5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 6

Cleveland Browns' Passing Offense

With all of the juicy games on this slate, you're certainly taking a bit of a lump by targeting this matchup rather than some of the potential shootouts. The total for the Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Chargers is 44.5 for a reason, a far cry from the drool-worthy selections elsewhere.

But if we're hunting for value, this game has a good amount of it. Pairing it with the exciting arm of Baker Mayfield is just the icing on top.

Mayfield has had some tough assignments so far in his NFL career. He made his debut against the New York Jets, who -- when their entire secondary was healthy -- had gotten off to a solid start.

He then went off to face the Oakland Raiders in The Black Hole, and Mayfield certainly made some mistakes there. Some of those errors, though, were amplified by his supporting cast, making it look worse than it actually was.

The Browns then brought things back home to face the Baltimore Ravens, who are currently ranked fourth against the pass, according to numberFire's metrics. Mayfield held his own there and helped the Browns eek out another victory.

We can't simply erase the miscues by the supporting cast because every quarterback has to deal with those. But even including all the mistakes, Mayfield has still added 7.86 Passing NEP this year, a major deviation from Tyrod Taylor's pre-benching mark of -25.48. If you add back the 7.28 expected points Mayfield was docked when an Antonio Callaway drop turned into a pick-six, he starts to look even better.

Cleveland will be hosting a Chargers defense that has plenty of talent but has truly struggled to start the season. They're ranked 22nd against the pass, according to numberFire's metrics, the worst defense that Mayfield has faced at home thus far. The Chargers allowed both Mahomes and Jared Goff to shred them, but they also gave up a season-high 245 yards to Josh Allen and 298 yards with 2 touchdowns to C.J. Beathard. Even if you've got lingering doubts about Mayfield, that has to be encouraging.

Mayfield's $7,100 on a slate where we need value. That's cheaper than Winston by $300, and Mayfield will absolutely come with lower ownership. Winston's the better play straight-up, but Mayfield's not a bad pivot for tournaments.

The pass-catchers should be the main draw here, though. All three of Jarvis Landry, David Njoku, and Callaway have a case for being in play.

Starting with Landry, he has had at least 10 targets in 4 of 5 games this year, including all 3 in which Mayfield has played. That has included 27.1% of the team's deep targets and 53.9% of the red-zone targets, which is way more than you tend to get for a wide receiver priced at $6,900.

Cooper Kupp went for 71 yards and a touchdown through the slot against this pass defense, so even with the talent they've got, they can still be targeted. With Landry's quarterback play on the rise and his target shares still through the roof, he's a mighty fine option in the mid-range at wide receiver.

Njoku's $5,500 at a dumpster fire of a position, and he had his best workload of the season last week. Njoku finished that game with 11 targets, 2 of which were deep looks. In Mayfield's two starts, Njoku's target share is up to 21.7%, which puts him in cash-game consideration at tight end. George Kittle shredded this defense for 125 yards and a touchdown, so we can partially overlook Travis Kelce's Week 1 letdown against the Chargers and feel pretty good about Njoku here.

Then there's Callaway. The Browns have little choice but to use him here.

Callaway -- as mentioned above -- was a big part of those early struggles for Mayfield, and it led to head coach Hue Jackson saying they needed to cut Callaway's playing time. They did do that in Week 5, trimming his snap rate to 68.8%, his lowest since Josh Gordon was traded. That's likely to go back up this weekend.

Rashard Higgins was playing well, so this is a meaningful injury for Mayfield's outlook. For Callaway, though, it really locks in his playing time.

Derrick Willies is a 6'4" impressive athlete, and he's a name to keep an eye on for sure. But with Callaway sitting at just $4,900 on FanDuel and a potential steady role on his horizon against the Chargers, it'll be hard to stay away when trying to pay up for Gurley and others.