Could the New York Giants Defense be the key to your fantasy football postseason. Probably not. But it’s what the voodoo numbers suggest should at least be considered.
A reader in the mailbag asked yesterday about defenses that could be picked up for the key Week 14-17 window, where fantasy football playoff games occur. I told him I’d look into it, and I’m a man of my word.
So I did the following. I took the average expected sacks, interceptions and fumbles allowed by each NFL offense. Not exactly what they’ve done so, but instead an expectation of what I would expect them to do in a typical game. (Kansas City, as an example, hasn’t lost any fumbles at all so far, but I don’t think it’s realistic to plan on them not losing any fumbles in the second half of the season). So we’ve got those numbers.
On the other hand, we’ve got the same numbers for the defenses. Andy Richardson chalks those out every Tuesday for the Redrafter. So I pulled those numbers out of the most recent product – sacks, interceptions and fumbles. As with the offenses, the numbers aren’t a reflection of what’s happened, but what should happen in the future.
If we take those numbers and blend them together, we get a ballpark sense of what to expect from defenses going forward.
Giving equal weight to offenses and defenses and looking at the next seven games for each team, the Texans, Seahawks, Jaguars and Browns project to have the best defenses. That’s using 2 points for takeaways and 1 for sacks.
Observant readers will notice that Denver projects to be only average. That seems weird, with them above to pile up a bunch of sacks against the Raiders in the game that starts in an hour and also on pace to challenge the all-time sack record. But Denver has a couple of games coming up against Patrick Mahomes and also one against the Packers. Will be tough to get much in those games, and that’s almost half of the schedule.
In the chart below, you’re seeing Weeks 10-16 for teams that have already had their byes. For teams with the bye still coming up, Week 17 is included as the seventh game.
| STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE, DEFENSES (next 7 G) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | Sack | Int | Fum | Total |
| Houston | 2.56 | .75 | .51 | 5.07 |
| Seattle | 2.63 | .70 | .48 | 4.99 |
| Jacksonville | 2.45 | .73 | .51 | 4.94 |
| Cleveland | 2.69 | .59 | .51 | 4.90 |
| Baltimore | 2.58 | .61 | .52 | 4.83 |
| LA Rams | 2.56 | .66 | .46 | 4.80 |
| Atlanta | 2.50 | .67 | .48 | 4.78 |
| Tampa Bay | 2.60 | .57 | .50 | 4.74 |
| Pittsburgh | 2.49 | .63 | .49 | 4.74 |
| Buffalo | 2.48 | .62 | .49 | 4.71 |
| Detroit | 2.47 | .61 | .45 | 4.60 |
| Philadelphia | 2.29 | .70 | .46 | 4.60 |
| Minnesota | 2.34 | .58 | .53 | 4.57 |
| Chicago | 2.22 | .68 | .49 | 4.57 |
| Green Bay | 2.44 | .57 | .47 | 4.53 |
| Denver | 2.39 | .62 | .42 | 4.45 |
| NY Jets | 2.26 | .54 | .46 | 4.26 |
| Las Vegas | 2.09 | .59 | .43 | 4.13 |
| Kansas City | 2.09 | .62 | .39 | 4.11 |
| Arizona | 2.04 | .58 | .44 | 4.09 |
| NY Giants | 2.19 | .52 | .38 | 4.01 |
| LA Chargers | 2.10 | .58 | .37 | 4.00 |
| Indianapolis | 1.95 | .60 | .42 | 4.00 |
| Dallas | 2.00 | .54 | .38 | 3.85 |
| New England | 2.12 | .46 | .39 | 3.83 |
| Washington | 2.07 | .49 | .38 | 3.80 |
| San Francisco | 1.97 | .51 | .39 | 3.76 |
| Miami | 1.93 | .50 | .39 | 3.72 |
| Carolina | 1.76 | .55 | .41 | 3.66 |
| Cincinnati | 1.89 | .51 | .38 | 3.66 |
| New Orleans | 1.88 | .49 | .40 | 3.65 |
| Tennessee | 1.79 | .53 | .37 | 3.58 |
Circling back to our Mailbag reader, he was interested only in Weeks 14-17. If we focus on just those weeks, the Giants have the best weekly average. They actually don’t even play in Week 14, but their other three games are against the Commanders, Vikings and Raiders – offenses that tend to cough up some goodies. The offense-defense numbers suggest the Giants will be a top-10 defense in each of those three weeks.
Other defenses that look promising in Weeks 14-17 include the Texans, Kansas City, Denver and Philadelphia.
The Texans have a modest matchup in Week 14 but then project to have the 3rd-best defense in each of the next three weeks against the Cardinals, Raiders and Chargers. That queues up well for Will Anderson, Derek Stingley and the guys.
In the chart below, you’re seeing the game rank (a number between 1 and 32) for each of those games in Weeks 14-17, along with the average expected score for that month.
| DEFENSIVE MATCHUP RANKS (Weeks 14-17) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | Avg |
| NY Giants | -- | 9 | 2 | 4 | 5.36 |
| Houston | 18 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 5.22 |
| Kansas City | 11 | 5 | 1 | 28 | 5.00 |
| Denver | 2 | 19 | 4 | 17 | 4.98 |
| Philadelphia | 6 | 4 | 9 | 29 | 4.87 |
| Indianapolis | 7 | 17 | 10 | 6 | 4.87 |
| Tampa Bay | 5 | 24 | 13 | 5 | 4.85 |
| Detroit | 13 | 28 | 18 | 1 | 4.81 |
| Pittsburgh | 12 | 7 | 20 | 7 | 4.81 |
| Buffalo | 9 | 6 | 11 | 23 | 4.78 |
| Minnesota | 8 | 16 | 6 | 24 | 4.77 |
| LA Rams | 4 | 14 | 16 | 20 | 4.76 |
| Dallas | 24 | 2 | 8 | 16 | 4.71 |
| Cleveland | 1 | 20 | 26 | 21 | 4.68 |
| New Orleans | 23 | 26 | 12 | 2 | 4.66 |
| Washington | 3 | 12 | 25 | 25 | 4.63 |
| LA Chargers | 15 | 27 | 17 | 9 | 4.50 |
| Atlanta | 17 | 22 | 5 | 26 | 4.50 |
| NY Jets | 16 | 21 | 15 | 14 | 4.50 |
| Seattle | 20 | 15 | 23 | 12 | 4.45 |
| San Francisco | -- | 1 | 28 | 30 | 4.44 |
| Jacksonville | 19 | 8 | 27 | 22 | 4.44 |
| New England | -- | 32 | 21 | 8 | 4.39 |
| Baltimore | 22 | 13 | 7 | 32 | 4.38 |
| Cincinnati | 27 | 25 | 14 | 10 | 4.34 |
| Tennessee | 14 | 23 | 32 | 11 | 4.30 |
| Chicago | 25 | 11 | 30 | 15 | 4.29 |
| Carolina | -- | 10 | 29 | 27 | 4.27 |
| Miami | 10 | 31 | 19 | 31 | 4.21 |
| Green Bay | 21 | 29 | 24 | 19 | 4.21 |
| Las Vegas | 28 | 30 | 22 | 13 | 4.15 |
| Arizona | 26 | 18 | 31 | 18 | 4.10 |
—Ian Allan