5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 13

Los Angeles Rams' Passing Offense

The narrative around Jared Goff and the Los Angeles Rams' passing offense is that you can use them only in projected tight games as the team will just hand the reins over to Todd Gurley if they get up big. That's a concern this week as they're favored by 10 against the Detroit Lions.

This is another narrative that -- in general -- we should likely buy into based on Goff's splits this year. But we may be able to overlook this week it for a couple of reasons.

The biggest reason here is that the Lions' pass defense is so bad that it may not matter if the Rams pack it in early. They could do enough damage before that to still pay off, even in tournaments.

The Lions enter this week ranked 31st against the pass, according to numberFire's metrics. They're coming off of a game in which they allowed Chase Daniel -- who had not started a game since 2014 -- to score 18.9 FanDuel points against them. They be stanky.

As a result, quarterbacks have been torching them even on low volume all year long. Before Daniel's performance, both Cam Newton and Mitchell Trubisky had more than 350 yards and 3 touchdowns against the Lions. Russell Wilson threw for 248 yards and 3 touchdowns on just 17 attempts. The one guy who did get volume against them -- Aaron Rodgers -- threw for 442 yards and 3 touchdowns. We shouldn't expect Goff to throw 52 times like Rodgers did in that one, but he likely won't need to in order to pay off his salary at $8,400.

The other potential factor working in favor of the passing game is that the Lions have been stout against the rush since acquiring Damon Harrison. In five games since the trade, opposing backs have averaged just 3.79 yards per carry with just a 38.6% Success Rate. That could force the Rams to throw to get their lead, giving a slight boost to the passing game's projected volume.

It's fair to have some concerns around Goff because he is both expensive and a big favorite. He has averaged just 19.9 FanDuel points in the games the Rams have won by more than 10 points this year, and we need a bit more juice than that for someone at this price.

Goff's floor has still been good in those games, though, as he has scored at least 16.5 points in each, and he threw for just 202 yards in that one. Putting him and his skill-position guys on turf means his upside is a bit higher than it seems, so we should be willing to plug him in for this matchup.

If you are worried about Goff's ceiling, you can still get exposure to this matchup via the Rams' skill-position guys. There are juicy options there in each pricing tier.

With Cooper Kupp out, it's worthwhile to take a step back and examine what this group's target distribution looks like with him out of the fold. More importantly, it's good to see who stands to benefit most with Kupp sidelined.

As such, here are two tables, one looking at the target distribution of the remaining assets for the full season and the other at the three games Kupp has missed. Here's how the targets have been divided overall in 2018.

And here's what they look like in the three games Kupp has missed.

That bottom table should make it abundantly clear how much fun Brandin Cooks and Robert Woods are here.

Even when Kupp was healthy, the Rams had fairly concentrated targets. But with Kupp out, almost every deep ball that Goff throws is going to one of those two guys. In fantasy, you want to know where the ball is going, and we have that knowledge with this offense.

Against the Lions, specifically, the receivers will have to deal with Darius Slay. Because Woods has lined up in the slot on 63% of his snaps in the games Kupp has missed, according to Pro Football Focus, he's the guy who figures to avoid Slay most often. Woods' allure goes beyond that, though.

With the role in the slot, Woods' already-high floor gets a nudge in the right direction. He has had at least 70 receiving yards in every game since Week 1. Given that he has the better matchup than Cooks and comes at a $500 discount, Woods is a top-notch play at wide receiver.

With that being said, the matchup with Slay should not push us off of Cooks.

This game being played on turf is huge for a guy with Cooks' speed. Slay has speed, too, but Cooks moves around in the formation enough to avoid Slay at least on some plays. Davante Adams posted 140 yards on 12 targets while facing the Lions, so not all quarterbacks go out of their way to avoid Slay. Although we should favor Woods, Cooks is still a high-upside tournament option.

When you look at the tables above, you'll see that Gurley's numbers actually get worse without Kupp. That's misleading.

In the Rams' Week 11 win over the Chiefs, Gurley dinged up his ankle early and was limited the rest of the way. Head coach Sean McVay said earlier this week that Gurley is a full go now, meaning we can toss that one down game from a usage perspective out the window.

In the first two games that Kupp missed, Gurley's involvement was much more delectable. He had 21.4% of the team's targets, third behind only Woods and Cooks. Josh Reynolds had just six targets, and the two tight ends combined for six.

Two of Gurley's targets in those games came in the red zone, giving him 22.2% of the team's looks in close. As such, his being healthy is a big boost for him and likely a downgrade for everybody else outside of Cooks and Woods.

As mentioned, the Lions' rush defense is stout. But that doesn't matter for a guy like Gurley. His fantasy value comes almost completely from his touchdown upside and his meaty role in the passing game. This means he's very much in play for cash games, and we should be actively seeking him out in tournaments, as well, with his salary back down to $9,800.