5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 1

Miami Dolphins Passing Game

This one is also cheating just a wee bit. The Miami Dolphins' passing game last year was fairly mediocre, finishing 19th in Adjusted Passing NEP per play. However, they appear to have upgraded there, and they're facing the team that was -- far and away -- the worst against the pass last year. This could be a fun under-the-radar ticket.

Allow me to lend you some perspective on how bad Washington's pass defense was in 2014. Their Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play was 0.27. The second worst team -- the Tampa Bay Buccaneers -- were at 0.19. In order to find a defense worse against the pass than Washington last year, you have to go all the way back to the Jacksonville Jaguars' defense in 2009. numberFire's NEP numbers go back to 2000, and only two defenses were worse than Washington in that time with the other being the 2008 Detroit Lions. They went 0-16. Obviously, Washington is going to be better than that this year, but they'll have to improve significantly not to be totally wretched again in 2015.

The attention here, first, would turn to Ryan Tannehill. He's the 12th most expensive quarterback on FanDuel at $8,000. Tannehill finished 2014 ranked 15th in Total NEP, which takes rushing into account, and 19th in Passing NEP per play among quarterbacks with at least 200 drop backs. It's not great, but he has greatly improved his metrics each season, and he seems to have more weapons now. I'm willing to buy in.

That brings us to those aforementioned weapons. Out is Mike Wallace, who was 33rd in Reception NEP per target among the 58 wide receivers with at least 80 targets. In comes Kenny Stills, who led the league in the category, Greg Jennings, who finished 21st, and DeVante Parker, who brings a nice blend of college productivity and athleticism. The metrics on Stills and Jennings are tied to quarterback play, so they are apples-to-oranges comparisons with Wallace, but Tannehill certainly has the volume of weapons to make a leap.

The issue here is finding which option Tannehill will favor in Week 1. With four healthy options at receiver and Jordan Cameron now at tight end, there are a lot of mouths to feed and not a lot of clarity. Jarvis Landry received a ton of targets in the preseason and led the team in targets last year, so he's not a bad option. Jennings, on the other hand, is listed as a starter on the team's depth chart, and he's only $4,900 on FanDuel. His situation is a bit more uncertain, so I'm not big on him for cash games, but his points-per-dollar potential is mighty tempting.

Now, with all of that said, I'm not as excited about this one as the other four matchups I mentioned. The reason for this lack of excitement is an over/under of 43, a full 5 points lower than any of the other matchups and in the bottom half of totals overall. The Dolphins' implied team total of 23.5 is a bit friendlier as the 10th highest on the Sunday to Monday slate, but it's still not quite as high as we'd like to see. The point of this focus, though, is to find an offense that could be under-owned with other options on the table, and I believe the Dolphins fit that bill.