Realistically, a quarterback's weekly performance can fall between, say, four and 28 points. Sure, you'll see the occasional negative-five game (hey, Geno Smith) or a 40-pointer (‘sup, Ben Roethlisberger), but it's a 20- to 25-point window.
Fantasy football rankings, Week 13: Defense/special teams
With a smaller window of fantasy scoring probability, choosing a defense can be tricky. That’s why you get four of us.
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Running backs and wide receivers have a slightly smaller window -- zero at the bottom end, 20 or so at the top. Tight ends clump at the bottom end, but still fall in the same basic range.
Fantasy defenses, though? For all intents and purposes, a defense’s range runs from negative-two or negative-three up to, say, 15. The range itself is slightly smaller, as is the upside. (For kickers, it’s even worse, with so little extreme upside.)
This is all very subjective, but for giggles, I’m going to run a little chart here that divides the fantasy performance at each position into “bad,” “fine” and “good” games, along with a fair upside one might expect. You might disagree, but probably not by much.
| Position | Bad | Fine | Good | Highest reasonable expectation |
| QB | 10 or fewer | 11-17 | 18 and up | 28 |
| RB | 5 or fewer | 6-11 | 12 and up | 20 |
| WR | 4 or fewer | 5-12 | 13 and up | 20 |
| TE | 4 or fewer | 5-9 | 10 and up | 16 |
| K | 4 or fewer | 5-8 | 9 and up | 15 |
| D/ST | 3 or fewer | 4-8 | 9 and up | 15 |
On the one hand, this means that choosing a defense can be something of an afterthought; a defense isn’t going to outright win you a matchup, like the right running back or quarterback can. But you still have to choose one, and the flip side of that smaller range and smaller upside means picking the right defense can be much more difficult. When you’re picking between 10 points or nine, the choice itself is so narrow that it’s easier to get it wrong than it is anywhere else.
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That’s why, if you ask me, defense rankings are best done in a consensus. The four of us all see the same data, the same film, and arrive at different conclusions. Combining those four groups of well-informed opinions yields, I think, the best chance at a strong ranking. Read ours, see if you agree:
Defense/special teams rankings, Week 13
(DK: Daniel Kelley; DC: Dan Ciarrocchi; JD: John Daigle; SK: Scott Kaliska)
| Rank | Consensus | Opponent | DK | DC | JD | SK |
| 1 | New York Giants | @JAC | 2 | 1 | 5 | 1 |
| 2 | Miami Dolphins | @NYJ | 1 | 6 | 1 | 9 |
| 3 | Detroit Lions | CHI | 9 | 4 | 2 | 4 |
| 4 | Seattle Seahawks | @SF | 4 | 7 | 13 | 2 |
| 5 | Buffalo Bills | CLE | 8 | 5 | 7 | 6 |
| 6 | St. Louis Rams | OAK | 6 | 3 | 6 | 12 |
| 7 | Arizona Cardinals | @ATL | 3 | 11 | 3 | 13 |
| 8 | Indianapolis Colts | WAS | 12 | 2 | 4 | 19 |
| 9 | Houston Texans | @TEN | 15 | 8 | 10 | 7 |
| 10 | San Francisco 49ers | SEA | 5 | 10 | 11 | 20 |
| 11 | Baltimore Ravens | SD | 11 | 13 | 8 | 15 |
| 12 | Cincinnati Bengals | @TB | 20 | 9 | 14 | 5 |
| 13 | Philadelphia Eagles | @DAL | 7 | 14 | 16 | 17 |
| 14 | Denver Broncos | @KC | 22 | 12 | 9 | 14 |
| 15 | Cleveland Browns | @BUF | 10 | 15 | -- | 8 |
| 16 | Minnesota Vikings | CAR | -- | 16 | 15 | 3 |
| 17 | Chicago Bears | @DET | 14 | 25 | -- | 10 |
| 18 | Carolina Panthers | @MIN | 24 | 17 | 24 | 11 |
| 19 | Jacksonville Jaguars | NYG | 13 | 24 | 22 | 18 |
| 20 | Tennessee Titans | @HOU | -- | 18 | 19 | 16 |
| 21 | Dallas Cowboys | PHI | -- | 21 | 12 | -- |
| 22 | Tampa Bay Buccaneers | CIN | 19 | 23 | 20 | 23 |
| 23 | Green Bay Packers | NE | 17 | -- | 17 | -- |
| 24 | New England Patriots | @GB | 23 | 22 | 21 | 21 |
| 25 | San Diego Chargers | @BAL | 18 | 19 | -- | -- |
| -- | Pittsburgh Steelers | NO | 16 | -- | -- | -- |
| -- | New York Jets | MIA | 25 | 20 | 23 | -- |
| -- | Kansas City Chiefs | DEN | -- | -- | 18 | 25 |
| -- | Atlanta Falcons | ARI | 21 | -- | -- | 24 |
| -- | Oakland Raiders | @STL | -- | -- | 25 | 22 |
★★★
