5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 7

Los Angeles Rams' Passing Offense

A matchup with the San Francisco 49ers isn't something we automatically target each and every week. They're ranked a respectable 14th against the pass, according to numberFire's metrics. An offense as good as the Los Angeles Rams' just happens to change the equation.

A 14th-ranked passing defense is one we'd likely avoid with a poor passing offense. We're not rolling out Brock Osweiler in this situation. But the Rams are ranked second in Adjusted Passing NEP per play, trailing only the Kansas City Chiefs, and offenses in that tier have torched the 49ers this year.

Because the schedule-makers apparently have a deep disdain for the 49ers, they've been lined up against a murderer's row of opposing passing offenses this year. They've faced two of the top three passing offenses -- the Chiefs and the Chargers -- and only one opponent has been outside the top half of the league. That was Josh Rosen and the Arizona Cardinals, and the 49ers did their job there, holding Rosen to just 10 completions on 25 attempts.

In the other five matchups, the opponents have combined for 13 touchdowns and 1 interception while netting 316 passing yards per game. Once you give them some easier matchups, you would expect the defense to trend in the right direction. They're just not there yet.

The other problem for the 49ers is that their secondary is in a bad place right now.

Even if those guys do ultimately wind up playing, they're not at full health. Richard Sherman has been impressive this year, but he can't cover the whole field all by himself.

The Rams have an injury themselves with Cooper Kupp already ruled out, and that does have a slightly negative impact on Goff's outlook. The net effect, though, shouldn't be enough to push us off of Goff.

Target NEP per target is a metric that looks at the expected points added on each target a receiver sees while deducting expected points lost due to incompletions and interceptions. Kupp leads all receivers in this stat among those with at least 35 targets. But Brandin Cooks is second on that list, and Robert Woods is sixth. They've still got great players in this offense, and the success seems to stem as much from Goff's abilities and the mind of head coach Sean McVay as it does from the talents at wide receiver.

On top of that, Kupp's absence only gives us more confidence in predicting where the ball will go. That's going to be Woods and Cooks.

Woods is the steady hand in this offense, getting 26.3% of the targets for the full season along with 35.3% of the deep looks. We'd adore that at $7,700 even if he weren't in one of the league's most efficient offenses. With Woods potentially getting more slot snaps with Kupp sidelined, his safety is highly desirable.

Cooks has some degree of safety with the bump in targets, but we're truly coming here for the upside. Prior to his concussion in Week 5, Cooks had gotten at least 8 targets and 87 receiving yards in every game, maxing out at 159 against the Arizona Cardinals. If he winds up finding the end zone once or twice, the guy has slate-busting upside. For cash games, you should find the extra $200 to get Woods, but Cooks is a tremendous tournament option.

If you want to spend down a bit, you've got a pair of options, but neither comes with a ton of certainty.

Those two options are Josh Reynolds and Gerald Everett. Both are second-year guys who went within the first four rounds of the 2017 draft (with Everett coming off the board even before Kupp). There's some potential talent here.

The usage is just hard to predict. Reynolds has played 82 snaps the past 2 games with Kupp and Cooks banged up, but he has turned them into just 5 targets and 37 yards. That's certainly underwhelming.

Although Everett has the higher usage with 7 targets in those games, he played fewer than 30% of the snaps in both. Tyler Higbee's still the guy playing the grand majority of the snaps at the position. That could easily change with McVay having the entire week to gameplan around Kupp's absence, but taking stabs around hypotheticals is a dangerous game.

Reynolds and Everett both figure to be on the field for a high-scoring offense in a decent matchup, and there's a ton of value in that. But it does seem like Cooks and Woods are the best investments if we're looking to exploit Kupp's absence.

Finally, if you want to use Goff but are feeling some FOMO about Todd Gurley, put your weary heart at ease and just use both. Gurley has 15.5% of the Rams' targets this year, and that could easily get a boost with Kupp out of the lineup. On top of that, stacking Goff with Gurley likely ensures you exposure to each touchdown that the Rams score, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with pairing these two guys together.