NFL
5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 7

Tennessee Titans' Passing Offense

If you've read this rundown before, you know the common refrain by now: fire up all passing games facing the Cleveland Browns.

The Browns enter Week 7 ranked 31st against the pass, according to numberFire's schedule-adjusted metrics. That's certainly bad. But it gets even better for fantasy because the Browns also rank eighth against the rush. The best way to move the ball against this defense is by airing it out, giving opposing passing games additional volume. And they have taken full advantage.

Through six games, the aforementioned Jacoby Brissett is the only quarterback to not throw at least two touchdowns when facing the Browns. Instead, he threw for one touchdown and added two more with his legs. If the floor for a quarterback is a pair of trips to the end zone, that's not too shabby.

It's totally understandable if you're worried about volume in this situation. The Tennessee Titans are a team that loves to run the football, meaning that if they get a lead early, they could just shut down Marcus Mariota and friends. That shouldn't be enough to scare us off.

In these six games, no quarterback has attempted more than 36 passes against the Browns. They've still allowed three of the 30 highest-scoring quarterback games this year on FanDuel. You don't need volume out of your quarterback to feast against this team, meaning Mariota deserves a long sniff.

Given that Mariota is just coming off of a hamstring injury, we do want to make sure he's healthy before flooding ourselves with exposure. But his efficiency metrics were solid on Monday night as he averaged 0.30 Passing NEP per drop back with a 54.55% Success Rate. Sure, the matchup was sweet, but he gets that again in Week 7. Plus, it seems like that hamstring just keeps on getting better.


Just like Ryan, the fantasy points haven't quite fallen into place yet this year for Mariota. But he's the league's 11th-ranked passer in per-drop back efficiency, so he himself hasn't been bad, and the matchup is pristine. He's a guy you'll want in your lineups for sure.

The tougher question stems from with which player we should stack him. The three obvious candidates are Delanie Walker, Rishard Matthews, and Eric Decker, and all three have legit reasons for consideration.

With Walker, he fits what we want simply because he is a tight end with a contract and a pulse who is facing the Browns. Jesse James and Tyler Kroft both had multi-touchdown days against them, and Benjamin Watson turned 8 catches into 91 yards. Walker has a 22.03% target market share this year and has 23.68% of the team's targets 16-plus yards downfield, so you can't do much better than him for $5,900.

Matthews and Decker are the value options here at $5,500 and $5,100, respectively. With how good cornerback Jason McCourty has been this year, we want to make sure we're avoiding his coverage. But both guys should be able to do that at times.

McCourty plays on the right side of the field 84% of the time, according to ESPN's Mike Clay, though Clay notes that McCourty did shadow opposing receivers in both Week 4 and Week 6. If he doesn't shadow Matthews this week, that would mean Matthews would line up against McCourty just 22% of the time. That's a boost for him.

As for Decker, he does run more of his routes on the same side as McCourty (44%, according to Pro Football Focus), but he'll also be able to escape via the slot fairly often. That should get him some softer coverage to find holes in the defense. Decker has at least two deep targets in three of the four full games Mariota has played and 33.33% of the red-zone targets, so he's a fine alternative to Matthews if it seems as though McCourty will wind up shadowing.

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