Fantasy Football: Thursday Night Football and its Impact on Lineup Decisions (D/ST)

New York Jets defensive end Sheldon Richardson
New York Jets defensive end Sheldon Richardson
Sep 22 2013 East Rutherford NJ USA New York Jets defensive end Sheldon Richardson 91 reacts after sacking Buffalo Bills quarterback EJ Manuel 3 during the third quarter at MetLife Stadium Anthony Gruppuso USA TODAY Sports

Last week on XN Sports we published a study looking into the historical performances of fantasy quarterbacks who started on Thursday Night Football (TNF). The numbers weren’t all that pretty, and in case you missed it, you can refresh yourself by reading the article here.

The most revealing observation from that study was that only 32 percent of all eligible quarterbacks put up a Top-12 weekly fantasy finish when playing on Thursday Night.

It was fascinating delving into the TNF fantasy QB numbers, so we thought we would look at other fantasy positions, and how they performed during TNF match-ups. This time around the focus is on the D/ST position in fantasy football.

With fantasy leagues having different scoring rules and settings, the site used to look up the historical fantasy data was FantasyData.com, and their scoring setting for the D/ST fantasy position can be found at this link.

As a reminder, only true TNF games were included in this study. That means TNF games played on Friday or Saturday weren’t included, neither were Thanksgiving day games, nor TNF Week 1 season openers.

In total, 106 D/STs qualified for study, out of eight years, including the two TNF games that have been played in 2013 so far. You can see the numbers for yourself below.

*The D/STs have been ordered by weekly fantasy finish, so don’t be alarmed if you see multiple teams with the same rank in the season, such as New England and Kansas City as DST3 in 2013. That just means they finished as the third highest scoring fantasy defense in their respective TNF week.

Thursday Night Football Fantasy D/ST Scoring History

2006-2010

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Minnesota-DST3

Houston-DST11

San Diego-DST6

San Francisco-DST3

New York Jets-DST2

Green Bay-DST12

Pittsburgh-DST11

Indianapolis-DST8

Denver-DST5

Pittsburgh-DST4

San Francisco-DST14

Indianapolis-DST13

Chicago-DST9

Cleveland-DST6

Chicago-DST5

Baltimore-DST15

Dallas-DST14

New York Jets-DST11

New York Jets-DST8

San Diego-DST5

Pittsburgh-DST15

Washington-DST18

Pittsburgh-DST13

Chicago-DST11

Atlanta-DST11

Kansas City-DST16

Atlanta-DST20

Oakland-DST13

Indianaoplis-DST13

Carolina-DST14

Cincinnati-DST17

Chicago-DST21

Philadelphia-DST16

Miami-DST16

Miami-DST17

Denver-DST23

Denver-DST28

Cleveland-DST20

Buffalo-DST16

Baltimore-DST19

Cleveland-DST23

St. Louis-DST29

New Orleans-DST20

Pittsburgh-DST21

Philadelphia-DST20

Seattle-DST30

Green Bay-DST32

New England-DST23

New York Giants-DST24

Cincinnati-DST22

 

 

Denver-DST23

Carolina-DST28

Houston-DST27

 

 

Cincinnati-DST25

Jacksonville-DST30

Indianapolis-DST28

 

 

Jacksonville-DST28

 

Tennessee-DST30

 

 

Arizona-DST31

 

San Francisco-DST30

Thursday Night Football Fantasy D/ST Scoring History

2011-2013

2011

2012

2013

Denver-DST2

New England-DST1

New England-DST3

Baltimore-DST2

Green Bay-DST1

Kansas City-DST3

Atlanta-DST2

St. Louis-DST2

Philadelphia-DST19

Seattle-DST4

San Diego-DST2

New York Jets-DST23

Pittsburgh-DST8

Cincinnati-DST3

 

Oakland-DST10

Atlanta-DST4

 

Indianapolis-DST11

Indianapolis-DST4

 

Cleveland-DST14

New York Giants-DST5

 

Houston-DST16

Buffalo-DST5

 

San Diego-DST21

San Francisco-DST6

 

New York Jets-DST21

Chicago-DST9

 

Philadelphia-DST23

Baltimore-DST9

 

Jacksonville-DST25

Seattle-DST9

 

San Francisco-DST30

Tampa Bay-DST10

 

 

Denver-DST11

 

 

Cleveland-DST14

 

 

Jacksonville-DST14

 

 

Miami-DST15

 

 

Philadelphia-DST15

 

 

Kansas City-DST17

 

 

Pittsburgh-DST18

 

 

Oakland-DST21

 

 

Arizona-DST22

 

 

New Orleans-DST23

 

 

Tennessee-DST23

 

 

Minnesota-DST27

 

 

New York Jets-DST31

 

 

Carolina-DST32

 

When looking at the numbers, 43 out of 106 eligible TNF fantasy D/STs finished the week as DST12 or better, meaning they were fantasy starting worthy in standard 12-team fantasy leagues. Those numbers equate to around 41 percent.

If you’re wondering how D/STs fared each year, here’s a year by year DST rounded average breakdown:

  • 2006-DST17
  • 2007-DST20
  • 2008-DST18
  • 2009-DST15
  • 2010-DST17
  • 2011-DST13
  • 2012-DST13
  • 2013-DST12 (4 teams only)

The average finish of D/STs that play on TNF is equal to that of DST16.

It’s interesting to note with the increase of TNF games, that the average TNF D/ST rose from high end D/ST2 to near DST1 territory. Could the fatigue of the short week be catching up to defenses? It’s possible, but with 2012 being the first year that TNF games became a regular staple of the NFL schedule we can’t really say for certain.

What’s also interesting is that 50% of 2011 D/STs finished in the DST1 range, and in 2012 that number was 53.7 percent. While there’s only been two TNF games so far, the number of D/ST1 performances is at 50 percent on the year.

Just as was mentioned in the TNF study of the quarterback position, the numbers found in this article shouldn’t be the sole basis of any starting line-up decision you have to make in fantasy football. This article, and the data presented in it is just more information for you to use when deciding if a TNF D/ST is worth starting or not.

*Stats used in this article are from FantasyData.com
If you want to look at each TNF game in more detail, you can do so by viewing the yearly TNF schedule on NFL.com.

author avatar
Salvatore Stefanile
Salvatore Stefanile is a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and believes that 2-QB fantasy football leagues will be the future of fantasy football. You can read about his 2-QB fantasy football opinions and analysis at XNSports.com.