Defensive Team by Committee

Jeff Pasquino's Defensive Team by Committee Jeff Pasquino Published 08/06/2020

This article is about a 13-minute read.

Over the past several seasons, there have been quite a few very popular articles that look at an interesting approach to building a fantasy team with late value picks. Based on the theory of using both Strength of Schedule ("SOS") and taking two players as a combination to build one very good starting duo, a Defensive Team by Committee ("DTBC") can be built as a standard fantasy league strategy. In general, this is usually a wise move because defensive scoring can vary widely on a week-to-week basis depending on matchups, and quite often the teams projected to have the best defenses underperform. Many years it makes a lot of sense to wait as long as possible to secure your fantasy defenses, so there is rarely (if ever) a need to pursue an elite defense in fantasy drafts.

So with this in mind, this article will apply the normal method applied to the other positions (quarterback, running back, wide receiver, and tight end) for the team defense position. Let's take a look at how to go about building this committee and then we can digest and discuss the results.

HUDDLE UP

So how to begin? Defenses and quarterbacks are relatively easy to committee together. There's usually only one quarterback and certainly only one team defense per NFL club, so the approach is pretty simple as far as picking out which players/teams to try and pair up. However, you cannot expect to have every defensive team available. After all, the goal here is to wait at the position and pick up two value picks later in the draft to form our combo and serve as a solid committee. The best plan is to use the following criteria to decide which players to start with for evaluating:

CRITERIA #1 - D/ST10 AND BEYOND

This seems pretty simple. If we want to have a duo that puts up D/ST1 numbers, that means we want D/ST12 or better production - else we would just draft D/ST12 or higher and forget the whole idea. This year there is a slight cheat from the norm (D/ST13 or higher) because of a harder look at both schedules and, more importantly, ADP information. Focusing just outside the Top 9 defenses, both Tampa Bay (D/ST10, ADP of 182) and Kansas City (D/ST11, ADP of 183) are next to each other on the ADP list, so it would be negligent to pick one and not the other. Philadelphia (D/ST12, ADP of 199) is the end of the Top 12 team defenses, so if you are the last team to take a defense and no one else has two, the Eagles will be there for the taking. Picking an arbitrary line of D/ST13 does not make sense if including D/ST10, D/ST11 or D/ST12 makes the result so much better. As we will see shortly, including all three does not significantly impact the result for DTBC for 2020, so we will analyze every defense that will be available after Round 15. Later in drafts, ADP values tend to go out the window in most drafts anyway, so it makes a ton of sense to include as many teams as possible to try and find the best committee option. So here is the list of teams in consideration for DTBC, listed by their Average Draft Position (ADP):

ADP Rank
Defense/Special Team
ADP Rank
Defense/Special Team
D/ST10
Tampa Bay
D/ST22
NY Jets
D/ST11
Kansas City
D/ST23
Tennessee
D/ST12
Philadelphia
D/ST24
Las Vegas
D/ST13
Seattle
D/ST25
Arizona
D/ST14
Denver
D/ST26
Green Bay
D/ST15
LA Rams
D/ST27
NY Giants
D/ST16
Atlanta
D/ST28+
Jacksonville
D/ST17
Miami
D/ST28+
Houston
D/ST18
Indianapolis
D/ST28+
Washington
D/ST19
Carolina
D/ST28+
Detroit
D/ST20
Cleveland
D/ST28+
Cincinnati
D/ST21
Dallas

Table 1: Defensive Teams 10-32 Based on ADP

Going all the way to D/ST32 is an exercise in thoroughness, but odds are that the middle tier of teams is the most likely to comprise the defensive committee for this year. Regardless, Working through the math and considering each and every option ensures that no stone is unturned. With 23 teams under consideration for DTBC, we have a very large pool of options (253 in all), so there had better be a decent pair (or several, we hope) out of all of those couplets. Now, before we go over the method of how to match them up and the results, we need one more rule:

CRITERIA #2 - NO MORE THAN ONE DEFENSE FROM ROUND 15+ AND ONE FROM ROUND 16+

This could get tricky here, but understand the overall goal. The point of DTBC is to free up the first 13-14 rounds of your fantasy draft to pursue all of the other positions for your team. Grabbing 3-4 running backs and 4-5 receivers after grabbing a stud running back or wide receiver in Round 1 sounds like a good idea to me, followed by adding strong depth. This also gives you the flexibility of grabbing a stud tight end, depending on your personal preference, or even to get QB1 if there's a huge value play available before even considering looking towards a defense.

