NFL

5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 2

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New Orleans Saints' Passing Offense

You don't have to worry about point chasing with the New Orleans Saints this week. Drew Brees was held to 15.64 points on FanDuel, and no receiver topped 55 yards through the air. And when we can get the Saints at home with that being the case, we need to take advantage.

They're going up against the Patriots in Week 2, and the Patriots were shredded by Alex Smith last week. Yes, that Alex Smith. He racked up 368 yards on 35 attempts with 4 touchdowns, leading the Kansas City Chiefs to a big victory. If Smith can do that, what can Brees and company do?

Point chasing, though, goes two ways. Just because Smith was able to mutilate the Patriots last week doesn't mean we should assume Brees will do the same here. But we saw this at times from the Patriots last year, too.

Despite their defense leading the league in points allowed per game, the Patriots were just 11th in Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play, numberFire's schedule-adjusted metric to measure a team's effectiveness against the pass. That's certainly not bad, but you need to be a lot better than "not bad" to slow down this Saints offense when they're at home.

Last year, when Brees and the Saints were at home, they faced four separate teams that finished the year ranked 16th or better against the pass, based on numberFire's metrics. Here's a look at how Brees did in those games. Passing NEP per drop back shows the expected points he added each time he dropped to pass, deducting expected points for events such as sacks, interceptions, and incompletions. Success Rate is the percentage of passes that increased the team's expected points for the drive. And "FD PPG" is how many points Brees averaged per FanDuel's scoring rules in those contests.

In 2016Passing NEP per Drop BackSuccess RateTouchdownsInterceptionsFD PPG
Versus Top-16 Defenses0.3560.13%9323.35


For context, Matt Ryan led the league last year in Passing NEP per drop back at 0.37. Brees' mark at home against top-half defenses would have ranked second behind only Ryan. And Brees' Success Rate would have led the league by a wide margin, topping Ryan's mark of 54.64%.

And these weren't your average top-half defenses, either. It included the Denver Broncos -- who had the top unit in football -- and the Seattle Seahawks before they lost Earl Thomas to injury. Brees averaged 284 passing yards per game against those two. That's just how good this guy is.

The Patriots made a big upgrade in their secondary this offseason by acquiring Stephon Gilmore, and they should still be solid this year. But that wasn't apparent in Week 1, and even if they do wind up having an improved unit, it may not matter with Brees. That's what makes the Saints so intriguing for this week.

Because Brees spreads the ball around so well, it's fine to use him by himself without a stack in tournaments. But if you do decide to stack, Michael Thomas, Coby Fleener, and Ted Ginn Jr. are all in play.

Thomas was relatively quiet in Week 1, finishing with 5 receptions for 45 yards. But he still led the team in targets with eight, and he played 93.5% of the snaps. He never eclipsed a 90% snap rate in his dominant rookie season. He's a tremendous option for $8,000 on FanDuel.

Ginn and Fleener are best suited for tournaments, but both have appeal there. Alex Smith attempted seven passes at least 16 yards downfield against the Patriots last week and turned them into 178 yards and 2 touchdowns. Fleener had 20 deep targets last year, the most of anybody still on the roster, and Ginn was one of the best deep-ball receivers in the league last year with the Carolina Panthers. These two don't have safe floors, but their ceilings are certainly fun.