Fantasy football doesn’t end with Week 18. For those (like me) whose self worth hinges on being able to predict player usage and game outcomes, there are daily fantasy contests.
Below is a look at how one might create so-called game stacks: Multiple players from one of Wild Card Weekend’s six games whose statistical upside would correlate nicely. In other words, if one team scores a bunch of points, the other team must at least try to respond with a bunch of points, usually with a pass-heavy game script.
If you suspect a quarterback and one or two of his pass catchers will have a big day, throwing in a correlated pass catcher from the opposing offense makes sense, and in many ways, makes thing easier. If the first thing happens (your QB-WR stack goes berserk), there’s a decent chance the second thing (a TE or WR on the other team sees a lot of targets) will happen.
The key in large-field DFS contests, as always, is to get away from the “chalk,” or players who will be widely rostered. That means gravitating toward less popular game situations, some of which I’ve highlighted below.
Commanders at Bucs
Game total: 50.5
Stacking Bucs-Commanders will be (very) popular in DFS tournaments this weekend because, well, the game features two high powered offenses and two middling defenses that can and have been exploited on the ground and through the air. The NFL deities could bless us with a back-and-forth affair here.
Getting away with Baker Mayfield and Mike Evans as an ultra-popular stack and shifting toward the Bucs running backs could be the play here, though Bucky Irving will surely prove a popular option at a reasonable price point. The Commanders, as faithful readers of the Funnel Defense Report know well, were among the NFL’s most pronounced run funnel defenses in 2024. In fact, only the 49ers were a more extreme run funnel this season.
This is where I would usually suggest you consider getting weird and pivoting to Rachaad White over Irving (in large field tournaments), but after the Bucs completely phased out White in a must-win Week 18 scenario, it’s hard to get too galaxy brained about the Tampa backfield in a matchup against a Washington defense giving up the second highest rate of rush yards before contact (Tampa ranks fifth in rush yards gained before contact).
White did not touch the ball once in Week 18 against the Saints while Irving had 21 touches. White ran a meager 11 target-less routes to 23 for Irving. The only thing we know about White is that he’ll have almost no rostership in Wild Card Weekend DFS tourneys.
Back to Mayfield for a moment: Going all in on Baker this week would require on to use Evans, Jalen McMillan, and whoever plays tight end for Tampa (Cade Otton has missed three straight games with a knee issue). That TE Payne Durham has been targeted on 12 percent of his routes since taking over for Otton doesn’t inspire much confidence he can get their for fantasy purposes outside an absurdly pass-heavy script.
Tampa’s defense ended the regular season as the NFL’s most extreme pass funnel: Bucs opponents were a league-leading 8 percent over their expected pass rate over the regular season’s final six games. Teams relentlessly attacked a Bucs secondary that allowed the NFL’s sixth highest drop back success rate in 2024. We should expect the Commanders, who ended the regular season on a streak of pass-happy outings, to continue dropping back at a high rate this weekend.
Stacking Jayden Daniels isn’t all that complicated. Terry McLaurin, who dominates both targets and air yards in the Washington offense, is the most obvious beneficiary of a pass-first attack against the Bucs. But a Commanders mega-stack would look something like this: Daniels alongside McLaurin, Zach Ertz, and Olamide Zaccheaus, who has taken on the clear WR2 role in the Washington offense. With an air yards per target of 6.2, Zaccheaus profiles as a PPR cheat code and someone who could gobble up short-area targets in a back and forth game or one in which Daniels and the Commanders are chasing points in the second half. A potential boon for Zaccheaus and Ertz: Tampa allows the league’s second highest completion rate over expected on pass attempts between 1-10 yards this year. No team, in fact, allowed more completions within ten yards of the line of scrimmage this year than the Bucs.
This would also seem to put Austin Ekeler in play along with Daniels, or perhaps alongside a Tampa stack. In his return to the Washington lineup last week against Dallas, Ekeler retook the route-running, target-getting backfield role.
Brian Robinson will be the path to fading what will be a chalky Commanders passing attack. Lots of positive, run-friendly script for the Commanders could shut down any kind of pass-first approach and allow the team to bleed to clock with their early-down banger back. Robinson certainly has touchdown upside: He averaged nearly two inside-the-ten rushing attempts per game in the regular season (though he had one of the NFL’s lowest red zone rushing success rates).
