We’re one week away from the fantasy football playoffs, so it’s time to update our playoff defense (DST) rankings. You may already have a spot locked up or perhaps you need to win this week to get in but regardless, we’re now firmly at the time of year where you need to be planning weeks in advance, which includes having your defenses set to go.
To help with that, I’ve created a Playoff Score to rank the defenses for Weeks 15-17. I took my standard BOD Formula (pasted below) which I use to calculate the most trustworthy fantasy defenses and then I input each team’s opponents for three weeks of the fantasy playoffs. I then took that number and added it to each defense’s average fantasy points per game over the last six weeks, multiplied by 1.5 to give it a little extra weight. That means the Playoff Score takes into account each team’s success over the past six weeks plus their upcoming schedule.
How Do I Use This Rankings?
Since I use recent fantasy points scored per game and also use an offense’s points allowed to opposing defenses as part of this formula, that means that these rankings will likely change incrementally week after week as teams change their overall performance and offensive rankings change which impacts the ease of the matchup. As a result, my advice for how to best use this article is to get a sense of which teams are set up best for playoff success but use the color-coded chart below to try and find two defenses that you can put on your roster to rotate matchups and avoid having to start any defenses in a subpar matchup.
The matchups highlighted in green are the 10 easiest matchups for fantasy defenses, according to performance over the last month (teams ranked 32nd to 23rd) and the matchups highlighted in red are the 10 hardest matchups (10th to 1st, obviously). You’ll see some additional comments below that help to clarify some of those rankings.
BOD Formula:
((PFF PASS RUSH PRODUCTION x 1.5) + FORCED INCOMPLETE RATE + (TURNOVER RATE x 2))
DIVIDED BY
(EPA RATE ALLOWED + OPPONENT SCORING RATE X 1.5)
Important Rankings Notes
Before we dive into the rankings, there are a couple of quick notes about how each team is ranked as an opponent that you need to know.
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I used the average fantasy points allowed to opposing defenses for the last month so that we can get the most accurate representation of how the teams are playing at this moment.
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The Saints will now be without Taysom Hill, who has been a huge part of their offense, so, I took their current ranking as the 5th-toughest matchup for opposing fantasy defenses and dinged them a little bit to put them just outside of the top 10.
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The Falcons have been the best matchup for fantasy defenses over the last month, but it didn’t feel right to rank them as such here since a lot of them came from Cousins’ terrible game last week. Instead, I averaged their season-long ranking with their last four-week ranking, which put them as the 7th-best matchup and that felt fair to me.
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You’ll also see that the Raiders and 49ers are both ranked as the 8th-best matchup for fantasy defenses going forward and that’s just because I was adjusting for the offensive injuries on both teams which caused them to finish with the same ranking.
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Yes, I know it’s weird to see Carolina as a bad matchup, but the truth is that they have been since Bryce Young was back in the starting lineup. It feels a bit flukey, but the offensive line has been great all season and this performance has been going on for six weeks now, so I decided to leave it as is.
Rest of Season Rankings
These are four defenses in the top ten of my BOD rankings, which, as I mentioned above, have been updated to reflect performance over the last six weeks, so it makes sense that they are in my top tier of defenses for the fantasy playoffs.
The Eagles have been my top-ranked defense for the last two months and are averaging 9.6 fantasy points per game over the last six weeks, so this isn’t a surprise. The Steelers and Commanders aren’t smash spot matchups, but they’re also above-average matchups for fantasy defenses over the last month and you know we have no problem targeting the Cowboys here, so feel super confident playing the Eagles.
The Rams schedule looks a lot better than it did three weeks ago now that San Francisco has been hit hard by injuries and this Cardinals offense has come back down to Earth a bit. They have no truly bad matchups on their schedule, and so that makes me feel more confident in using them going forward.
The 49ers’ injuries have also helped the outlook for a Lions defense that has also been hit hard by injuries and has not been performing at the level we saw earlier in the year. The Bears are also no longer as attractive of a matchup as they were three weeks ago, but you don’t need to run from them, so I think the Lions are a solid play if you can just find another defense to use in Week 15, which I’ve suggested below.
The Bills are finally healthy on defense with Matt Milano back out on the field, and they’re averaging 9.4 fantasy points per game over the last six weeks. Their pass rush isn’t great and they can be beaten on the ground, but they do a good job keeping teams out of the end zone and are 3rd in the NFL in turnover rate over the last two months. The Bills have solid matchups in Week 16 and 17, so they have risen in these rankings in the last few weeks, but that matchup against the Lions is one we want to avoid. You also know you’re going to get the best effort from the Patriots and Jets against their division rival, but with both games in Buffalo, I’m not sure it will matter too much.
