Dylan Lerch has been writing his Defense Wins Championships column for three straight seasons, and each installment can be found at Empeopled.com every Tuesday morning. You can follow him @dtlerch.



We have officially entered an alternate football universe: The Bears defense is historically bad, the Browns are leading the AFC North, Mike Vick is winning games for the New York Jets, and Mark Sanchez is winning games for the Philadelphia Eagles. Welcome to the 2014 NFL season! Thankfully, in the realm of D/STs, Week 10 was very kind to streaming defenses.

Last week’s top choice Baltimore finished with a very respectable 14 points, proving that fears over their secondary were quite unfounded. Second tier options Dallas, Seattle, and Arizona finished with 11, 7, and 27 (!) points respectively, although the Cardinals were bolstered by a pair of very late TDs. With 5 minutes left in the game, they had “just” 11 D/ST points.

Going deeper into the top 10, Detroit (10 points), Philadelphia (31), Denver (9), and Buffalo (11) all came through with decent scores, while Pittsburgh (6 points) and Kansas City (7) were slightly disappointing, but still above average. Even top ranked streaming target Miami (due solely to their rest of season potential) got us an average score of 6! And if that weren’t enough, Green Bay (17 points), Atlanta (10) and New Orleans (6) were all pegged as deep-league targets. The lone stinker on the week belonged to the 12th-ranked Cincinnati Bengals, who have become quite well-practiced at crushing hopes and dreams all year long. We’re now in the home stretch. Let’s see what Week 11 has in store for us!

Week 11 D/ST Projections (ESPN Standard Scoring)

*The projections lean heavily on the work of Vegas oddsmakers to get a realistic idea of a raw scoring expectation for each team. Then, the normal D/ST components (sacks, turnovers, and D/ST touchdowns) are projected based on matchup and combined with Vegas to come up with a final number. The projection represents an “Expected Value,” or the weighted sum of all outcomes across the scoring range.

1. Miami Dolphins D/ST, 9.3 points vs Buffalo

2. San Diego Chargers D/ST, 8.0 vs Oakland

3. Chicago Bears D/ST, 7.9 vs Minnesota

4. Arizona Cardinals D/ST, 7.3 vs Detroit

5. Cleveland Browns D/ST, 7.1 vs Houston

6. Washington Redskins D/ST, 7.1 vs Tampa Bay

7. San Francisco 49ers D/ST, 6.9 at NY Giants

8. Carolina Panthers D/ST, 6.6 vs Atlanta

9. Denver Broncos D/ST, 6.5 at St. Louis

10. Green Bay Packers D/ST, 6.2 vs Philadelphia

11. Buffalo Bills D/ST, 6.0 at Miami

12. Pittsburgh Steelers D/ST, 5.8 at Tennessee

13. Kansas City Chiefs D/ST, 5.8 vs Seattle

14. Detroit Lions D/ST, 5.6 at Arizona

15. Houston Texans D/ST, 5.6 at Cleveland

16. New York Giants D/ST, 5.0 vs San Francisco

17. Atlanta Falcons D/ST, 4.7 at Carolina

18. Seattle Seahawks D/ST, 4.6 at Kansas City

19. New Orleans Saints D/ST, 4.6 vs Cincinnati

20. Minnesota Vikings D/ST, 3.4 at Chicago

21. Indianapolis Colts D/ST, 2.1 vs New England

22. Tampa Bay Buccaneers D/ST, 1.8 at Washington

23. Tennessee Titans D/ST, 0.7 vs Pittsburgh

24. Philadelphia Eagles D/ST, 0.3 at Green Bay

25. Oakland Raiders D/ST, 0.1 at San Diego

26. New England Patriots D/ST, -0.2 at Indianapolis

27. Cincinnati Bengals D/ST, -0.5 at New Orleans

28. St. Louis Rams D/ST, -2.8 vs Denver

On bye: Baltimore Ravens, Dallas Cowboys, Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Jets

Tier 1: Miami

Those of us who held onto Miami through last week are once again primed to hit pay dirt: the Buffalo Bills are coming to south Florida, and they’ve brought enough D/ST points to share with everyone. Since Week 3, the Bills have conceded a generous 69 points over 7 games (9.9 per game). Take out their game against the putrid New York Jets and that average jumps to 11 points per game!

The Dolphins pass rush should give Kyle Orton fits all game, Vegas has the Bills’ scoring total as the second lowest on the board this weekend, and the Miami secondary has been good for some highlight reel interceptions this year.

Miami stands alone in tier 1 this week.

