Things don’t translate perfectly from the game of real NFL football to our beloved spin-off, fantasy football. Andy Dalton rewarded fantasy owners far more than New Orleans fans last weekend by finishing fourth at the position despite throwing two pick-sixes in less than a minute of gameplay and burying the Saints’ hopes for victory. Joe Mixon continues to be a fantasy RB1 despite the fifth-worst yards-per-attempt among backs with over 30 attempts. And D/STs may be worse than any other position.
In Week 7 we saw the Panthers shut out Tom Brady and the Bucs to the tune of three total points, but their fantasy D/ST score wasn’t half of the Cardinals’ who allowed the Saints to put up 34. It’s important to remember that the things that drive D/ST scoring aren’t shutout performances and stuffs on fourth-and-one, but the more measurable, but harder-to-predict plays like pick-sixes, interceptions, forced fumbles, and sacks. The overall points an NFL defense allows still matters, and may correlate to season-long D/ST scoring, but will also skew simple models like the opponent rankings used by most fantasy sites, and keep us from catching those huge, seemingly outlier performances. We learn and move on.
