Week 11 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.
Week 11 NFL DFS Stacks & Picks for DraftKings, FanDuel
Without further ado, here are some of the best DFS stack options for Week 9 of the 2022 NFL season:
QB Daniel Jones ($5,700) & WR Darius Slayton ($5,000), Giants vs Lions
- Combined Price: $10,700 – 21.4% of lineup salary
Daniel Jones is far from the most intriguing fantasy football player. With that general understanding out of the way, Week 11 is set up for a prime opportunity for Jones to have his third 20-point game of the season, when the Giants take on the Lions.
The Lions defense has routinely made themselves a daily fantasy target. In their last three games, their defense has allowed 92.2 points to quarterbacks, more than any other team in the league.
It was mentioned in this column last week that a running quarterback going up against the Lions defense was a good idea. Justin Fields proceeded to have 147 rushing yards and now the Lions have jumped from fourth to second in rushing yards allowed to quarterbacks.
While Jones is far from Fields in his rushing capabilities, the Giants quarterback does have the ability to run the ball.
Headed into this week, Jones has the fourth most rushing yards among his position with 387. Within those rushing numbers is three games with more than 50 yards rushing and 5.61 yards per carry.
So even while Jones has yet to have a week with 250 yards passing, his rushing ability coupled with what the Lions are allowing does make the Giants quarterback an intriguing option.
Last week Jones had the same price tag of $5,700 and he scored 3X that price tag as he delivered 18.28 points. That is the fourth time this season in which Jones tripled his price tag. The numbers themselves are not eye-popping but Jones has the ability to deliver for fantasy.
In regards to who you should stack Jones with, Darius Slayton is the player that comes to mind.
Slayton’s price has jumped by $400 which is due in large part to his 18.5 points scored last week. It was that game in which the Giants pass catcher caught three of his four targets for 95 yards and a touchdown.
While four targets does not sound promising, it should be noted that Slayton was targeted six or more times in the three of his previous four games. It is those sorts of targets that has Slayton second to only Saquon Barkley.
In conclusion, if this Giants offense is to produce in Week 11, the reliable targets on offense will be Barkley and low-cost Slayton.
The opportunity for Giants pass catchers is only heightened when considering that the Lions have allowed the fourth most points to wide receivers in the last three weeks.
QB Joe Burrow ($6,800) & WR Tee Higgins ($7,100), Bengals vs Steelers
- Combined Price: $13,900 – 27.8% of lineup salary
The Bengals are expected to be without Ja’Marr Chase for at least one more week but there is still a stack worth investing in for Week 11. Look for Joe Burrow to lean on Tee Higgins in this weekend’s matchup against the Steelers.
This will be the second meeting between the Bengals and Steelers and in that previous matchup, Burrow delivered. It was in that matchup where Burrow had 338 yards passing with two touchdowns.
That performance would equal Burrow scoring 26.22 points and finishing as the fourth-best quarterback on the week.
The Steelers' trouble against the position did not end there as they have had four games with 20 or more points allowed.
For Burrow to score three times his DraftKings salary, the Bengals signal caller will need to score 20.4 points. He has already surpassed that point total five times this season.
In Chase’s absence over the Bengals previous two games, Higgins has led the wide receivers with 17 targets. Those targets wound up with Higgins having 109 yards receiving and a touchdown.
In Higgins's previous four meetings against the Steelers, he has averaged just over five receptions a game and 71.7 receiving yards. If the Bengals pass catcher is able to replicate similar numbers with a touchdown, he would be well within the range of a 20-point game.
While I will grant you that projecting touchdowns is not easy, it helps to know that the Steelers are tied with allowing a league-high 13 touchdowns to opposing wide receivers.
The last variable to keep in mind is that Minkah Fitzpatrick did not practice on Wednesday and as of this writing is still considered day-to-day following his appendectomy. If he does not play or is limited in any way, that could be enough for Burrow to once again take advantage of the Steelers secondary.
Just as an honorable mention, if the Bengals wide receivers do not sound enticing enough for you, consider Bengals tight end Hayden Hurst who is priced at $3,500.
QB Kirk Cousins ($6,100) & WR Justin Jefferson ($9,100), Vikings vs Cowboys
- Combined Price: $15,200 – 30.4% of lineup salary
With the Cowboys 12th in fewest combined points allowed to quarterbacks and wide receivers, Week 11 would appear to be a tough matchup for Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson.
However, if last week proved anything, the Minnesota tandem has shown an ability to defy those tough matchups.
Against the Bills, a team that is allowing the fourth fewest points to opposing quarterbacks, Cousins was only the second quarterback this season to score 20 or more points.
Prior to last week's game, the Bills had just two weeks in which they allowed more than 40 points to a team's wide receiver corp. Justin Jefferson torched them for 38.3 points all on his own.
Further increasing the intrigue in investing 30.4% of your DraftKings salary into a tough matchup is what the Cowboys defense has done as of late.
In the last two weeks, the Cowboys have allowed five touchdown passes. In their previous seven games, they allowed six.
With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the only two games the Cowboys have allowed 20 points or more to quarterbacks have come in the last two weeks.
In order for Cousins to score three times his DraftKings cost, he would need to score 18.3 points, a mark he has surpassed five times this season. He has been able to make all of that happen with 2,356 yards passing.
Not only is Cousins seventh in the league in passing yards, in his 10 previous matchups against the Cowboys, he has averaged 263.7 yards passing.
Circling back to Jefferson, it is understandable that the $9,100 seems steep.
DraftKings has made this a trend with making the top-tier wide receivers more expensive than ever. Up until this season, the highest Jefferson was ever priced was $8,500. This season, the Vikings wide receiver has been priced about that in eight of his nine games.
That tangent aside, Jefferson would need to score 27.3 points to return three times his DraftKings price tag. He has surpassed that five times, including two games with over 35 points.
QB Dak Prescott ($6,600) & WR CeeDee Lamb ($7,500), Cowboys vs Vikings
- Combined Price: $14,100 – 28.1% of lineup salary
While the Vikings stack against the Cowboys has already been mentioned, it works both ways as Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb are just as appealing of a stack.
It has now been three weeks since Prescott has returned to the Cowboys huddle. Since that time, the Cowboys signal caller has produced two games of 20 or more points.
As Prescott continues to get into his fantasy football rhythm, he will have an opportunity to have his third straight game with 20+ points against a Vikings defense that is allowing an average of 21.1 points per game.
The Vikings being 10th in fantasy points allowed to quarterbacks has been part of a recent trend. In nine games played, the NFC North-leading team has had four games of allowing 20 or more points and three of those games have come in the last four weeks.
On the receiving end of Prescott’s production has been CeeDee Lamb.
Last week was a specifically strong week as Lamb had 11 receptions for 150 yards and two touchdowns. It was that huge performance that had Lamb scoring a career-high 41 fantasy points.
Jerry Jones had said during this past offseason that the offensive rolls as Ezekiel Elliott goes. One might counter and say that it is actually Lamb. Headed into this week, the Cowboys’ star receiver has 46 more targets than the next best receiver and averaging 9.7 on a per-game basis.
All of that opportunity sounds especially promising when noting that the Vikings have allowed a league-high 160 points to wide receivers over the last three weeks. Along with that, the Vikings have allowed more than 30 points to the wide receiver in seven of their nine games.
The Cowboys and Vikings game will be filled with fantasy points and if you are pinching pennies while building your lineups, the Prescott and Lamb stack is $1,100 cheaper than Cousins and Jefferson.
