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

New Orleans Saints' Passing Offense

When you've got a short slate like this, the strategy almost always should be to pay up at running back. And when all of Todd Gurley, Alvin Kamara, Mark Ingram, Kareem Hunt and Leonard Fournette are home favorites, that's likely how the majority of the field will play things this week. Frankly, that's the correct strategy if you're trying to go with an optimal lineup.

But on the flip side, paying upwards of $8,000 for any of those guys on FanDuel -- including $10,000 for Gurley -- is going to limit your ability to pay up at quarterback and wide receiver. If that happens, we're going to want to snag a piece of Drew Brees and Michael Thomas against the Carolina Panthers.

The Panthers finished the regular season ranked 10th against the pass, according to our schedule-adjusted metrics. That makes them the fourth-best pass defense among those in action this weekend. We shouldn't be foaming at the mouth at the thought of using pieces against them.

Once you dig a bit deeper, though, you'll see why this is enticing. The Panthers largely excelled analytically because of how sickly their pass rush is. Opponents lost 107.17 expected points due to sacks against them this year, the largest mark in the entire league (second on a per-drop back basis behind the Jacksonville Jaguars). They rough up quarterbacks, and it makes their overall pass defense metrics look saucy.

But if they were among the best pass-rushing teams in the league, why didn't they rank higher than 10th overall against the pass? It would seem there are some deficiencies in the secondary that let some teams still pick them apart.

In the games where the Panthers were able to get to the quarterback, this wasn't an issue. But there were five games this year in which the Panthers failed to record at least three sacks. Check out how quarterbacks did against them in those games compared to the others. Passing NEP per drop back is a metric that measures expected points added while deducting for events such as sacks, interceptions, and incompletions. Success Rate is the percentage of drop backs that led to an increase in expected points for the drive.

Because both of these metrics do take sacks into account, there's going to naturally be a big difference between the two splits. But let's just focus on that bottom number for a quick second.

The league-average Passing NEP per drop back among high-volume passers this year was 0.07 with a 45.00% Success Rate. When the Panthers failed to get to the quarterback, opponents were well above both of those marks, slicing and dicing with ease. That mark of 0.20 would have been the eighth-best mark in the league if it were an individual passer, edging out guys like Case Keenum, Deshaun Watson, and Aaron Rodgers.

So, why do we care so much about sacks? The Panthers' defensive line is healthy, so they're not just going to magically stop getting to the quarterback just because it's the playoffs.

This all matters because of how good the team they're facing is at keeping its signal caller upright.

The Saints allowed a sack on just 3.60% of Brees' drop backs this year, the second-best mark in the league. In the two regular-season meetings between these teams, Brees took just one sack and two, respectively, putting him below our three-sack threshold in both individual games. As a result, he pumped out 0.26 Passing NEP per drop back, the best for any quarterback not named Tom Brady against this defense.

Efficiency hasn't been the issue for Brees this year, though; rather, the ground game has been so silly that he hasn't had to throw much for the Saints to claim victory. That's another thing that could look a bit different this weekend.

The Panthers were solid against the pass, but they were even better against the rush, sitting seventh for the full season. The Saints did manage to rush for 149 and 148 yards, respectively, in the two regular-season meetings, so the Panthers likely won't shut them completely down. But it could push additional volume Brees' way.

Brees is far from being prohibitive in pricing at $8,100, so you can pay for him while still getting at least one of the stud running backs. And with the high-volume rushing ways of Cam Newton right in Brees' price range, Brees' ownership might not be too daunting. That should be enough to get us digging him here.

If we do decide to go with a high-priced running back alongside Brees, that could easily just be Kamara at $9,100. He has averaged 18.7 opportunities (carries plus targets) per game over the past three after maxing out at 17 opportunities in a game prior to that. These two stack well together, so feel free to pair them in some lineups.

But the true jewel here could be Thomas at $8,300, especially if some people are still worried about his hamstring injury.

In Week 16 -- the first game after Thomas got dinged -- he played a season-low 62.5% of the snaps and also had a season-low five targets. That's pretty grim. But he bounced right back last week with a 91.4% snap rate and eight targets, right in line with his usage prior to that.

If we look at the full season, Thomas is one of only two wide receivers on the slate to see at least 24% of his team's targets this year. Julio Jones is the other, and they're both above 28%. Thomas' 29.0% market share the past five games is tops among available receivers. He also had 39.8% of the team's deep targets (those 16 or more yards downfield) in the regular season, giving him some upside to complement the floor. You want this guy on your rosters.

The issues in the secondary also provide a bit extra juice for Thomas from a matchup perspective. The Panthers have allowed the fifth-most FanDuel points to opposing wide receivers (and second-most on the wild card slate behind the Kansas City Chiefs). Wide receivers have been torching this team, and Thomas doesn't even need a plus matchup to feast.

It won't be easy to squeeze in Thomas if you're paying up at running back, but there's plenty of incentive to do so. There's even more of a push if you're pairing him with Brees. The matchup here is better than it seems, and these two go counter to the template roster construction for the slate. That makes them mightily attractive for tournaments.