Here is the good news - all of the defensive teams on the list above have ADPs that are Round 16 or higher (later). The interesting part of the defensive team ADP is that only one defense (San Francisco) goes before Round 10 (on average), and just the Top 9 are selected by the end of Round 15. Rounds 16-18 see a few teams finally taking a defense with the rest of the Top 12 teams off of the ADP list, which leaves several options for fantasy owners looking for a second defense. Determining when to pull the trigger on your committee options will be key, so monitor everyone's draft (ideally with the Draft Dominator) to see when 8-10 team defenses have gone off the board - then get moving on your committee.

So what is the answer for this year? There is one more thing to consider:

CRITERIA #3 - USE FOOTBALLGUYS' D/ST STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE

This sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Just take the Team Defense Strength of Schedule to figure out when certain players are more likely to score well. The method here is similar to what the Projections Dominator and Draft Dominator do for you - take the projected fantasy points and slice them up over 16 weeks based on the strength of schedule. which can be called the distributed fantasy points for each defense.

After all 23 team defenses had been calculated with distributed fantasy points on a weekly basis, all that was left was to just compare all of the possible D/ST pairs to find the best duos for DTBC. So here we are - time for some results.

Rank
Defense/ST 1
Defense/ST 2
Value
Rank
Defense/ST 1
Defense/ST 2
Value
1
Kansas City
LA Rams
151.8
36
Denver
Cleveland
137.0
2
Denver
LA Rams
146.8
37
LA Rams
Cleveland
136.8
3
LA Rams
Green Bay
145.9
38
Denver
Green Bay
136.5
4
Tampa Bay
Kansas City
145.5
39
LA Rams
Miami
136.2
5
Philadelphia
LA Rams
145.2
40
LA Rams
Detroit
136.1
6
Kansas City
Philadelphia
145.2
41
Kansas City
Carolina
135.9
7
Kansas City
Denver
144.1
42
Seattle
Denver
135.8
8
LA Rams
Las Vegas
143.9
43
Denver
Tennessee
135.5
9
Tampa Bay
Denver
143.4
44
Denver
NY Jets
135.5
10
LA Rams
Tennessee
143.2
45
Kansas City
Seattle
134.9
11
Philadelphia
Green Bay
142.6
46
Philadelphia
Washington
134.7
12
Philadelphia
Denver
142.2
47
Kansas City
Washington
134.5
13
Seattle
LA Rams
141.6
48
Kansas City
Detroit
134.5
14
LA Rams
NY Jets
141.6
49
Philadelphia
Seattle
134.3
15
Philadelphia
Tennessee
141.6
50
Philadelphia
Atlanta
133.8
16
Kansas City
Green Bay
141.3
51
Tampa Bay
Seattle
133.6
17
LA Rams
Dallas
141.2
52
Philadelphia
Dallas
133.6
18
Kansas City
Cleveland
141.1
53
Kansas City
Las Vegas
133.5
19
Kansas City
Tennessee
140.7
54
LA Rams
Cincinnati
133.4
20
LA Rams
Atlanta
140.2
55
Tampa Bay
Indianapolis
132.8
21
Tampa Bay
LA Rams
140.2
56
Philadelphia
Jacksonville
132.7
22
LA Rams
Washington
139.7
57
Philadelphia
Indianapolis
132.3
23
LA Rams
Carolina
139.7
58
Tampa Bay
Dallas
132.2
24
Tampa Bay
NY Jets
139.1
59
Kansas City
Houston
131.8
25
Tampa Bay
Green Bay
139.1
60
Philadelphia
Houston
131.8
26
LA Rams
Indianapolis
139.0
61
Denver
Indianapolis
131.7
27
Kansas City
Indianapolis
139.0
62
Kansas City
NY Giants
131.4
28
LA Rams
Arizona
138.8
63
Tampa Bay
Las Vegas
131.3
29
LA Rams
Jacksonville
138.7
64
Kansas City
Dallas
130.9
30
Tampa Bay
Philadelphia
138.6
65
Tampa Bay
Houston
130.3
31
Kansas City
NY Jets
138.1
66
Kansas City
Jacksonville
130.3
32
LA Rams
NY Giants
138.0
67
Denver
Dallas
130.2
33
Philadelphia
NY Jets
137.5
68
Denver
Atlanta
130.2
34
LA Rams
Houston
137.2
69
LA Rams
130.2
35
Tampa Bay
Tennessee
137.1

