Many draft strategies are available and up for discussion in regards to fantasy football. One that is viewed as a quick “one and done” pertains to defenses and special teams (D/ST’s). If looking for a “TL;DR” summation of the D/ST strategy, it’s best to wait. However, there’s more to it than that. I’m coming off a three-month stretch where I dove into weekly D/ST previews and you can find all of them right here. There are plenty of articles touching on D/ST’s on the rise/fall, D/ST’s to target Week 1, playoff streamers, etc. But when should you draft a D/ST exactly? Let’s check out some current ADP trends.

Currently since we currently do not have the Mock Draft Army for fantasy football yet (be on the lookout for that announcement), I’ll be looking at varying ADP’s from Fantasy Football Calculator and Fantasy Pros, as well as the results from last week’s FSGA drafts. In most drafts you’ll see the 49ers, Patriots, Bills, Steelers, Ravens, and Bears drafted as some of the first D/ST’s off the board. Here are the current ADP results for those teams:

  • San Francisco 49ers; Fantasy Football Calculator: 110th overall; Fantasy Pros: 130th
  • New England Patriots; Fantasy Football Calculator: 108th; Fantasy Pros: 140th
  • Buffalo Bills: Fantasy Football Calculator: 117th; Fantasy Pros: 144th
  • Pittsburgh Steelers: Fantasy Football Calculator: 122nd; Fantasy Pros: 139th
  • Baltimore Ravens: Fantasy Football Calculator: 130th; Fantasy Pros: 143rd
  • Chicago Bears: Fantasy Football Calculator: 131st; Fantasy Pros: 150th

Based off my own experience, I find Fantasy Pros ADP to be a little more accurate, but it doesn’t hurt to get a little more perspective from another site like Fantasy Football Calculator. And if you look at the most recent FSGA Drafts (screenshots of the draft board are available on their Twitter account) you’ll see the experts holding off until Round 12 of a 14-team draft. That means only once in four drafts did a defense go prior to round 12 and it was literally the last pick of Round 11 where one team made a selection. Typically, these teams waited until 150+ picks had been made before the first defense went off the board. But not everyone is going to draft with experts from the fantasy industry. Howard Bender likes to reference “Bob from Accounting” as being a bit of a green fantasy player; a “newbie,” if you will. And we all have a few Bob’s that we draft with that reach on D/ST’s. That’s fine, we’ll reap the rewards of such mistakes.

Other teams reaching on a defense present opportunities for others. In looking at the ADP results on Fantasy Pros, the 49ers are being selected 130th overall and the Bears are currently going 20 picks later at 150th overall. Here are some positional players going between these two teams:

As you venture into the “back nine” of your draft you are typically drafting guys with high ceilings who are late-round flyers. If you draft Ezekiel Elliott it’s not an awful idea to pass on a defense in order to draft his handcuff in Tony Pollar over selecting the Baltimore Ravens. N’Keal Harry is an appealing option especially now that Cam Newton has signed with the New England Patriots. Harry is a better late-round option whose ADP may rise now. Give me the Patriots second-year wide receiver over the Patriots D/ST.

Unless one of the more elite teams are falling to you in Rounds 13 or 14 in a 10-to-12-team league, you should not feel obligated to draft them. And I’m not even preaching to take a D/ST with your second-to-last pick assuming your drafting a kicker with your last pick. In Round 13 or 14, a D/ST is fine if the price is right and you don’t like the positional players available for depth. By no means should you be reaching before Round 13.

Looking back at 2019, here were the top 14 D/ST’s according to ADP results from Fantasy Football Calculator in 696 mock drafts run from September 2, 2019 to September 4, 2019:

1.Chicago Bears – 89th overall

2.Los Angeles Rams – 105th

3.Jacksonville Jaguars – 110th

4.Baltimore Ravens – 115th

5.Minnesota Vikings – 122nd

6.Cleveland Browns – 128th

7.Los Angeles Chargers – 131st

8.Dallas Cowboys – 140th

9.Denver Broncos – 145th

10.New England Patriots – 146th

11.Seattle Seahawks – 162nd

12.Philadelphia Eagles – 163rd

13.Houston Texans – 167th

14.Buffalo Bills – 172nd

With the benefit of hindsight, imagine taking the Bears at the first D/ST off the board? They got off to a great start through the first month of the season, but struggled to amass sacks and turnovers as the season wore on and finished as the 16th D/ST according to ESPN scoring. In general, we can identify plenty of busts including the Jaguars, Browns, Chargers, Cowboys, etc. What do these D/ST's have in common aside from being drafted high among their position? They all finished outside the Top 12 in scoring at their position, along with the Bears. It’s not out of the realm of possibility for history to repeat itself. We shouldn’t be too surprised if D/ST’s being drafted early in 2020 finish outside the Top 12 at their position.

