NFL

4 NFL FanDuel Stacks for Week 5

Josh Shepardson  —  @BChad50 Oct 9th, 2021

Stacks fuel upside in FanDuel contests. To that point, colleague Brandon Gdula took a deep dive into hit rates and correlation for stacks. It's worth a read.

Every week, I'll lay out my four favorite stacks in this space. Here are the stacks I'm honing in on this week.

Washington Football Team

Taylor Heinicke ($7,300), Terry McLaurin ($7,400), and Ricky Seals-Jones ($4,900)

Heinicke replaced an injured Ryan Fitzpatrick in Week 1, and he's since made three starts. In those turns, Heinicke's averaging 279.3 passing yards per game, tossing seven touchdowns, and adding 23.3 rushing yards per game and a touchdown on the ground, per Pro Football Reference. Thus, it's time to legitimately identify him as a dual-threat quarterback.

This week, he might have more put on his plate. The New Orleans Saints rank as the fifth-best run defense in our power rankings. Comparatively, they're a mid-pack defense against the pass. Wisely, teams are throwing nearly twice as often as they're running against the Saints' stout run defense, attempting 164 passes compared to only 85 runs. Further, the Washington Football Team plays at a brisk pace. According to Football Outsiders, Washington is playing at the sixth-fastest situation neutral pace. Therefore, I like Heinicke's odds of piling up passing attempts and adding some running for good measure.

When he takes to the air, McLaurin is his unquestioned top option. Heinicke's attempted 118 passes this year, directing a team-high 38 to McLaurin. The next-closest target mark is a tie between Logan Thomas and Adam Humphries for second with 14. Predictably, McLaurin also leads the way in receptions (25), receiving yards (354), air yards (413), and touchdowns (three). McLaurin's a no-brainer stacking partner with Heinicke.

Seals-Jones is an enticing low-salary tight end to round out the stack. Thomas, who I noted is tied for second in targets on Heinicke's passes, is injured. Seals-Jones entered for Thomas last week, and he quantifiably filled Thomas's jumbo-wideout role. According to Pro Football Focus, he played 39 passing snaps, running a route on 31, aligning wide seven times, inline 11, and in the slot for 18 snaps. Yes, he was targeted only a modest four times. Nonetheless, his usage is encouraging, and his salary is cap-friendly.

As a whole, this is an easy-to-get-to stack, leaving lots of cap space for studs.

Jacksonville Jaguars

Trevor Lawrence ($6,500), Laviska Shenault ($5,800), and Dan Arnold ($4,800)

If you like the value Heinicke, McLaurin, and Seals-Jones provide stacking together, then you'll love using Lawrence, Shenault, and Arnold. I explicitly highlighted Lawrence in my value plays piece earlier this week. As our projections update to account for injury news, Lawrence maintains his perch atop all players in value score -- a measure of projected points per $1,000 of salary. You can check out the linked piece for my rationale supporting Lawrence.

If I'm expecting good things from this year's first pick in the draft, it stands to reason some of his pass-catchers should succeed, as well. Unfortunately, D.J. Chark suffered a broken ankle last week. As a result, Shenault stepped up and produced his best results in 2021, hauling in six of seven targets for a season-high 99 yards and one rush for 11 yards.

Intriguingly, the eye-catching results accompanied a drastic usage change. According to Pro Football Focus, he played a season-high 30.4 percent of his passing snaps aligned wide and more than doubled his previous long for his average depth of target, surging from 6.3 yards downfield in Week 3 to 13.4 yards downfield in Week 4. Shenault's deeper usage comes at the perfect time for his fantasy value, as the Tennessee Titans struggle to contain explosive passes. According to Sharp Football Stats, Tennessee's coughed up the fifth-highest average explosive pass rate (12 percent).

Arnold is the last piece of this stack, and he was immediately thrust into the action last week after the Jacksonville Jaguars acquired him on Monday and played on Thursday. The following tweet illustrates how quick the turnaround was for Arnold.

Now, he's had a little over a week to further acclimate himself to the playbook after already flashing last week. In Week 4, he played 13 passing snaps, running a route on 11, lining up wide three times, inline four times, and from the slot six times. He was targeted twice, hauling in both for 29 yards, amounting to a reasonable 18.2 percent target per route percentage. When you add the context of being on the team for just a few days, it's a promising showing.