Table 2: Defensive Team Committee Pairs

As we can see from Table 2, we have some very good pairs to select from for potential defensive team committees for this coming season. There are 68 pairs that are worth more than the Los Angeles Rams defense by their lonesome, and the Rams are projected to produce 130.4 points or D/ST4 overall. You read that right - the Rams are projected to be the fourth-best defense yet go off the draft board, on average, as a backup defense. Guess which team is the favorite for half of the DTBC this season? Let's also take a look at how often some of these teams show up on the table:

Defense/Special Team
Frequency
Defense/Special Team
Frequency
LA Rams
22
Atlanta
3
Kansas City
18
Cleveland
3
Philadelphia
14
Jacksonville
3
Denver
12
Las Vegas
3
Tampa Bay
12
Washington
3
Dallas
5
Carolina
2
Green Bay
5
Detroit
2
Indianapolis
5
NY Giants
2
NY Jets
5
Arizona
1
Seattle
5
Cincinnati
1
Tennessee
5
Miami
1
Houston
4

Table 3: Defensive Committee Pair Appearances by Team

As we can see from Table 3, the results have a good number of teams with a dozen or more appearances in Table 2. No less than five teams appear at least 12 times (Rams, Chiefs, Eagles, Broncos and Buccaneers), which strongly implies that one or two of these teams will likely comprise our DTBC, but we need to do all the math to find out if that is the best option. Using this knowledge of defenses on the list with double-digit appearances, and that information along with Table 2 should make putting a combination of two of the top teams together pretty easy, or even using one of them with a key late pick for our committee. To find out the best strategy, we need to look closer at all of the results.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

Now that we have 68 possible pairs that are better than the Rams alone, what exactly does that mean? Should Los Angeles be the basis of our comparison? Of course not. Remember our goal - find a pair of defenses that can combine for D/ST1-type fantasy production. To figure that out we need a better metric, so here are the projections for the Top 15 defenses in standard scoring:

ADP
D/ST Rank
Team
FPs
Projected Rank
106
1
San Francisco
140.6
2
131
2
Pittsburgh
143.2
1
136
3
Baltimore
133.8
3
145
4
Buffalo
128.0
6
153
5
New England
124.7
9
169
6
Chicago
128.3
5
171
7
New Orleans
127.4
7
174
8
LA Chargers
120.7
10
177
9
Minnesota
125.7
8
182
10
Tampa Bay
115.0
13
183
11
Kansas City
120.2
11
199
12
Philadelphia
115.4
12
202
13
Seattle
107.3
15
206
14
Denver
112.3
14
219
15
LA Rams
130.4
4

Table 4: Projected Fantasy Points for Top 15 ADP Defenses

Based on Table 4, we see that the Top 3 defensive teams are reasonably well defined heading into 2020, but after that things get rather unclear for teams outside of those first group of defenses. That makes things interesting for the DTBC approach, as a strong pair of secondary defensive teams should compare favorably to one or more of the teams in the first group. To compare apples to apples, we need to adjust how we view Table 4 and the committee choices in Table 2. The committees represent 16 full weeks of play, while the individual teams in Table 4 all have a bye week - so we have to add a correction to make the comparison more even. A reasonable number for a bye week fantasy backup defense would be 5-8 fantasy points, so if we take a baseline of the lowest projected team in the Top 3 (the Baltimore Ravens with 133.8 projected points) from Table 4 and add 5-8 more points, we have 138.8- 141.8 points. The Top 12 choices for DTBC from Table 2 are right in that range, which means that choosing the correct pair can give us the result we wanted - D/ST1 production on the cheap.

