Fantasy Football Week 4 - Defensive Team by Committee (DTBC)

This seems like a no brainer but with the Denver Broncos travelling to Indy, you just have to leave them on your bench in Week 4. The Broncos play a bend-but-don't-break style of rush D, and it shows in their 29th ranked rush defense (averaging 166 yards allowed per game). As pass defenders, Denver lead the NFL averaging 88.3 net passing yards allowed per game through 3 contests, with only 2 passing TDs given up to date. They have 9 sacks and 4 interceptions to their credit (of course, the Colts aren't prone to giving up either, with only 1 interception thrown by Manning so far, and only 3 sacks allowed in 3 games). In saying all that, it's the Colts juggernaut of an offense so you just have to stay away. Bench em!!

Perhaps I haven't learned my lesson yet but if I could find a better matchup, I would also consider benching the Bears defense. The Bears have been mediocre at defending the pass this season, averaging 232.3 net yards allowed per game (with 4 passing TDs given away so far). They have generated 10 sacks and 3 interceptions to date - pretty stout - but haven't shut down anyone as of week 3. Last week, Tony Romo showed them up for 22/35 for 329 yards, 2 TDs and 1 interception en route to a 34-10 victory. The unit has been hit hard by injuries (losing S Mike Brown to IR already) - most recently S Adam Archuleta broke his right hand (he'll play with a cast this week) and CB Nathan Vasher injured his groin (he's expected to be out a month). On Wednesday, the team revealed that the other starting CB, Charles Tillman, is also injured (sprained right ankle, out 2 weeks minimum). The Bears' secondary is injury ravaged.

The Lions' passing attack is ferocious, and they have home field advantage at their back in this divisional matchup. The Bears can rush the passer (a vulnerability of the Lions, who lead the league in sacks allowed, with 15 surrendered), but they are not solid in the secondary and have lost most of their starters in the secondary as of this week. This looks like a great matchup for Kitna and company due to the Bear's injury woes, but they need to pay special attention to protecting their signal caller this week. Sacks look to be the only way the Bears defense will score points. There is a chance the Bears defense bounces back from it's terrible performance against the Cowboys but with so many injuries, I'd bet against it.

I would have picked Houston since they are travelling to Atlanta but their ownership at nfl.com has jumped from 46% to 76% in the last week so chances are they are no longer on your waiver wire.

My two sneaky starts this week are:

Seattle who travel to San Francisco

and

Detroit who as we know play Chicago.

Seattle's weakest link in their D is the pass. The Seahawks average 273.7 passing yards allowed per game (30th in the NFL), but have allowed only 2 passing TDs. They have notched 7 sacks this year (tied for 12th in the NFL), which could be a problem for the 49ers....esp since their best weapon in the passing game Vernon Davis is out for a couple of weeks with a knee injury. Frank Gore is due to get going and blow the Seahawks off the park but they are defensing the rush fairly well entering week 4 having allowed 2 rushing scores to date.

The Bears rushing the ball they average 3.4 yards per carry this year (27th in the league) - not all the blame is at Benson's doorstep, as the OL hasn't opened up much in the way of running lanes so far. The bottom line for fantasy owners is that Benson and the Bears don't impress in this phase of the game. Passing the ball with new QB Griese, the o-line has allowed 9 sacks (tied for 5th-most in the NFL) this season, and he'll be shaking off quite a bit of rust this week. Throwing into the aggressive Lions' defense in Ford Field, he'll have his hands full - this looks like a tough matchup to me despite the Lions rough game last week. The Bears will be making adjustments on the fly and Griese hasn't had a lot of first team reps this year. I would take a flyer on the Lions esp if I was benching Denver.

oh yeah.....this week looks like we have a clean sweep.

My two teams to bench were Denver & Chicago.

Denver scored 0 fantasy points at nfl.com which ranked them 28th (last) overall for week 4.

Chicago scored 16 fantasy points this week which was a nice day out, and had them ranked 8th overall.....but if you replaced them for the teams I told you to pick up....you will see why it would have been a good move.

Seattle & Detroit were the team defenses I thought were good plays in Week 4 and they didn't let me down.

Both teams scored 26 fantasy points each which ranked them equal 2nd this week. Fyi, the Giants on the back of their record breaking sackathon totalled 34 fantasy points.

Seattle managed 2 INT's, 5 FF, 6 Sacks and only 184 total yards allowed.
Detroit picked 3 INT's, 6 Sacks, 5 FF and 2 defensive TD's so despite allowing 303 total yards, still had an amazing day out defensively.

4-0 in Week 4 since both starters outscored the benched teams. I've adjusted the way I count my wins and losses. Obviously in Week 4 you can see it's 4-0. They don't have to rank 12th, it's now based on whether they outscore each other.

So Week 1's recap was:
Start: Houston (29 pts) Washington (12pts)
Bench: Carolina (15th) Oakland (6pts)

Houston outscored both so they get 1 win, Washington only outscored Oakland so they get me 0.5 wins, and vice versa so Week 1 is a 3-1 record.

Week 2's recap:
Start: Cincy (2 pts) Indy (11 pts)
Bench: Miami (1 pt) San Diego (6 pts)

Week 2 by these rules should be 3-1 but I can't take the points because Cincy's 2pts outscored Miami's 1 pt so 2-2 for Week 2

Week 3 recap:
Start: Washington (10 pts), Kansas City (15 pts) Oakland (7 pts)
Bench:Philly (17 pts), San Diego (2 pts) Jacksonville (13 pts)

Week 3 score 2-4

So after 4 weeks I have my score as 11-7....ironically, after 3 weeks the scores still added up to 7-7....lol.