Wild Card Weekend of the NFL DFS season has arrived and it is time to win some big money using stacks.
While fantasy football stacks are becoming more prevalent in redraft leagues, the ability to stack players has always been one of the main strategic plays in daily fantasy.
This weekly article will focus on what are the best stack plays in a given week for DFS.
While these plays can be applicable to FanDuel and other daily fantasy sites, this article will focus primarily on DraftKings pricing.
What is stacking in DFS?
A fantasy football stack is when you take two or more players from the same team in order to double your points. This is a strategy that is especially useful in games with high over-unders.
While you are able to stack a quarterback with a running back and or a tight end, we’ll be focusing on the best stacks available between a quarterback and a wide receiver.
What is most important when stacking in DFS?
What is most important to pay attention to, with or without stacking, is a player’s cost and their ultimate output of points.
For example: QB Jalen Hurts had an average cost of $6,700 last season and had five weeks in which he scored 4x his weekly cost.
Ultimately, factoring in the elements of stacking players along with a strong return on investment on players’ costs will put you in the best position to cash in this season.
Wild Card Weekend NFL DFS Stacks & Picks for DraftKings, FanDuel
Without further ado, here are some of the best DFS stack options for Wild Card Weekend of the 2022 NFL season:
QB Trevor Lawrence ($5,700) & WR Christian Kirk ($5,900), Jaguars vs Chargers
- Combined Price: $11,600 – 23.2% of lineup salary
Of the many surprises that the NFL season gave us, one of the biggest was the Jaguars winning the AFC South. What shouldn’t be as surprising now is the potential that a Trevor Lawrence and Christian Kirk stack can bring.
With the regular season ending, Lawrence finished sixth in scoring at his position. Within that scoring is seven games with 20 or more points scored.
As I always reference, one of the DFS goals is to try and lock in players with the best chance to score three times their cost.
With Lawrence coming with a cost of $5,700, the Jaguars signal caller can surpass three times his value by scoring 17.1 points. Lawrence surpassed that point total in 10 games this season.
While the Chargers are allowing 16.1 points on a per-game basis to opposing quarterbacks, they have already struggled against Lawrence and the Jaguars.
Back in Week 3, Lawrence threw for 262 yards and three touchdowns against the Chargers defense. Those numbers would lead to Lawrence scoring 25.18 points, the fourth-best quarterback that week.
Look for Kirk to be the main beneficiary of Lawrence’s passing success this weekend.
Coming in with a cost of $5,900, Kirk led all Jaguars pass catchers with 133 targets and eight touchdowns. His 1,108 yards receiving was the 13th-highest mark among all wide receivers.
In that earlier referenced matchup against the Chargers, Kirk scored 19.2 points as he hauled in six receptions for 72 yards and a touchdown.
Along with Kirk finishing the season 12th in wide receiver scoring, three of his five 20-point games have come in home games.
Kirk will also be coming into the playoffs off of scoring 21.9 points in the Jaguars season finale.
Also important to note that in the five games that the Jaguars played against playoff teams this season, Kirk averaged 17.1 points scored.
Look for Lawrence to lean on Kirk and for each player to finish with more than 20 points scored.
QB Tom Brady ($5,800) & WR Chris Godwin ($6,400), Buccaneers vs Cowboys
- Combined Price: $12,200 – 24.4% of lineup salary
Despite the Buccaneers having a losing record, Tom Brady will start in his 48th playoff game. Look to stack the living legend with Chris Godwin in the Wild Card Weekend matchup against the Cowboys.
This game is a rematch of their Week 1 meeting in which Brady had just 212 passing yards with one touchdown and one interception. While those numbers are far from tantalizing, this is a much different Cowboys defense.
Prior to their Week 9 bye, the Cowboys were allowing an average of 12.5 points per game to the quarterback position.
In the nine games since that bye week, their defense has allowed 17.8 points per game. That is a difference of 5.3 points.
More recently, in the last three weeks, the Cowboys have allowed the seventh most to opposing quarterbacks.
All of this bodes well for Brady, who has played exceptionally in home games this season. Headed into this weekend, 61.6% of Brady’s passing yards have come at home.
As if that is not enough, 17 of his 25 touchdown passes have also come in Buccaneers home games.
While you can take your pick of Buccaneers pass catchers, my money will be on Godwin. On top of being $500 cheaper than Mike Evans, Godwin had a strong finish to the regular season.
Godwin has had three games with 20 or more points scored and all three of those games came after Week 11. Two of those games were played at home.
While Godwin has had eight with 10 or more targets, there is a different dynamic that could provide more opportunity for Brady and Godwin and that is Dak Prescott.
Prescott has been an absolute turnover machine lately. In the last four weeks, the Cowboys quarterback has thrown six interceptions and fumbled twice.
Providing more opportunities for Brady to have the ball will only allow for our Buccaneers stack to score even more points.
QB Josh Allen ($7,900) & WR Stefon Diggs ($7,600), Bills vs Dolphins
- Combined Price: $15,500 – 31% of lineup salary
While our last stack is a pricey one, stacking Josh Allen with Stefon Diggs is as automatic as any other. I expect both to run wild in a third meeting against the Dolphins.
Allen has been a DFS monster this season as he’s scored 30 or more points in seven games. Two of those games came against the Dolphins.
A high amount of fantasy points has been a common occurrence when Allen is taking on his AFC East rival. In his last six meetings against the Dolphins, Allen averaged 29.24 points per game.
Beyond just playing the Bills, it has been a tough season for this Dolphins passing defense. On top of being one of five teams to record less than 10 interceptions, the Dolphins defense is allowing the third-most points to opposing quarterbacks.
Road games have been tough on this Dolphins defense as they are allowing an average of two touchdown passes per game, the second-highest mark in the league.
As if that isn’t enough, their defense is allowing the third-highest average of passing yards in road games with 253.9 yards. That is 40.5 yards more than when the Dolphins play at home.
While Diggs has had nine games with 20 or more points, he has been surprisingly quiet against the Dolphins this season. Despite that, I’m still more than comfortable betting on Diggs this weekend.
Headed into this Wild Card Weekend, Diggs has scored seven of his 11 touchdowns this season at home.
On top of that, he is more reliable at home overall. In eight home games this season, Diggs’s catch percentage is 72.2%. That is 4.2% higher than when he plays on the road.
Unfortunately for Dolphins fans, it looks like Skylar Thompson will be the starting quarterback against the Bills. With that in mind, expect the Bills to dominate time of possession which will provide even more opportunity for this stack.
While there is a dynamic that this game can get out of hand early, my expectation is that Allen and Diggs will be the reason for that. Expect this stack to score more than enough points before the Bills look to run out of the clock.
