5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 13
San Francisco 49ers Passing Offense
You all know that Colin Kaepernick is a freak as a rusher. He's averaging 7.7 carries for 62.2 yards per game on the ground as a starter, allowing him to post grotesque fantasy totals basically at will. We don't need to talk about that. But we should probably talk about what he's doing as a passer because it has actually been pretty impressive recently.
Over his first two games, Kaepernick was a train wreck through the air. He had -13.12 Passing NEP on 69 drop backs with just a 37.7% Success Rate. Those numbers were Blaine Gabbert-level awful. The San Francisco 49ers had their bye in Week 8, though, and since then, Kaepernick has been -- at least relatively -- balling out.
Check out the table below, which shows his splits before and after the bye. He's not necessarily shredding defenses with his arm, but he's at least bringing the 49ers competent quarterback play they hadn't seen up to this point.
| Split | Drop Backs | Passing NEP | Passing NEP per Drop Back | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Before Bye | 69 | -13.12 | -0.19 | 37.68% |
| After Bye | 156 | 22.65 | 0.15 | 42.95% |
For some context, if Kaepernick's 0.15 Passing NEP per drop back were for the entire season, he'd rank 15th out of 35 quarterbacks with at least 100 drop backs. He'd be ahead of guys like Philip Rivers, Eli Manning, and -- by a wide margin -- Cam Newton. Kaepernick has been a decent passer, and he doesn't even need to be efficient to be a good fantasy asset with his rushing abilities. It's just icing on the cake at this point.
What makes those numbers look even snazzier is Kaepernick hasn't exactly had the easiest of matchups in his time as a starter. Only one of the teams he has faced ranks outside the top 20 in Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play, and four rank in the top 13. He crushed in his only cake matchup against the New Orleans Saints with 398 yards passing, and he's getting another plus spot this week against the Chicago Bears.
Overall this year, the Bears rank 21st against the pass. If we look just from Week 7 on, though, they fall all the way to 27th, one spot worse than those aforementioned Saints. They're without linebackers Jerrell Freeman due to a four-game suspension and Danny Trevathan with a season-ending injury, and their absences are not yet fully accounted for in any efficiency marks. This is a defense that's falling apart, and it'll provide Kaepernick with one of his better matchups of the season.
Kaepernick was a candidate as a stand-alone play in DFS before, but his passing efficiency means we can also stack him if we wish. When doing so, Vance McDonald seems to be the most logical choice.
McDonald has at least six targets in each of the 49ers' past five games, the only skill-position player on their offense who can claim that. He has an 18.2% target market share in those five games, topping Quinton Patton and Jeremy Kerley at 15.9% for the team lead. And this is before we even mention what McDonald's doing with said targets.
Of the 25 tight ends with at least 40 targets this year, none have averaged more Reception NEP per target than McDonald. A team's overall efficiency will affect this number, only making it more impressive that McDonald measures up so well. He's just $4,900 on FanDuel, so if you're looking to stack with Kaepernick, McDonald is the guy you want.
