Daily Fantasy Football Top Stacks for FanDuel and DraftKings Week 1 - 9/10/17

Welcome back for another exciting season of daily fantasy football. I will once again be bringing you my top stacking options each week using the DFSR projections and lineup optimizer. If you are playing tournaments on the regular, you likely understand that to win we have to sometimes pivot off the more popular plays and find that "diamond in the rough". From a stacking perspective, I will also be looking closely at the FanShareSports most tagged list and sentiment ratings to identify some possible low-owned stacking options. Also, be sure to check out the Main Article which goes over the top picks from a position by position perspective.

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Top Stacks for the Week

Atlanta Falcons

Quarterback - Matt Ryan
Primary Target - Julio Jones
Secondary Targets - Taylor Gabriel, Devonta Freeman

The architect behind last years league-leading offense, Kyle Shanahan, has moved on to San Francisco but the Falcons will be in good hands. Former OC at Alabama, Steve Sarkisian, steps into a fantastic situation in Atlanta and although cliche, feels he can improve the offense. That is a tall order considering they averaged 33.8 points per game which is a full 4.5 points per game more than New Orleans who finished second. From a DFS perspective, they are a team that we can stack in a few different ways and it starts with MVP Matt Ryan. I used the DFSR Player Lab with the "High Vegas O/U" filter set to >49 and the "High Passing Yards" filter set to >275 it gave us Ryan and Rodgers. I lean Matt Ryan in Week 1 for a couple reasons and it starts with the 309 yards per game and league-leading 9.3 yards per attempt he put up in 2016. It helps when you have arguably the best wide receiver in the league in Julio Jones at your disposal. He led all receivers in 2016 with 100.6 yards per game and ended up with the fourth-best yards per catch(17.0). If you are looking for a little more value you can also roll with Taylor Gabriel who didn't have a 100-yard game last year but did score six touchdowns using his electric speed. To be a little more contrarian with your stacks you could also throw Devonta Freeman in the mix. He was 13th among all running backs in 2016 with 4.1 targets per game and had eight weeks where he received five or more. The Falcons currently sit with the highest team total(28.5) of the week and make a very high upside stack.

Oakland Raiders

Quarterback - Derek Carr
Primary Target - Amari Cooper
Secondary Target - Michael Crabtree

The Oakland Raiders are a team that can be stacked and trusted in all formats. First of all, Carr comes in as the 7th in salary on DraftKings and 11th on FanDuel presenting a ton of PTS/$ value considering this game has the second highest Vegas Total(50.5) of the week. While Carr only eclipsed the 30 DraftKings point barrier once in 2016, he was the second most consistent option behind Aaron Rodgers going over 20 DK points nine times in 15 regular season games. He has a pair of pair of wideouts to stack with who both went over the 1,000-yard mark last season. Amari Cooper is the top target and is an ascending star in the league. He averaged 13.9 yards per reception last year and while he only recorded five touchdowns, he did have three 100+ yard games and five games with double-digit targets. The value play of the two is Michael Crabtree who comes in under $7K on both sites. Crabtree showed much more touchdown upside last year as he finished third overall in Red Zone targets with 26 and sixth overall in touchdowns from the Red Zone with seven(via NFLSavant.com). In the right matchup, I can easily see stacking Carr with both receivers to create a somewhat contrarian lineup and the Titans are one of those matchups as they allowed the third most passing yards per game in 2016(269.2).

Top Pivots Using FanShareSports

Carolina Panthers

Quarterback - Cam Newton
Primary Targets - Kelvin Benjamin, Greg Olsen
Secondary Target - Devin Funchess, Christian McCaffrey

It's understandable that Cam Newton and the Panthers aren't being talked about as much as other teams. Cam had off-season surgery on his shoulder and only attempted two pass attempts in the Panthers third preseason game a few weeks back. Looking at the early list of Most Tagged Quarterbacks, Cam falls outside the Top 10 with just three tags while Matt Ryan(9), Marcus Mariota(9), Derek Carr(8), and others lead the way and will command most of the ownership. I think it is a great time to jump on board in tournaments as the upside is huge, especially considering the Panthers added two big play rookies in the draft with Christian McCaffrey and Curtis Samuel. They also get an elite matchup vs. the 49ers who gave up the most yards per game(406.4) of any team in 2016.

New Orleans Saints

Quarterback - Drew Brees
Primary Target - Michael Thomas
Secondary Target -  Coby Fleener

I project the Saints high powered offense to be one of the lower owned stacks of the week and the FanShareSports sentiment ratings confirm my suspicion. Neither Drew Brees or Michael Thomas has been tagged and it has a lot to do with the game being a part of the Monday Night Football double header. To get exposure to the Thursday night and Monday night games you will have to get in the less popular Thurs-Mon or Sun-Mon slate but don't worry as there is a huge edge on these slates. If you read my articles last you know that I love playing the Thursday slate while totally fading all the players in that Thursday night game. Why? Well, I started to study the ownership percentages last season and found that over half of the Top 10 in ownership each week(on the Thurs-Mon slate)came from the Thursday night game and it comes from people just wanting to get in on the action. If even the top player goes off for 20+ fantasy points, he is likely 30% or more owned and it is very easy to find a player with similar upside at half the ownership who plays on Sunday. Taking that strategy even further, people really tended to avoid the Monday night game each week with some elite players being very low owned. Enter Drew "Gotta Pad my Stats" Brees who is one of the best quarterbacks of our generation and despite getting older still led the league with 5,208 passing yards(326 per game) and was third in touchdown passes(37). With Brandin Cooks out of the picture, Michael Thomas is now the clear #1 target for Brees and he is coming off a fantastic rookie season where he ended up 9th in receiving yards(1,137), 6th in touchdowns(9), and had 18 receptions of 20 or more yards(9th). Going even deeper, we can use Coby Fleener as a value Tight End as he is likely to see an uptick in targets with Willie Snead suspended to start the season.

Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NFL optimizer for FanDuel and DraftKings, our MLB Optimizer, and our new Player Lab! Get started for free by clicking the button below.

First time with NFL? Be sure to read our free MLB and NFL Ebooks on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered.