When to start drafting a top tier D/ST? (1 Viewer)

[Tom Skerritt]

Obviously this will depend your league's on scoring rules, but is there a general consensus?

Last year I was the first to take a D/ST with Seattle in the 4th round of a 14-team league. Ended up being a good move. Seattle was solid and consistent pretty much all year. Also, fairly valuable in my league. Scoring heirarchy for my league usually ends up looking like this:

1. QB - (top scoring QBs ~400 total pts, obvious outliers with Peyton and Brees)

2. RB/Flex/WR - (250 each)

3. D/ST (200)

4. K (170)

5. TE (160, not including Jimmy Graham... he ruins off the curve)

Is Seattle going to be drafted earlier based on their dominance from last year? If your D/ST position is valuable in your league, at what point do you reach?

 

[Shutout]

The answer is easily figured mathematically:

X=the number of rounds you have

y=1 (kicker)

Z= your answer

x-y=z

 

[tjnc09]

How many more points per game did Seattle score than Kansas City for example? I personally don't like to draft defenses early because A) schedules vary so much year to year and B) there will be generally good options to stream a matchup. Kansas City, for example, played one of the worst schedules in the NFL last year and that certainly helped their defensive results. I think there will always be a few of those that sneak under the radar and would rather pick position players early.

 

[Biabreakable]

Drafting a DST in the 4th round seems way too soon. Why do you think that worked out well for you?

In the Anarchy leagues Seattle was the 1st DST taken at pick 7.15 the next DST was taken at 9.01

The Seattle defense finished as the 48th player overall at the end of the season. In part due to an extra 3 playoff games. Percy Harvin helps.

The separation in scoring is not significant enough in my opinion to be worthy of a high draft pick.

 

[steveski]

These are the guys that went in the 4th round of one of my leagues last year. Taking a defense over any of these guys is absurd. I bet I came close to the same amount of points by streaming DST last year and landing teams like CAR and KC.

Round 4 1. Darren Sproles(Phi - RB) 2. DeMarco Murray(Dal - RB) 3. Le'Veon Bell(Pit - RB) 4. Ryan Mathews(SD - RB) 5. Marques Colston(NO - WR) 6. Reggie Wayne(Ind - WR) 7. Dwayne Bowe(KC - WR) 8. Danny Amendola(NE - WR) 9. Eddie Lacy(GB - RB) 10. Eric Decker(NYJ - WR) 11. Matt Ryan(Atl - QB) 12. Antonio Brown(Pit - WR)

 

[NCPanthersFan]

The answer is easily figured mathematically:

X=the number of rounds you have

y=1 (kicker)

Z= your answer

x-y=z

Love it.

 

[Tom Skerritt]

These are the guys that went in the 4th round of one of my leagues last year. Taking a defense over any of these guys is absurd. I bet I came close to the same amount of points by streaming DST last year and landing teams like CAR and KC.

Round 4 1. Darren Sproles(Phi - RB) - 93 points 2. DeMarco Murray(Dal - RB) - 198 3. Le'Veon Bell(Pit - RB) - 163 4. Ryan Mathews(SD - RB) - 193 5. Marques Colston(NO - WR) - 124 6. Reggie Wayne(Ind - WR) - 64 7. Dwayne Bowe(KC - WR) - 90 8. Danny Amendola(NE - WR) - 79 9. Eddie Lacy(GB - RB) - 210 10. Eric Decker(NYJ - WR) - 202 11. Matt Ryan(Atl - QB) - 271 12. Antonio Brown(Pit - WR) - 211

Meh... that puts Seattle about middle of the pack with this group then . Drafted at value in my opinion. A wash.

 

[steveski]

These are the guys that went in the 4th round of one of my leagues last year. Taking a defense over any of these guys is absurd. I bet I came close to the same amount of points by streaming DST last year and landing teams like CAR and KC.

Round 4 1. Darren Sproles(Phi - RB) - 93 points 2. DeMarco Murray(Dal - RB) - 198 3. Le'Veon Bell(Pit - RB) - 163 4. Ryan Mathews(SD - RB) - 193 5. Marques Colston(NO - WR) - 124 6. Reggie Wayne(Ind - WR) - 64 7. Dwayne Bowe(KC - WR) - 90 8. Danny Amendola(NE - WR) - 79 9. Eddie Lacy(GB - RB) - 210 10. Eric Decker(NYJ - WR) - 202 11. Matt Ryan(Atl - QB) - 271 12. Antonio Brown(Pit - WR) - 211

Meh... that puts Seattle about middle of the pack with this group then . Drafted at value in my opinion. A wash.

