Fantasy football is all about finding advantages over your competition. One way to do this is through the strategy of streaming – picking different players each week for certain positions like kicker and defense. In this blog post, I’ll break down what streaming is, which positions to consider for this strategy, and why it makes sense. I’ll also cover how I’ll analyze streaming positions during this fantasy season to get some hard data on which positions you should stream in fantasy football.

As always, before diving in I’ll make a shameless plug for the other tools available on the site. I offer fantasy football draft cheat sheets that tell you who to pick real time during your draft to make sure you follow a great strategy. I also have a keeper calculator to help you figure out who to keep in your keeper league. If you like this article, I hope you check them out as well!

What is Streaming in Fantasy Football?

Streaming in fantasy football is a strategy where you don’t rely on high draft picks for certain positions. Instead, you pick up different players each week from the waiver wire (the technical term for the available players) based on matchups. So for example, instead of drafting a kicker fairly early in the draft to try to get a top player, you draft a kicker much later in your draft and then pick up the available kicker projected to score the highest each week.

The reason for this strategy is that some positions’ scores are really dependent on the matchup. For positions like quarterback, kicker, and defense, the individual players’ scores each week mostly depend on how their team does in the game overall. So a defense facing a team with a horrible offense will likely outperform other defenses – while a defense facing a strong offense will tank and might even wind up in the negative.

Streaming also allows you to focus your early draft picks on more valuable positions. For positions like running backs and wide receivers, the top performers score way more than the average ones. This makes these positions really valuable to draft early on. They also have pretty similar scores week to week. This all means you need to pick up top RBs and WRs early in the draft, and hold on to them for dear life throughout the season. Streaming allows you to focus completely on these top-value positions, and draft the less valuable ones at the end, givine you a stronger team.

Which Positions to Stream in Fantasy Football?

When it comes to streaming, the general consensus is that kickers and defenses are prime candidates. You’ll often hear about “defense streaming” and “kicker streaming” in fantasy football because defense and kicker performance is very matchup-driven. Some folks also apply the streaming strategy to quarterbacks and tight ends, but the value is less clear for these positions – leading to a lot of controversy and debate amongst nerds who care about this one which positions to stream.

 

Analyzing Which Positions to Stream in Fantasy Football

I want to end the debate once and for all. This season, I’ll be running a full analysis on which positions make sense to stream versus drafting elite players. Specifically, I’ll be analyzing kickers, defenses, quarterbacks, and tight ends to see if streaming really pays off.

Here’s how the analysis will work:

 

• • Each week, I’ll look at the top-ranked streaming options in these positions—players available in most leagues and recommended for streaming.

• • I’ll compare the scores of these streaming options to the points scored by top players drafted in these same positions each week.

• • Looking over the course of the season, I’ll compare total points scored for top performers to what you’d get from a streaming strategy at each position.

This analysis should show that streaming outperforms the top-ranked players for some positions – but not all of them.

Conclusion

By the end of the season, I’ll publish the results of this analysis and provide hard data on which positions are truly worth streaming. Keep an eye on the blog for updates throughout the season, and by the time I’m done, you’ll know with certainty where streaming pays off—and where it doesn’t.