Vikings at Rams
Game total: 47.5 points
Creating a Vikings stack hardly qualifies as rocket science: Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison since Week 12 have both seen 33 percent of the Vikings’ air yards and combined for 52 percent of the team’s targets. TJ Hockenson, meanwhile, has seen 20 percent of the Vikings’ targets over that span.
This is where I tell you the Rams are a top-five run funnel defense that has allowed a top-10 rush EPA and rushing success rate this season. LA’s defense during the regular season gave up the fifth highest rate of rush yards before contact. It sure seems like a good spot for Aaron Jones as a pivot off a Darnold stack. With a solid pass-catching role, Jones won’t be sensitive to game script either. He might be an overlooked option this week in DFS.
Hockenson, who has run a route on 81 percent of the Vikings’ drop backs over the past month, is in a sneaky good spot here. LA has allowed the second most tight end catches on the season, though that might be a function of facing Trey McBride twice and Brock Bowers once.
I’m not exactly breaking news by telling you a big game for Matthew Stafford necessarily means a big game for Puka Nacua and perhaps Cooper Kupp. Kupp has taken on a distant WR2 role over the Rams’ past three games (excluding Week 18): He saw a 12 percent target share and a 17 percent air yards share over the span.
Kupp’s 8.2 air yards per target compared to Nacua’s 5.1 air yards per target since Week 15 tells us it’s Puka, not Kupp, who is benefiting from schemed-up throws from Stafford. Even so, using Stafford in DFS probably means you need to hold your nose and play Kupp along with Nacua, and maybe even Tyler Higbee, who has been ramped up in recent weeks after missing most of the season with a knee injury he sustained late in the 2023 campaign. No defense this season has played a higher rate of two high safety coverage than the Vikings; that should open up plenty of short-area opportunities for LA pass catchers.
Kyren Williams is the natural pivot away from a Stafford-centric stack. Perhaps he fits best in a lineup with a Darnold stack, assuming the Rams have game script on their side and can go somewhat run heavy against Minnesota. The problem here is that no defense allowed a lower rush EPA than the Vikings in the regular season. They snuff out all comers on the ground.
Broncos at Bills
Game total: 47 points
That the Bills defense is so friendly to opposing running backs creates quite the conundrum (and opportunity) for DFS players this weekend.
The sixth most pronounced run funnel defense, Buffalo in 2024 allowed the eighth highest rate of rush yards before contact and had the sixth highest rate of missed tackles on rushing plays. That didn’t translate into a bunch of massive rushing totals — mostly because the Bills offense put opposing offenses in points-chasing mode — but the Buffalo defense certainly allowed consistent gains on the ground. What that means for the infuriatingly muddled Denver backfield is hard to say.
Jaleel McLaughlin over his past three (active) games has operated as the Broncos’ nominal lead back. Most recently, in Week 18 against the Chiefs — the Denver going 1.5 percent below its expected pass rate — McLaughlin led the backfield with 16 carries to 12 for Audric Estime. Javonte Williams, it appears, has been phased out of the backfield pecking order. That McLaughlin ran a route on a meager 12 of the team’s 33 drop backs against KC means his path to fantasy relevance is a narrow one. I think McLaughin would make for a cost-saving run-back option alongside a Buffalo stack, but Estime is in play too.
Bo Nix, as you surely know by now, only has eyes for Courtland Sutton, who saw 25 percent of the team’s targets and 44 percent of the air yards during the regular season. Any Nix stack must have Sutton. A second Denver pass catcher boils down to Marvin Mims and Devaugn Vele. Since Mims’ Week 14 emergence as a key part of the Broncos offense, he’s averaged 3.9 air yards per target thanks to myriad schemed-up plays designed to get the ball into the speedster’s hands in open space. It might not hurt Mims’ cause that Buffalo’s defense has allowed the third highest completion rate over expected and the tenth highest adjusted yards per attempt on short area (1-10 yards) pass attempts.
