Let’s kick around some ideas for defenses this weekend. There are a whole bunch of different stat categories. I’ll look at them separately, then we can glue together the various projections at the end.

Starting with SACKS. There’s not a big difference between the pass rushes as far as I can see. In the regular season, Indianapolis, New England and Green Bay finished with 40-41 sacks each. The Seahawks were a little bit back, but their pass rush improved, with 26 of their 37 sacks came in the second half of the season.

All of these groups tend to give you 2-3 sacks per game.

Offensively, three of the quarterbacks don’t tend to take many sacks. The Packers allowed only 30 sacks in the regular season, and the Patriots and Colts were even below that level. Russell Wilson is the sack taker of the group, caught by opponents 42 times in the regular season. You might argue that Wilson is playing at home or peaking now or whatever, but that’s not really the case. He’s been sacked fewer than 2 times in only three of his last 16 games. The Panthers got him twice last week.

With Rodgers, there’s a little appeal in that he’s playing with the bad calf, which really restricted his movement in the Dallas game. He’s also on the road, where the Packers haven’t been as good. But the home-away deal hasn’t really been a huge factor in terms of sacks. Rodgers has been sacked 15 times in his eight road games. He’s been sacked 14 times in his nine games at home.

Both of these games are rematches. In the earlier games, Rodgers was sacked 3 times, Wilson and Luck were both sacked once, and Tom Brady wasn’t sacked at all.

So I don’t see much difference with the sack potential between these units. I’ll go with the Seahawks in the top spot, but I wouldn’t want to pay much for that added smidge of potential.

It’s similar with INTERCEPTIONS. Three of the quarterbacks simply don’t turn the ball over much. Aaron Rodgers (5), Russell Wilson (7) and Tom Brady (9) don’t give defenses many chances to pick off passes. Andrew Luck is the guy who’ll make some questionable decisions. He threw 16 interceptions in the regular season, and he tossed 2 at Denver last week.

If we include the playoff games, both Green Bay and New England have intercepted 18 passes in 17 games. Seattle has only 15 interceptions, but it’s been coming on (10 interceptions in its last nine games). Colts are definitely last, with only 12 interceptions in 18 games.

In the earlier meetings, Brady tossed 2 interceptions, Luck and Rodgers were each picked once, and Wilson didn’t throw any. Luck threw 7 interceptions in his other two games against the Patriots (in 2012 and 2013) but wasn’t as good at that time.

Wilson has played two games against Green Bay (both in Seattle) and hasn’t turned the ball over in either of those games. That’s a rough environment, but Rodgers has thrown only one pick in eight quarters in those games. Of Rodger’s 5 interceptions, they all came on the road.

For FUMBLES I don’t see anything too meaningful. In the regular season, there were only 308 lost fumbles in 256 games, so about a 60 percent chance of a fumble in each game.

The Patriots lost only 4 fumbles all year. The Seahawks and Packers each lost 7. The Colts are definitely the weakest link here, losing 15 fumbles in the regular season.

On the defensive side, the Seahawks and Colts were better at forcing them. They were up at 29 fumbles in the regular season, 9-10 more than the Packers and Patriots. But you’ve got to not only force them but recover them. Indianapolis had 14 fumble takeaways in the regular season. Seahawks had 11. Packers/Patriots each had 9.

So for combined totals, they would be ordered this way: New England (vs. Ind) 50 forced, 24 recovered; Seattle (vs. G.B.) 48 fumbles, 18 recovered; Indianapolis (vs. N.E.) 42 fumbles, 18 recovered; and Green Bay (vs. Sea.) 43 fumbles, 16 recovered.

Whatever. If you figure Seattle and Green Bay are a little more likely to get fumbles, it stands to reason the ball would be a little more likely to get punched out on those plays. Julius Peppers did a nice job knocking it out of Tony Romo’s hands last week. For Seattle, Earl Thomas has used a nice karate chop technique to knock the ball out of the hands of running backs in two straight games.

Finally, we’ve got TOUCHDOWNS. And for touchdowns, I’m not going to break it down further in special teams and defensive touchdowns. I’m treating it as just one category.

None of the teams look likely to score on a kick return. Those kind of scores are rare (just 19 in 256 regular-season games). I will concede that Micah Hyde scored 2 TDs on punt returns in the regular season, but he’s not going to do anything against Seattle. With Jon Ryan, the Seahawks tend to hit high punts that can’t be returned. They almost set an NFL record in 2013 for fewest punt return yards allowed, and they were just off that pace for most of this year. They had a league-low 17 punts returned. The Rams cleverly fooled them on a gadget return where Tavon Austin ran to the wrong side of the field, confusing the coverage (and allowing Stedman Bailey to score on a 90-yard return) but set that one aside and Seattle was again a top-5 team covering. Julian Edelman has scored on a punt return four of the last five years (including one this year) but the Colts were the 3rd-best punt-covering team in the regular season. Seattle was a bottom-10 team in the regular season on both kickoff and punt returns. The Colts have Josh Cribbs, but he’s not the elite returner he was 5-7 years ago. He’s 31. Cribbs’ last kickoff return touchdown was in 2009. Since then, he hasn’t scored on any of his 161 kickoff returns. He’s scored on 1 of 119 punt returns in the last five years, and it came back in 2011. Danny Amendola had an 81-yard kickoff return in the regular season, but the Colts have been a top-5 kickoff team. No real potential with any of these teams.

As far as returning turnovers for a score, those rankings logically should be similar to the turnover volume. We decided that we liked the Patriots the most there. New England scored 2 TDs on interception returns against Luck back in 2012, and when these teams met in the playoffs last year, the Patriots got an early interception that nearly went for a score. No scores in the regular-season meeting this year, however. But whatever. Patriots are the logical choice to maybe get a touchdown on a return.

Seattle’s defense has been heating up recently. The interceptions are starting to occur, and Kam Chancellor returned one for a touchdown last week. But Green Bay simply doesn’t turn the ball over that often. Aaron Rodgers has thrown only 5 interceptions in 17 games, and he’s thrown only 1 interception in his last eight quarters up there.

Similarly, Indianapolis and Green Bay are working against offenses that simply don’t give the the ball up too often.

If you want to base your decision strictly off what the units had done in the regular season, the Patriots would be the logical choice. They scored 5 TDs in 16 games, while the Colts are 5 in 16 games. (This is defensive and special teams touchdowns). Green Bay scored 6 return touchdowns in the regular season (all at home), while the Seahawks allowed only 2. Seattle scored 3 while Green Bay allowed 4. And the Colts come in last, with a combined 4 TDs in 32 games (they scored 2, while the Patriots allowed 2).

On average, NFL teams tend to score a touchdown on a return about once every five games.

If you want to blend all those projections together, it seems to be that New England’s defense is most likely to be the best. It’s got more takeaway and touchdown potential, I think, then the other groups.

If you want to start including bonuses for fewest yards and points allowed, then maybe you can sneak the Seahawks past them.

—Ian Allan