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Welcome back to another week of DFS stacks. What a weekend we had in the Divisional round with three underdogs pulling off upsets and the Bills coming a few seconds away from completing the underdog sweep before Patrick Mahomes crushed the hopes of dreams of Western New York.
With this week being the Conference Championship and two games on the slate, the format here will be different than in the past. Realistically if you are playing in a GPP, you will want to stack and you have four options as to where to go for stacking.
This article has my favorite strategies for how to stack each team for the NFL DFS slate on FanDuel and DraftKings on Sunday, January 30th. Follow me on Twitter @Mark_Kieffer and check out all the other content I'm doing here at RotoBaller for NHL and MLB, too!
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Championship Round DFS Slate Context
We have two games. At the time of this writing, Kansas City is implied for 30.5 points, Los Angeles for 25 points, Cincinnati for 23.5 points, and San Francisco for 21.5 points. I think what a lot of people are going to want to do is mix and match players from the games to try to get exposure to all of the games. This could be viable if you can get a majority of the touchdowns scored by doing this, but that's really tough.
What I would recommend if playing in a GPP this weekend is to do a Single Entry contest, fade Kansas City and then do a large stack (3+ players) of another team you like. On a small slate, I want to be overexposed to a team and hope they go off, rather than try to get pieces of everything and hope to flop the nuts.
This is going to be one of those weeks where to give yourself the best chance to win a tournament, you will have to go away from optimal lineup builds and gain leverage. In many cases, this involves over-committing to a stack or building a stack without the main target or weapon on the team. You will be less likely to cash but more likely to win a tournament than targeting the main weapons on each team.
Championship Round DFS Stacks
Cincinnati Bengals
I liked Cincinnati a lot last week and I like them here again against a Kansas City secondary that was pretty suspect last week. Cincinnati beat Kansas City 34-31 on January 2nd in Cincinnati. In that game, Joe Burrow put up 446 yards and threw for four touchdowns. While no one is predicting Cincinnati to do this again, in a big pressure spot on the road, they have shown some success against Kansas City. As we go through the week we will look at where people will go when it comes to rostering players, but they could be the third most popular stack and have as much upside as any other team.
If stacking Cincinnati, I would go: Burrow - Mixon - Chase - Higgins/Boyd/Uzomah. If playing in a large field GPP, I would probably fade Chase and hope that Higgins or Boyd can have a big game. Kansas City did a good job of shutting down Stefon Diggs. Chase did go for 266 yards and three touchdowns on January 2nd, but one would figure Kansas City would address Chase this game (if they can). Everyone is going to see that line in the game log and want to go to Chase, especially given his price. You have to get away from that in a large GPP.
Kansas City Chiefs
If going the Kansas City route it isn't that difficult to stack Mahomes-Hill-Kelce together this week if you can believe that. On a full slate, it was pretty hard to get them in and have other lineup pieces viable in the regular season, but this is different. Because it isn't that hard, I would expect this stack to be the most popular in the slate given the highest implied total. I would add a fourth player such as Jerick McKinnon, Byron Pringle, Mecole Hardman, or Demarcus Robinson, and hope they take a big play to the house. At the very least, you will have to go with some low-owned pieces outside of the stack and consider possibly leaving cash on the table to get different from the crowd.
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Los Angeles Rams
Same vibe here. Consider overstacking the Rams and/or fading Cooper Kupp. If you stack Matthew Stafford-Odell Beckham Jr. - Tyler Higbee - Sony Michel, the entire roster opens up to get whomever you want. This is a pathway to consider as the Rams figure to be popular with Cooper Kupp especially popular. If projected ownership comes out and Los Angeles is projected to be under-owned, then Kupp goes back in the stacks.
San Francisco 49ers
It's hard to imagine this offense being the highest-scoring offense on the slate. If that happens, we are in for a dull championship weekend, to be honest. That said, there are a few routes to go if Elijah Mitchell is expected to be a popular running back, there are a few routes to go here. One option would be to fade Eli Mitchell and roster Deebo Samuel, as Samuel has been scoring more rushing touchdowns than receiving touchdowns.
Another alternative would be to roster Eli Mitchell but to fade Deebo Samuel and roster Brandon Aiyuk and George Kittle instead, hoping the passing game goes through those guys while Samuel has a quiet day. A key to stacking San Francisco, if you choose to go this route, would be to not have a Mitchell/Samuel combination with the passing game. I personally will not go the route of stacking San Francisco this weekend.
Thanks for reading, and I wish you the best of luck with your Championship Round DFS Stacks!
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