Mims has seen a target on a stunning 32 percent of his pass routes since his Week 14 breakout performance. A commitment to the Denver pass game in DFS lineups almost requires Nix, Sutton, Mims, and perhaps Vele, with the assumption the Broncos will have to let it rip to keep pace with Josh Allen’s Perfect EPA Machine.
Stacking Allen isn’t much fun considering the spread-out nature of the Buffalo passing offense. Since Amari Cooper joined the team in early October, Khalil Shakir leads the Bills with a 23 percent target share; Dalton Kincaid is second with 13 percent; Keon Coleman is second with a 10 percent share; Cooper is third with 9 percent. Add to the equation a middle-of-the-road pass rate over expected and you get precious little target volume to spread around. Shakir is the natural stack with Allen, though playing Allen and James Cook puts you in play to get the full benefit of the Bills’ touchdown equity. Only six running backs this season had more inside-the-10 rushes than Cook, and Allen turned eight of his 10 inside-the-five rushes into touchdowns.
Denver playing man coverage on 53 percent of its defensive snaps — one of the highest rates in the NFL — should mean Allen can (and will) take off from the pocket early and often here. Allen had 11 rushes for 68 yards and two touchdowns a few weeks ago against Detroit, one of the man-heaviest defenses in the league.
Packers at Eagles
Game total: 45.5 points
If you’re going to get weird with this game, the strategy is straightforward. You’re going to fade Saqon Barkley and stack Jalen Hurts with DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown, who is no longer the Joker after Kenny Pickett soothed his ego a couple weeks ago.
Smith and Brown have combined for 78 percent of the Eagles’ air yards and 65 percent of the team’s targets in 2024. We know where the ball is going if and when Hurts actually throws it. Therein lies the problem. Only the Colts had a lower pass rate over expected than Philly this season, with the Eagles inching over their expected pass rate just twice in the regular season. If you squint hard enough, Green Bay’s defense is a slight pass funnel. So Smith and Brown have that going for them, which is nice.
Fading Barkley, of course, is a medically dangerous proposition to folks playing DFS this weekend. If there was ever a chance Barkley couldn’t make proverbial hay against a rush defense, it might be against Green Bay, which has allowed the NFL’s eighth lowest rush EPA (third lowest since Week 12) and gives up the third lowest rate of rush yards before contact. Almost all of Barkley’s biggest outings of 2024 came against defenses being gouged for a high rate of rush yards before contact.
The Packers are among the most stubbornly run heavy offenses in the NFL. You know that all too well if you’ve tried to get cute with Jordan Love stacks in DFS contests over the past few months. It never seems to work. The reasons are twofold: The Packers rank 30th in pass rate over expected and Love’s targets are spread out among his pass catchers to a maddening degree.
Romeo Doubs ended the regular season with a team leading 19 percent target share, along with a 26 percent air yards share. Doubs led the Packers in targets when these teams squared off in Brazil way back in Week 1. It was Jayden Reed who had the big statistical outing thanks to 55 yards gained after the catch. Green Bay’s 66 percent drop back rate in Week 1 against the Eagles was their highest of the regular season. It’s something to file away.
Love stacks won’t be even remotely popular this week in DFS contests. Playing the Packers-Eagles affair as something of a shootout instead of a grind-it-out, low-scoring game will certainly make your DFS lineups unique with this smallish slate. Making a Love-Doubs-Reed-Brown/Smith lineup won’t feel good, but it might be right. Dontayvian Wicks would make a decent-enough run-back play because Christian Watson (knee) is out.
Steelers at Ravens
Game total: 43.5 points
This game total has dipped three points since Monday, and between you and me, I don’t think it’s low enough. Such an ugly affair eclipsing 40 points would be a low-key stunner, as the zoomers are saying.
Unless, of course, the Ravens pour it on against a Steelers defense that has looked exploitable of late.
Only nine teams have allowed a higher EPA per play than the Steelers since Week 12. It’s the team’s secondary that has been most thoroughly exposed, giving up the league’s sixth highest drop back success rate over the past six weeks. Pittsburgh’s coverage unit has given up the league’s sixth highest completion rate over expected in the short area, meaning Mark Andrews and Zay Flowers — if he plays through a knee injury — are in play as Jackson stacking partners. Rashod Bateman, averaging nearly 14 air yards per target, remains the swing-for-the-fences option alongside Jackson.
