5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 17

Pittsburgh Steelers' Passing Offense

The Pittsburgh Steelers' offense can blow up at any moment at home. They dropped 52 points on the Carolina Panthers on Thursday night in Week 10 while throwing just 25 times. They scored 41 against the Atlanta Falcons back in Week 5. Even when they're up big, this isn't a team that takes its foot off the pedal.

There will be no pedal-feathering this week. They need a win to have a shot at the playoffs, and they're facing a doggy-doo Cincinnati Bengals defense that has been out to lunch since November. The Steelers may not make the playoffs, but they figure to go out in style.

The big troubles for the Bengals really seemed to start around their bye week. That's where all their injuries started to pile up. Here are their splits before and after their Week 9 bye. "Passing NEP/P" is the expected points added on a per-drop back basis with deductions for expected points lost on sacks, incompletions, and interceptions. "Success Rate" is the percentage of drop backs that increase the team's expected points for the drive.

For context on that Passing NEP per drop back, Mahomes leads the league in that metric at 0.38. Quarterbacks facing the Bengals since Week 9 would rank third in the league if they were a single quarterback. Cincinnati's on to 2019.

Ben Roethlisberger doesn't really need the boost of a plus matchup to boast solid efficiency stats. He enters Week 17 ranked sixth in Passing NEP per drop back among 41 quarterbacks with at least 100 drop backs. It just hasn't been enough to put the Steelers in a better playoff position.

As with the Chiefs, the one concern you could have around the Steelers is that they mount a big lead early and let up. But as mentioned above, that's not how this team plays. There's also a way to combat that, even if you're using Roethlisberger.

If the Steelers do get an early lead, it means they'll be leaning on the ground game late. As such, you can simply pair Roethlisberger with James Conner and benefit no matter what type of attack they decide to deploy. Conner's practice status early in the week makes that strategy more viable.

Conner's salary is significant at $8,000, and he could split some work with Jaylen Samuels in his first game back. But if the team does get a lead, Conner seems to be the back most likely to come in and shut the door.

As far as the receivers go, there's no wrong answer. Both Antonio Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster are getting massive volume recently.

If we're looking for the most relevant workload sample on these guys, the best starting spot is in Week 11. There, Smith-Schuster lined up out wide on 31 of 61 snaps, according to Pro Football Focus, easily his highest percentage of the season to that point. That trend has held firm since then, and Smith-Schuster's volume has been pretty spicy in his new role.

A ton of that usage for Brown came last week as he had 19 total targets with 8 deep and 4 in the red zone. But even before that, his usage was tremendous. We're clearly going to want him in our lives.

With that said, the discussion here is similar to that we had with the Chiefs. Yes, Brown is likely the better play in a vacuum, but if that allows Smith-Schuster to go a bit underowned, we should be looking to pounce.

Smith-Schuster finished with 115 receiving yards last week, giving him 4 games with 100 or more yards in 6 contests since he started moving outside more often. He has at least 9 targets in every single one of those games with 12 or more three times. His workload isn't quite as meaty as Brown's, but it's still huge.

It was Brown who blew up most recently, and given the way that DFS goes, he's likely to carry the most ownership this week as a result. As such, if you're looking to be just a tiny bit different while still getting exposure to this high-powered passing attack, Smith-Schuster might be your man.