Stacking has become second nature for a large portion of the DFS populous. It’s a very common strategy, especially in GPPs, to throw together a stack or two and hope that the roster correlation that you built into your lineup sets yourself apart from the field. It’s a great way to raise your overall ceiling and gain more exposure to certain players and teams that you are targeting.
The Following stacks are my personal ideas for Week 9 at the time the article was written. I will likely add a few more and I am sure a couple of these won’t make the final cut. Using our Domination Station in conjunction with my stacks is the best way to attack our ladder system approach for contests.
Top Stacks of Week 9
Russell Wilson + Doug Baldwin
Russell Wilson + Paul Richardson
Russell Wilson + Jimmy Graham
Russell Wilson + Target + Chris Thompson
The first thing everyone wants to know is, “who will Josh Norman cover?”. Norman doesn’t shadow opposing wide receivers, at least he has not at all this season. He actually will line up on the side that Tyler Lockette will be on for the majority of the game. That takes Tyler out of play for me.
Graham has a great opportunity to produce in a superb matchup. Richardson is a nice upside choice at a nice cheap price point. Doug Baldwin might actually have the best matchups throughout the afternoon as he’ll be away from Norman most of the time and spend a lot of time in the slot (50.9% of the time this season).
The highest upside stack with the lowest downside would be to stack Wilson with a pass catcher and the opposing Redskins running back, Chris Thompson. Using game theory we could say that the Seahawks are scoring in bunches and the Redskins are in comeback mode with Thompson on the field. This would lead to a handful of receptions which he is able to turn into large chunks of yardage against soft coverage. The Seahawks also play a lot of man to man defense which will allow Thompson to be facing off with linebackers one on one in coverage. This stack is for large field GPPs only.
Drew Brees + Mark Ingram
Drew Brees + Alvin Kamara
Drew Brees + Michael Thomas
Drew Brees + Target + Mike Evans
Loading up on Drew Brees with Mark Ingram will allow you to grab all of the Saints offensive touchdowns unless Kamara steals one from outside of the red zone. By locking in Brees with Ingram, we could be ensuring that we get around four to five combined touchdowns from the pair.
Stacking Brees with Kamara is a nice small field GPP stack where we are leveraging the heavier ownership of the field that is on Ingram. Kamara is more of a cash game play as he has a pretty solid floor, specifically on DraftKings, but is always one play away from tripling or quadrupling his salary value.
Going with a Brees stack with Michael Thomas and fading the Saints running backs is probably best kept for small field GPPs because Thomas hasn’t shown that GPP winning upside this season.
A Brees stack with Mike Evans runs along the same vein of a Russell Wilson stack with Chris Thompson. I don’t like that the Saints rookie cornerback, Marshon Lattimore, won the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Month for October. Evans has a tougher matchup than one would normally expect in the Superdome.
Dak Prescott + Ezekiel Elliot
Dak Prescott + Dez Bryant
Dak Prescott + Target + Tyreek Hill
Dak Prescott + Target + Travis Kelce
Alex Smith + Kareem Hunt
Alex Smith + Tyreek Hill
Alex Smith + Travis Kelce
This is my favorite game to stack in Week 9. There are game breakers and heavy workload players all over the places. Game stacking this matchup with a quarterback and a target with an opposing target makes sense from the Cowboys side because the Chiefs have two guys, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce, that can both rack up points in a hurry and have a pretty high ceiling.
It does not work on the other side of the field though. Alex Smith with a target and a Dez Bryant just doesn’t have a high enough ceiling. The Chiefs have been a secondary to target with opposing wide receivers but Bryant just doesn’t have the same ceiling as he used to.
I really like the idea of stacking Dak and Zeke in cash games, similar to Brees with Ingram, I think the duo could score five touchdowns together in a shootout with the Chiefs.
Alex Smith should be severely under-owned this week in large field GPPs. A lot of the Deshaun Watson ownership will drop down to Russell Wilson, making both Dak and Smith solid targets, with Smith carrying the lower ownership. Smith can easily triple his value on both FanDuel and DraftKings and he’s very stackable.
A very contrarian approach to this game would be to fade the entire passing attack of both the Cowboys and the Chiefs and rolling out a Kareem Hunt and Zeke Elliot stack. I rarely do something like this but I could honestly see both running backs finishing with 25-30 fantasy points and capping the ceiling of their quarterbacks and pass catchers.
Derek Carr + Amari Cooper
Derek Carr + Michael Crabtree
Derek Carr + Target + DeVante Parker
Derek Carr has thrown for 730 passing yards and 4 touchdowns in the past two games combined. He’s starting to throw the ball deep and Amari Cooper has become a threat again which has stretched the defense a little bit more the past two weeks. Amari Cooper would be my target I would want to stack for large field GPPs but Michael Crabtree would be my target for small field GPPs and our ladder system for investing.
I would like to run it back with DeVante Parker but we will have to see how he fairs during warm-ups before Sunday Night Football. A sneaky way to have a high-upside low-owned play would be to game stack this game and make sure you have Parker. If he is ruled out then you can easily pivot down to Kenny Stills.
Jacoby Brissett + Jack Doyle
Jacoby Brissett + TY Hilton
Jacoby Brissett + TY Hilton + Jack Doyle
Brissett has almost tripled his salary value a few times in the past four games and now gets to face a reeling Houston Texans defense that has been decimated by injuries. The team also just lost their stud rookie, Deshaun Watson to a disintegrated knee. If Tom “I can’t move in the pocket” Savage turns the ball over and continues to give Brissett and the Colts a short field, then he should be able to exceed value by force-feeding Jack “O’Doyle Rules” and taking a few deep shots to TY Hilton.
As far as Hilton is concerned, anytime I can get a game-breaking talent at a depressed price point and a low ownership I normally want to take advantage of that.
Matt Ryan + Julio Jones
Matt Ryan + Julio Jones
Matt Ryan + Julio Jones
You read that right. Julio Jones is only $7,900 on FanDuel. While I don’t like his matchup and he likely doesn’t go ballistic, would anybody actually be surprised if this is the week that he finally explodes and wins someone a GPP?
Leveraging Example
In GPPs, specifically large field GPPs, there really is no need for dart throws. For the most part, we just need to leverage situations. If the Saints passing game is going to be highly owned, use Ingram and hope for rushing touchdowns. That not only helps you but it hurts any lineup that had Brees with Michael Thomas. Focus on plays like that while constructing large field GPPs. Our $150,000 winner in Week 5 took second play in the Sunday Million by creating the ultimate leverage lineup. Every single player in his lineup was a good player. There was no Kenny Stills or Antonio Gates type plays. He chose guys who were talented and overshadowed by other plays at the position that would be more popular. If you want more examples and breakdown of how to leverage, read this.
Best of luck to you in Week 9. You can find me on Twitter @DFSnDONUTS or in Slack in the #NFL-TALK or #DAILYDONUTS channels.