Why are defenses drafted so low?

[Mercer Boy]

4. They are not a difference maker for your team like a breakout RB or WR can be. They score 6 for TD's plus yardage. If you draft a guy like CMart in '04 or S Smith in "05 in the middle RD's, he can take you to a SB. That simply is not a option for a D.

Well, I agree that you shouldn't waste early picks on D's, but I do think that D's can be "difference makers." D's can win you a week just as well as a RB or WR can. Look at the huge weeks random D's have against crappy teams. They can score upwards of 20+ points for your team which is equivalent to a RB getting 100 yards and 2 TD's!!! .

If you do things right, you should be able to score more than the top defense does just by playing matchups. If nothing else, you're making your scoring much more consistent from week to week which is KEY in H2H. Like I always say, winning by 1 point is just as good as winning by 30 points. The problem with a top D is that one week they'll get you 25 points, and the next week they may play a tough team and get you 3.

That's why I love playing matchup defenses using Plindsey's formula. More often than not my defenses score over 10 points which helps me reach my goal of at least 90 points each game. Drafting two D's with good matchups throughout the year is another great way to maximize your scoring.

[Free Bagel]

2) Unpredictability I think is overrated. My take on it is that individual players are much more unpredictable than a team defense. A player can break a leg, get demoted, or get arrested for a DUI and lost their entire value. But if that happens to any individual members of a defense, someone else steps in and you normally don't lose a step.

The unpredictability of defenses has little to do with injury, and everything to do with parity and defenses just being totally different from season to season despite no real changes.

Indy went from one of the worst defenses to one of the best overnight with no real changes. Cinci (fantasy wise) went from one of the worst to another one near the top again with no major changes...they just started intercepting tons of passes out of the blue. Likewise, the same guys that had made Baltimore a top defense for years just suddenly sucked as a fantasy defense...again for no apparent reason.

When looking at strength of schedule for the other players it's always mentioned that it's a bit overrated preseason as defenses change vastly from preseason to actual season whether or not their situation changes at all.

[teddyballgamemvp]

My strategy is to look at some lists of top DSTs available and draft one from around the middle of that group when it looks like those DSTs are coming off the board, so that I get one of them in the range that I wanted and not worry about the exact DST I end up with because it's so unknowable.