Week 15 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 15 NFL DFS Stacks & Picks for DraftKings, FanDuel
Without further ado, here are some of the best DFS stack options for Week 15 of the 2022 NFL season:
QB Justin Herbert ($7,200) & WR Keenan Allen ($6,800), Chargers vs Titans
- Combined Price: $14,000 – 28% of lineup salary
Following a midseason lull, Justin Herbert is hitting his fantasy football stride. Expect the good times to continue as you stack Herbert with Keenan Allen in Week 15.
Headed into this week, Herbert has four straight games of scoring 20 points or more. Included in those games are two games with more than 300 yards passing and seven touchdown passes.
The playcalling has also provided plenty of volume as the Chargers offense is second in the NFL with an average of 48.3 pass attempts in their last three games.
With Herbert as a quarterback, we have opportunity and production. When we mix those with the Chargers next opponent, we may very well have another 20-point game on our hands.
Over the last three weeks, the Titans have allowed 92.26 points to opposing quarterbacks, more than any other team in football.
The Titans have also had four games this season in which they allowed a quarterback to score more than 30 points in a game, two of those have come in the last two weeks.
Throughout the season, the Titans are allowing a league-high average of 26.3 pass completions per game as well as an average of 283.7 passing yards per game.
While all makes Herbert an ideal option for this week, it also works in favor of Keenan Allen.
Allen had spent the better part of this season injured but since his return, the Chargers pass catcher has been averaging 14.2 points per game.
The targets have also been hot and heavy for Allen; he has been targeted 14 times in each of his last two games. Those targets have resulted in 18 receptions, 180 yards, and a touchdown.
It should come as no surprise that with those sorts of returns, Allen is looking to have his third straight game with 20 or more points scored.
As it stands now, the Titans are allowing the third most receptions and yards to wide receivers. In terms of fantasy numbers, the struggling secondary has allowed an average of 49.53 points to the wide receiver position in their last three weeks.
If you find yourself trying to budget your DFS allotted salary, you could save $500 and go with Mike Williams over Allen. For my rosters though, the stack of Herbert and Allen is a necessity.
QB Taylor Heinicke ($5,100) & WR Terry McLaurin ($6,100), Commanders vs Giants
- Combined Price: $11,200 – 22.4% of lineup salary
If you are playing in a DFS slate that includes Sunday night’s Commanders and Giants matchup, stacking Taylor Heinicke with Terry McLaurin is an under the radar stack to consider.
While Heinicke and the Commanders are coming off of their bye week, their last game played was against the Giants.
In that game, Heinicke threw for 275 yards and recorded his second consecutive game with multiple touchdown passes.
This will also serve as a home game where the Commanders quarterback has played well. Despite playing in one less game at home than on the road, Heinicke has six touchdown passes at home, double what he has on the road this season.
In regards to the Giants defense, while they have only allowed more than twenty points to the quarterback position, they have hovered close to that 20-point mark in their last few games.
In their first six games of the season, the Giants allowed an average of 15.1 points on a per game basis to opposing quarterbacks. That average has risen in their last seven games as they have been allowing 18.8 points per game.
With the defense softening and Heinicke already having a previous look at this team, this feels like a prime opportunity for the Commaders quarterback to have his second 20-point game of this season.
On the receiving end of the passing game will be Terry McLaurin. Over the last four weeks, McLaurin has two games with more than 100 receiving yards. Both of those games came against NFC East teams with one of them being the Giants.
This is also about opportunity and Heinicke has provided McLaurin with plenty of it. Out of McLaurin’s 98 targets this season, 61 of them have come when Heinicke is the starting quarterback.
This is not a declaration that the Commanders and Giants matchup will be a high-scoring affair. This is, however, a declaration that the offensive production that the Commanders showcase this week will be led by the stack of Heinicke and McLaurin.
QB Trevor Lawrence ($6,000) & WR Zay Jones ($4,900), Jaguars vs Cowboys
- Combined Price: $10,900 – 21.8% of lineup salary
It was just a couple of weeks ago when Trevor Lawrence was writhing in pain on the turf after what was assumed to be a season-ending injury.
Headed into Week 15, not only is Lawrence playing but he is one of the more appetizing stacking options with Zay Jones.
In three out of the last four weeks, the second-year Jaguars quarterback has scored 20 or more points. This would include last week when Lawrence torched the Titans with a career-high 368 passing yards.
Mind you, while Lawrence has been playing well, he was priced under $6,000 in all of those games. This means that he is giving you an excellent return on your DFS investment.
Headed into this week, Lawrence will be priced at $6,000 for just the third time in his career. In order for him to reach three times his value, the Jaguars quarterback will need to score 18 points. He has surpassed that mark seven times this season.
Along with the passing production in Jacksonville, Zay Jones has become a pleasant surprise. Over the last three weeks, Jones is tied for third among wide receivers with 33 targets.
With Jones catching 63.6 of those targets, he has scored 20 or more points in two out of his last three games played.
Going up against the Jaguars passing attack is a Cowboys defense that has allowed 20 or more points to opposing teams in two out of their last three games.
On paper, the Cowboys do not look like an ideal matchup. They are allowing the fifth-fewest points to quarterbacks and an average of just 14.3 points per game.
While the Cowboys defense does deserve praise, one can make the case that they haven’t the stiffest competition in terms of quarterbacks. There are two games against Daniel Jones, then there is Matt Ryan, and Matthew Stafford.
In their last three games, the Jaguars are ninth in total points scored, the Cowboys are second. That is where I think this game is headed, a high-scoring affair. Vegas currently has this matching with one of the higher over-under totals on the week with 48.5.
With the Jaguars sitting sixth in pass play percentage over the last three weeks, if the Jaguars intend to score points, it will come through Lawrence and the passing game.
QB Josh Allen ($8,300) & WR Stefon Diggs ($8,100), Bills vs Dolphins
- Combined Price: $16,400 – 32.8% of lineup salary
We will end our stack picks with a high-priced one by picking Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs for a DFS stack against the Dolphins.
While this Dolphins defense has allowed just one game with 20 or more points to quarterbacks in their last four games, they have still shown a tendency to allow points to the position. Their defense has allowed 20 or more points in five games this season, one of which came against Josh Allen.
That matchup between Allen and the Dolphins came back in Week 3 when the Bills quarterback threw for 400 yards and two touchdowns. That resulted in Allen scoring 30.7 points, one of his six games where he surpassed 30 points.
This has been an ongoing trend for Allen as he has averaged 27.1 points in his last five meetings against the Dolphins.
Then there is Stefon Diggs who is fourth in wide receiver scoring on the season. Included in that scoring is Diggs scoring a touchdown in three out of his last four games.
There is also an understandable expectation that Diggs will be looking for a bounce back week. Against the Jets last week, Diggs had just 37 yards receiving. That marked just the fourth time in his 46 games as a Buffalo Bill that he recorded less than 40 receiving yards in a game.
The Dolphins defense has struggled to stop the opposing offense in their last few games. More specifically in terms of wide receivers, the Dolphins allowed 58.1 points to Chargers wide receivers last week.
That would mark their highest point total allowed in a given week this season and the fifth time they allowed more than 40 points to the position.
Both of these teams rank in the top 12 in pass attempts on a per-game basis this season. Regardless of the potential weather elements, I expect passing numbers to come in this matchup, with Allen and Diggs towards the top.
