Ahh, the D/ST slot on a fantasy football team. The most underrated, overlooked position. A good defense is the foundation of a winning team. In fantasy, truer words have never been spoken. Great fantasy defenses aren’t easy to come by, but 10 points from a D/ST can be the difference between a win and loss on any given week.
Some people don’t play a defense. Some guy in one of my leagues drafted five of them. Guess there’s two extremes.
Here’s some advice: play a defense, but don’t draft five…with that in mind, here’s some help in picking out your defense for Week 5:
Cincinnati Bengals D/ST: The Bengals may have failed to get an interception for the first time this season against the Kansas City Chiefs (ironically), but they made up for it with five sacks. There’s more than one way to rack up points.
The Seattle Seahawks on the other hand are coming off a poor offensive performance against the Detroit Lions in which they only managed 13 points as a team. Russell Wilson has been sacked 18 times this season, and the Bengals have nine sacks over their two home games this season.
Basically, everything works out in Cincy’s favor. On top of that, Andy Dalton and company have been very good about ball security and minimizing turnovers so far this season. So with Cincinnati putting Wilson on the ground and keeping the ball out of his hands, the Bengals just may be the start of the week at D/ST.
New York Giants D/ST: Here’s one you may not have expected. The Giants aren’t exactly famous for their lock-down defense after blowing two 10-point fourth quarter leads against the Dallas Cowboys and Atlanta Falcons to start the season, but they are coming off a road win over the Buffalo Bills in which they only gave up 10 points. Yes, I know Sammy Watkins and LeSean McCoy were injured, but just hear me out here.
The Giants have a home matchup against the San Francisco 49ers—the team which has allowed the most points to D/STs this season. Colin Kaepernick hasn’t exactly been the best at…well, not throwing interceptions. Eli Manning has been surprisingly good at keeping the ball out of the other team’s hand, so the Giants D/ST comes into Week 5 as the sleeper of the week.