Dylan Lerch is one of the pioneers of combining Las Vegas with fantasy football, and he has been writing his Defense Wins Championships column for five straight seasons. Each installment can be found at Empeopled.com every Tuesday morning. You can follow him on Twitter @dtlerch.

Some weeks see a host of defensive touchdowns, multiple 20-point scores, and game-altering results from D/STs both good and bad.

Some weeks, like Week 7, are significantly more muted. Just one D/ST scored 15 points in MFL scoring, and it took them two defensive TDs to even get there. Of the seven teams scoring 10 points or more – Philadelphia, Dallas, Arizona, San Diego, Washington, Chicago, and Denver – six were in our top 16 last week. Dallas, the only one which was not listed, ranked third from the bottom and were impossible to back at Green Bay. Overall, it was a very low-scoring week with just 6 points per game.

For those of us streaming D/STs, a week like this can be a bit of a respite. It usually means that you did not run the risk of a landmine at the position. Those of us who backed the Raiders or the Steelers would probably claim otherwise, but in aggregate it was a fairly painless week.

Speaking of streaming, only a few D/STs are showing significant separation beyond what streaming can expect. To reiterate, by streaming, we are looking for a top 8 or top 10 weekly score by season’s end. In MFL, that means approximately 8-8.5 points per game, give or take a little. Through six weeks, the only D/STs that are significantly outscoring that expectation are Minnesota, Buffalo, Denver, Arizona, Philadelphia, and Kansas City. The Patriots and Seahawks are close behind. Beyond those six or eight options, everything else has been on par with (or below!) streaming. Regardless of where you sit with your D/ST, we must move ever onward.

The projection model performed very well compared with consensus. The rank correlation for Week 6 was 0.28, compared to just 0.10 for FantasyPros ECR. For those not keeping track at home, our projection model has kept pace with or beat ECR in each of the last six weeks.

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Week 7 D/ST Scoring (Team, expected points – tier) – all scoring assumes MFL Standard, from www.myfantasyleague.com.

Also on Tier 4 are Los Angeles (7.3), San Francisco (7.2), and Atlanta (7.2).

On bye this week are Carolina and Dallas. Both are safe drops in virtually all formats, although keep an eye on Carolina. They are in the strong streaming tier going forward, which makes them playable at home and/or in good matchups more often than not.

Tier 1 – Minnesota, Buffalo, Denver, Arizona, Cincinnati, Green Bay

There really are two parts to the tier: the Vikings and Bills, and then everybody else. Minnesota is obvious. Even on the road, you still get the Vikings as favorites in a low-scoring game. Carson Wentz finally looks mortal, and he is going to be put to a test like he has never seen before. More importantly, they are too good to sit, and Buffalo is the only team remotely close and likely to even have on the roster with Minnesota.

The Bills are the more interesting option here. Given their steady climb in ownership, they are unlikely to be available in any reasonable league. In Week 7 they get the Dolphins, on the road like above, but still a very good matchup. There is no need to overthink this one. The Bills are just a small step behind the Vikings on the season, and the Dolphins are a top 12 matchup for opposing D/STs.

Behind the top two choices, the remaining four on this tier appear very close in the projection model. With Denver and Arizona being universally owned, owners of each can just tune out, lock them in, and focus on the rest of their team this week. The Broncos are at home against the Texans on Monday Night Football, and the Cardinals are at home against the Seahawks. Neither matchup is worth fretting over: both D/STs are still elite starts.

The Bengals are the first of two interesting top tier options. They are not quite into the streaming ranks yet, but with an ownership percentage of just 70%, they may be available in leagues for their home game against the Browns. Fading the Browns in Week 6 was not the best play, but it was far from bad. The Titans’ 7 points left them 14th overall for the week and represented the Browns best offensive performance of the season. For a Bengals D/ST that has only topped 10 points once this year, it is a much-needed matchup to right their own ship.

Green Bay provides another very intriguing option who themselves are owned in just 60% of leagues. Their 7 points per game through 5 games has been below that of the average streaming D/ST (but not by much!), and a large part of that is their lackluster Week 6 result versus the Cowboys. They got to Prescott twice and added on two turnovers, but they simply gave up too many points. Had the Packers kept the Cowboys to just 29 points or less instead of 30, they would have finished with 7 D/ST points. Alas, they were left with just 3, and all of a sudden we are left justifying them at home against Brian Hoyer.

Even as Brian Hoyer is leading the league in completion percentage, his career suggests he’s far closer to “league average” than that. The Packers are 10-point favorites at home, and they should be able to take care of business this time.

Tier 2 – New England, Seattle, Kansas City, Baltimore

Twenty-four hours ago, it would be strange to see the Patriots here. Twenty-four hours ago, Ben Roethlisberger was the QB of the Steelers! Instead, Landry Jones – the same Landry Jones with 4 interceptions in 56 career pass attempts – is under center, and the Patriots are in place to feast. Through 6 games the Patriots are averaging over 9 points per game, productive enough for 7th overall, and have done it without any defensive TDs.

