Best D/ST Matchups - Fantasy Football Strength of Schedule Analysis (2026)

September 9, 2026

Thunder Dan Palyo looks at 2026 fantasy football strength of schedules and the best D/ST matchups for each section of the season. Target these fantasy football team defenses in 2026 drafts or stream them off waivers.

Defense wins championship, right? I mean, that's how the old saying goes, and the Seattle Seahawks are the most recent example.

But does it really apply to fantasy football? Defenses are often dismissed as the least important concern for a fantasy manager. Some folks even want to eliminate them from fantasy football leagues altogether! Oh, the horror!

Whether you drafted an elite defense or you plan to stream defenses throughout the year, there's something in this article for you. I'll explore what makes a good fantasy defense, review some key statistics worth using, and I even created my own strength of schedule for defenses this year with a handy grid for all 18 weeks!

What Are We Looking For in a Fantasy Defense?

It's not simply as easy as finding the defenses that allow the fewest points or yards to opponents. Heck, it's not even enough to look at which defenses rate the best in advanced metrics like DVOA. But that's not a bad place to start. DVOA (Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average) is a unique metric created by Aaron Schatz and can be found at FTN.com.

Here are your top-12 defenses last year in defensive DVOA rating.

Seattle and Houston are household names with the two top units in the league, but did you realize that the Vikings had the third-best defense according to DVOA?

The Rams finished fourth and then went out and added Myles Garrett and Aaron Donald, so there's a reason why they're going off draft boards as the first defense often.

The Jags and Broncos both had very effective units, with Denver bringing an elite pass rush and Jacksonville creating a ton of turnovers. But right below them is a team that people shouldn't be sleeping on this season - the Philadelphia Eagles, who, let's not forget, shut down the Kansas City Chiefs for three quarters of Super Bowl LIX before underachieving last season.

And here are the 12 worst offenses from the 2025 season based on their offensive DVOA rating.

The Raiders got a major offensive upgrade in coaching with the arrival of Klint Kubiak - will it be enough to separate themselves from the other basement dwellers? We also expect the Vikings to improve with Kyler Murray at quarterback and a coach, Kevin O'Connell, with a very good offensive reputation.

But the Browns, Jets, and Titans could be really bad again. Same with the Dolphins and Panthers, who lack depth at the play-making positions and have major quarterback questions.

Washington, New York (Giants), and the Chargers are all in the "should be much healthier and better" category this season, and round out our bottom 12.

Anyways, the overall defensive metrics matter. But when I built these custom D/ST matchup ratings, I really wanted to focus on two other factors and incorporate them into my model.

Adjusted Sack Rate

Another way that defenses can accumulate points is through sacks. The standard Yahoo scoring is set so that each sack is worth one point each. So while turnovers created are worth two points each, sacks occur twice as often and are one way that defenses can really add value quickly.

Instead of looking at just raw sack totals, I am using the adjusted sack rate for each offense and defense from the 2025 season. ASR is an advanced statistic that takes down and distance into account as well as intentional grounding penalties, in addition to sacks created, so defenses also get some credit for plays that should have generated a sack.

Here are the offenses that were the most vulnerable to sacks last season.

And here are the top defenses in sack-creation, sorted by adjusted sack rate.

Turnovers Matter

So not only do turnovers count as two points apiece, but they also can lead to defensive touchdowns and that coveted six-point explosion. Some defenses do a better job at creating turnovers, whether it's via strip sacks, interceptions, or just forcing fumbles with big hits.

And some offenses just really struggle to protect the football. Usually, bad offenses that are forced into a lot of third-and-long situations end up turning the ball over as they put themselves in situations where their quarterback has to make riskier throws, and those desperation plays where the QB is trying to make something happen often end up badly.

Here are the most turnover-prone offenses over the last two seasons.

The defenses that have forced the most turnovers (last two seasons).

This is where the Steelers and Eagles stand out, and where the Bears really thrived last year, despite being a pretty pedestrian unit in terms of being able to stop opposing offenses.

No team saw a bigger increase in turnovers forced per game last year than Jacksonville. They have a nice schedule to start the year, opening up with Cleveland but then have five straight tough matchups in a row.

Special Teams Standouts

While they are tough to predict on a weekly basis, special teams touchdowns are another way that a team's defense/special teams unit can rack up fantasy points.

These were the top ten teams in DVOA value for kick returns and punt returns.

There were six teams that all returned one kickoff each for touchdowns in 2025, but the returners from the Jets (Kene Nwangwu and Isiah Williams), Bills (Ray Davis), and Giants (Deonte Banks and Gunnar Olszewski) stood out as units who were near the top of the league in return average, while also scoring a TD.

There were 15 punts returned for touchdowns, with Isaiah Williams (NYJ), Chimere Dike (TEN), Parker Washington (JAX), Jaylin Lane (WAS), and Marcus Jones (NE) all returning two each.

Seattle had two punts returned for touchdowns, one by Tory Horton early in the season and another by Rashid Shaheed after he came over from New Orleans mid-season. If Shaheed continues to return kicks for Seattle, it elevates their already elite defense even further.

Despite being one of the worst defensive units in the league last year, the Jets' return units were both really good. If they can improve on defense, perhaps they'll have some sneaky appeal in the right matchups with the added special teams upside.

2026 D/ST Strength of Schedule Grid and Planner

So what I've done here is attempt to create a SOS (strength of schedule metric) for defenses this season. By using the offensive and defensive DVOA ratings, adjusted sack rates, and turnover rates, I've assigned a matchup rating from 0 to 100 (with 0 being the worst, and 100 being the best) to every team.

The best weekly matchups (for the defenses) are highlighted in dark blue, good matchups are a lighter blue, neutral matchups are white, bad matchups are light orange, and the worst matchups are dark orange (almost brown). These are sorted from best to worst by the full-season SOS (also scaled 0-100). It's a cooler color scheme that is hopefully a little easier on the eyes than red, yellow, and green all the time.

The biggest caveat again here is that these ratings are constructed only with 2025 data and do not account for new personnel, coaching schemes, or other variables that may have changed during the offseason.

We should definitely keep these ratings in perspective. For example, Minnesota, Seattle, and Philadelphia have the three worst matchup ratings but are defenses that are good enough to score well even against good offenses. Conversely, the Bengals defense was a bottom-five unit in the league last year, so I am probably not running out to roster them just based on this metric.

I'm sure that these matchups will change in one direction or the other after we get a few weeks of new data from the 2026 season to crunch, but perhaps I'll have to update them again here soon.

In the meantime, if you are looking for specific defenses to target in the first few weeks of the season, check out this fantastic article by Corbin Young.

Good luck, RotoBallers, and make sure you are keeping up with all our defense-focused content this year - no one does it better!

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