Tier 2: San Diego, Chicago

San Diego’s D/ST got destroyed in their last meeting with the Raiders. Derek Carr threw four TDs, and the Chargers would have finished subzero if not for a late interception. However, we have to always keep in mind that…

1. Football is not transitive, and

2. Prior results do not necessarily dictate future results

The Chargers scored at the bottom of their range in Week 6, and that result is anecdotal at best. They’re primed for success here in Week 11. First and foremost, Vegas has the Raiders as the worst offense on the board this week. That gives the D/ST a little more breathing room than some of the alternatives. Secondly, although the Raiders have done a great job of protecting Carr from the pass rush, he’s done a horrible job making defenses pay for it: he’s thrown 9 interceptions in just 9 games, and the Raiders are barely putting up 16 points per game. If/when San Diego takes the lead early, their ball-control offense should keep the Raiders off the field, off the scoreboard, and lead to a comfortable D/ST score.

The Chicago Bears are a little bit more speculative, but the algorithm really likes them this week. Most importantly, the Bears are at home and favored over a Minnesota Vikings team that has conceded three huge D/ST scores of 20+ points. They’ve allowed four games of 5+ sacks, they allowed a 20-point D/ST score without a D/ST TD, and the Bears seemingly have just two options this year: 10+ scores and subzero scores (3 10+ scores, 4 scores of 2 or less). They’ve been great with forcing turnovers, mediocre with their pass rush, and Vegas has them as small favorites at home.

All of those factors combine to give Chicago a very high risk, high reward profile this week, and a relatively high projection. Risk averse fantasy GMs need not apply.

Tier 3: Arizona, Cleveland, Washington, San Francisco

This tier is quite muddied this week!

These D/STs all profile very similarly this week. Plus, Vegas has each team looking at 19-20 points allowed, which is within the range that we’re looking for. This suggests that there is very little difference between each of them when it comes time to stream for Week 11. However, I think we can do a little better than that!

Washington still is getting an unhealthy boost from their 10-sack game early against Jacksonville. I think we can safely lean toward one of the other three choices and leave the Redskins for someone else to fool around with. However, if pressed, they’re probably fine.

Meanwhile, San Francisco is a road team, and they’ve been a team with some distinct liabilities on both sides of the ball. Their pass rush has been mediocre, and their offense hasn’t been doing them very many favors when it comes to field position. In fact, I’m still a little bit leery of the 4.5 point spread that’s been placed on this game; it’s at least 2 points higher than I was expecting it to be! Like Washington, I’d rather start the 49ers than a truly mediocre choice, but I think we can look elsewhere on this tier.

Like their division rival 49ers, the Arizona Cardinals have their fair share of question marks on defense. Their secondary has surprisingly been one of the worst in the league, perhaps in large part due to their ineffective pass rush. Even great defensive backs can only hold a receiving corps in check for so many seconds before someone will get open somewhere. However, the Detroit pass protection has been uncharacteristically bad all season, and the Cardinals should be able to capitalize. The Cardinals have also been forcing a boatload of turnovers: 2+ interceptions in 5 of their last 6 games and in 6 of their last 8. It should be little surprise that they’ve managed to convert four D/ST TDs in that span.

Finally, we have the Browns. In a shock to just about everyone outside of Ohio, they’re leading the division and looking quite good in doing so. My algorithm suggests they have an almost identical scoring profile to the Cardinals this weekend, and they’re getting the NFL’s first real crack at Ryan Mallett. He might be pretty good at throwing footballs, but he certainly doesn’t seem to be the most mobile fellow in the pocket, and he’s going to be relying on the likes of Ben Jones and Derek Newton to protect him.

Tier 4 and below

Denver is a fine alternative if you want a safe, boring, limited-upside play (remember, their offense is simply too good for our purposes). Carolina is rated well in the algorithm rankings, but I’m not sold on them being a viable option in all but deep leagues. They’ve forced more fumbles than any other team in the NFL, but Vegas has them looking at an unhealthy 23 points allowed.

Deeper League Targets: Kansas City, Seattle, New Orleans, Detroit

Finally, let’s put everything together into a list of who I’d target off the waiver wire and in what order:

1. Miami (strong future week value, including playoffs)

2. San Diego

3. Arizona

4. Cleveland

5. Chicago (high variance)

6. San Francisco (speculative future week value)

7. Denver

8. Carolina (high variance)

9. Green Bay (strong future week value, including playoffs)

10. Buffalo (future week value)

11. Detroit (strong future week value, including playoffs)

12. Washington

13. Pittsburgh

14. Kansas City (strong future week value)

Note that this is going to be a different order than the original projections above. Remember, the projections are 100% mechanical and have no subjective input. They don’t control for sample size problems (like with Washington) or for variance (like with Chicago or Carolina). They don’t have any input as far as future weeks are concerned. The list of waiver wire targets attempts to take everything into account in order to determine who to add and who to drop.

Thank you for reading, and best of luck in Week 11!