NFL

5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 9

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Carolina Panthers' Passing Offense

We've been attacking the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' pass defense all season long. With Cam Newton playing how he has recently, we've got no reason to stop now.

The Carolina Panthers have spent significant capital the past couple of years trying to upgrade Newton's weapons, and it's finally paying off. Newton is 12th in Passing NEP per drop back out of 39 quarterbacks with at least 75 drop backs, and the team is 10th in Adjusted Passing NEP per play (which accounts for the schedule they have faced). Newton added 11.66 NEP as a passer against an elite Baltimore Ravens defense, the second-most they've given up all year. He has been completely matchup-proof.

Of course, that doesn't matter when you're facing the Buccaneers.

The Bucs rank 30th against the pass, according to numberFire's metrics, and a wide variety of quarterbacks have benefited from getting paired with this defense. Nick Foles is the only quarterback they've faced who failed to throw for two touchdowns, and even Foles managed to hit 330 yards passing against them. With Newton and company next on the docket, there's no reason to expect any of this to change.

Additionally, this is the right script in which to use Newton. Since the start of 2015, he has averaged 7.83 yards per attempt in games in which the Panthers have been favored by five or more points compared to 6.87 out of that split, according to the RotoViz game splits app. His yards per game spike to 244.6 from 220.82, and he averages an additional three fantasy points per game. With the Panthers entering as six-point favorites, we want to swallow the chalk and plug in Cam Newton at $8,600 on FanDuel wherever we can.

The added skill-position players are a huge boon for Newton, as evidenced by his efficiency this year. But they also make it a tad less clear where the ball is going, making it harder to predict which guy will go off in a given week. If we decide to stack with Newton, we want to have an idea of how things are likely to go down.

Since Greg Olsen re-entered the fold in Week 6, he has played at least 96.9% of the snaps in each game. This makes the past three games our most relevant sample for looking at this team. The table below shows the target distribution for the team in those three games with a "deep" target being a target where the ball travels at least 16 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Past 3 Games FanDuel Price Targets Deep Targets Red-Zone Targets
Christian McCaffrey $7,900 19.6% 6.3% 25.0%
Devin Funchess $6,400 21.6% 43.8% 33.3%
Greg Olsen $6,200 15.7% 18.8% 16.7%
D.J. Moore $5,300 15.7% 12.5% 0.0%


Olsen himself hasn't had tremendous usage. But he's playing every snap and is on a good offense with the second-highest implied team total on the main slate. That's what you want out of a tight end, so he's absolutely a viable stacking partner with Newton.

Even with Olsen being back, Devin Funchess has been getting impressive usage. In this three-game window, Funchess had 62 yards and a touchdown twice before flopping against the Ravens' dominant secondary. Funchess never brings elite upside, but that could very well change in this matchup. Funchess may be the ideal stacking candidate with Newton.

With Christian McCaffrey, we've seen the usage be a bit disappointing of late. He hasn't had more than 100 yards from scrimmage since the team's bye in Week 4, and he has scored just three times the whole season. He also has just 29 rush attempts the past three games combined.

But the table above shows why we can still be into him, especially against this Buccaneers defense. Both Tarik Cohen and Alvin Kamara topped 110 yards receiving against the Bucs, and Joe Mixon got 123 yards on the ground last week. Defensive tackle Gerald McCoy was held out of practice Thursday and may now miss his third straight game. With McCaffrey's passing-game usage still solid and a sweet matchup on deck, he is fully worthy of our attention at $7,900.

The one problem with these three guys is that they all carry a non-bargain price tag. If we want to afford Newton while still getting our obligatory exposure to Todd Gurley, we've got to save somewhere.

But the Panthers have us covered there, too.


With Torrey Smith sitting in Week 8, D.J. Moore had his breakout. He played 71% of the snaps, second among the team's receivers behind only Funchess, and the Panthers were scheming to get the ball in his hands. Moore had six targets -- two of which were at least 16 yards downfield -- and two rush attempts.

Because only one of the three games in the table above came with Smith sidelined, it's going to undersell Moore's role. That makes him a tremendous value play at $5,300.

With that being said, if Smith sits, the public will notice and get Moore onto their rosters. As such, it's not a bad idea to still get some Funchess in order to pay up to be contrarian. But on a slate where we want a bunch of high-priced studs, it'll be hard to stay away from Moore in his expanded role with such a delectable matchup.