Week 7 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 7 NFL DFS Stacks & Picks for DraftKings, FanDuel
QB Matt Ryan ($5,400) & WR Michael Pittman ($7,400), Colts vs Titans
- Combined Price: $12,800 – 25.6% of lineup salary
After six weeks, Matt Ryan is tied for 12th in quarterback scoring. That scoring includes three games with 20 or more points, one of which came against his Week 7 opponent, the Titans.
Ryan isn’t the only quarterback the Titans have let score at will. In their five games played, on a per-game basis, the Titans are allowing 24.7 points to the position.
Circling back to the Colts and Titans' previous matchup, Ryan was priced at $200 more than his this week but still scored four times his cost.
In that game, Ryan threw for 356 yards and two touchdowns. While both of those touchdowns went to Mo Alie-Cox, who by the way costs $3,000 this week, my stack candidate is Michael Pittman.
Even though Pittman hasn’t scored a touchdown since the first week of the season, he still delivered 29.4 fantasy points last week.
That production was due in large part to being targeted 16 times, tied for third-most in a game by a receiver this season.
The fact is that Pittman is thriving in underneath routes and that is where the aging Ryan is looking to pass the ball a majority of the time.
The more targets Pittman is seeing, the less touchdown-dependent he becomes. That is reassuring in an offense where no wide receiver has more than one touchdown.
I will provide an honorable mention to everyone’s flavor of the week, Alec Pierce. The young Colts pass catcher is priced at $4,600 and is averaging 15.1 yards per reception.
That plays right into a Titans defense that is allowing 15.2 yards when a wide receiver catches the ball.
Most wide receivers are in play for a vulnerable Titans defense but my final choice is to invest 25.6% of your DraftKings lineup salary on Ryan and Pittman.
QB Jimmy Garoppolo ($5,500) & WR Deebo Samuel ($7,600), 49ers vs Chiefs
- Combined Price: $13,100 – 26.2% of lineup salary
With only four games of 20 points or more in his last 26 outings, it is safe to suggest that Jimmy Garoppolo is not the ideal daily fantasy option.
That changes for at least this week when the 49ers take on the Chiefs.
As prolific as the Chiefs offense has been, their defense has been the polar opposite.
So far this season, the Chiefs are allowing a league-high 15 touchdown passes. On top of that, they are one of five teams that have just one interception on the season.
This is not just a rare start to the season either. Dating back to last season, the Chiefs have allowed 20 or more points to quarterbacks in 12 of their last 23 games.
Six of those 12 games would see the opposing quarterback surpass 30 points.
All of this sounds promising for Garoppolo who has had back-to-back games with 250 or more passing yards.
On the receiving end of our 49ers stack is Deebo Samuel. While Samuel has had only one game with 20 or more points this season, the matchup is just as enticing for Samuel as it is for Garoppolo.
The Chiefs are one of six teams to allow over 1,000 yards receiving to the wide receiver position. In their last three games, the secondary has allowed the opposing team’s WR1 to finish with an average of 22.5 fantasy points.
On top of the opponent, Samuel is heavily relied upon when the 49ers are trending closer to the endzone.
When the 49ers have been inside the 10 this season, Samuel has been targeted 55.6% of the time. That type of opportunity is hard to ignore in this juicy of a matchup.
Again, it is well-documented how good the Chiefs offense is and the 49ers offense will have to keep up with that. In order to do so, Kyle Shanahan and Garoppolo will look to lean on Samuel early and often.
Both Garoppolo and Samuel will surpass 20 points this week. Book it.
QB Joe Burrow ($6,900) & WR Ja’Marr Chase ($8,200), Bengals vs Falcons
- Combined Price: $13,300 – 30.2% of lineup salary
Last week was a big daily fantasy outing for the stack of Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase. Against a walking wounded Saints team, the Bengals tandem combined for 70.70 fantasy points, their highest of the season.
Week 7 will have the opportunity to be another strong outing when the Bengals take on the Falcons.
In four of their six games, the Falcons have allowed 40 or more points to the wide receiver position. This would include last week when they allowed 48.1 points.
On top of that, it is worth noting that the Falcons have had multiple cornerbacks limited or missing practice, including star corner A.J. Terrell.
This is the same sort of opportunity that Chase benefited from last week when Marshon Lattimore was unable to play.
Along with the injuries, the Falcons have also had 34 missed tackles on passing plays.
Look for Burrow to take advantage of this secondary and likely record his fifth game of the season with multiple touchdown passes.
What is also worth noting for Burrow is that he has also had a rushing touchdown in each of his last two games.
This game will be played in Cincinnati and that also bodes well for the Bengals signal caller. In the 13 20-point games that Burrow has had since last season, eight of those have been home games.
What you are looking for in this matchup is for Burrow and Chase to score four times their combined score. So the goal would be to score at least 53.2 combined points.
They have already done that twice this season.
It all seems too easy against a Falcons defense that is allowing more passing yards than any other team in the NFL.
QB Dak Prescott ($6,700) & WR CeeDee Lamb ($6,800), Cowboys vs. Lions
- Combined Price: $13,500 – 27% of lineup salary
Week 7 will mark the return of Dak Prescott and a fantasy-friendly Cowboys offense. Feel free to take advantage of that by stacking the returning Cowboys quarterback with CeeDee Lamb.
There are two opinions as it relates to Prescott and his returning to the huddle.
Some are of the understandable mindset that the Cowboys will want to ease Prescott back and lean on the running game combination of Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard.
The other opinion believes Prescott is experienced enough and is playing a game against a Lions team that scores and allows a lot of points, therefore Prescott will produce by force.
This article is relying on the latter of those two opinions.
Even with the Lions having their bye last week, the team is allowing a league-high 170 points and are also twelfth in points scored.
With those sorts of numbers, it should come as no surprise that the Lions are allowing 24.1 points per game to the quarterback position.
For Prescott to score four times his Week 7 cost, he would need to produce 26.8 points.
Last season, in this same offense, Prescott outscored 26.8 points six times. While I would grant the detractors that Prescott was not overcoming a hand injury last season, he was returning from a severe ankle injury.
The touchdowns at home for Prescott are also extremely hard to ignore. While only playing in two more games at home than on the road, Prescott has 25 more touchdown passes when he plays at home.
That ratio also extends to his rushing as the returning Cowboys quarterback has seven more rushing touchdowns at home than he does on the road.
All of this bodes well for Lamb who has two twenty points and has been targeted 10 or more times in all but two of his games.
While people want to point to Week 1 against the Buccaneers, this return for Prescott will be the true unveiling of the Prescott and Lamb connection without Amari Cooper around.
