NFL Fantasy Football Week 3: Defense by Waiver Wire

A strategy which is becoming more common in fantasy football is to pick up a defense from the waiver wire each week as your starter, instead of drafting one early or keeping one on your bench, for when your starting one has a tough match up.

I first saw this strategy promoted online by John Paulsen of The Score Reports, now of 4for4.com and The Fantasy Shrink.  He still promotes this strategy because it frees up a bench spot, allows you to play match ups for your defense and allows you to wait until the draft's last round to pick a defense.

I like this strategy and use it occasionally depending on how the draft goes and how much I need to utilize my bench. Below are my top three picks for Week 3. 

3.  Cleveland Browns

The Browns are 2nd in pass defense, 24th in rush defense and allowing 23 points a game.  So far they have played the Colts and Bengals, who are not good teams. However, it should give us a glimpse into what to expect when they face the Miami Dolphins who are 9th in passing yards and 8th in rushing yards, but not scoring a lot of points with only 18.5 points per game. Expect there to be more rushing in this game as the Dolphins try to get Daniel Thomas and Reggie Bush going against a weak rush defense. Scoring will be low because each team will just play for the win and not try to risk too much in the passing game. 

2.  Arizona Cardinals

Arizona's defense has been horrible, but they have had two rough match ups. The Panthers put up crazy passing stats and then they got out muscled on the ground by the Redskins. The good thing is though, that they only gave up 21 and 22 points to their opponents, which is way more than Seattle has been scoring this season. The Seahawks' offense is the bottom of the barrel and they won't muster a lot of points or yards against the Cardinals.

1.  Carolina Panthers

The Panthers defense is bad and have given up 29 points a game. But this week they face the struggling Jaguars offense, with rookie Blaine Gabbert starting his first NFL game at QB.  Rookie on the road is usually a recipe for disaster, so I'm giving the Panthers a good shot in this one to keep Gabbert in check and keep the score low.  Now hopefully, MJD doesn't run for 300 yards against them.