Fantasy Football: Defense

Here is the close out edition of our pre-draft rankings, hopefully it was of some benefit to everyone. Best part is, I have documented what I think, so you can roast me on it the rest of the season!

Without any further delays, here are your 2011 defensive outlooks....

This article is almost an "easy out", but let's take a look at the stuff some of our more hardcore fantasy players are interested in. I explained what Individual Defensive Players mean in fantasy football here way back when, and just like with the offensive positions I followed it up with some "Too Early" rankings here. That gives us a good baseline to start with.

For Standard Fantasy Football players, it goes kind of like this:

In 12 team leagues, try to avoid drafting a D/ST in the first 7 rounds, arguably longer than that (say first 9 rounds). It's tempting and someone always likes to get the big name defense in the 6th or 7th round, but the scoring differential among the top10 defenses is negligible in most standard scoring options. If your league has different values and you have to adjust to that, so be it, because only you know your league's settings (but feel free to ask in the comments) but in standard scoring its not worth it.

After that, here is how I rank 'em

Round 9-10: Bears, Steelers, Ravens, Packers, Jets

Round 11: Patriots, Eagles, Falcons, Saints, Giants, Chargers

Round 12: Chiefs, Lions

Its all about getting 1 quality starter, so don't worry about going back for seconds. The Browns are a decent scoring D/ST unit too if you want depth (mostly due to special teams).

Don't Back Out Now, Where Is The IDP Content?

Well we did link the list from last time above, and frankly my rankings haven't changed all that much, so just take the link back to the old article and add your own opinions from there.

Thanks for tuning in!