Best Fantasy Football D/ST Streaming Options for Week 7: Bengals, Rams, Saints, Jaguars
Ted breaks down the best defenses to stream for your Week 7 fantasy football matchups.
Last week’s fantasy football DST streaming picks worked excellently. Of the four name teams I suggested, only one fell out of the top 10 scorers on the week. And even that team, the Colts, didn’t kill your week with five fantasy points. The Texans, Eagles, and Chargers took advantage of their matchups to the tune of 9.7 points on average.
Hopefully, we can keep the good results rolling this week. I don’t think these options profile quite as well as last week’s, but as long as we’re picking against Bo Nix and Deshaun Watson, things can’t be too bad. Let’s get started!
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Week 7 Fantasy Football Defense Streaming Options
Cincinnati Bengals @ Cleveland Browns (18.8% Rostered)
As I said in the intro, it’s never a bad idea to start a defense against Deshaun Watson, who is just hilariously bad. Despite their repeated insistence that Watson still gives them a chance to compete, the Browns are clearly already giving up on this season, having just traded Amari Cooper to the Bills. With Cooper in Buffalo and Jerome Ford week-to-week with a hamstring injury, the Browns are now without their RB1 and WR1 while having the worst QB1 in the league.
Aside from his general incompetence, the biggest thing that makes Watson a dream opponent for fantasy defenses is his proclivity for taking sacks. He ranks first in the league by over 2% with a 13.5% sack rate, taking over five sacks per game. That’s a free five-point boost to fantasy scoring in most formats, before we even get into the Browns' -0.18 EPA per play.
Of course, the Bengals’ defense is not good. They rank sixth in the league in EPA per play given up and seventh in points per game allowed. However, it’s not all terrible, as they actually rank above average in yards per play allowed. Honestly, though, this play really has nothing to do with Cincinnati’s defense. It’s all about matchup, matchup, matchup.
Los Angeles Rams vs. Las Vegas Raiders (1.3% Rostered)
Sticking with another bad defense in a great matchup against a team that just traded their star receiver to an AFC East team (weird coincidence), we’ve got the Rams taking on the Aidan O’Connell-led Raiders. Vegas’ offense actually ranks worse than Cleveland’s with -0.20 EPA per play. They also rank third in terms of the percentage of their drives that end in turnovers, as well as bottom-seven in both points and yards per game.
The switch from Gardner Minshew to O’Connell isn’t necessarily ideal, as Minshew was taking sacks at a much higher rate (9.7% vs. 4.0%). But O’Connell still ranks fourth-worst among qualified QBs in PFF Passing Grade, beating out only the trio of Bryce Young, Will Levis, and Anthony Richardson.
Once again, the Rams’ defense isn’t good. They rank dead last in yards per play allowed, third-worst in EPA per play allowed, and fourth in points allowed. If we’re looking for a silver lining, they do rank first in the league with a 14% hurry rate. That lines up excellent for our purposes, as AOC ranks dead last with 3.3 yards per attempt when under pressure. This play isn’t without risk, but the Rams should give us a good outing this week.
New Orleans Saints vs. Denver Broncos (41.5% Rostered)
We already had Watson; here is the weekly Bo Nix play. Last week, the Chargers handled Nix and Co. with one interception, one fumble recovery, and two sacks en route to a solid seven-point fantasy outing. The Saints’ defense isn’t quite as good as the Chargers’, but I still like their chances to take advantage of this matchup.
After all, as I outlined last week, the key to this matchup is the floor. The Broncos’ offense isn’t one of the most mistake-prone in the league, especially when it comes to sacks, but they are largely ineffective: seventh-worst in EPA per play and fourth-worst in yards per play. The reason Nix is avoiding sacks is that he has the lowest yards per attempt of any non-Watson starter in the league.
Of course, we have to talk a bit about New Orleans’ defense, which has had a weird start to the season. After getting absolutely run over by the Buccaneers last week, the Saints rank dead last in terms of yards allowed per game and yards allowed per play. However, they actually still rank 13th-best in EPA allowed per play. They also have the fifth-highest turnover rate of any defense. Again, there’s risk here, especially with the Saints starting a backup QB in Spencer Rattler. But I’m willing to take that risk to chase this matchup with a hugely uninspiring Denver offense.
Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New England Patriots (10.5% Rostered)
I mentioned that each of the previous two picks comes with risk, but this is actually the suggestion I’m most worried about in Week 7. For one, Drake Maye looked promising in his NFL debut. For another, it’s the Jaguars. I always stretch that matchups matter far more than defensive ability, but the Jaguars may be the lone exception to that rule. They rank dead last in the NFL by a wide margin with 0.20 EPA given up per play (no other team is above 0.15). They also rank in the bottom three teams in each of points allowed, yards allowed, and yards per play allowed. They have forced just three turnovers all season.
With all that said, I still like this spot for Jacksonville. Although I just said he performed well last week, Maye did turn the ball over three times and take four sacks in his first career start. He doesn’t yet have the volume to qualify for the sack rate leaderboards, but if he did he would be right behind Watson with a massive 12.8%. Meanwhile, with or without Maye, the Patriots rank second worst with -0.21 EPA per offensive play. PFF has them graded as the second-worst offense in the league.
If you still aren’t convinced, the Jaguars get a slight boost due to the fact that this will be their second straight game in London. It’s easy to overrate these things, but I do think an extra week of acclimating to the time zone could make a non-negligible difference. With Doug Pederson likely coaching for his job, Jacksonville should be able to take advantage of this matchup.
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