The cheap DST that's an easy option in every draft
I rarely think DST advice is actionable enough to warrant its own post
I’ve been writing a ton of the longer form stuff, and you guys seem to be enjoying it, which is fantastic. But I know many are drafting this weekend and I also want to provide quick, actionable advice, to help you make draft decisions.
So today I’m going to go through each position and discuss my tiers in a way that helps you understand where I’d actually take guys that are priced down, how high I’d reach for those I’ve priced up, and what my general plan is at each position. That commentary might link back at times to some of the longer stuff I’ve written, which is part of why I make sure all those takes are spelled out somewhere, but for the most part it’s just going to be a straight up plan of attack that’s easy to follow.
But that’s all going to be behind the paywall for subscribers, alongside this structural drafting post that also served as an update for the RB Dead Zone in 2021. I’d love for any of you non-subscribers to become subscribers to benefit from all that I’m going to write today! I guess this is where I should say something about how I’m so generous I’m going to give out some of my advice free here to make that happen, but let’s be transparent, I’m only writing this as a free post to try to entice a few of you to flip the $8 my way and get the rest. We’re all marketing, all the time.
Anyway, I do have this actionable piece of advice about a specific DST that I frankly don’t want to give out free. I want to paywall it and hope it goes under the radar because I don’t want these guys to suddenly start going in drafts where I can’t always get them with my last pick. But every time I do one of these free posts, several of you subscribe, and it makes sense I need to show my process now and then. The game is the game.
The random DST I’m targeting
A couple things are true about DSTs. First, opposing offenses dictate as much or more about DST scoring than the DST themselves. That is to say that if you’re playing Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, it doesn’t matter how good your DST is, and if you’re playing one of the teams who for whatever reason is starting a backup quarterback, even a bad DST can have a big day when that quarterback throws a few passes that are chest high for the defensive back rather than hitting an open WR. That all follows logically, and we can look to DFS for more evidence where a few years ago the cheap defenses playing bad offenses were so widely rostered and successful that the whole pricing algorithm has shifted such that opposing offenses have clearly played a bigger role in how the DSTs are arranged on a weekly basis recently. Now you have to pay up for bad DSTs when they have the cushy matchup, outside maybe the absolute worst of the worst.
The second thing is pretty much every year we see a couple defenses emerge as unexpectedly strong units. Typically these are teams that have built smartly and have playmakers at various important positions on the defense, specifically along the defensive line and in the secondary. Washington built a defensive line of four former first-round picks that was extremely helpful for their playoff run last year. Tampa Bay smartly stockpiled difference-making defenders and their defense became a dominant force.
What if I told you there’s a defense that has the potential to take a step forward and be one of 2021’s surprisingly strong units that also has a soft early-season schedule and goes undrafted in the bottom tier of DSTs in basically every draft? Would that interest you?
It’s the Panthers.
Carolina is kind of an afterthought this year, and probably rightfully so, but the first thing to note is they start at home versus the Jets, then they host the Saints, then they head to Houston to face the Texans. We tend to like DSTs at home, and while both the Jets and Saints could be surprisingly effective offensively, we’re talking about opposing quarterbacks who will be settling into new roles in all three of these games, including a rookie and potentially at least some Jameis Winston.
I would also note there’s some concern all three opponents could be a bit run-heavy, but you otherwise can’t really beat this opening stretch for getting a look at a unit that might be kind of decent.
And that’s the second thing. Carolina took the first defensive player in the 2021 draft, selecting cornerback Jaycee Horn out of South Carolina at No. 8. He’s expected to start alongside 2018 second-round pick Donte Jackson, who is coming off his best NFL season by PFF grade. The Panthers also brought in a pair of cheap veteran free agent cornerbacks in A.J. Bouye and Rashaan Melvin whose best days may be behind them but provide what I’d classify as smart depth given cornerback is a highly volatile position. They could theoretically find some productive snaps from guys who have played at a high level before. At safety, the Panthers have Jeremy Chinn, a 2020 second-round pick who had an up-and-down rookie season but flashed playmaking ability.
The defensive line is the bigger selling point. Carolina looks to have a huge hit with 2019 first-round pick EDGE Brian Burns, who had a big 2020, and they’ve built around him with 2020 first-round pick DT Derrick Brown (No. 7 overall pick), 2020 second-round pick EDGE Yetur Gross-Matos, and free agent signing EDGE Haason Reddick, who is a former first-round pick himself back in 2017 and is coming off his best NFL season. There are concerns with some of these guys, but you see the same formula that worked for Washington where they’ve stacked young upside in the form of high draft picks, could be three deep with an EDGE rotation plus have a real difference-maker on the interior if Brown has a big Year 2.
Linebacker is probably the least impactful position for fantasy DSTs, but the Panthers did also add veteran presence Denzel Perryman there, and they still have veteran Shaq Thompson who is coming off a down season by PFF grades but otherwise has been a steady presence for the Panthers for years.
Look, I’m not an expert on defensive players and their development, nor have I done a bunch of scouting on how these guys look in camp, so it’s possible I’m missing some of the picture here. But I haven’t heard anyone talking about these guys and what I will say about this unit is there is upside. There are young players who were high draft picks, some of whom like Burns have already flashed the ability to play at a high level for Carolina. If Horn and Jackson can form a strong CB tandem and Chinn becomes a consistent difference-maker at safety and the defensive line can develop into one of the better groups in the league — there are enough reasonable ifs there for me to take a look given the early-season schedule that gives you three solid matchups to start (after those three, CAR plays @DAL in Week 4, but then they have another solid stretch of vPHI, vMIN, @NYG, @ATL, and vNE where they would be worth playing if they are indeed looking like an above average unit).
One last piece of the DST puzzle is typically you’d like your DST to have a good offense, such that they are often winning games and forcing opposing teams to aggressively throw late so they can rack up sacks and turnovers. We don’t want their quarterback consistently giving up great field position, and that could be a concern with Sam Darnold. But the Panthers do have playmakers on offense, too, and they targeted offensive line additions over the offseason such that if Darnold were to take a step forward and this coaching staff shows well in Year 2, the Panthers might be a surprisingly solid team overall. The parallels to WAS are pretty clear in that regard. It may not work out, but again, you get a free look to find out in drafts.
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