5 Daily Fantasy Football Matchups to Exploit in Week 14

New England Patriots' Passing Offense

Outside of Gronkowski, the New England Patriots haven't had many high-profile injuries this year. But they have had a bunch of little ones, and those matter, too.

With their Week 11 bye, most of those dinged-up bodies are back on the field. Not only did Gronkowski come back in Week 12, but so did running back Sony Michel. Additionally, the team had all five of its Week 1 starters on the offensive line healthy for the first time since Week 6 and only the sixth time all season long. Then they added Rex Burkhead back into the fold off of injured reserve the following week.

This is before we account for the non-injury changes at receiver with Julian Edelman coming off of suspension and Josh Gordon acquired via trade. The Patriots have gotten better personnel since Week 1, and they're now one of the healthiest offenses in the league.

The effects of the Patriots' improving health have been immediate.

Their first game with all the toys back was on the road against the New York Jets. In that one, Tom Brady had 15.51 Passing NEP, which shows the expected points added on all drop backs, including deductions for expected points lost due to sacks and interceptions. It was his highest Passing NEP output of the season and just his fourth time topping 10 Passing NEP in a game.

He followed it up by doing it again in Week 13, racking up 15.35 Passing NEP against the Minnesota Vikings, his second-highest mark of the year. That's probably not a coincidence.

You can try to write off the first one because it was against the Jets (though they are ranked 20th in Adjusted Defensive Passing NEP per play, which accounts for the schedule a team has faced). Ignoring his performance against the Vikings, though, is a bit of a tougher sell. In the four games prior to that with Everson Griffen back on the field, opposing quarterbacks had -1.62 Passing NEP when facing the Vikings. Brady flipped that script in a hurry.

Now, Brady and company go on the road to face the Miami Dolphins. That seems like another spot in which they could excel.

The Dolphins enter Week 14 ranked 28th against the pass, according to numberFire's metrics. That's interesting given that turnovers are huge for expected points models, and the Dolphins have the second-most interceptions in the league with 19.

There seem to be two key factors to the Dolphins' struggles. The first is that they rarely get to the quarterback, ranking 29th in adjusted sack rate, according to Football Outsiders. This is a deficiency that NEP will capture.

The second is that when the ball isn't picked, good things are generally happening for the offense. They've allowed 8.1 yards per attempt and 12.3 yards per completion, the fifth- and third-worst marks in the league, respectively. They seem to be running a high-risk, high-reward style of defense, which isn't a terrible idea in today's NFL. It has just allowed quarterbacks to find some success through the air against them.

Sam Darnold, Derek Carr, Mitchell Trubisky, and Andrew Luck have all thrown for at least 315 yards against this defense. Deshaun Watson threw for just 239, but that also included 5 touchdowns on just 20 attempts. Importantly, the games against Carr and Trubisky both took place in Miami, meaning we likely don't need to fret too much about about this being a road game for the Patriots.

With that said, Miami has -- for whatever reason -- been a bit of a house of horrors for Brady over the years, and that narrative has gotten plenty of run in the lead-up to this week.

Divisional games always carry a bit of extra wonkiness, and this is the second time the two teams have faced each other on the season. Should that be enough to scare us away from Brady?

In general, these narratives are hard to buy into for a lot of the same reasons discussed at the open. If an NFL team is drastically different now than it was in Week 1, it's going to be completely apples to oranges to look at what they've done versus a team in other seasons. A deeper look at recent games in Miami between these two squads backs that up.

Last year, Brady faced the Dolphins in Miami without both Gronkowski and right tackle Marcus Cannon. In fact, Gronkowski has played in just two of the past six Miami meetups between these two teams, and one of the games he did play was in Week 17 in 2015 when the Patriots had already locked up a first-round bye. This is just a flat out different scenario than what the Patriots will have on Sunday.

It's fair to question whether Gronkowski's presence still matters for Brady given Gronk's seeming lack of production this year, but it has still made a difference. Brady has averaged 7.81 yards per attempt and 1.78 touchdowns per game in games with Gronkowski this year compared to 7.43 and 1.33, respectively, in games without Gronkowski, according to the RotoViz game splits app. Given that most everybody else is also healthy, we should likely be willing to overlook Brady's history against this team.

Note: Wind speeds in this game are projected at 13 miles per hour as of Friday morning. If that number goes up, it is wise to downgrade the Patriots' passing offense.

Brady's salary is $7,600 on FanDuel, the lowest it has been all season by $300. Given the matchup and the fact that the talent around him is trending the opposite direction, we need to throw out some Brady lineups for tournaments. The big question is with whom we should pair him.

To figure that out, we need to look at this offense when all of the key players are in the fold. We've got four games since Gordon's snap rate spiked in which Gronkowski has played. Here's how the targets have been divided in that time with a "deep" target being classified as anything 16 or more yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Gordon would benefit most if cornerback Xavien Howard were to miss the game, which seems likely with Howard deemed week-to-week with a knee injury. But it's Edelman and Gronkowski who are getting most of the high-leverage work.

Edelman hasn't had a ceiling game this year, maxing out at 16.4 FanDuel points, but it's very much in his range of outcomes. He has 100 receiving yards in two of his past five games -- one of which came with Gronkowski -- but he didn't score a touchdown in either. If he's able to get a touchdown on top of the yardage, he's capable of posting a big score.

As for Gronkowski, there are a couple of things in his favor. Not only is he getting deep looks, but his salary is $500 cheaper than it has been all season long. The production hasn't been there, but he has played all but two snaps since the team's bye week. This is a great time to buy low on this entire passing offense, including Gronkowski.