POTENTIAL PAIRINGS:
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Eagles paired with Colts, Chiefs, Cardinals, and Bucs
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Rams paired with Eagles, Cardinals, and Bengals
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Lions paired with Bears, Chiefs, Ravens, Seahawks, and Packers
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Bills paired with Rams, Ravens, Packers, Cardinals, and Bengals.
This tier features the vast majority of the remaining defenses inside my top ten BOD defenses, which is why they continue to be ranked high despite some tough matchups mixed in for the remainder of the season. However, this tier is a clear demarcation of where the drop-off is after good defenses with solid matchups and where you get into Sophie’s choice of using a good defense in a bad matchup or a bad defense in a good one.
Of the Broncos’ three games, only the Chargers are a bad matchup for fantasy defenses, and they will also be without JK Dobbins for that game. The Broncos are my 8th-ranked defense over the last two months and are averaging 8.7 fantasy points per game over that span. Even with a tough schedule, I think you can count on them for the playoffs but maybe pair them with one of the defenses I mentioned below.
The Vikings are lurking just outside the top 10 in those rankings but have performed well for fantasy, so, as a result, these feel like four of the safest defenses that you can have in fantasy football right now. You may want to pair them with another defense for the weeks where they’re facing an opponent marked in red above, but I wouldn’t drop any of them and I’d start them in any matchup that isn’t red.
The Colts and Packers are the two defenses not on the top ten fringe who featured in this tier and you can see why if you look at the color coding of the chart. You will have to maneuver around the Colts’ Week 15 showdown with the resurgent Broncos; however, the other matchups are strong and those final two matchups could win you your league.
I’m a little worried about the Texans, and I could see if people wanted to fade them entirely. They lost Jalen Pitre and we don’t know for how long, and they did not look great against Mac Jones on Sunday. The Dolphins and Chiefs both also have the POTENTIAL to be bad matchups for opposing defenses, so it feels hard to trust the Texans against them.
Similarly, the Chargers and Steelers are top ten defenses for me over the last two months, but their schedules aren’t great for the playoffs, which is why you see them down here on the fringes. I don’t want to say that you should cut either defense because we know the talent they have, but I think you need to have options ready for Weeks 15 and 16, which I have listed below.
All three of those defenses are basically the last three good defenses you could use in the playoffs, so you’d need to decide if you can trust their body of work and play them despite their bad schedules or if you’d rather roll the dice on a bad defense that has a good schedule.
POTENTIAL PAIRINGS:
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Steelers paired with Rams, Bengals, Packers Ravens, Falcons,
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Colts paired with Rams, Vikings, Cardinals, Packers and Bengals
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Vikings paired with Texans, Commanders, Chiefs, and Cardinals
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Seahawks paired with Steelers, Cardinals, Bengals, Titans, Bucs, Saints, or Jaguars
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Chargers paired with Ravens, Chiefs, Seahawks, and Bengals
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Broncos paired with Rams, Vikings, Colts, Bengals, or Bucs
We’re now getting outside of the most consistently solid defenses except for Cleveland, who is one of the last remaining top-ten defenses for me. However, they don’t have any good matchups left. Now, none of them are really terrible, but it’s hard to feel optimistic about firing up the Browns in any of those games, so I’d rather find another defense.
The Bengals have a tremendous schedule the rest of the way with no truly bad matchups. However, the Bengals have been a poor defense this season and rank 20th in my BOD rankings over the last six weeks. I’d feel more comfortable with using the Bengals as a supporting defense to one of the truly strong defenses we’ve seen throughout the year.
Similarly, you won’t find a better schedule than the one the Jaguars defense has, but are you really going to trust the Jaguars with your championship on the line? It would be a bold call.
Chicago has been a defense we’ve trusted most of the season, but they’ve been slipping of late and have three brutal games ahead of them that I can’t see playing them for. You could keep Chicago on your roster by pairing them with the right defense, and I’ll go over some options below, but you need to handle them strategically.
The Bucs were also a trendy defense to use for the postseason, but with the Panthers looking far more competent of late, it’s hard to get as excited about the Bucs’ defense as we would have been a few weeks ago. Plus, they just lost starting safety Jordan Whitehead for the season, which is a major blow to that defense.
The Cardinals have come on of late, averaging 7.7 fantasy points per game over the last six weeks which, when paired with this solid schedule, makes them an intriguing defense for the fantasy football playoffs, but I’d rather not use them against the Rams and that Panthers matchup doesn’t look as juicy as it did before.
POSSIBLE PAIRINGS
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Bengals paired with Commanders, Eagles, Colts, Seahawks, and Bears
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Ravens paired with Colts, Bills, Lions, Dolphins and Rams.
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Bears paired with Bucs, Cardinals, and Bengals
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Cardinals paired with Seahawks, Colts, Bills, and Jaguars
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Bucs paired with Lions, Colts, Broncos, and Chiefs
I can’t see using any of these defenses for the fantasy playoffs.
