3 Fantasy Football Defensive Streaming Options for Week 17

Hey, it's your friendly neighborhood defense streaming specialist -- here again, giving you weekly streaming recommendations. A reminder: lines are courtesy of NFL odds, and roster percentages and scores are according to ESPN's fantasy platform. Assume that the listed order is the preferred order. I'll try for defenses on 40% or fewer of ESPN rosters.

This column is likely to leak into the void for most. The fantasy season is largely done, but a few of you have Week 17 championships, and maybe a few of you have other fun things for this week.

Stay Fluid

There's a reason so many opt out of Week 17 for their championship games. Any advice given on Monday has a pretty good chance of being irrelevant come Sunday. Because of this, staying fluid is more important than any individual defense I could recommend. We'll hear about several players who aren't playing throughout the week, and possibly even entire teams who are resting their starters. You'll want to keep an eye on this.

The FanDuel Sportsbook is a great asset here. If you see a line move quite a bit, it may be wise to re-evaluate your choice of defense.

Green Bay Packers

at Chicago Bears
Spread: Packers -6.5
Roster Percentage: 41%

We saw one iteration of this game in Week 12, where the Green Bay Packers' defense put up 15 points (give or take depending on scoring format.) This go-around will likely be a little trickier in Chicago, but it still looks like one of the better bets on the slate. Green Bay is a top-12 defense in numberFire's schedule-adjusted metrics.

Tennessee Titans

at Houston Texans
Spread: Titans -7.5
Roster Percentage: 18%

I hate to keep saying this, but there aren't many teams to stream this week. Deshaun Watson appears to be trending towards playing, and the predicted shootout from FanDuel Sportsbook (56-point over/under) seems to indicate they expect him to play, as well.

Still, the Houston Texans don't have much incentive to push Watson, so if there's any doubt at all, we'll likely see A.J. McCarron under center instead. That would almost certainly push the Tennessee Titans to double-digit favorites against a quarterback with a 10.4% sack rate (albeit with only 179 career pass attempts.)

This is a risk worth taking, and even if Watson plays, you've still got a heavy favorite against a quarterback who takes a lot of sacks and is likely to miss his left tackle, Laremy Tunsil.

Philadelphia Eagles

at Washington Football Team
Spread: Washington -1.0
Roster Percentage: 24%

Like Watson, Alex Smith appears likely to play, but with some ambiguity to his injury, there's a non-zero chance that Taylor Heinicke is WFT's starter.

In Heinicke's very limited sample, he has just a 4.9% sack rate but does have a very high 3.9% interception rate. He's also been inefficient. This is a non-sample, but we should bank on career journeymen like Heinicke being bad in general, and his play so far doesn't paint a picture of the next Tom Brady.

If Smith plays, this is still a toss-up with a low over/under and a fairly low implied point total for both teams. You could do worse.