swoosh fantasy football

[swoosh fantasy football @swoosh_ff]

@HaydenWinks CNN curse??

[swoosh fantasy football @swoosh_ff]

@sarotobiii thinking the same over concepcion…

[swoosh fantasy football @swoosh_ff]

@TheOGfantasy @RotoWire 🐐🐐🐐

[Hayden Winks @HaydenWinks]

Week 1 fantasy defenses.

(big caveat: only uses 2025 sack rate data)

[swoosh fantasy football @swoosh_ff]

@MarkDank i regret picking him now 😭

went against my principle of not selecting a player if they were injured seriously season prior

my giants homerism bites me again

[peter overzet @peteroverzet]

for anyone who wanted the playoff schedule graphic from bbb, here it is

byes, playoff game totals, dome game designations, @LegendaryUpside mnemonics, etc

[Yahoo Fantasy Sports @YahooFantasy]

Bookmark this cheatsheet showing this year's fantasy strength of schedule for RBs 👀

(via @justinboone)

[Football Insights 📊 @fball_insights]

Offensive Line consensus rankings

[Ryan Reynolds @RyanReynoldsNFL]

Fantasy Football Defense Rankings 2026

Tier 1
1. Los Angeles Rams
2. Houston Texans
3. Seattle Seahawks

Tier 1A
4. Pittsburgh Steelers

Tier 2
5. Philadelphia Eagles
6. Denver Broncos

Tier 3
7. Indianapolis Colts
8. Minnesota Vikings
9. New England Patriots
10. Baltimore Ravens

Tier 4
11. Detroit Lions
12. Jacksonville Jaguars
13. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
14. Green Bay Packers

General Methodology: Roster strength, long-term viability, playable weeks, early season schedule and fantasy playoff schedules drive my rankings, which are built more on tiers.

How I treat defenses: I do not reach for a high-end defense, but I usually take what I can best frame as an anchor defense, meaning one that I can play in half or more of the games on the year, where I’ll play matchups (streaming) as needed. I especially do this in the second half of the year, where I will store the defense with the best playoff matchups possible.

I don’t think this is a blanket strategy, I have the edge born from watching every game for a decade and I actually like defense more than offense. The stuff I care about, you’re not going to find as a line item on a spreadsheet.

Tier 1

I moved the Rams to the top because we pair an elite pass rush with an offense that can play from ahead in most situations. We also have the possibility that Aaron Donald is still Aaron Donald, where as the season progresses the inside/out duo of he and Myles Garrett becomes an unsolvable problem in passing situations. Donald is one of, if not the only player in history that I think could sit out for two years and still come back and be awesome, to be clear. Pair that with the already strong front the Rams have, and they have a ton of potential in fantasy, with the idea that Garrett will be playing ahead in fourth quarters routinely for the first time in his pro career.

Houston has the best pure defensive roster, as they pair an elite front with one of the game’s better secondaries. But their offense concerns me enough that it could impact their defense, in a way where it reminds me of an Alex Smith 49ers defense before Smith truly figured it out years ago.

I’m expecting some level of regression for Seattle, but they are ultimately well coached with another strong front and back end.

None of these high-end teams have a great fantasy playoffs schedule. Seattle heads to Carolina in Week 17 which is has a ton of upside. Houston’s front gets the Jaguars questionable offensive line in Week 15, but I wouldn’t otherwise call that a great matchup. And the Rams don’t face any offenses (Dallas, Seattle, Tampa) that I’d call a team to target for fantasy. That said, these are the three best units in the league, with a ton of playable matchups. But do I want to pay a premium for them? Not in most situations.

Tier 1A

Pittsburgh has six playable matchups in the first eight weeks, and realistically you could play them in all eight games if you had to. From a pure talent perspective, they are a tier below the top group, but that first half schedule is fantastic, which has the Steelers in their own tier. Operating with the expectation that they’ll go in the same range as Tier 1, I’m probably not paying the premium for them in most situations, either.

Tier 2

Denver is a Tier 1 talent defense, but they have my least favorite schedule among these groups. They start out with a pretty undesirable first six games, where Week 2 against the Jaguars OL is the only semi plus matchup in that cluster. And they face Buffalo and New England in Week 16 and 17.

The Eagles open vs. Washington and at Tennessee, who both have bottom tier offensive lines, making Philadelphia a talented, very well coached group that could start off hot.

Tier 3

In a lot of years I have a defense that I’m radically overweight on, because I’m both above market on them and they come at a value.

The Colts are the closest thing to that for me this season, as I’m sure I’m very above market on them and you’ll likely be able to get them for free in most drafts. Top 10 type of front four, very good defensive play caller, with a backend that could have the best corner duo in the league is intriguing on it’s own. But their schedule is what I really like, as the Colts get 9 games against below average offensive lines. In Week 15 they get the Titans and in Week 17 they get the Browns in a potential smash spot. In tournaments with deeper benches especially, I take the Colts defense all the time. Keep in mind that one downside of this group is they open against the Ravens and Chiefs, so if you take Indy, I’m streaming in the first two weeks. If you’re in a shorter bench league, I’d be thinking about picking them up off waivers and stashing them.

I also really like the Vikings because of Brian Flores, where I especially like him against young quarterbacks, or those that don’t make their money via pre-snap reads (like Lamar Jackson). The Vikings schedule gets better late, so they’d pair nicely with someone like the Steelers.

Mike Vrabel defenses always overachieve, so that’s the driver behind my interest in the Patriots here. Their schedule is a mixed bag, where I’d probably rather sit them in roughly half their games, which is why I have them where I have them.

Tier 4

I don’t like the Lions defensive roster, but they have a very advantageous schedule, so they have some long-term viability.