UPDATE: Flowers has been ruled out against Pittsburgh. That leaves Andrews as Lamar Jackson’s primary underneath option.
Derrick Henry, meanwhile, has seen some pass game involvement over the past two games with Justice Hill sidelined with a brain injury. Henry has run a route on about half of the Ravens drop backs and caught four of five targets for 41 yards over those two games. If Hill remains out in the Wild Card Round, Henry gets a small bump in PPR formats.
Pat Freiermuth profiles as the most reliable run-back adoption alongside a Ravens game stack. He has 28 targets over his past four games. Freiermuth’s 28 percent targets per route run rate over the past couple weeks could suggest Russell Wilson is keying on him in the short areas. Baltimore entering the game as the league’s second most extreme pass funnel defense could produce the sort of drop back volume Freiermuth would require to be a must-have in Wild Card DFS contests. The Steelers, for whatever it’s worth, appear to be pass-curious of late. They’ve dropped back on 64 percent of their offensive snaps since Week 15.
Along with Freiermuth, George Pickens, he of many air yards and not many real yards, would have to be in any lineup that includes Russell Wilson. A Wilson-Muth-Pickens stack would require at least one Ravens contributor, likely Henry. Just remember that your grandparents’ Ravens — the ones who were regularly being destroyed via the pass in October and November — are no more. Baltimore by almost every measure has the league’s best coverage unit since Week 12.
Chargers at Texans
Game total: 42.5 points
I need you to know this before considering galaxy brain Houston stacks: The Titans by almost every measure had a better, more productive offense than the CJ Stroud-led Texans in 2024. However bad you think it’s been for Houston’s offense, it’s been much, much worse.
Look for the Texans to try desperately to establish the run and escape an upset loss against the upstart Bolts this weekend. The Chargers are among the seven most pronounced run funnel defenses, meaning Joe Mixon should see a heavy workload here. The veteran, who faded down the stretch, will require a touchdown or two to prove worthy of a spot in the DFS tournament lineup. Houston’s total lack of a passing attack has proved disastrous for Mixon, who has faced eight defenders in the box at the fifth highest rate in the NFL this season.
Stroud’s immense struggles this year make it nearly impossible to stack him with anyone but Nico Collins. There are other ways to get cute on this six-game slate. I don’t think you need to torture yourself with projecting Stroud for a fantasy-relevant day after posing just five games with more than 250 pass yards and six games with more than one touchdown.
I feel compelled to offer this sicko note on Diontae Johnson: The mercurial wideout drew four targets on 16 routes last week against the Titans in his first significant action as a Texan, and the Chargers play two high coverage at the NFL’s third highest rate. That could cap Collins and inflate looks for Johnson if game script forces a bunch of Stroud drop backs. It could also do wonders for Dalton Schultz, he of just 7 air yards per target over the past month.
That brings us to the highly-stackable Chargers. Justin Herbert and his pass catchers could see somewhat low rostership on this slate with the Texans-Chargers game sporting the week’s lowest total. That means — in large-field contests — we lean into LA mega-stacks.
The loss of Josh Palmer (heel) makes the Chargers passing offense much more concentrated and easy to project. Palmer, for reasons unknown, was an air yards maven when healthy. From Week 11-16, only ten wideouts had more air yards than Palmer. That he didn’t do anything with that opportunity is beside the point. With Palmer sidelined in Week 18, Quenting Johnston exorcised the demons of dropped passes and had 186 yards on 13 grabs. He commanded 40 percent of the Chargers’ targets and saw half of the team’s air yards. That’s quite the one-week profile.
If Palmer remains sidelined in the Wild Card Round, stacking Herbert becomes easy. Throw in Johnston along with Ladd McConkey and you’re on the right track. Using Will Dissly with Herbert is a little dicey after Dissly ran a route on a meager 59 percent of the team’s drop backs over the past two games. Stone Smartt’s 37 percent route rate over those two outings is a problem for Dissly.
The seemingly ugly nature of this game should suppress rostership. That makes a game stack — something like Herbert-Johnston-Ladd-Nico — far more unique than it should be.
