Defense/special teams rankings for XFL Week 3

Welcome to the Week 3 of the XFL. We don’t know all the good and bad teams quite yet, but we’re getting a better handle on some of the teams in the league. The DC Defenders defense has been rather impressive, while the Tampa Bay Vipers are looking more and more like a dumpster fire of a team. The remaining six teams are a little more difficult to figure out from a defensive perspective.

The best value through two weeks appears to be anybody facing the Tampa Bay Vipers. They’ve scored one touchdown to date and there’s nothing to indicate improvement is on the horizon. They have a solid ground game, but in a pass first league like the XFL, that’s not really going to cut it. Houston has given up the second most touchdowns to date, but also leads the league with eight sacks. so Week 3 will be an interesting test to see if this Tampa offense is truly awful, or if Houston is going to be looking at shootouts all season.

Seattle and New York are two teams with intriguing defenses, but both face tough tests in Week 3. Seattle faces a Dallas offense that will come at them with a crazy amount of volume. Dallas struggled to get into the end zone much of Week 2 in Landry Jones’ debut, but turned it on in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, New York faces a St. Louis offense that is starting to impress under quarterback Jordan Ta’amu.

DC’s defense has been far and away the best to date, but that has come thanks to six forced turnovers and three defensive touchdowns. Turnovers are not the most sustainable of stats, and defensive touchdowns even more so. Week 3 offers a useful test against an LA offense that could take a step forward with quarterback Josh Johnson shaking off some rust in his debut last week as the game wore on.