5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 1
Arizona Cardinals' Passing Offense
The Detroit Lions finished last year with the 25th-ranked situation-neutral pace, according to Football Outsiders. You would likely deploy a similar strategy if you had a defense as bad as theirs.
Despite in-season improvements, the Lions finished the year ranked 31st in Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play. The only team worse than them against the pass, per our metrics, was the Cleveland Browns, and you're not going to find either Ben Roethlisberger or Antonio Brown at low ownership this week. The Arizona Cardinals, however, may not seem quite as appealing as that duo.
The reasoning behind that is that Cardinals had some major struggles of their own in 2016. They finished 20th in Adjusted Passing NEP per play, and with that being Carson Palmer's age-37 season, it was easy to simply say that the team was on the downturn. While that could be true, there were other factors at play than Palmer's age.
Potentially the biggest one was the health of the offensive line. The team used three different starters at left tackle, and Palmer was the one who paid the price. The Cardinals ranked 25th in Sack NEP per drop back, losing 74.50 expected points due to sacks over the course of the season. That's going to put a big dent in your efficiency stats.
Not only are both tackles -- D.J. Humphries and Jared Veldheer -- now healthy to start the season, but they get to kick things off against a defense that has had immense struggles in getting to the quarterback. The Lions were easily last in Sack NEP per drop back on defense last year, meaning that even if the Cardinals' struggles up front leak over into 2017, Detroit may not be able to exploit it.
On top of that, injuries at wide receiver certainly didn't help in 2016. It was more than just John Brown's sickle-cell trait, which held him below a 60% snap rate in 12 of 16 games. Jaron Brown missed the final nine games due to a knee injury, and J.J. Nelson suffered a broken thumb in training camp that limited him early on. It's hard to thrive when your only true passing-game asset is a 33-year-old slot guy in Larry Fitzgerald.
Now, all three of Brown, Brown, and Nelson are back and ready to kick off the season. John Brown even caught a pair of touchdowns in the team's third preseason game. Giving Palmer four healthy receivers (on top of that David Johnson guy) with a better unit up front in this matchup should allow him to be viable in DFS for $7,300 on FanDuel.
As for with whom we should pair him, it would seem the elder statesman deserves some love. The Lions allowed the fourth-most fantasy points to slot receivers last year, according to Mike Clay of ESPN, and that's where Fitzgerald finds himself more often than not. Fitzgerald led the team with a 23.82% target market share last year, making him a tremendous outlet for both cash games and tournaments.
