Top DFS Stacks on FanDuel and DraftKings: Week 15

Stacking players is a stairway to the top of daily fantasy tournaments, maximizing upside by creating the sort of volatility that can help your roster post a crooked score—one way or another.

Below are some of the most intriguing stacking plays I found while sifting through the week's matchups. Most of these options will leave room for high-ceiling studs. The goal, naturally, is to get a lot for a little. So let's get into it.

New York Jets (-17) @ LA Rams; O/U 44

QB Jared Goff, Rams ($7,800 FD/$6,300 DK)

WR Cooper Kupp, Rams ($7,100 FD/$7,000 DK)

RB Cam Akers, Rams ($6,700 FD/$6,600 DK)

I wouldn’t fuss if you threw in the Rams defense along with Goff, Akers, and Kupp. Or even if you switched Kupp for Robert Woods. LA is going to pour on the points in this one—they have a 30.5 point implied total—and the fear of a run-heavy attack destroying the upside of Goff and his pass-catchers has been overblown. People forget the Jets are largely a pass funnel defense: nearly 72% of yardage gained against the Jets this year have come through the air, the fourth-highest rate in the NFL.

No team gives up more schedule-adjusted fantasy points to QBs than the Jets. Giving up a league-high 71.05% completion rate this season, New York is being sliced and diced by almost every signal-caller they face. The past seven QBs to face the Jets have scored at least 22 fantasy points. Goff thrives in cake matchups. He has one this week.

I went with Kupp here because, simply put, slot receivers are eating the Jets alive. Jerry Jeudy had 64 yards and a touchdown against the Jets in Week 4; Cole Beasley in Week 7 caught 11 balls for 112 yards against the Jets; Jakobi Meyers—who runs 60% of his routes from the slot—reeled in 12 passes for 169 yards against the Jets in Week 9; and Keenan Allen went for 145 yards and a score against New York in Week 11. Kupp, running 61% of his routes from the slot, could be next up in this long line of fat slot receiver stat lines against Gang Green.

The team’s new workhorse, Cam Akers, should benefit from piles of positive game script in Week 15. Akers, who has taken 62% of the Rams’ rushing attempts over their past three games, should be in position to once again be fed with a hefty lead—just as he was last week against New England. Sure, Akers will be chalky, but sometimes eating the chalk in large-field tournaments can pay off if there are enough galaxy-brained DFS players in your contest. Akers sports the tenth highest projected ceiling of the week, per 4for4’s floor and ceiling projection machine.

Houston Texans (+7) @ Indianapolis Colts; O/U 51

QB Deshaun Watson, Texans ($8,100 FD/$6,800 DK)

WR Brandin Cooks, Texans ($6,600 FD/$6,000 DK)

RB Jonathan Taylor, Colts ($7,400 FD/$7,200 DK)

We’re back on chalky running backs, but one who should be worth it in a wildly good matchup. Jonathan Taylor, having seized the means of the Colts’ backfield production, goes against a Houston defense allowing the second-most schedule-adjusted fantasy points to running backs. Like (almost) no other team, the Texans defense is a run funnel, with 37.5% of yardage against them coming on the ground. Only Dallas allows a higher rate through 14 weeks.

Taylor over the past two weeks has 55% of the Colts’ rushing attempts and a team-high 31% total opportunity (rushes plus targets). Nyheim Hines—who makes a galaxy brain play in this one—is second with 16% total opportunity. We’ve seen teams continually wreck Houston on the ground in 2020. That’s likely not going to end with one of the NFL’s best offensive lines taking on one of the worst front sevens in football.

Lots of positive script for Taylor would give lots of negative script to Watson and the Texans pass catchers. After missing Week 14 with neck soreness, Cooks is expected to return for Week 15. If he’s out, the most logical stacking option would be Keke Coutee, followed closely by Chad Hansen, who has played 86% of the team’s offensive snaps and has a 22% target share over the past two weeks. Cooks caught five of eight targets for 65 yards when these teams squared off in Week 13. Only Coutee saw more targets that day.

Watson, meanwhile, torched the middling Colts secondary for 341 yards and tacked on 38 yards and a score on the ground. Very few—if any—quarterbacks offer the upside of Watson in negative game script. Even if by some minor miracle the Texans keep pace with the Colts, Houston can’t run the ball, leaving Watson to do the proverbial heavy lifting, also known as being superhuman on a catastrophically assembled roster. We could see DFS players off Watson after a down game against Chicago in Week 14.

Chicago Bears (+3.5) @ Minnesota Vikings; O/U 47

TE Irv Smith, Vikings ($5,400 FD/$3,600 DK)

WR Allen Robinson, Bears ($7,300 FD/$7,400 DK)

This is a secondary stack in a game that probably lends itself to a more comprehensive stack. But if you’re stacking another game with a quarterback and a pass-catcher or two, throwing Robinson and Smith in there makes good sense if correlation is the goal.

The Bears are quietly an incredible matchup for enemy tight ends. Almost 25% of targets against Chicago this season have gone to tight ends, the second-highest rate in the NFL. Opponents have continually attacked the Bears defense via the tight end, resulting in 8.23 targets per game.

Smith, meanwhile, returned from a nagging groin injury and caught four passes for 63 yards and a touchdown in Week 14 despite playing fewer snaps and running fewer routes than fellow tight end Tyler Conklin. Kyle Rudolph missed Week 14 with a toe injury. If he’s out this week and the team further eases Smith back into the mix, he has a tremendous ceiling. He should be OK even if Rudolph suits up since Smith was running more routes and out-targeting Rudolph for weeks before suffering the groin injury that kept him sidelined for almost a month. Smith’s DraftKings pricing this week is especially egregious.

Mitchell Trubisky has been excellent for Robinson, who was being ignored by former Bears starter Nick Foles. He has a monster 30% target share over the past three weeks (8.2 targets per game) and has a team-high 260 air yards since Trubisky took over as the starter. Robinson—who was targeted nine times when these teams faced off in Week 10—has a (good) shot to go off this week against a Vikings secondary that’s given up the eighth-most wide receiver yards and the second most wideout touchdowns in 2020. Robinson certainly won’t be game script dependent.