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The Monsters of the Midway returned from hibernation in 2018 and the paw prints they left in real football reverberated their way to fantasy by scoring an astounding 44 MORE fantasy points in 2018 than the second best DST – the LA Rams.
But how many more fantasy wins did the Chicago Bears DST add to the average fantasy team in 2018? This is where the wins above replacement (WAR) analysis explained here comes in handy.
TL;DR WAR Summary:
If you assume your fantasy opponent on a given week will score what the average fantasy team scores per week, and you assume the same thing for all of your players EXCEPT the player being analyzed for WAR, you can calculate your fantasy team’s odds of winning that game by adding how many more (or less) points that player scored than expected from the average player at that position. Repeat this for each week on a given player and calculate the amount of games you expect your fantasy team to win per year through voodoo statistics which are not TL;DR appropriate.
Now do all of this again, but instead of the player being analyzed for WAR, do it for that player’s position replacement-level average points per week. After computing voodoo statistics, subtract the estimated fantasy wins with a replacement-level player from the player being analyzed for WAR. The remainder is that player’s WAR for 2018.
TL;DR TL;DR Summary
If you subtract the amount of fantasy regular season games you expect to win with a replacement-level player and an otherwise average rest of team from the amount of games you expect to win with a specific player instead of that replacement-level player, the remainder equals that specific player’s estimated wins above replacement.
Points are great and all, but wins are all that matter in fantasy. WAR corrects for boom/bust player consequences and provides a statistical way to compare which player was more successful to a fantasy team regardless of position. Below are the WAR results for all 32 NFL defenses. The y-axis shows how many more wins a fantasy team won on average strictly from starting that DST in all 13 regular season fantasy games (minus bye-week).
As you can see, the Oakland Raiders DST was just god-awful. But nobody cares about them. The Chicago Bears DST WAR (1.19 games) on the other hand is staggeringly higher than even the second place LA Rams with a difference of over half a win. This might not seem like much, but looking across all the other teams, the difference in fantasy wins from one team to the next is minuscule until you get the final three bums in gray. This is one reason why you should generally wait to get a DST in fantasy drafts.
But what about the Bears?
To find out which draft pick Chicago’s DST was worthy of taking in 2018 from a hindsight perspective, I compared their WAR output with all fantasy players to see where they landed:
2018 Optimal Fantasy Draft Order
| Round | Pick | Player | Position | WAR | Average Points Per Game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Todd Gurley | RB | 2.73 | 22.51 |
| 1 | 2 | Melvin Gordon | RB | 1.96 | 18.79 |
| 1 | 3 | Kareem Hunt | RB | 1.88 | 18.56 |
| 1 | 4 | Saquon Barkley | RB | 1.87 | 18.43 |
| 1 | 5 | Patrick Mahomes | QB | 1.78 | 27.82 |
| 1 | 6 | Alvin Kamara | RB | 1.77 | 18.21 |
| 1 | 7 | Christian McCaffrey | RB | 1.65 | 17.53 |
| 1 | 8 | James Conner | RB | 1.65 | 17.62 |
| 1 | 9 | Ezekiel Elliott | RB | 1.55 | 16.94 |
| 1 | 10 | Travis Kelce | TE | 1.39 | 12.1 |
| 1 | 11 | Davante Adams | WR | 1.35 | 14.57 |
| 1 | 12 | Antonio Brown | WR | 1.34 | 14.65 |
| 2 | 1 | Tyreek Hill | WR | 1.34 | 15.06 |
| 2 | 2 | DeAndre Hopkins | WR | 1.18 | 13.91 |
| 2 | 3 | Julio Jones | WR | 1.13 | 13.56 |
| 2 | 4 | Chicago Bears | DST | 1.1 | 14.19 |
| 2 | 5 | George Kittle | TE | 1.09 | 10.67 |
| 2 | 6 | Zach Ertz | TE | 1 | 10.27 |
| 2 | 7 | Joe Mixon | RB | 0.99 | 14.31 |
| 2 | 8 | Ryan Fitzpatrick | QB | 0.97 | 23.98 |
| 2 | 9 | Odell Beckham Jr. | WR | 0.97 | 12.95 |
| 2 | 10 | Eric Ebron | TE | 0.93 | 9.89 |
| 2 | 11 | Matt Ryan | QB | 0.91 | 23.62 |
This table gives a nice look at how the optimal choice for first two rounds based on WAR. You will not find the Oakland Raiders on this list.