Most tried & true methods in fantasy football involve waiting on D/ST’s. In a league where you draft for 16 rounds, grabbing a D/ST in Round 15 or 16 can yield sturdy results. In doing this you allow yourself to invest other draft capital in high-upside potential and you can still grab a decent D/ST later on. Previously, I’ve written about how much I like the D/ST’s for the Bucs, Chargers, Colts, and Chiefs as late-round targets with moderate upside especially for Tampa Bay and Los Angeles. There’s obviously more positional risk in missing out on New England, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, etc. But don’t forget where some of the top-ranked D/ST’s were after the start of the season.

After the first few weeks of the 2019 season, the 49ers posted 43 total fantasy points, but most teams dropped them during their Bye week during Week 4. Over their next eight games they would yield seven performances of double-digit fantasy points before cooling off for the fantasy playoffs. The Steelers D/ST got off to an abysmal start totaling less than zero fantasy points after the first two weeks. They went out and acquired Minkah Fitzpatrick from Miami and his presence turned that defense around. From Weeks 3-17 they would only score less than seven fantasy points just once and that came in a Thursday Night Football matchup on a short week against the Cleveland Browns. And everybody remembers the historic start the Patriots D/ST got off to last season. Over their first eight games they returned 165 total fantasy points. Even if they didn’t produce a single fantasy point the rest of the year, they would’ve finished at the second-best D/ST. But following their Bye Week they cooled off significantly from 20 fantasy points per game, returning just 57 points over their last seven games. That’s still about eight fantasy points per game, but it’s a far cry from the rate at which they started. Even the best teams are going to struggle. Some, as we’ve seen, can struggle right out the gate and be available on the waiver wire. And won’t you be happy that you waited on a D/ST if a better one becomes available on waivers?

This is why when drafting a D/ST it’s not an awful strategy to simply draft a D/ST for the first few games or even just Week 1. You may embark on a season-long crusade to stream D/ST’s and you can still find success going that route. Seven-to-eight fantasy points per week is all you should expect from a streamer, but in a case like last year, you could find one of the better D/ST’s floating on waivers that you could stick with all season. Again, if you view one of the previously written D/ST position previews, there are some Week 1 targets and early-season streamers that you can draft late in your draft and then you can work the waiver wire from there.

Ultimately it all comes down to preference. Elite D/ST’s can change every year like the wind. Yes, we’ll find some of the same names at the top of the charts at the end of the season but we’ll see new teams breakout as well. D/ST’s also aren’t very consistent so while we aim for weekly points just shy of double digits, relying on one particular D/ST for a full season will burn you with occasional (or possibly frequent) bad weeks. Even with a top ten D/ST on my roster I still explore the option of moving pieces around and finding a D/ST to stream that may result in a higher output.

There’s no right or wrong answer to drafting the perfect fantasy football team. Fantasy football is a tasty concoction of drafting, trades, waivers, research, and luck. I encourage you to join the Mock Draft Army once they’re available so you can practice drafting a D/ST early, or drafting one late and seeing how your depth and teams stack up. These are ultimately your decisions for your teams. I’m a big advocate for streaming D/ST’s, but even I occasionally luck into a really good defense off waivers that I just can’t seem to drop later on. But we need to prioritize depth and breakout players in Rounds 11-14. I’m perfectly comfortable waiting on a defense and allow others to take the bait.

Best of luck in all your drafts, FANation. After many months in quarantine, fantasy football is on the horizon!

Statistical Credits:

  • Fantasy Football Calculator
  • FantasyPros
  • ESPN
  • TeamRankings
  • Pro Football Focus