5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 2
Arizona Cardinals' Passing Offense
Carson Palmer looks cooked. There's really no way around it after his three-interception opener against the Detroit Lions last week. And with both David Johnson and left tackle D.J. Humphries unavailable for the foreseeable future, we have no reason to expect things to get better.
It just may not matter against the Indianapolis Colts' defense.
Cornerback Vontae Davis is still week to week with a groin injury, making it unlikely that he suits up against the Arizona Cardinals. When Davis isn't available, the team's defense reaches whole new levels of wretchedness.
Last week, Jared Goff took a flamethrower to their secondary, racking up 17.59 Passing NEP on just 30 drop backs. His highest output in his rookie season was -3.10 Passing NEP in Week 12. And this wasn't a one-game torching for them, either.
Since the start of last year, the Colts have now played five games in which Davis either didn't play or played fewer than 50% of the snaps. Here are the team's NEP splits in those five games versus the 12 games in which Davis has been healthy.
| Last Two Seasons | Drop Backs | Passing NEP per Drop Back | Success Rate | Touchdowns | Interceptions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With Davis | 476 | 0.11 | 49.58% | 18 | 7 |
| Without Davis | 169 | 0.47 | 55.62% | 10 | 1 |
Quarterbacks facing the Colts go from being roughly league average to a souped-up version of Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers. That's obviously going to snag your attention for DFS.
And it's not as if the quarterbacks in this sample were among the game's elite. Beyond Goff, Trevor Siemian, Alex Smith, and even Nick Foles contributed at least 19 drop backs to that sample without Davis. Palmer doesn't have to be what he was in 2015 to succeed against this defense. He just has to be Nick Foles.
Normally, we'd have to deal with massive ownership on a guy like Palmer with this matchup. But after his dumpster fire of an outing in Week 1, that's less of an issue. He's at least in play for $7,500 on FanDuel.
If you decide to forgo Palmer (which is understandable with Ryan costing just $700 more), you can still get exposure via his pass catchers. That obviously includes Larry Fitzgerald, who is $6,600 and coming off of a 13-target game. That should also include John Brown, though.
The big concern with Brown and his sickle-cell trait is the number of snaps he'll play. He played at least 70% of the snaps just three times last year, and it sapped all life out of his fantasy appeal.
Week 1, though, was a massive positive. Brown played 84.0% of the snaps, running ahead of both J.J. Nelson and Jaron Brown. In those snaps, he drew nine targets, two of which were at least 16 yards downfield and one of which was in the red zone. Those are high-leverage opportunities, and he could be getting them against a Colts defense lacking its lone bright spot. For $5,800, Brown's a superbly fun play in tournaments.
