Top fantasy football defense/special teams for 2025

The season is upon us and your fantasy football league once again has decided they need to incentivize random defensive/special teams plays like fumble recoveries, pick-sixes and any kind of touchdown. Sure, good defenses create more turnovers and have more opportunities to score than bad ones, but there is still plenty of luck and variance in D/ST scoring, which means we aren’t going to be good at predicting the best fantasy defenses from year to year. Try to find the No. 1 D/ST in average draft position which also finished as the best fantasy D/ST that season. You can’t.

Besides luck, even the best defenses are going to have trouble putting up a good fantasy score against efficient offenses. Last season, the Broncos D/ST led the league in fantasy points, but the Bengals, Chargers (twice), Ravens, and Chiefs all held their D/ST under five fantasy points. Those were somewhat predictable and it would have made sense to stream a defense from waivers instead.

If you could have streamed every defense against the Browns last season, that defense would have netted you 220 fantasy points compared to the Broncos, who led the league with 166. Of course, you wouldn’t have been able to roster every defense facing the Browns, but if you spread that out to other bad offenses, you can do a pretty good job of keeping your total D/ST scoring in line with the top D/STs that likely went too early in your fantasy drafts.

The choice between a top 5 ranked fantasy defense or an offensive player who might hit big or at the very least give you help through the bye weeks isn’t really a choice at all. You take the player and draft a defense last or not at all. If my draft isn’t too close to the start of the season, I’ll grab a flier at running back or wide receiver to see if they make any moves up the depth chart in preseason. Then I’ll drop the weakest link for a streaming D/ST.

When you look at the best teams to stream against last season, the quarterback play was key. The Browns, Giants, Titans, and Raiders were the teams to target week in and week out due to their awful quarterback situations. To start the season, we can often be surprised by how well a QB or team as a whole plays, thwarting our streaming picks, but as the season goes along, it becomes easier to find those targets.

The Cardinals are 5.5 point favorites on the road to start the season. The Saints have yet to name their starting quarterback as neither rookie Tyler Shough or Spencer Rattler, in his second season, have been able to pull away from each other in the competition. If the Saints aren’t in the top 5 of teams we should have targeted with D/STs, I’ll be surprised.

Russell Wilson is below average at this point in his career, which could stifle the offense. The Commanders are 6.5 point favorites at home, meaning their offense should be able to force the Giants to play catchup, which is always good for D/STs

Daniel Jones has always been a good quarterback to attack with your defense. The Dolphins also got Minkah Fitzpatrick back in the fold, which is a nice boost to their secondary this season.

The Patriots defensive line is better than people think, while Geno Smith had trouble with turnovers last season in Seattle. I expect the Raiders to be better this year, but heading to Foxboro can be tough.