As you scroll down the top names, you won’t be surprised to see Gurley led the way followed by other stud running backs and Pat Mahomes. Click to see the second round finishers and you’ll find AB, Nuke, and HOLY HELL is that Chicago DST early in second round!??
Yes. Call me crazy, I know you will – but this this is not a typo. Given the gift of hindsight, the Chicago Bears DST was worth taking as the 4th pick of the second round. Homer, novice fantasy players rejoice! No expert in a million years would have predicted this. Not a one. Taking a defense even before round 5 or 6 is as ludicrous as getting Dominoes in Chicago, or … well, anywhere. At least while sober anyway.
How in the hell can this actually be?
The graph below shows the estimated odds a fantasy team won their match-up per week controlling for all other players in the match-up and based solely on starting Chicago’s DST as explained in TL;DR and TL;DR TL;DR:
You’ll notice the fantasy points plotted per week and that horizontal bar represents what the replacement-level DST’s fantasy team win percentage is overall for the year – giving us a way to compare how much better the Bears were above the replacement DST. For example: in week 9, Chicago destroyed the Nate Peterman devolved-Bills into the mid 1980’s by hanging a “Sweetness” like 34-spot. Looking over to the y-axis, you can see that this performance on a fantasy team gave Bears DST owners a little over an 80 percent chance of winning their match-up that week.
Still don’t believe the Bears DST was worth an early second?
Consider this. Both the Bears DST and James Conner went undrafted in most leagues – so they allowed fantasy owners to build the rest of their teams equally. As you can see from the WAR table above, James Conner came out to be worth the #8 selection of 2018. According to ESPN, James Conner’s value of being undrafted landed him as the player with the highest rate of fantasy team owners making it to the playoffs in 2018. 75.9 percent of fantasy teams’ who owned James Conner made it to the dance. Second place player on this list? The Chicago Bears DST at 69.3 percent. Pretty darn close. Yes, a DST had the second biggest impact on whether fantasy teams made the playoffs due to a combination of their productivity and draft value.
The stats don’t lie people. If Chicago’s DST gave fantasy teams on average about as much of a boost to make the playoffs (with a similar draft position) as a sure-fire 2019 first-rounder like James Conner, you can’t just shrug this take off. You can’t.
The Chicago Bears DST was worth a second round pick in 2018. But obviously, we only know this now due to hindsight. Like Conner, the Bears DST went largely undrafted and was only picked up after Khalil Mack pummeled Aaron Rodgers in week 1 so hard he forgot how to drink beer.
Whatever you do though, don’t conflate this fact with the idea that we should have seen this coming. For all of my Chicago homers who were still high off the Khalil Mack trade and went HAM on DST in the first few rounds, basically what I’m saying is that you got pretty lucky and, statistically speaking, that was stupid. But, much like lottery winners, it’s better to be lucky than smart. I had a friend draft a kicker in the 6th round once end up winning the league. Dumb luck happens.
What does this mean for 2019?
So when should you take the Bears DST in 2019? DST year-over-year consistency is spotty at best, so expecting them to stay this ahead of the curve again is not likely. This is a simple regression to the mean fact of life. Learn your lesson from the Jacksonville Jaguars last year. In 2017, they were the only DST in the last five years to score more fantasy points than the 2018 Bears. They went ahead to crap the bed in 2018.
Word from training camp is that the change from DC Vic Fangio to Chuck Pagano has been a smooth one and most of the key defensive players from 2018 are returning. I wouldn’t mind using a 7th or 8th round if you are secure in the other positions (minus QB, because screw QB).
If you miss out on the Bears, basically punt until the last couple rounds and get ready to fight your league’s other team owners each black Wednesday of the season for streamers. The following guidelines will help you along the way as they have been used reliably and without fail for eons:
DST Streaming Strategy
- Is Nate Peterman Starting?
- Yes – pickup whoever is playing the Bills
- No – pickup whoever is playing the Browns
Hold up. The 2019 Browns are about to make some serious moves so make this slight adjustment to the DST streaming guidelines:
- Is Josh Rosen Starting?
- Yes – pickup whoever is playing Miami
- No – Is Ryan Fitzpatrick Starting?
- Yes – pickup whoever is playing Miami
- No – Is Miami even playing this week?
- Yes – pickup whoever is playing Miami
- No – pickup whoever is playing Miami NEXT week
Wondering what the WAR results for other positions are?
-El Jefe
