5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 15

A quick glance at the Week 15 main slate is going to reveal a whole lotta poo. Three of the highest totals of the week are in primetime games that aren't on the slate, and 8 of the 22 teams in action have less than a 1.0% chance of making the playoffs.

The Detroit Lions threw for 101 yards last week. The Arizona Cardinals haven't scored more than 21 points since Week 5. One game includes a matchup of Josh Johnson against Cody Kessler in which Washington's implied team total is the crying face emoji. It's firmly sub-Gucci.

But there is one shining beacon of hope that can get our mouths all watery.

That's the Sunday afternoon hammer between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers. The total there is up to 52 points with the Patriots sitting as 1.5-point favorites. No other game on this slate has a total higher than 47.

From a daily fantasy perspective, this is huge. Both teams have something on the line, meaning they're not going to just pack it in and disappoint. The game environment here is so much better than what we'll find anywhere else that we'd be foolish not to load up on both sides.

We just have to decide the best route for doing so.

To do this, we can lean on numberFire's Net Expected Points (NEP), the metric we use to track the efficiency of both teams and players. NEP looks at the expected points added or subtracted on each play throughout the year, quantifying the immense difference between a three-yard completion on 3rd and 2 and a three-yard completion on 3rd and 4.

Not only can NEP help show us the best routes for attacking our marquee event, but it can give us hints in how we can fill out the rest of our roster. After all, we can't use players from just one game; we'll have to suck it up and dive into other waters at some point. NEP can illustrate the best spots for doing so.

It will be abundantly popular to stack up the Steelers-Patriots game this week, giving some extra incentive to fade it and load up on assets elsewhere. But you can also differentiate within that game, meaning you don't necessarily have to fade it in order to be contrarian. If you want to build an optimal lineup, it's going to be one that starts with this game and goes from there.

As such, we're going to break down advantageous matchups on both sides of that contest before looking at how we can fill in the blanks elsewhere. Which matchups should we be looking to exploit within the context of the Week 15 main slate? Let's check it out.