3 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in the Wild Card Round

It's the playoffs, ladies and gents. Those looking for sieve matchups need not apply.

Teams that have made it this far have likely done so for a reason. That reason is that they're probably -- shocker -- good at football. Sure, you're going to get some fluky little buggers squeaking in at the last second, but for the most part, the 12 teams still alive are going to be pretty sporty units. That makes finding matchups we want to exploit in NFL DFS a bit of a tougher task.

That isn't to say that it's fully impossible as long as we're willing to get a bit creative. Knowing the context for a team's struggles or superiority can help us invest in the correct spots even when they may seem a bit daunting at first glance. It does leave us open to more risk -- attacking a good defense is never a safe bargain -- but it does present upside if we can assess a situation correctly.

With the help of numberFire's Net Expected Points (NEP), our odds of doing so slide significantly in the right direction. NEP is the metric we use to measure the efficiency of both teams and players with the team totals being adjusted for strength of opponent. NEP measures the expected points added on each play rather than the yards gained, helping to illustrate the immense difference between a three-yard gain on 3rd and 2 and that same pick-up on 3rd and 4. NEP lets us know which defenses are truly on par with their peers in the postseason and which offenses can take advantage of opposing weaknesses.

On the main slate, we've got four games from which to choose, putting a restriction on the flexibility we've got from a roster-construction perspective. We can use this to our advantage if we find worthwhile pivots elsewhere, allowing us to differentiate our lineups from the field. And based on the numbers that NEP spits out for each unit, we have an opportunity to do exactly that.

With all of this in mind, which matchups should we be looking to exploit in the wild card round of the 2017 playoffs? Let's check it out.