Fantasy defenses that could win or lose your September
Yahoo Fantasy's Matt Harmon and Justin Boone offer their 'draft blueprint' for defenses to stream–and a surprising one to potentially avoid--in the first few weeks of the fantasy season. Check out the full conversation on the "Yahoo Fantasy Forecast" podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
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And Boone, getting off to a fast start is something that we hammer consistently on this show.
It is something we want you guys to be focused on these early season schedules, and that trickles all the way down to picking your streaming defense to start the year.
So Boone, it is time for you to go full sicko mode here, pal.
Talk about some of the defenses that have some early season schedules that people should be interested in.
The Ravens.
Now, this one you can look at a little bit longer.
There's some tough- matchups in here.
They play the Colts, the Saints, the Cowboys, and then it's the Titans, the Falcons, the Browns.
Some great quarterbacks to target there.
The Colts, this isn't as rock solid as they were early in the season last year, right?
Michael Pittman Jr.'s gone.
Alec Pierce might not be available in week one.
Daniel Jones still trying to get back to form, coming off a serious injury.
So the Colts isn't quite as scary of a matchup.
The Saints, very up-tempo, and you like that when you're trying to target a defense to play.
You want the offense to be up-tempo.
That means there's gonna be more opportunity for plays that are gonna get you fantasy points, right?
So that's interesting.
And for everything we say about Tyler Shuck and the Saints attack, they still were giving up quite a bit of fantasy points last year.
They looked good, but they were still giving up fantasy points in terms of being one of the top 10 most favorable matchups for opposing defenses.
And also, we said it earlier, Jordan Tyson might not be out there in week one.
The Cowboys is a tough matchup for sure.
We can't get around that.
That's tough, yeah.
That's a good offense.
But then you're getting Cam Ward, either Tua or Michael Penix.
We don't really know who's gonna be playing quarterback come week five for the Falcons, and then Deshaun Watson and Cleveland.
And as much as I have optimism about the Browns offense, I still think that's a matchup that we can target there, Harmon.
Any thoughts on those two before I give the one that I think you just target for week one?
The second one that you have here is a little bit more of a critical point because people are actually drafting the Broncos defense.
And again, this is a defense that sort of goes back to the Josh Allen quarterback thing, where he's a great player.
He can be Superman against anyone and go out and put up a huge total, and yet he's gonna have to deal with a tough slate to start the year.
Broncos defense, the same.
We have the Chiefs, the Jags, the Rams, and the 49ers.
Those are four really good offenses.
Those are four really quality quarterbacks.
Like, even if Patrick Mahomes isn't quite himself to start the season, even if he isn't as mobile as he was last year, which was a huge part of his game last season, he's still so smart out there.
They're gonna find ways to move the ball.
They're gonna do well.
And the Br- the Broncos are gonna be fine.
Like, they'll be okay for you.
But we also see when, in terms of some of these, like, really good defenses, they might not come through, right?
It can be very up and down.
In the second half last season, for example, the Seahawks, in their last nine games, they were a very good defense.
They were the highest scoring fantasy defense, and yet in four of those games they were held to four points or less, which is terrible.
You don't want that in your defense spot, right?
So it's a very volatile position.
And again, that's why I would much rather play the matchups and have that kinda extra feather in your cap going into the week, knowing that the opponent isn't gonna be quite as good versus, you know, the Broncos defense having to deal with some offenses that are gonna put up huge numbers, right?
Throughout the season, all of these offenses are offenses we're targeting for fantasy, could be really good this year.
So it's just something to keep in mind that as good as the Broncos defense is, they're gonna have to deal with some very quality offenses.
The numbers might not be as good in that opening month
