Defense/special teams rankings for XFL Week 1

Week 1 of the XFL season start up on Saturday and it’s time to check out which teams should have the stoutest defenses for your fantasy football consideration. One good thing about XFL D/ST picks is that there isn’t a lot of talent at the quarterback position across the league and we should expect turnovers. If you’re playing XFL DFS, don’t forget about the defenses.

As you well know, the XFL is starting over again and you can’t count on cohesion out of the gates. There are some teams that have coaches and players who have good rapport from working together in other instances, but overall it will take some time to get on the same page. That means we’ll be learning about them as the season develops, but the good thing is that coaching does matter.

And the No. 1 defense to start out the season is going to be the Houston Roughnecks due to Wade Phillips being their head coach. We saw whatever defense Phillips got his hands on in the NFL turn into a powerhouse quickly.

The same can probably be said about Gregg Williams, who saw his NFL stock plummet after getting suspended for putting out bounties on opposing players throughout his career. Now with the D.C. Defenders, Williams’ defense should be a nice compliment to the run-first offense they’ll implement.