RADIO
Welcome back to another week of NFL DFS GPP Stacks! This is where I talk about the slate and give three stacks you should consider for your GPP lineups!
I generally make 3-5 lineups, because it is hard to nail every stack. I use a different stack for each GPP lineup and hope one of them pops to the top of the standings! If I win a GPP with one lineup and do not cash in the other six, I will still have a very nice day and win a good chunk of cash!
Before just diving into the picks for this week, some reminders about guidelines I use for stacks:
I want games with high point-scoring totals and close point spreads. The scoring part is obvious (more scoring = more fantasy points) but the game being close makes a bring-back player viable and keeps the team that is up playing with urgency throughout the game.
I generally want to fade a stack combination that is projected to be the most popular in the slate. This means I may choose to stack up that team differently than the crowd, or I may do an outright fade. With that said, onto the picks!
Slate Context
This is something I think is important to look at when considering stacks for your lineups. For the main Sunday slate, there are five games that have expected totals of over 50 points, very similar to last week. This means there are a lot of directions one can go when trying to figure out who to stack. I generally want to find the game or games that are expected to be less popular but have the same chances of going off as the more popular games.
(1) Los Angeles Rams or Arizona Cardinals
This game against the Cardinals is the highest total on the slate at 55 points. The Rams are getting more expensive, but they aren't quite at the Kansas City level. Cooper Kupp is garnering about 35% of the team targets which is downright elite (anything over 30% is crazy high). I would expect a Stafford-Kupp pairing to be very popular across various formats in general. We are seeing more and more QB-RB-WR type of stacks, so we could see some Stafford-Kupp-Michel (assuming Henderson is out) stacks, or even Stafford-Kupp-Higbee. If playing in a large field tournament and wanting exposure to this game, consider fading Kupp and going with a Stafford-Woods pairing. Woods has had a quiet season, however, he is receiving about 20% of the team's targets and any receiver getting over 20% of the targets is viable to stack for me. On the other hand, if in a large field tournament, this is probably the game to fade because if it goes off, will you be different enough to win?
The downside to the Rams is that Arizona has the 8th best pass defense in the NFL, allowing just 202 passing yards per game while Arizona's rush defense is one of the worst, allowing 140.7 rushing yards per game.
I also do like the Cardinals side of this game as well and would recommend stacking Arizona as well. This is a great fantasy environment and you want some exposure to this game for sure. The Rams are 25th in pass defense, allowing 281.3 passing yards per game, and are 11th in run defense, allowing 97 rushing yards per game.
We could very well see a game where Arizona has most of their success through the air and the Rams have theirs on the ground.
(2) Minnesota Vikings
I don't think people realize how good Minnesota is right now offensively. They are running the 4th most plays per game, they are passing the ball 60% of the time, and Kirk Cousins has already thrown for over 900 yards and zero interceptions. Also, they are a home underdog, and nobody loves playing small home underdogs in DFS more than I do. Justin Jefferson leads the team in targets, getting a 25% target share. Adam Thielen is getting a 22% target share. Cousins is also targeting the running back frequently; Dalvin Cook had seven targets in Week 1, Alexander Mattison had eight targets in Week 3. Running backs account for 21% of the targets in the offense right now. In short, there are different ways you can go with stack building, but I want exposure to a team that is playing at a fast pace, passing the ball frequently and is likely to throw in the 4th quarter as they either lose by a small margin or win by a small margin because they are a small home underdog.
The con to this pick is that Cleveland is Top 5 in both run defense and pass defense. Minnesota's defense is bad, so I expect Cleveland to score points. The question will be if Kirk Cousins can have success against this defense at home.
(3) Buffalo Bills
There are two ways to look at this game:
(1) Buffalo will blow out Houston
(2) Buffalo will not blow out Houston
If they blow out Houston, there is a good chance that Josh Allen is going to have a big game, and in turn, a Buffalo stack should score a bunch of fantasy points. If they do not blow out Houston, that means Buffalo will have struggled offensively early and will be aggressive to try to score a bunch of points (and fantasy points for us late). Houston is allowing 269.3 passing yards per game.
A way to account for a blowout would be to include Devin Singletary in your lineups. Singletary is averaging 3.33 targets per game and if Buffalo pulls ahead, he is likely to be part of the rushing attack to milk the clock in the second half. Zack Moss would also be a part of that. I would not include him here, but he is someone to include in your player pool if you MME. Vegas is implying Buffalo will score 32 points. As long as the offense is doing the scoring (and not the defense), this is still a good spot to go to. In general, DFS players tend to fade the blow-outs and I don't think it's always a bad idea to do that, but this week I am willing to take a chance. Last week, Buffalo blew out Washington and the right Buffalo stack last week won people thousands of dollars.
Final Thoughts
When there are five games with totals of 50 or more points, it is an indicator that you can go to different games. Sometimes I like games in the high 40s, such as Buffalo's. Find the stacks that will be less popular within those top-scoring games' teams and make a few lineups targeting those teams. If one of the three above I recommended become too chalky, feel free to fade and go another route. If you can find high total games with consolidated targets, you have the potential to have a good Sunday afternoon.
Thanks for reading, and I wish you the best of luck with your Week 4 DFS Stacks!
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