5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 14

For weeks now, we've all been talking up how dope Doug Martin's playoff schedule is for season-long leagues. He gets to face the New Orleans Saints twice in a three-week span; given how the Saints have played defensively the past two years, what could possibly go wrong?

There's just one little, itty bitty problem here: ever since first-round pick Sheldon Rankins came off injured reserve, the Saints have become a baller rush defense, allowing only 80 rushing yards per game. That dream matchup that had us foaming at the mouth? Not so much anymore.

This isn't to condemn this type of thought process for season-long leagues by any means. It's more to show that what looked like a juicy matchup three weeks ago may not be as alluring now. Things change in a hurry in the NFL, and it forces us to adjust our thinking on the fly. This is especially advantageous for DFS if we can spot a shift in strength before the public does, allowing us to invest in good matchups that may go a bit overlooked.

We can accomplish a lot of this using numberFire's Net Expected Points (NEP), the metric we use to track the efficiency of both teams and players with the team totals being adjusted based on strength of opponent.

Here's how NEP works. Prior to each play, there's an expected number of points that the offense will score on its current drive. A three-yard completion on 3rd and 2 will pick up a first down, increasing those expected points and giving the team positive NEP. That same three-yard completion on 3rd and 4, though, will likely result in a punt, and NEP helps quantify the difference between those two outcomes.

Let's use these tools to try to pin down which teams are primed to succeed based on our most relevant information. Here are five matchups we can exploit in daily fantasy football in Week 14.