I put in Jacksonville over the Chargers as a short-term streamer as I’d rather play the Jags pass rush against Cleveland than the Minter-less Chargers against the Cardinals and Raiders in contests with some sneaky shootout potential. Truth be told, I could see the Chargers having a bottom third defense this year without Minter.

Speaking of Minter, I have added Baltimore given how much their new head coach got out of that Chargers’ roster. The Ravens face good offensive lines to start the season in the Colts, Saints and Cowboys, but Baltimore has a number of playable matchups, including a Week 16 game at home against Cleveland.

The Bucs I think you could play in six of the first eight games, but not in Week 1 against the Bengals, which devalues them some as they have a good front but they have holes in their backend. I like Todd Bowles against weaker offenses, because he will bring heat and Tampa has a good enough offense where they can conceivably play with a lead. But if they play a team with an elite QB and/ or a high-end OL, I’m looking elsewhere, which is another reason they aren’t higher.

Honorable mention

The Giants have a very talented edge group and a fascinating LB duo, if their new coaching staff can get more out of this secondary, New York isn’t drawing dead at being a top 10 defense this season. I could see teams with strong offensive lines that drive high-caliber run games giving NY a ton of problems this year.

The 49ers have a quality pass rush with bad matchups in Week 1 and 4 but good ones in Week 2 and 3.

The Chiefs could be a top-10 defense again, but Chris Jones is 32 years old now where the last two years he’s been more still good than in the conversation for best interior linemen in the league.

[Dataroma @ffdataroma]

Important fantasy takeaways from last night’s preseason action (Friday 8/21):

+ Omar Cooper back to starting slot, still clearly behind AD Mitchell it appears. Expecting a lot of 2TE sets w/ Sadiq and Mason Taylor too
+ Jaylen Warren starts but he and Rico split work evenly, would expect something similar in season to start (Warren > Rico for me)
+ Jonathon Brooks remains workhorse w/o Chuba, would expect 1A/1B in favor of Chuba to start year but that's just me guessing
+ Tet McMillan gets slot reps, Coker doesn't leave field w/ starters
+ Marshawn Lloyd clear RB1 w/o Jacobs again, but Brooks works in (mostly on 3rd downs)
+ Waddle and Sutton out there every snap of 1st drive, with Pat Bryant coming on in 3WR sets (35 yard catch for Waddle🚀)
+ Evan Engram could be in for a role increase this year after near-irrelevance last year, significantly more snaps relative to last year in small preseason sample. Draftable in round 18 IMO
+ RJ Harvey RB2 at the moment, but team clearly likes Coleman. Continue to believe it's Coleman as the JK Dobbins backup, with Harvey maintaining receiving heavy role regardless

[Theo Gremminger @TheOGfantasy]

Draft #2 in the books with @SmolaDS

Zero RB Start
Bengals Stack
Pickens as our WR3 God Bless America 🇺🇸

Friday night “go get your guys SZN” board

Slow Drafts this weekend, back in the Live Draft Streets on Tuesday

We rest in Week 18.

[Jacob Gibbs @jagibbs_23]

2026 Fantasy Football Rankings

- Top 200 overall
- 17 tiers

Made for single-QB managed leagues (Half-PPR)

[Michael Leone @2Hats1Mike]

I have not drafted many teams, but after diving back into things a few weeks ago, there are two players I view as pseudo freerolls at their prices (in a "normal" season should return value, but have upside for more):

1) Rico Dowdle

xFPs for RBs in Aaron Rodgers offenses are always strong.

Can't get out of my head that he is one of 5 players last 5 seasons with multiple 200+ scrimmage yard games (Bijan, Achane, Gibbs, Cook), and he did it on a bad offense in limited starts. That's probably noise and evidence I'd normally make fun of, but it doesn't feel priced in at all that there's something there talent wise.

Positive camp buzz. Would take him ahead of Jaylen Warren straight up.

2) Dalton Kincaid

....for the third year in a row.

But seriously, as frustrating as Kincaid has been, he's around 27% TPRR the last two seasons (McBride/Bowers territory), and he added the per target efficiency last season.

I say this every year, but while the Bills pass rate likely remains low, there's a lot more room to the upside than the downside (esp with a brand new defense in town and a HC change, even if it was the previous OC).

There's also some optimism we could see the snap and route shares expand this year, @JoeBuscaglia had this nugget:

[Jacob Gibbs @jagibbs_23]

I present to you, the "this year's JSN" scale, per @DanSchneierNFL:

9.5 - Nico Collins 👀
9.2 - A.J. Brown ?!
8.5 - Jaylen Waddle
8.4 - Zay Flowers
7.8 - Brock Bowers
7.5 - Ladd McConkey
6.8 - DeVonta Smith
0.0 - Josh Downs 😭

https://t.co/NsFX2vsLdL

[The Coachspeak Index @CoachspeakIndex]

had @jagibbs_23 on the show to talk about the LOUDEST drumbeats we’ve been hearing from coaches this offseason

Luther Burden, Parker Washington, Ja’Kobi Lane, Brock Bowers, De’Von Achane +more

📺: https://t.co/j2pirWlzlo

🍎: https://t.co/Fn772UDJT7

🟢: https://t.co/6c2j9SYpQz

[Jacob Gibbs @jagibbs_23]

My favorite 2026 Fantasy Football breakout picks:

[Jacob Gibbs @jagibbs_23]

2026 Fantasy Football Rankings

- Top 175 overall
- 16 tiers

Made for single-QB managed leagues (Half-PPR)

[swoosh fantasy football @swoosh_ff]

@TheOGfantasy you’re the GOAT, OG!

[Hayden Winks @HaydenWinks]

What stands out at WR vs. team implied points?