2026 Fantasy Football: Streaming D/ST Works and Here's How to Do It

Aug 27, 2026

IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

It's 2025. Your fantasy football league is eight rounds into the draft. Someone takes the first D/ST off the board (probably the Broncos). You start thinking about doing the same. The next round, the Eagles D/ST gets snatched up right before your pick. You (slightly) panic and take the Ravens in late Round 9 — they're the third-ranked D/ST on the platform, after all.

A few days later, on Monday Night Football of Week 1, the Bills hang 40 points and 497 yards on the Ravens, who record one sack and no takeaways. In most scoring systems, the Ravens score negative fantasy points and are the worst D/ST in the entire league.

Youch.

Has this happened to you? If it has, I apologize for bringing up bad memories. If it hasn't, take it as a lesson: drafting fantasy D/STs early is not a winning strategy. Not to pile on, but the theoretical team in the story above could have had Caleb Williams (the QB5 in 2025) or Jake Ferguson (the TE2 through the first half of the season) with that Round 9 pick. Instead, they got the 20th-ranked D/ST, who they likely dropped after that Week 1 shellacking. And this isn't a fluky imaginary story. Check out the fantasy finishes for the top D/STs in 2025 ADP.

2025 Fantasy D/STs by ADP & Finish
D/ST ADP	Team	Fantasy Finish	Fantasy PPG
1	Denver Broncos	4	8.1
2	Philadelphia Eagles	9	7.5
3	Baltimore Ravens	20	5.5
4	Pittsburgh Steelers	6	7.7
5	Minnesota Vikings	5	7.8
6	Houston Texans	2	9.3
7	Buffalo Bills	15	6.4
8	San Francisco 49ers	27	4.5
9	Kansas City Chiefs	21	5.3
10	Detroit Lions	18	5.7
11	Green Bay Packers	24	4.6
12	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	17	5.8
13	Seattle Seahawks	1	10.6
14	New York Giants	25	4.5
15	Arizona Cardinals	30	4

If you picked a top-12 D/ST by ADP, you were just as likely to get a squad that finished in the bottom half of the league in fantasy points as one that finished in the top half. And even if you "hit" on a squad like the Eagles or Steelers in the top five, they barely outscored the Falcons (7.0 PPG) and Saints (6.7 PPG), who went completely undrafted. Oh, and the number three finisher, who's nowhere on the ADP list above? That'd be the Jaguars, who were completely ignored in drafts but logged 31 takeaways and averaged 8.5 fantasy points per game.

This happens every year. Defenses are extremely hard to predict, and weekly opponents tend to matter far more for fantasy production than average fantasy draft position. So what do we do instead?

Stream.