Fantasy News

May 31, 2014

Rehor's Law

Do winning teams tend to have better fantasy defenses?

When we last spoke on Friday, Bill Rehor was asking about wins and defenses. He put forth the theory that maybe instead of spending too much time scouting secondaries, kick returners and pass rushers, maybe we should just select defenses from teams that are going to win a bunch of games.

If a team wins a bunch, shouldn’t its defense rake up more points? That was Bill’s question.

So I looked into it some.

In the last 10 years, 29 teams have won at least 13 games. And this group backs up the Rehor Hypothesis nicely. Of 29 teams, 21 of them ranked in the top 10 in fantasy defense. All but four of them ranked in the top 12, which is pretty damn impressive. Only four misses in there; those teams ranked 16th, 22nd, 23rd and 28th in fantasy points.

(By the way, on this thing, I’m using the scoring system of 6 points for touchdowns on defense or special teams, 2 for takeaways and 1 for sacks.)

So there is some teeth in this Rehor’s Law. If you are confident that a team is going to win 13-plus games, then you should select its defense, because the trends indicate you have over an 85 percent chance of having a good fantasy defense (one ranking in the top 12).

Looking at the 2014 season, if you’re confident that Denver, New England, Seattle or San Francisco will win 13-14 games, you should probably select the defense of that team.

Here’s the supporting documentation. The chart below, “points” are NFL points – 6 points for touchdowns and 2 for safeties.

DEFENSES WITH 13-PLUS WINS SINCE 2003
Year	Team	Wins	Points	Sacks	TA	Rank
2003	New England	14	44	41	41	1
2003	Kansas City	13	42	36	37	4
2004	New England	14	30	45	36	5
2004	Pittsburgh	15	32	41	32	8
2004	Philadelphia	13	12	47	28	16
2005	Indianapolis	14	24	46	31	5
2005	Seattle	13	18	50	27	9
2005	Denver	13	20	28	36	12
2006	Chicago	13	56	40	44	1
2006	Baltimore	13	40	60	40	2
2006	San Diego	14	18	61	28	5
2007	New England	16	48	47	31	3
2007	Dallas	13	24	46	29	9
2007	Green Bay	13	36	36	28	10
2007	Indianapolis	13	22	28	37	11
2008	Tennessee	13	24	44	31	7
2009	New Orleans	13	54	35	39	1
2009	San Diego	13	32	35	25	9
2009	Indianapolis	14	18	34	26	23
2010	New England	14	54	36	38	1
2010	Atlanta	13	30	31	31	12
2011	Green Bay	15	42	29	38	3
2011	San Francisco	13	20	42	38	4
2011	New England	13	24	40	34	6
2011	New Orleans	13	24	33	16	28
2012	Denver	13	52	52	24	3
2012	Atlanta	13	12	29	31	22
2013	Seattle	13	28	44	39	2
2013	Denver	13	30	41	26	12

But alas, it’s never quite that easy. Right now, in May, we don’t KNOW which teams will win 13-plus games. We can only guess/forecast/predict.

So let’s go back and look at those teams again. This time, we’re not looking at teams winning 13-plus games. We’re instead looking at those same teams, only how they did the NEXT season.

In this case, 27 teams are in the sample set. Of those 27, only 7 of them ranked in the top 10 in fantasy defense, which is actually below how you’d do by selecting them randomly – alphabetically, darts, whatever.

Only 9 of the 27 – a third – finished in the top 12, which is almost exactly average.

Lots of crappy teams in there.

Comparing the two groups, defenses that won 13-plus games averaged 5 touchdowns, 41 sacks and 32 takeaways. The next year, those same defenses averaged 4 touchdowns, 37 sacks and 27 takeaways.

There is some correlation between winning games and scoring defensive fantasy points. And that totally makes sense. If a team averages 5 interceptions and 5 takeaways per game, you would expect that team to win 15-16 games. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen again the next year (just like there’s no way Peyton Manning is tossing 55 touchdowns or that Jamaal Charles is getting in the end zone 19 times).

To me, the value here is bumping a defense up a little if, come August, you see them in a few preseason games and you’re very confident they’re going to win 12-14 games. New England, Denver, Seattle could easily fit that profile, and I think they all belong in the top half-dozen defenses in a fantasy draft right now.

DEFENSES WITH 13 WINS (THE NEXT YEAR)
Year	Team	Wins	Points	Sacks	TA	Rank
2004	New England	14	30	45	36	5
2004	Kansas City	7	24	40	20	20
2005	Pittsburgh	11	20	47	30	6
2005	Philadelphia	6	18	29	27	25
2005	New England	10	12	33	18	30
2006	Seattle	9	18	41	26	14
2006	Denver	9	12	35	30	16
2006	Indianapolis	12	12	25	26	29
2007	San Diego	11	48	42	48	1
2007	Chicago	7	50	41	33	2
2007	Baltimore	5	24	32	23	23
2008	Green Bay	6	54	27	28	3
2008	Dallas	9	14	59	22	11
2008	Indianapolis	12	24	30	26	15
2008	New England	11	6	31	22	29
2009	Tennessee	8	24	32	27	18
2010	San Diego	9	20	47	22	15
2010	Indianapolis	10	30	30	21	21
2010	New Orleans	11	14	33	25	25
2011	New England	13	24	40	34	6
2011	Atlanta	10	18	33	29	15
2012	New England	12	44	37	41	2
2012	Green Bay	11	24	47	23	15
2012	New Orleans	7	30	30	26	17
2012	San Francisco	11.5	20	38	25	19
2013	Denver	13	30	41	26	12
2013	Atlanta	4	18	32	21	27

—Ian Allan

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