5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 9

So. This slate sure changed in a hurry.

When this story initially went up on Thursday, it seemed obvious that Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans would be the chalk while some tried to spend down on the Dallas Cowboys' running backs with Ezekiel Elliott suspended.

Now, all of that thought has gone completely out the window. Not only did Watson tear his ACL, forcing him to miss the rest of the year, but Elliott is now eligible to play for at least this week. That's brutal for Watson, and it changes every previous thought we had about this slate.

Essentially, it's back to the drawing board. But even with these changes, the plays we liked before are absolutely still viable.

Elliott's rejoining the Cowboys to face a Kansas City Chiefs team that has struggled to stop the rush this year. With all of the buzz he'll get between now and Sunday, he's going to carry a lot of ownership. That means we can still use Dak Prescott and Dez Bryant to differentiate from that ownership while still attacking the same defense. We'll talk more about this late, but this line of thinking can still apply throughout the entire piece.

We can identify some of these pivots using numberFire's Net Expected Points (NEP), the metric we use to track the efficiency of both teams and players with the team metrics being adjusted for schedule. NEP gives us the context to know that a three-yard completion on 3rd and 2 is radically different than a three-yard completion on 3rd and 4, giving us a better idea of which offenses are operating in an efficient manner. It can help us spot mismatches that may not be as obvious as the most popular options.

This slate is radically different now than it was just 24 hours ago. But it doesn't mean we have to abandon the process that led us to liking the plays we did before. As such, here are some matchups you can (still!) exploit in Week 9.