My defense/special teams rankings can be found below, but they deserve a huge caveat. This is how I'm projecting the season to play out among the 32 DSTs available, but it's not how I'd draft these units. That's because when it comes to Fantasy DSTs, matchup is a much greater factor than the base level of talent. Just take last year's Fantasy championship week, when a Seahawks DST that was unrostered in more than half of CBS leagues at the end of the season rolled up seven sacks and a turnover while allowing three points against a woeful Bears offense.

This year, there's only one DST I'm probably drafting with the intent of holding onto them through weeks where it has a tough matchup, and it's the one who led the league in sacks by a pretty wide margin. I'll probably end up with my 17th-ranked DST in more Fantasy drafts than my second-ranked DST, and that's because that Cardinals DST starts the year by facing the Saints and Panthers.

We're getting you ready for your 2025 Fantasy Football drafts by sharing our positional tiers, including the DSTs below, to help you build your rankings and determine when those tier breaks will occur in each draft. Using tiered rankings should give you the best chance for a successful draft by scooping up the best values throughout the proceedings and knowing the likelihood of similarly valued players at positions you skip in a round making it back to your next pick.

So who is the top-ranked DST worth keeping all year? And where are the drops in tier later in the draft that you'll want to avoid? ... Join SportsLine here to see SportsLine expert R.J. White's Fantasy football rankings!