Fantasy Football Exploitable Inefficiencies: Week 17

Fantasy Football Exploitable Inefficiencies Week 17

While it may be easy to find out how many points or yards a defense has allowed, it’s not necessarily the best predictor of future success. In order to get a more accurate Fantasy Football predictions, sites like Football Outsiders, tease out as much variance as possible, in order to reveal the true story.

Football Outsiders uses a method known as DVOA. DVOA is a method of evaluating teams, units, or players. It takes every single play during the NFL season and compares each one to a league-average baseline based on situation. Remember, were dealing with extremely small sample sizes in the NFL and Fantasy Football right now, but here are some exploitable match-ups you may want to consider this week.

Pass Funnel Defenses:

DET (Pass: 32nd, Run: 12th), PIT (Pass: 21st, Run: 8th), IND (Pass: 19th, Run: 5th), NO (Pass: 17th, Run 3rd), HOU (Pass: 22nd, Run: 1st)

Run Funnel Defenses:

KC (Pass: 18th, Run: 32nd), NYJ (Pass: 12th, Run 25th), ARI (Pass: 11th, Run: 27th), WAS (Pass: 10th, Run: 26th), LARM (Pass: 8th, Run: 29th), BUF (Pass: 2nd, Run: 16th)

Overall Inefficient Defenses:

DET (32nd), TB (31st), OAK (30th), ATL (29th), CIN (27th), KC (26th)

Dallas ranks 9th in defensive efficiency 

Although they are ranked 9th in defensive efficiency, Dallas’ lack of motivation may provide New York with some sneaky value in daily fantasy this week. Jerry Jones came out earlier this week and said that Dallas would not rest their starters at all in week 17. Even with this statement, active bettors ran to the window to pound the Giants. New York opened as three point favorites, but the line is now out to seven, in some spots. Dallas is locked into the fourth spot in the NFC and we’ve seen a similar situation to this, in 2016. In that year, Dallas clinched the number one seed in the NFC and claimed they would play all of their starters in week 17. When week 17 rolled around, Dak played just two series, Zeke didn’t play at all, and Dez only played 18 snaps.

I would expect something similar to happen this week and for the Giants to take advantage. The Giants have nothing to play for as well, and would actually benefit from losing, and gaining a better draft pick. However, I would expect the Giants to “prove” they made the right pick with Saquon Barkley. Good, bad, or indifferent, I think there is a chance that this turns into the Saquon show.

Other Important Motivation Nuggets

George Kittle is only 100 yards away from breaking the NFL’s tightend record of 1327 yards in a season. 

DFS Implication: We’ve already seen Kyle Shanahan play for records in the past, and I would expect more of the same this week. With Pettis sidelined, and Goodwin questionable, I’ll have Kittle everywhere.

Davante Adams is 134 yards away from Green Bay’s single season receiving record.

DFS Implication: Although he’ll have a tough matchup with Darius Slay, Adams has proven to be “matchup up proof” in the past. He hung 9-140-1 on 12 targets in their last meeting and I would expect Rodgers to funnel targets in his direction on Sunday.

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest NFL DFS news and Fantasy Football analysis!