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How To Pick The Right DFS Football Defense Every Weekend

Brian Dawkins knows how to play DFS Football - especially Defense
11 Jan 2009: Philadelphia Eagles safety Brian Dawkins #20 reacts after the Eagles defense stopped the Giants offense on a 4th down during the game against the New York Giants on January 11th, 2009. The Eagles won 23-11 at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Fantasy football, but especially DFS football, is all about excitement. Well that and winning copious amounts of cash. You are going to settle in for a busy day of football and watching all your hot picks light up the scoreboards and bring you closer and closer to that huge GPP payday. Nothing is better. 

But wait, we have to root for a defense and boring three and outs? Well if you are serious about that GPP payday then it shouldn’t even be a question. Beside the fact that you want there to be a league wide scoring drought among all players not on your roster, rooting for defense is a necessity. 

I know all this is going to generate is groans but Defense is a position in your DFS lineup just like quarterback is. Despite the fact that it is listed last it doesn’t mean it should be treated that way. Alright maybe that last part isn’t entirely true and I’m just saying it to prove a point but regardless of that fact, Defense does deserve some attention as every point matter regardless of where it comes from. 

As far as salary cap investment goes Defense will likely take up the smallest percentage of your salary cap unless you really punt the tight end position. But when every point matters nothing can be ignored. 

So what are we looking for out of our investment?

Upside. As much upside as possible in fact.

I’m not sure I can make things any simpler as that sums up what we are after so why waste words. We all know that the main objection of a defense is to allow the fewest points possible. This can be established in a multitude of ways but the end result is the same and this where we begin our selection process.

Las Vegas or any betting outfit has already started to do our research for us by setting each week’s point spreads and over/under marks. We are looking for the teams that are favored by the highest amount of points as a portion of their big victory will be a direct result of their opponent’s inability to score. The over/under then comes into play because we want to use both metrics to create an implied total. This will allow us to determine what teams are expected to allow the least amount of points as that makes them the most attractive candidates.

Now that we know which offenses we are targeting, it’s time to dig a little deeper into each of them. How have they been performing to this point? While obviously we are focused on their point totals that is not where the potential upside lies. 

Sacks, interceptions, fumble recoveries. While the least points allowed the better, that is where you make your money. Each of those events are scoring opportunities so we want to target offenses that allow a lot of them while doing so with defenses that have shown proficiencies in each of those areas.

Notice though how I omitted the most obvious of scoring events; touchdowns. While some defenses are clearly better at them than others, it is hard to truly predict them. What we do know though is that touchdowns directly stem from interceptions and fumble recoveries. 

All of this sounds great but now we are back to that pesky salary cap and its limitations. This is why we then come back to upside. There has to be some level of compromise to fit a solid option onto your roster, so we need to focus on the greatest amount of upside possible while managing some level of risk. Between the two, I want to focus on interceptions compared to points scored as that provides the greatest potential of racking up high point totals. 

I hope you enjoyed this free look into some of the methods used to pick Defenses for our DFS squads. Come back and see our free picks not only for each position across entire football season but other DFS sports as well. And if you’d like even more of the best of what we do there are full access subscriptions that start at $5 per week. 

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Additional FootballDFS Resources:
How To Pick The Right Quarterback Every Week For Your DFS Lineups
How To Pick The Best Wide Receiver In DFS Football Every Week
Tips For Picking The Best DFS Tight End Every Week of Fantasy Football
How To Pick a Winning Lineup In a DFS Football GPP Contest
How To Pick The Right DFS Football Defense Every Weekend

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