The Jaguars have heavily involved their tight ends in the passing game in coach Urban Meyers' first year, so if Arnold can consolidate the bulk of the work for himself, then he'll produce fantasy-worthy numbers. At a sub-$5,000 salary on a slate lacking some of the top tight ends, the opportunity cost is low to roll the dice on Arnold. Finally, we project Arnold to produce the sixth-best value score among tight ends on the main slate.

Philadelphia Eagles

Jalen Hurts ($8,100) and Quez Watkins ($4,900)

I linked to my value plays article above, and I've done so again here. If you clicked the link and scrolled through the players I highlighted, you noticed I discussed DeVonta Smith. So, suffice to say, I don't oblige to stacking him with Hurts or tacking him onto this stack for a three-man stack. However, I love the Hurts and Watkins variation in GPPs.

The Carolina Panthers' defense appears to be a dreadful matchup for Hurts and the passing game at first blush, as they rank sixth-best in pass defense by our schedule-adjusted metrics. However, the power rankings aren't sentient, and they don't know Carolina's secondary has suffered significant injuries. So, I'm not as concerned about the matchup. Further, Hurts is matchup-proof because of the value he adds with his legs.

In fact, Hurts' 56.5 rushing yards per game ranks 23rd among all players this year. Additionally, the second-year quarterback ranks ninth with 291.8 passing yards per game. Beyond the yardage, he's also scored points via touchdowns, passing for seven and rushing for one. As a result of his ability to do it all, the sky is the limit for Hurts every week.

Finally, because Hurts can add points with his legs, I'm less inclined to use more than one of his pass-catchers in a stack. Instead, I'm infatuated with using ascending second-year wideout Watkins with his fellow sophomore teammate. According to Player Profiler, Watkins boasts a 97th-percentile 40-yard dash speed. Thankfully, his elite speed translates to the gridiron as he is averaging a qualifying high of 21.9 yards per reception this season.

I alluded to Watkins ascending in the offense. Further elaborating on that point, he's set a new high for routes in back-to-back weeks, running 32 in Week 3 and 34 in Week 4. He also set a new single-game high for his young career last week with seven targets. I think something is brewing here, and I want to get ahead of the field in GPPs on a blow-up game from Philadelphia's speedy wideout.

New York Giants

Daniel Jones ($7,400) and Kadarius Toney ($5,300)

First, please allow me to go on an aside that relates to this stack before diving into the specifics. I'm infatuated with Ezekiel Elliott this week, viewing him as one of my favorite GPP options. He has a cushy matchup, has been balling out lately, and I'm expecting a breakneck pace in this game. Thus, he's a great option to run back against a Jones and Toney stack, shooting for the moon and maximum game-stacking upside.

Circling back to the pace, Football Outsiders credits the Dallas Cowboys with paying at the seventh-fastest situation neutral pace, and the New York Giants are cooking at a slightly above-average pace, ranking 14th. Also, as you can see on our heat map, the Giants are 7.0-point underdogs, incentivizing paying faster in catch-up mode if things go according to plan.

As for credentials, Jones is another dual-threat quarterback, averaging 47.0 rushing yards per game with two total rushing touchdowns. Meanwhile, he also ranks seventh with 296.0 passing yards per game. Even without wideouts Sterling Shepard and Darius Slayton last week, he set a new single-game high with 402 passing yards. Shepard and Slayton are out again, but Toney helped ease the sting of their absences.

The electrifying rookie receiver set new highs for targets (nine), receptions (six), receiving yards (78), offensive snap percentage, and routes (35). Also of note, he aligned in the slot for 28 passing snaps in Week 3 and 23 in Week 4. Thus, he should benefit from Jones' propensity to pepper his slot wideout. As we saw through the first two weeks, Jones targeted Shepard, who chiefly played the slot, a whopping 19 times.

As a bonus, Toney should avoid stud cornerback Trevon Diggs when he is in the slot. According to Pro Football Focus, Diggs' slot snaps have descended every week from 13 in Week 1 to 10, then five, and only four last week. Therefore, Toney has an opportunity to meet less resistance than the Giants' other receivers in his quest to build on last week's breakout game.

I expect this game to be a shootout, and while it'll likely be a popular game to stack, I think this stack will go underappreciated, making it an appealing option in GPPs.


Joshua Shepardson is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Joshua Shepardson also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username bchad50. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his/her personal views, he/she may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his/her personal account. The views expressed in his/her articles are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.