But I was able to get one of those guys and KC DST who outscored Seattle....or Carolina who barely scored less than Seattle.

Alex Smith scored more fantasy points than Demaryius Thomas. By your logic, I should take Alex Smith before Demaryius Thomas.

 

[Dan Hindery]

Unfortunately, I would have to agree that the best answer is that it depends. So many factors go into it including the size of the starting lineup, size of your bench, league tendencies in terms of how many defenses are rostered per team, etc.

If I had to give an answer without knowing any details, I think I would start considering Seattle's Defense in round 10 at the earliest (though I probably wouldn't personally bite until at least round 12 as other values would likely fall into that range I like better).

I disagree with the assessment given above though that you must take your D in the 2nd to last round. I believe there is enough value in owning Seattle's D to take them before your longshot sleepers. It is especially true with the Seattle Defense due to their dominance at home.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

The value of an elite fantasy defense is supremely underrated.

On the same front, the reliability of an elite fantasy defense from year to year is supremely overrated by people that properly weight the value of an elite fantasy defense.

The Seattle defense seems like a lock to be an elite fantasy defense next year that will give you a significant advantage over other teams. The same way that the Bears defense was a lock before that and the 49ers defense was a lock before that and the Jets defense was a lock before that. People were every bit as high on those defenses then as they are on Seattle now. The thing is, these defenses turn over fast and almost always for no visible or predictable reason.

Heck, the Bears outscored everyone, including Seattle, by 50 points in 2012 and they finished as the #22 defense last year. This is an extremely common occurrence for the previous year's top fantasy defense.

 

[Dragon1952]

Like the OP says, it depends on the scoring system. The Phenoms leagues, in addition to 2 pts per INT and fumble recovery, 1 pt per sack and D/ST points scored they give points for total net yds allowed, total offensive pts allowed and special teams points allowed. Seattle last year scored 275 pts for an avg of 17 ppg. Now at the end of the 5th round in one draft, Seattle is the highest scoring free agent left over non-QB position players from last year (except for Gordon, Decker and about even with Moreno). Boldin is the next closest but like the other 3 mentioned isn't likely to repeat his 16 ppg. So now you're looking at a 4 ppg drop-off to the next position player (and there's a ton of those available) unless you can pick a break-out player who will score 16 ppg.

The difference between Seattle and the 5th defense was 55 pts. and almost 100 pts between Seattle and DEF's 8 and 9, so you need to be pretty lucky/good at streaming to make up for that. And if you wait until the last couple rounds you're going to potentially end up with a 7 or 8 ppg deficit to make up. If in the first 7 rounds you can grab either Manning or Brees and Seattle D other teams could be looking at having to make up 14-20 ppg elsewhere depending on their QB/DEF combination.

 

[Sarnoff]

November

 

[Holy Schneikes]

It's true, DT is highly variable year to year. So is RB. And WR. And QB. And TE. And K. Oh wait, that's all of them...

Seattle has been in the top 4 for three straight years in my league, which is about as good as any individual player is going to do. It's pretty common for a fantasy D to go on a two or three year run of excellent performance. You may miss the end of the run, like with Chicago, but I disagree that there were no indications that run might end. I'm fairly confident Seattle will be at least a decent starter this year. Not as confident as I am about Calvin Johnson etc, but fairly confident. And Seattle was 6+ points higher per game than the #14 D. That range was bigger than the range between Calvin and the #14 WR.

And while there is "schedule risk", there is not much injury risk. God forbid, Calvin could have a significant injury in week one and miss the season. Seattle team D could lose a guy or two, but they won't miss games for sure.

I'm not suggesting you should take Seattle over Calvin, mostly because of positional scarcity. Just making the case that team D is overlooked a little more than it should be. I don't go CRAZY, but I look at ADP and get a feel for a league, then wait as long as I can but grab one of the earlier teams that I like.