It's happened to me before. Maybe a few years ago, maybe last year, and maybe even this season. I see a bad defense with a great matchup, and I'm tempted to put them in my starting lineup because a better one has a worse matchup. It makes plenty of sense on Saturday. But then Sunday rolls around and I wonder why I keep costing myself points.
I know it’s just a defense, but don't risk losing games at this point in the season. Don't start bad defenses just because they have great matchups.
As the great Huey Lewis sang (okay, maybe not great but he was definitely good. He had a bunch of hits and a solo vocal on We Are The World. That's impressive), "sometimes bad is bad." You just have to remember that when an enticing matchup is on the schedule, and I almost forgot those words a couple weeks ago. I had Kansas City ready to roll as my defense when I saw that the Bengals were available. Yeah, I know they're a terrible defense but they were playing the Jets. They had done a good job against the Steelers the week before, they were at home, and the Jets were, well, the Jets. They were starting a quarterback who had been criticized by the team's owner and he only cracked the lineup because Tyrod Taylor was hurt. Justin Fields couldn't hit anything the previous couple of weeks. It was a pretty good matchup, and with Washington's weapons coming back, Marcus Mariota could produce some decent results against Kansas City. The more I thought about it, the more the Bengals defense looked like the right play.
Obviously using the words "Bengals defense" and "play" in the same sentence is a problem in itself. They gave up nearly 40 points that day, along with more than 500 yards of offense and recorded no turnovers or sacks-- A rare goose egg for a defense in my league. I'm pretty sure the last time a defense got a zero was last year in the championship game, when some idiot who writes a football column started the mediocre Colts defense because they were playing the inept Giants with Drew Lock behind center. In case you don't remember, Lock threw four touchdowns, the Giants scored 45 points, and Indianapolis recorded zero turnover or sacks.
Sound familiar? Bad is bad.
It works out sometimes, of course. But generally, poor defenses play poorly. Still, I know why I'm tempted. Most leagues don't have a set-it-and-forget-it system. You need to manage your roster, and that means choosing the very best players that week. We don't control how they play, but we do control whose scores count for that game. As a fantasy manager, I want to manage. I want to make the team better. I'm sure you do too. And when you're trying to stay in the playoff race, you tend to look for any and every advantage. It makes sense, until you're starting the Bengals defense and wondering why they didn't perform well.
Now, you might know better than to do that. And sometimes those decisions actually work out. I’m sure there was a desperate fantasy team that saw the Cardinals without their starting quarterback and running back and thought the Cowboys defense would be a good play on Monday night. In reality they were awful, constantly giving up big plays, keeping their own offense on the sidelines while keeping the game out of reach without nabbing a single turnover. But in fantasy, they had five sacks and scored on a blocked punt. Fluky, but it worked out.
Sometimes the simplest advice is the kind we need to hear a few extra times: Start the best players, and that includes defenses. Don't chase a few extra points and lose a bunch of them in the process. For the record, I started the Colts defense in that championship game last year and still won. A bad decision doesn’t always burn you. But I'm not going to wait until it does to re-learn a valuable lesson: Don't overweigh matchups when making lineup decisions. Good luck this week.
Do you play matchups on defense, or stick with one week after week? Have you gotten burned playing matchups? Have you won games because of them? Share your thoughts below.