Defense is the one position where I almost never carry a season-long option in fantasy football. I stream it. Playing the weekly matchups is how you squeeze fantasy points out of a spot most managers ignore until Sunday morning. That reality shapes how I approach the position on draft day. The aim is not to land the best defense in football. It is to find a unit I can confidently start in Week 1 or Week 2, with anything after that treated as a bonus. These are the defenses whose early schedules are set up to do exactly that.
Preseason Fantasy Football Rankings
1) Houston Texans
2) Denver Broncos
3) Los Angeles Rams
4) Seattle Seahawks
5) Philadelphia Eagles
6) New England Patriots
7) Minnesota Vikings
8) Pittsburgh Steelers
9) Baltimore Ravens
10) Jacksonville Jaguars
11) Los Angeles Chargers
12) Green Bay Packers
13) Kansas City Chiefs
14) Detroit Lions
15) Buffalo Bills
16) Cleveland Browns
17) Atlanta Falcons
18) New Orleans Saints
19) Indianapolis Colts
20) San Francisco 49ers
21) Miami Dolphins
22) Washington Commanders
23) Dallas Cowboys
24) Chicago Bears
25) New York Giants
26) Tampa Bay Buccaneers
27) Cincinnati Bengals
28) Carolina Panthers
29) Tennessee Titans
30) New York Jets
31) Arizona Cardinals
32) Las Vegas Raiders
Best Defense for Fantasy Football
The Minnesota Vikings led the league in pressure rate when not blitzing a season ago, and with their blitz-heavy scheme, that skill is one that stands to create chaos in bulk. That’s what we want. They play in the NFC North, so there are going to be some weeks where they give up points, but if sacks and opponent mistakes are in the cards, that’s all we can ask for. They also play the Jets in Week 17 (hello fantasy finals) and get to avoid one of their Chicago matchups with it coming in Week 18.
FANTASY RANKINGS: PFN’s FREE Fantasy PPR, Half-PPR, and Non-PPR Rankings
The love for the Chargers is two-fold. They’ve got games against the Cardinals and Raiders in the first month of the season in addition to the Dolphins and another meeting with the Raiders in the final month. Those are matchups to target, obviously, but the more outside-the-box thinking is betting on this offense. If Mike McDaniel truly levels up this unit, game scripts tilt in their favor and force opponent aggression. That’s all we can ask for: good offenses are tied to good fantasy defenses more often than you’d guess, and that’s how I see things working in Los Angeles (realistically, for both LA-based teams).
