5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 9

San Francisco 49ers Rushing Offense

No matter how you choose to get it, you need exposure to this game between the New Orleans Saints and the San Francisco 49ers. Both teams rank in the top five in situation-neutral pace, according to Football Outsiders, meaning there are going to be a boatload of plays here. That's great for helping the Saints with their road woes, but we also can't overlook the 49ers' ground attack.

Last year, the Saints soared to prominence because of their inability to even pretend they could defend the pass. They still suck at that this year, but they've actually been even worse against the run, according to numberFire's metrics. In fact, they've been worse than everybody when it comes to the ground game, so we can basically attack them however the heck we want.

All of this could lead you to want Colin Kaepernick in your life, and that's totally fine. His rushing abilities mean he would benefit from those inefficiencies on the ground, as well, and he'll save you quite a bit in the salary department. We'll focus here on Carlos Hyde and the rest of the running backs, but this is something to at least consider.

Hyde is another guy with whom you'll have to watch practice reports throughout the week, but it seems right now like he'll be able to give it a go.

It'd obviously be preferable if he were already a full participant, but it's at least enough to warrant discussion about his value were he to play.

Even with the 49ers struggling earlier in the year, they were finding ways to get Hyde the ball. He had at least 14 carries in each of the six games leading up to his injury, and he twice had 20 carries in a game they lost by 12 or more points. That's largely why the spread isn't a major concern here; they're going to get him the rock no matter what the game script may be.

That said, we're not really targeting Hyde for his floor. It's his ceiling that allows us to overlook the concerns around his injury.

Despite now missing a game, Hyde still has controlled 46.2% of the team's total red-zone market share for the season. If we look at just the games he has played, that number shoots all the way up to 51.1%, which would be second in the league behind just Todd Gurley at 53.9%.

This allows us to target Hyde for his ceiling pretty much whenever the 49ers will be in a spot to create scoring drives. Given the Saints' defensive woes, this week definitely meets that criteria. We won't want to touch him in cash unless he can practice in full either Thursday or Friday, but this would be a fun, high-upside GPP option.

If Hyde can't go, then DuJuan Harris would suddenly slide onto our radars.

He seems to have moved past Shaun Draughn and Mike Davis on the team's depth chart, and he would be the guy to own with Hyde on the sidelines. There's a possibility that he sucks up some of Hyde's work while Hyde eases his way back, but that may not be enough to overwhelm the delectable matchup Hyde has on tap for his return.