Some fantasy managers draft DSTs a round or two early. Others wait until the end. Few people are excited about either option. But managers might be interested in a new trick for identifying high-probability DST bargains.
A fantasy manager asked me last week about NFL teams' strength of schedule (SoS) and whether it affects fantasy performance. I spent several hours researching, drew some interesting conclusions, and moved on.
But Monday night, I returned to the research and looked at it differently. I had been focused on skill players, whose fantasy outputs depend not only on defensive matchups but also on injuries, depth-chart status, and other factors unrelated to SoS.
DSTs, however, offer a more apples-to-apples comparison to SoS. Based on research
from 2012 to 2025, I found that teams with the easiest SoS ("1" on the 1-to-32 scale) averaged a DST17 ADP and a DST15 end-of-season scoring rank. That net gain of two spots was fascinating.
But it wasn't isolated. Gains between two and five spots could be found for the next five SoS DSTs. In other words, on average, the top six easiest SoS's have yielded an average scoring rank that's 3.3 spots better than ADP.
For a deeper dive into these numbers, listen to this recent podcast episode.
This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: An Unknown Trick to Identifying High-Probability Fantasy DST Bargains
