5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 7

As much as it may suck, sometimes we've got to do things we don't want to. When I was five, I had to accept that dragons don't exist. I still have urges to fight this reality daily, but it's just something I had to do.

The same is true in DFS. You probably don't want to roster that quarterback who has had a tough start to the season. And that high-cost running back looks less appealing when you see the value at the position. But sometimes, you have no other choice.

We've got a bunch of these dilemmas this week. Whether it's roster construction or recency bias, you're going to have to debate yourself on a number of matchups that appear simply ripe involving players -- for one reason or another -- we don't really want to use. It's getting over that psychological hump that proves most difficult.

Perhaps that obstacle will be a bit easier if we use numberFire's Net Expected Points (NEP), which doesn't break out in cold sweats when it hears of the non-existence of mythical creatures. NEP is the metric we use to track the efficiency of teams and players with the team totals being weighted based on strength of opponent.

Here's how NEP works. Prior to each play, there is an expected number of points an offense will score on its current drive. A three-yard completion on 3rd and 2 will pick up a first down, giving the team positive NEP. That same three-yard completion on 3rd and 4, though, will likely result in a punt, reducing the team's NEP. Tracking these fluctuations over the course of a season can tell us which teams and players operated in the most efficient manner.

If you're a premium subscriber, you can also see these mismatches using our NFL DFS heat map, which shows which situations are worthy of further examination while also providing Vegas' insights for each game.

Let's dive into five of these matchups that we should exploit in Week 7, even if the players involved aren't at the top of our wish lists.