Do not read this wrong: the Seahawks have a bad matchup. The Seahawks are also probably too good to sit right now. Following up their 9 point game against the Falcons, Seattle travels south to Arizona and gets a tough road division game. However, the Cardinals have been conceding about 7 points per game, and the Seahawks are good enough to improve upon that by a point or two. Given the Seahawks are past their bye and one of the league’s best defenses, they reasonably cannot be sat or dropped this week.

Rounding out the second tier are two teams that probably are available in many leagues. The Chiefs are owned in just 55% and the Ravens are owned in just 45%. Kansas City just got done taking care of business against a very bad matchup – their 10 points was far above what the Raiders had been conceding over the past year and a half, and they did it both by limiting scoring (10 points allowed) and with a pair each of sacks and turnovers. While the Saints are not the best matchup, they are a lot more vulnerable on the road, and this game will be played in Kansas City. Look for 2-3 sacks, at least 1-2 turnovers, and 21 points allowed. That’s good for around 9 points with upside for much more.

The Baltimore Ravens are a top 10 D/ST on the season, performing right at where streaming D/STs can be expected to be. In Week 7, they are on the road, but they get a team that just had Geno Smith throwing passes in a real NFL game… and their starting QB might be even worse! Ryan Fitzpatrick is not a good NFL QB right now. The Jets are not a good NFL team right now. The Ravens are a much underappreciated D/ST right now. Given the Ravens have a bye next week they can be treated as a pure streamer, but anybody with the Titans, Steelers, Redskins, Raiders, or Panthers should be able to count on the Ravens as a very strong backup plan to whatever else they have available.

Tier 3 – Washington, Philadelphia, Tennessee, Oakland

These four should look familiar. They were right around the same place last week, and all four were worth very strong looks from streamers. Philadelphia was pegged as a cut above, and salvaged an otherwise-mediocre defensive day with two D/ST TDs and the week’s top score. Of the other three, Washington scored 12. Tennessee scored 7, and Oakland scored just 2; however Oakland’s ranking last week was marked with heavy caution, and that turned out to be prudent.

This week, the Redskins emerge as the best D/ST of the trio, but they have the worst matchup on the road in Detroit. The Lions are not an automatic worry, but any road underdog should be treated with caution. The Titans have the best matchup of the three at home against the Colts, who got thoroughly dominated for 48 minutes against the Texans Sunday night. The Titans are also probably the worst defense of the three. That leaves the Raiders, who are aggressively mediocre by just about every metric you can come up with here.

Ownership percentages for the three are just 6% for Washington, 51% for Tennessee, and 30% for Oakland. Washington, in particular, is criminally underappreciated here, but Tennessee should be the top add of the group. The Redskins are a tough sell next week at Cincinnati, and then an automatic drop for their Week 9 bye; the Titans, meanwhile, have a home game against Jacksonville next week and then a game at San Diego, and could possibly be usable in both.

I still consider the Eagles to be a tick above streaming. They were saved by their touchdowns, but they also seem to be a little better than average at getting those touchdowns over the past couple of seasons. Luck or skill? That remains to be seen. But they have enough talent across the board that I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Minnesota is not a great matchup, but they are at home and it figures to be a low-scoring affair. That at least gives some opportunity for them to keep pace with the Vikings, at least in some percentage of their range.

Tier 4 and Below

The Houston Texans beat the Indianapolis Colts, and the world rejoiced. Seriously, is there a team that is more hated than the Colts? To the people of Indiana, I’m sorry your team stinks, but at least you have the consolation of living near such a grand metropolis, and a seat of both knowledge and culture. But back to Houston. For as much as the Texans dominated the Colts on Sunday (hint: they didn’t), expect them to get destroyed by the Broncos. Adding injury to insult, Kevin Johnson filled in magnificently for Kareem Jackson and promptly broke his foot. J.J. Watt is still out for the season. The Texans defense has played above their heads, but it feels a bit like a house of cards. On the road in Denver is the perfect place for it to come crashing down. They rank in the 4th tier for a reason, and they can be avoided in most formats.

The Rams are just about keeping pace with streaming D/STs, but that is not good enough to really give them more than a cursory glance each week. Even with a decent “home” matchup against the Giants, we can do better – especially given they have a bye next week and are not worth holding onto. They are probably better than the Texans this week, which is not saying much.

The Colts lost on Sunday night, and I just wanted to point that out one last time.

Streamers then get to pick from among the following teams, give or take a couple, and I would take them in the following order:

Cincinnati, Green Bay, Baltimore, Kansas City, Tennessee, Washington, Oakland, Los Angeles, and then Houston.

We are getting into the meat of the regular season. These next few weeks are really going to separate the true contenders from the rest of the pack, and let’s do everything we can to separate.

Best of luck in Week 7!



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