5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 6

Houston Texans' Passing Offense

And now you see why we're talking about quarterbacks, game scripts, and irrational fears. The Houston Texans are favored by 10 points against the Cleveland Browns, which could scare you out of guys like Deshaun Watson and DeAndre Hopkins. It probably shouldn't, though.

The big reason for investment here is that the Browns rank dead last against the pass, according to numberFire's schedule-adjusted Net Expected Points (NEP) metric. NEP is what we use to track the efficiency of teams and players, providing context to each play throughout the season. This allows us to tell the massive difference between a three-yard completion on 3rd and 2 and that same completion on 3rd and 4.

You don't need advanced analytics to tell you that the Browns have been stanky this year, but they at least can't hurt. Every single quarterback who has faced them has averaged a minimum of 0.14 Passing NEP per drop back, which shows the expected points added on a per-drop back basis while deducting points for events such as sacks, interceptions, and incompletions. That mark of 0.14 would be tied for the 12th-best mark in the league if it were a single person, ahead of Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson, and Dak Prescott. And remember, this is the worst mark they've allowed.

That's encouraging for Watson, who enters this game ranked seventh in Passing NEP per drop back of the 32 quarterbacks with at least 100 drop backs. Despite a shaky start and continued offensive line issues, he has been hyper efficient through the air the past three weeks. He'll also easily be the best quarterback the Browns have faced this year.

In their first five games, the Browns have yet to face a single quarterback who ranks higher than 20th in Passing NEP per drop back for the season. Ben Roethlisberger is 21st, sitting atop that list. But when they have faced the Browns, those quarterbacks have perked up in a hurry.

Here's a comparison of how the five quarterbacks have fared when facing the Browns with what they have done in their other games. Success Rate is the percentage of drop backs that increased the team's expected points for the drive.

The brown stuff done hit the fan real fast. They've turned wretched quarterbacks into savants, and Watson seems to be a few rungs above that threshold. Why would we avoid this matchup just because the Texans are heavy favorites?

We already saw how the Texans would handle a sizable lead back in Week 4, and it should give you a bit more faith in using Watson and friends. They stomped the Tennessee Titans, 57-14, and Watson still threw for 283 yards and 4 touchdowns while adding another score on the ground. He attempted 14 passes in the second half even though the Titans were never within 16 points. They have the fourth-highest implied team total on the main slate at 28.25 points, so there are plenty of reasons to embrace Watson yet again for $7,900 on FanDuel.

This same adoration also applies to Hopkins at $8,000. Even with Will Fuller back the past two weeks, Hopkins still has 12 targets in both games and 38.10% of the team's targets. With this matchup, we'd be silly to pass on him.

If you want to deviate from Hopkins in your stacks with Watson, Fuller is at least an option with his snap rate above 90% last week. But the preferable option may be tight end Ryan Griffin.

Griffin hasn't had a ton of targets since Fuller returned, but he does have two things we love at tight end: a significant snap rate and a date with this Browns defense. Griffin has played at least 81.3% of the snaps each of the past three weeks, a respectable number for his position. The Browns have allowed at least 90 receiving yards or a touchdown to an opposing tight end in four of five games this year. With Griffin sitting down at just $4,500, he's an easy way to save some salary at a volatile position.