Week 6 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 6 NFL DFS Stacks & Picks for DraftKings, FanDuel
QB Josh Allen ($8,200) & WR Stefon Diggs ($8,400), Bills vs Chiefs
- Combined Price: $16,600 – 33.2% of lineup salary
It would be wrong of me to write this Week 6 article and not bring up the most anticipated game of the NFL regular season. The Bills and Chiefs will collide this Sunday in a rematch of last season’s 78-point divisional round thriller.
While there are fantasy options abound in this matchup, the attention here will be focused on the stack of Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs.
As expected, Allen and Diggs are dominating their respective positions. While Allen sits first among quarterbacks and Diggs second among wide receivers, the Buffalo connection has combined for an average of 57.68 points per game.
Before getting to the Chiefs defense, it should not go without mentioning that Gabe Davis is also a suitable option priced at $6,500. It was Davis who highlighted the previously mentioned divisional round as the Bills pass catcher scored for four touchdowns and 55.1 DraftKings points.
As enticing as Davis sounds, my recommendation of Diggs is based on opportunity. In that Divisional Round game, Davis was targeted 10 times. In five games this season, Davis has been targeted 18 times.
The 52 targets for Stefon Diggs this season is just too much to ignore.
Given the Chiefs defense, it is hard to imagine that this will not be a high-scoring affair again. The defense has allowed 20 or more points in every game this season.
Within those games, the Chiefs are sixth in passing yards allowed and are one of four defenses to allow more than 10 passing touchdowns with 12. Important to note for Diggs, seven of those 12 touchdowns have gone to wide receivers.
In three games this season, the Chiefs have allowed 50 or more combined points to quarterbacks and wide receivers.
There is no doubt that spending 33.2% of your DFS salary on two players is a lot. On the other hand, there also is no doubt that Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs are well worth the price of admission.
QB Geno Smith ($5,700) & WR Tyler Lockett ($5,600), Seahawks vs Cardinals
- Combined Price: $11,300 – 22.6% of lineup salary
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be endorsing Geno Smith in a Week 6 DFS column, but here we are. Through five weeks of the regular season, Smith is one of two quarterbacks to have multiple weeks finishing in the top five while being priced at less than $6,000.
To add to that, in the 45 games that Smith played prior to this season, he had three 300-yard passing performances. This season, he already has two.
Nine touchdowns and 1,305 passing yards later, Geno Smith is the sixth-best quarterback in DraftKings scoring.
Opposing Smith and the Seahawks this week will be the Cardinals. The defense for the Cardinals has had two weeks in which they allowed 25 or more points to opposing quarterbacks.
Do not be alarmed by the other three games in which the Cardinals allowed less than 25 points. Two of those three games came against quarterbacks who rank outside the top 20 in DraftKings scoring.
The defensive troubles for the Cardinals have extended to the wide receiver positon as well. In the first three weeks of the season, they allowed 30 or more points to the wide receiver position.
The Cardinals defense has also had twenty missed tackles on passing plays.
While both Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf are great stacking options, I will suggest stacking Lockett with Smith for two reasons.
One reason would be that Lockett is $1,200 cheaper and the second reason would his history against the Cardinals.
In his previous four games against the Cardinals, Lockett has scored 20 or more points. Included in those games is a monster 56-point week.
Geno Smith is currently the hot hand at quarterback given the opponent, it is hard to imagine that the luck will run dry.
QB Tom Brady ($6,300) & WR Mike Evans ($7,000), Buccaneers vs Steelers
- Combined Price: $13,300 -26.6% of lineup salary
While all the talk about Tom Brady seems to deal with what is going on off the field, it doesn’t go without notice that the season on the field started ugly.
In the first three weeks, Brady went up against three defenses that ranked in the top 10 in fewest points allowed to the position.
Weeks 4 and 5 were a change of scenery for Brady as he was up against questionable defenses. Those matchups allowed the future Hall of Fame quarterback to have back-to-back 20-point weeks.
Look for that streak to continue in Week 6 when Brady and Mike Evans take on the Steelers.
The Steelers defense has been the farthest thing from their Steel Curtain mantra.
Five weeks into the season, the Steelers are sixth in points allowed to quarterbacks and first in points allowed to wide receivers.
Within those standings is the Steelers allowing two quarterbacks to throw for 300 yards and giving up a league-high nine touchdowns to wide receivers.
Between the tough start and injuries to the position, Buccaneers wide receivers have not continuously produced for DFS.
That said, Mike Evans still leads all Buccaneers wide receivers in points scored with 72.6 and as previously stated, the matchup is more than ideal.
On the season, the Steelers have allowed five wide receivers to record a 100-yard performance.
Look for both Brady and Evans to each surpass 20 points as the Steelers defense continue to walk in uncharted territory.
QB Kirk Cousins ($6,000) & WR Justin Jefferson ($8,900), Vikings vs. Dolphins
- Combined Price: $14,900 – 29.7% of lineup salary
In terms of fantasy points, the 2022 season has been a slow start for Kirk Cousins. After scoring 20 or more points in nine games last season, Cousins had to wait till this past week to score his first such game this season.
While the slow start could be attributed to Cousins learning a new offense under Kevin O’Connell, look for the fantasy points to become more routine, especially in the Vikings matchup with the Dolphins.
So far this season, the Dolphins are one of five teams to allow over 120 points to opposing quarterbacks.
In the two games, the Dolphins did not allow more than 20 points to quarterbacks, those matchups came against the Patriots and Jets. Needless to say, those are two teams with quarterbacks far from the fantasy caliber of Kirk Cousins.
In regards to the quarterback and wide receiver positions combined, the Dolphins are allowing an average of 64.54 points on a per-game basis.
That leads us to Justin Jefferson who is one of two players this season with four games of ten targets or more.
While Cousins has struggled to produce for fantasy, Jefferson has not. On top of his league-leading 547 receiving yards, Jefferson scored 30 or more points in his previous two games.
Circling back to the Dolphins defense and more specifically the secondary, season-long injuries to Byron Jones coupled with the groin injury to Xavien Howard has left the Dolphins in a pass-catching lurch. Look for Cousins and Jefferson to take advantage of that early and often this Sunday.
