3 Fantasy Football Defensive Streaming Options for Week 12
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.
Chicago Bears
at Detroit Lions
Spread: Bears -3.5
Roster Percentage: 23%
The past couple of weeks have provided scant options to those streaming D/STs. This week offers slightly more appealing options.
Granted, there's no slam dunk option, but there are various semi-appealing options, and that starts with the Chicago Bears facing the Tim Boyle lead Detroit Lions.
The Bears are nowhere near where they've been in the past as a defense at 0.16 Defensive Net Expected Points (NEP) allowed per play; that's 20th in the league. However, we're dealing with a winless team starting their backup quarterback. It really shouldn't take much of a defense to perform in this matchup.
The Lions implied point total of just 19.0 points, and 23 of Boyle's 27 career passing attempts came on Sunday. His 12.0% turnover-worthy play percentage would be tops in the NFL over the full season if he qualified.
We project the adult Cubs as the third-best D/ST this week.
Houston Texans
vs. New York Jets
Spread: Dolphins -3.0
Roster Percentage: 1%
Fresh off their upset of the Tennessee Titans, the Houston Texans face the lowly New York Jets. Again, one never wants to buy into single-week outcomes too much, but the fact that the Texans are favored by three points here is significant.
The Jets implied point total is just 20.75. If anything correlates to a D/ST's ceiling (if such a thing even exists), it's implied point total.
If anything, that projection could go up should Zach Wilson with his 5.0% interception rate and 9.5% sack rate find himself under center again in Week 12.
Believe it or not, our forecast shows the South of Oklahomans to be this week's top D/ST option.
Cincinnati Bengals
vs. Pittsburgh Steelers
Spread: Bengals -3.5
Roster Percentage: 9%
The Cincinnati Bengals have a few things going for them as a streaming option.
They face the Pittsburgh Steelers, who have an implied point total of just 21.0 points.
They're also a relatively strong defensive unit on the year with a seventh-best 0.08 Defensive NEP allowed per play in the NFL.
Ben Roethlisberger is far from an ideal candidate to stream against, however. His 5.8% sack rate is slightly above average and his 1.2% interception rate shows that he is still limiting turnovers. His ceiling is still not very high, though, so when you're down in the sub-10% roster rate range, this option is appealing enough.
We've got the Queen City Dwellers as seventh-best D/ST on the week.
