Fantasy Football Must-Start Defenses: Denver Broncos Plus 2 More Strong Week 1 Plays
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If you catch a defense in the right week, they can go off and win you the week. You can go back to 2024 and find countless games where a defense reeled in multiple sacks and turnovers, thus scoring 20 or 30 points, depending on your scoring format. Defenses are not to be overlooked. In a prime matchup opportunity, they can absolutely be among the highest scoring positions on a fantasy football team. These teams have prime week one setups.
Top Week 1 D/ST's
Arizona Cardinals
The Cardinals are among my sleeper teams in the NFL. Their defense has plenty of capable options to shutdown opposing offenses. The matchup they have against the Saints comes with very high leverage.
Spencer Rattler starts week one for the Saints and I would say that he is quite possibly the worst of 32 starters in the league. The Saints have a young core of offensive tackles, but I expect this Jonathan Gannon defense to come at Rattler with high pressure with Zaven Collins and Josh Sweat on the edges. Calais Campbell and Dalvin Tomlinson round out this elite defense line to stop the run. Good luck to Rattler trying to go deep on Will Johnson and Budda Baker.
Denver Broncos
Some think that this Broncos defense is the best NFL unit in years. I am not sure about that, but they are very good. The Broncos face a rookie, Cam Ward, and they will come with extra energy to get after him.
It is very possible that the Broncos have the best defensive line in football. This unit includes Nick Bonnito, Jonathan Cooper, DJ Jones, and John Franklin-Meyers, all of whom had stellar 2024 seasons. The Titans offensive line is suspect, at times, and they will face high pressure this Sunday. Expect Pat Surtain II to shutdown Calvin Ridley and make this day very long for Cam Ward.
Pittsburgh Steelers
This Jets offense may have a very long sunday. Their run game sets up for success in 2025, but they face perhaps their toughest battle in week one. Olu Fashanu is tasked immediately with protect the blindside of Justin Fields against Alex Highsmith, TJ Watt. Armand Membou will do the same on the right side. This will make it very difficult for Fields to find time passing and be efficient. I expect him to be forced into at least on interception.
As for the Jets good run game, this line expects to make that difficult. If the Jets fall behind, they will have to pass more and that will not be ideal for Justin Fields. This team is not made to gunsling it. I see sacks and bad decisions. This game has the lowest implied total of the week. The Jets are implied to score just 18 points.
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Thomas Carelli is a sportswriter based on Northern New Jersey. He is a massive New York Jets and Mets fan, but that is not where is sports fandom stops. He loves to watch and play golf, all things football, baseball, and much more. If he can watch it, he will. Thomas graduated from William Paterson University in 2018 with a Bachelor's Degree in Sport Management. He spent 4 years working at a local golf course, volunteered past PGA events, and spent some part-time experience with the New York Jets events team. His passions for sport runs deep and his articles show for it.