There will be no official “Fantasy Index Weekly” this week. There aren’t enough players or games left. But I will look at each of the positions in the coming days, posting each as a separate item. Starting with defenses and special teams.

At this position, some like to take a macro approach. That is, they’ll decide the order the defenses should be in, then set about finding reasons to support their opinion. I go micro. That is, with defenses, I prefer to just try to find the correct number for all of the difference sub-categories – points, sacks, interceptions, fumbles, etc. Then at the end, you go back, add up all of your numbers, and that’s your overall order.

POINTS

All of these defenses are pretty stout. All ranked between 4th and 10th in scoring defense in the regular season, giving up under 20 points per game. On the other side of the ball, Carolina, Arizona and New England ranked 1st, 2nd and 3rd in scoring. Those are all great offenses. Denver, on the other hand, finished way down at 19th, averaging only 22.2 points.

So for matchup purposes, the Patriots appear to be in the best situation here. They’re on the road, but they’re facing an offense that’s about a touchdown per game worse the all of the others.

With points allowed, it can be useful to simply look at the lines at the casinos. Those are initially set by analysts, and then they adjust to their true value as thousands of dollars are bet on each side. That is, if the casinos were to foolishly set the over-under on the Carolina-Arizona game at 30 points, everyone would bet the over, and it would rise to the appropriate level.

With the NFC game, the over-under is currently sitting at about 48 points, with the Panthers favored by 3. So, using that as a guide, it would be reasonable to set Carolina at about 22.5 points, and Arizona’s defense at about 25.5. That’s a fair enough initial estimate.

On the AFC side, New England is favored by 3.5, with an over-under of 44.5. So for ballpark purposes, the Patriots defense seems to be valued at about 20.5 points – 2 points better than Carolina. I think this is fair. Denver’s defense is projected to allow 24 points.

I haven’t looked closely at these matchups yet. After analyzing the offenses more closely later in the week maybe I will adjust the numbers slightly. But for now, I’m going with Patriots-Panthers-Broncos-Cardinals, with about a 5-point spread between the four.

SACKS

For sacks, I always like to look at what defenses have done, and what’s been allowed by the offense they’re going to face.

By this measure, Denver grades out as the best defense this week for sacks. They’ve got 55 in their 17 games, while New England has allowed 38, which is the 2nd-most of the four offenses still playing.

When the Patriots played at Denver in Week 12, Denver sacked Tom Brady 3 times. But I’m not crazy about the Broncos. New England is healthier now, and when Brady has the right guys around him, he gets the ball out awfully quick. That’s how it played out last week, when Kansas City (which also has a great pass rush) couldn’t get close to him. In the earlier meeting, Brady was playing with Edelman and Amendola. I don’t think they’ll sack him more than twice.

On paper, New England grades out as the 2nd-best sack defense. They’ve got 50 so far (almost 3 per game), while the Broncos have allowed 40, which is the most of any of the remaining teams. But I’m not crazy about the Patriots either. The Broncos have Peyton Manning at quarterback, and he doesn’t tend to take sacks – he knows how to throw it away. He’s played essentially 10 games this year, and he’s taken 17 sacks. It’s been when Brock Osweiler has been at quarterback that the sacks have tended to start flowing. Osweiler has taken 24 sacks in about seven games. So as with the Broncos, I don’t think New England will get more than 2 sacks. Peyton Manning played against the Patriots three times in the 2013-14 seasons and was sacked only 3 times in those three games.

I also don’t care much for the Arizona defense (for sacks). It’s got only 37 sacks so far – 12 fewer than any of the other remaining teams. Cam Newton has been sacked only 34 times, and the Seahawks didn’t have much luck putting him under any kind of pressure last week. If the Panthers can get their running game going at all (and I think they can) that will make it really hard for Arizona to do much with their pass rush. Another unit that’s not getting more than 2 sacks.

Which leaves us with Carolina. Straight off the numbers, this is another unit that probably won’t get over 2 sacks. It has 49 sacks so far (just behind the Broncos and Patriots) but the Cardinals have given up only 30, the fewest of the offenses that are left. Carson Palmer has started 17 games, and he’s been sacked more than twice in only three of them. But the Packers had some success putting pressure on him last week, while Carolina’s defense was all over Russell Wilson, with 5 sacks. The Panthers just lost Jared Allen with a broken foot, but he had only 2 sacks for them in the regular season.

All of these pass rushes, I think, are pretty comparable. If you want me to put them in an order, I’ll go Panthers-Patriots-Broncos-Cardinals. Not much separation.

FUMBLES

I don’t tend to worry too much about fumbles. I think there’s a lot of luck and chance involved. Enough, I think, to outweigh whatever trends you might be able to spot. All four of these defenses have forced 29-31 fumbles so far in 17 games each. The NFL average this year was 9.7 fumbles – as in, about a 60 percent probability of a fumble in each game. That tends to be kind of my default setting for fumbles. I’ll go a little higher (or lower) based on how teams have performed.

For this game, I’ll put Carolina slightly above the others. They recovered 15 fumbles in the regular season, a little more than the others, while Arizona was slightly sloppier with the ball. The Cardinals have lost 11 fumbles, 2 more than the Panthers and 3-4 more than Broncos and Patriots.

