within a niche, and defensive streaming adds a couple of layers of obscure on top of that. Indeed, even a certain chunk of the fantasy football community is vehemently opposed to defensive streaming.
Whether you share my passion for the D/ST position, or you're gritting your teeth and bearing with your league's decision to keep the spot in spite of your repeated requests to the contrary, I'm here to help.
A few housekeeping matters: lines are courtesy of NFL odds, and roster percentages and scores are from the Yahoo! fantasy platform. Assume that the listed order is the preferred order. I'll try for defenses on 40% or fewer of Yahoo rosters.
Tennessee Titans
vs. New Orleans Saints
Spread: Titans -3.0
Roster Percentage: 10%
The Tennessee Titans are favored by 3 points this week, and even that seems a little bit soft to me against the Trevor Siemian-led New Orleans Saints. Not to get too much into single-week outcomes, but the Titans did just wallop the Los Angeles Rams, and they've also beaten the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills earlier in the year. They do seem like a team that could compete with anyone.
The Titans are about an average defense at 0.08 Offensive Net Expected Points (NEP) allowed per play.
T-Money Sizzle figures to be under center and has a career 2.6% interception rate and 6.9% sack rate. The Saints also have an implied point total of just 21.0 points.
We project the upstart Titans to be the sixth-best D/ST of the week.
Denver Broncos
vs. Philadelphia Eagles
Spread: Broncos -3.0
Roster Percentage: 47%
The Denver Broncos exceed the 40% rostership threshold, but I typically make an exception for teams that were soft-dropped.
Our NEP model seemed to catch the Broncos a week early, pegging them as the sixth-best defensive unit in the league. This was backed up by their strong performance against the Dallas Cowboys. The Philadelphia Eagles and their 20.5-point implied point total figure to be a much softer matchup.
Our forecast shows the Mile High City crew as this week's ninth-best D/ST option, so hopefully, they are available in your league despite the higher roster rate. .
Philadelphia Eagles
at Denver Broncos
Spread: Eagles +3.0
Roster Percentage: 7%
The heart of bye week season is always the most difficult to stream defenses, and that leads us to a week where we might have to make some desperation plays.
Flipping the script is always an option in such scenarios.
The Broncos played well in Week 9, but in the NFL, you're always a week away from being a completely different team. If that happens with Teddy Bridgewater (8.4% sack rate), it could mean interesting things from a fantasy perspective.
The Eagles also project as the 13th-best D/ST for Week 10 in numberFire's model.
