5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 11

Carolina Panthers' Passing Offense

As mentioned, the key to this slate is finding high-priced running backs and low-priced pass-catchers. The Carolina Panthers happen to have both, and their matchup with the Detroit Lions is pretty sick.

It should not be legal for a team with as much speed as the Panthers to play indoors. They've got straight burners across the board. They were held to just 24 points in Atlanta in Week 2, but Cam Newton threw for a season-high 335 yards and 3 touchdowns in that one. They're made to run on these tracks.

The Lions don't seem to have the assets to stop a unit like this. They enter Week 11 ranked 31st in Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play, ahead of only the tanking Raiders. We just haven't noticed because of how little volume the Lions have faced.

For the whole season, the Lions have faced more than 31 pass attempts in a game just once. In that game, Aaron Rodgers melted their faces to the tune of 442 yards and 3 touchdowns.

Even on low volume, quarterbacks have been coming through here. Dak Prescott had 255 yards on 27 attempts, and Russell Wilson had 248 on just 17. Then last week, Mitchell Trubisky went for 355 yards and 3 scores on just 30 attempts.

Volume is always a good thing to have for quarterbacks, but it's not a prerequisite for fantasy goodness out of Newton.

Newton has attempted fewer than 30 passes in 5 of 9 games this year; he has still had at least 18 FanDuel points in all of those except for one with a minimum of 15.7 last week on Thursday night. Newton's best fantasy output of the year was 29.6 FanDuel points in Week 3, and he did that with just 24 pass attempts. The floor and ceiling provided by his rushing are both phenomenal.

Newton is $8,600 -- the week's most expensive quarterback -- on a slate where we want to pay up at running back. That's going to make him tough to squeeze in. But with all that he brings to the table, it does still seem as if Newton is very much worth it.

It also doesn't hurt that we can stack Newton with one of those high-priced backs in Christian McCaffrey.

With Torrey Smith missing another practice Thursday, he seems likely to miss his fourth straight game. Here's how the Panthers' targets have been divvied up in the first three.

McCaffrey leads the team in targets in this time, and he has been getting fed in the red zone. For the full season, he's at 25.9% of the team's red-zone targets and 22.3% of the overall targets, so he's absolutely a viable stacking partner with Newton at $8,600.

The rest of the targets are spread pretty thin, but you do have some value guys in play.

With tight end being such a dumpster fire, Olsen's volume is certainly encouraging. He has been limited in practice this week due to a foot injury, though the team may just be managing his reps. The only problem with Olsen is that his salary at $6,500 is inching a bit too close to Ertz's, and Ertz is clearly the superior play. You can use Olsen, but it may be wise to take the savings at receiver instead.

With Lions cornerback Darius Slay returning to practice this week, he seems on track to suit up after missing Week 10. His assignment would likely be guarding Devin Funchess. That shouldn't push us off of Funchess by any means, but it should amp up our interest in D.J. Moore.

Moore is a blazer who ran a 4.42 40-yard dash at the combine, meaning he's one of those guys who benefits from playing on the turf. He hasn't gotten consistent targets with Smith being out, but he has gotten some deep looks and would gain traction if Newton were to shy away from targeting Funchess. Both these guys are in play with their salaries, but given the matchups and traits, it may not be a bad time to go back to Moore in tournaments.