Considering all of the results in Table 2, the DTBC recipe for 2020 can go a number of ways, but after considering the Defensive Team Strength of Schedule two teams have at least four favorable matchups (highlighted in blue on the SOS page) and three or fewer bad (red) matchups for Weeks 1-16. Both the Rams (surprise) and the Packers fit that bill, and the combined schedule results in zero bad matchups and eight good matchups (with eight neutral) - a very solid recipe for a committee. The Rams square off with the NFC East and the AFC East, affording several beneficial matchups for this season. So the combined projections point to taking two NFC teams this season - the Los Angeles Rams and the Green Bay Packers. Both teams are available in Round 18 or later (the ADP for the Rams is 219 - Round 18, while the Packers’ ADP is 279, or undrafted in all but the deepest of leagues). Select the Rams after 7-9 defenses are selected, likely around Round 15-17, and then take Green Bay one round later.

Rank
Team 1
Team 2
Value
ADP1
ADP2
1
Kansas City
LA Rams
151.8
11
15
2
Denver
LA Rams
146.8
14
15
3
LA Rams
Green Bay
145.9
15
26
4
Tampa Bay
Kansas City
145.5
10
11
5
Philadelphia
LA Rams
145.2
12
15
6
Kansas City
Philadelphia
145.2
11
12
7
Kansas City
Denver
144.1
11
14
8
LA Rams
Las Vegas
143.9
15
24
9
Tampa Bay
Denver
143.4
10
14
10
LA Rams
Tennessee
143.2
15
23
11
Philadelphia
Green Bay
142.6
12
26
12
Philadelphia
Denver
142.2
12
14
13
Seattle
LA Rams
141.6
13
15
14
LA Rams
NY Jets
141.6
15
22
15
Philadelphia
Tennessee
141.6
12
23
16
Kansas City
Green Bay
141.3
11
26
17
LA Rams
Dallas
141.2
15
21
18
Kansas City
Cleveland
141.1
11
20
19
Kansas City
Tennessee
140.7
11
23
20
LA Rams
Atlanta
140.2
15
16
21
Tampa Bay
LA Rams
140.2
10
15

Table 5: Top 21 Defensive Team By Committee Pairs for 2020

For thoroughness - and in case someone else in your league has a similar plan, or is a fellow Footballguy - Table 6 lists the Top 21 DTBC options along with the projected scores and ADPs for each team.

Week
Suggested Starter
Opponent
Alternate Starter
Opponent
1
LA Rams
Dallas
Green Bay
at Minnesota
2
LA Rams
at Philadelphia
3
LA Rams
at Buffalo
4
LA Rams
New York Giants
5
LA Rams
at Washington
6
Green Bay
at Tampa Bay
7
Green Bay
at Houston
8
LA Rams
at Miami
9
Green Bay
at San Francisco
10
LA Rams
Seattle
11
LA Rams
at Tampa Bay
12
LA Rams
San Francisco
13
Green Bay
Philadelphia
14
LA Rams
New England
Green Bay
at Detroit
15
Green Bay
Carolina
16
LA Rams
at Seattle

Table 6: Suggested DTBC Schedule Plan - Dallas and Philadelphia

The committee approach is not a perfect one, but having this knowledge prior to your fantasy draft can prove to be invaluable if you decide to adopt this approach. If all the players on your starter list are gone, going with a committee can save your team and help you deal with the loss of bigger names. The method is also a big help in "Best Ball" leagues, where lineup decisions are not necessary every week. That's exactly where a committee can do the best, as either player can count for you each week.

Questions, suggestions, and comments are always welcome to pasquino@footballguys.com.

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