With the Broncos-Patriots, you have the added possible plus of them being helped along by poor weather. But the early forecast indicates the weather should be pretty mild on Sunday.

For now, I’m putting the Panthers at 65 percent, the Cardinals at 60, the Patriots at 55 and the Broncos at 50. Not much separation here.

INTERCEPTIONS

There hasn’t been much separation with sacks and fumbles. But there is in this category. Carolina and New England definitely look like the big two.

The Patriots have only 12 interceptions so far, the fewest of the remaining teams. But they have by far the best matchup. Peyton Manning has arm strength limitations, and he’s had a troubling habit this year of writing checks with his head than his arm can’t cash – floaters that simply don’t get there on time. He didn’t throw any interceptions on Sunday, but he offered up one ball that should have been picked. For the year, he’s played about 10 games worth of action, and he’s thrown 17 interceptions. Patriots definitely should get a pick in this game, and if they can get a lead (forcing Denver into more of a catch-up type situation) they might get 2-3 interceptions.

Carolina looks like the other team with some chance of multiple interceptions. They lost two of their cornerbacks a few weeks back, Charles Tillman and Bene Benwikere, but they’re still awfully opportunistic. They’ve got really good linebackers who can find the ball. They’ve intercepted 26 passes, 6 more than any of the other remaining teams, and Carson Palmer (good for most of the regular season) looked pretty awful on Saturday, with 2 interceptions and another one dropped.

It’s a big step down, I think, to Arizona. They lost Tyrann Mathieu a few weeks back, and he was one of the sneaky guys in that secondary who needed to be accounted for. They had 20 interceptions in the regular season, but Cam Newton has been pretty smart with the ball this year. He’s not sailing balls like he did in the past. The Seahawks never came close to intercepting any of his passes on Sunday. Will be an upset, I think, if Arizona gets more than an interception (and I’m not promising they’ll even get one).

In Aqib Talib and Chris Harris Jr., the Broncos have probably the league’s best pair of cornerbacks. Those guys know how to jump routes and make plays. But they’re working against the most difficult opponent. Tom Brady simply doesn’t give opponents many opportunities. He’s thrown only 7 interceptions – 3 fewer than Newton, and less than half as many as Palmer and Manning.

For interceptions, I think it’s Patriots, Panthers, Cardinals, Broncos.

TOUCHDOWNS

For kick returns, I don’t think any of these teams has much of a chance of scoring a touchdown this week. Combined, these teams have scored only 2 TDs on kickoff/punt returns (in a combined 68 games), and both were scored by guys who won’t be used this week. Omar Bolden had a good punt return against the Steelers, but he’s now out for the year. David Johnson had a kickoff return touchdown at Chicago back in Week 2, but now that he’s their starting tailback, they aren’t using him in that role.

For kickoffs, I suppose the only returner with any chance (at all) of taking one back would be Joe Webb. In Denver, all of the kickoffs should go through the end zone for touchbacks, and Graham Gano tends to do the same for Carolina. So it’s really just Webb, but the Panthers didn’t have a 35-yard kickoff return all year.

It looks only a little better for punt returners. There are no big-time threats on these teams. Two of the teams, at least, allowed one in the regular season – the Patriots and Panthers. And while Arizona hasn’t allowed any, Tyler Lockett had a couple of good returns against them in Week 17. So I would go with Ted Ginn Jr. and Patrick Peterson as the top 2 threats. Broncos likely will use Emmanuel Sanders or Jordan Norwood as their returner. Patriots will use Danny Amendola.

There were 13 punt return touchdowns in the regular season. That works out to 2.5 percent (that is, 2.5 per team per 100 games). I wouldn’t go higher than 2 for any of these teams.

For interceptions, the Cardinals, Panthers and Broncos all scored 4 TDs on Pick Six balls in the regular season. The Patriots didn’t score any. But I’m giving New England the best grade. They’re playing against Peyton Manning, and he should throw the most interceptions. Manning served up 3 TDs on interceptions in the regular season. Newton and Palmer didn’t throw any, and Brady threw just 2 (and I think he’s now the best of these guys at making good decisions).

In the regular season there were 53 touchdowns scored on interception returns. So the raw probability tends to be about 10 percent. I’m going higher for New England, with Carolina just behind them. For the Broncos and Cardinals, I’m going lower than 10 percent.

With fumbles, probability of one of those turning into a touchdown is about 6 percent. That is, it tends to happen about once every 16 games. For my fumble scoring forecast, I will blend that with my earlier fumble conclusions. That is, I have it as Panthers-Cardinals-Patriots-Broncos in projected number of fumbles, and I’ll go with the same order for likelihood of turning one of those into a touchdown.

CONCLUSION

If you take those numbers and plug them into a standard scoring system (6 points for TDs, 2 for takeaways and 1 for each sack) the Patriots come out on top, with Carolina just behind. Arizona and Denver are definitely a notch back.

If you factor in some kind of reward for limiting scoring, New England would still be No. 1 (figuring to allow fewer points than the other three teams this week).

—Ian Allan