Stack 'Em - Players With Favorable Fantasy Schedules

May 10, 2020

Antonio Losada looks at 2020 strength of schedules for fantasy football to determine which players at QB, RB, WR, and TE to target or stack in drafts based on favorable schedules and matchups.

Even in the middle of a worldwide pandemic, we have to keep going. That is why the NFL put together and released the 2020 season schedule as usual. While it is still unclear when (and even if) the season will start, the league did its homework and created the path to the Super Bowl for the 32 teams that are part of this footballing circus. As always, it took us no time to go crunch the dates, teams, defenses, offenses, matchups, etc. in order to try to get a first idea of what is on the table and how the season might develop.

Translating the schedule properly to fantasy terms can be one of the key moves to find yourself on the winning side of things and at the top of your league come December. Stacking players to deploy them when they should have better chances to excel is a sound strategy to maximize value in fantasy football, which is made clear in DFS contests. For re-draft leagues that can be harder, but that doesn't mean that strategies such as streaming the correct players can't become a winning strategy.

With all of the 256 matches that we'll watch during the next regular season already laid out, I bring you some teams with schedules favoring their top players at some point during the upcoming season -- split into three regular-season spans, and one final postseason chunk. Pick their players at the right time and enjoy the taste of victory!

Favorable Early-Season Schedules (Weeks 1-5)

San Francisco 49ers

Cardinals, @ NY Jets, @ NY Giants, Eagles, Dolphins

The Niners will start the season with the easiest five-week schedule, although not by a great margin over the other team highlighted here. No matter what, though, San Francisco will face the worst and second-worst averaged groups of defenses against both the run and pass respectively -- only the Cowboys face a similarly favorable schedule against the pass, while the Bears are the only team to face worse defenses against the run.

Jimmy Garoppolo will have everything going his way to start the season as good as he could have imagined and he's far from a lock to being drafted in 12-team leagues, so he looks like a pretty reasonable streaming option. Along with him, George Kittle should also benefit from this start, the same as Deebo Samuel.

One player to keep an eye on: rookie WR Brandon Aiyuk. If he slips through the cracks of your league's draft, you might want to give him a chance for the first few games of the season given the soft SOS he'll face as part of the 49ers offense.

As for the running back corps, even if they'll face soft competition, I wouldn't advise on going with them as this backfield features at least two good backs in Raheem Mostert and Tevin Coleman, which should share the workload reducing their fantasy value.

Chicago Bears

@Lions, NY Giants, @Falcons, Colts, Buccaneers

It is always going to be hard to trust Mitchell Trubisky from day one, but here we are. Chicago will face the second-softest SOS other than San Francisco to start the year. Looking a level deeper, it is the running game the one which could benefit the most by facing the best possible SOS to kick the year off (the Bears will also face the fifth-best SOS against the pass).

David Montgomery isn't getting drafted outside of the first five rounds in your re-draft league, that's guaranteed, but he looks like one of the best bets to start the year with a bang, even more, if Trubisky can't find his footing early. Fellow RB Tarik Cohen is not your typical rusher, but his pass-catching ability could benefit him and turn him into an under-the-radar option for those looking early at the waiver-wire for streaming options.

As far as receivers go, Allen Robinson is another mortal-lock to get picked earlier in drafts, but given how good the schedule looks for Chicago during the first five weeks, and assuming Trubisky will at least last those games as the starter, Robinson would have everything lined up to put up big numbers as he's rapport with Mitch is already there.

Other teams/players worth considering: Dallas (second-best SOS for RB), New England (third-best SOS for RB), Arizona (third-best SOS for QB/WR/TE).

Favorable Mid-Season Schedules (Weeks 6-10)

Los Angeles Chargers

NY Jets, @Dolphins, Jaguars, Raiders, BYE

I can't love this stretch of games more for the Chargers. By the time we get to mid-season games on Week 6 Los Angeles will (or at least should) already have figured out if they're running with Tyrod Taylor (the veteran) or with Justin Herbert (the rookie). That's one question mark out of the equation, and whoever profiles as the starter should be a terrific streaming option given the Chargers will be facing the softest SOS against the pass from Weeks 6-9 (they're on a bye on Week 10, though).

That, obviously, also bolsters Los Angeles' receiving corps for the mid-season stretch making Keenan Allen a must-have for this run of games and Mike Williams a potential under-the-radar candidate to boom. Hunter Henry is one of the best players at the position (watch out for those health issues though), but this could elevate him even more.

If the bad pass-defenses LAC will face trough those four games make you like their receivers, you would like their rushers even more. The Chargers will be going against the worst groups when it comes to stopping the running game, only equaled by Denver's soft-alike matchups.

Given the RBBC approach Los Angeles might take this season with Austin Ekeler and Justin Jackson in tow, it might be better to not rely heavily on them even with this favorable set of games as they'd be sharing points between them. Which brings us to...

Denver Broncos

Dolphins, Chiefs, BYE, @Falcons, @Raiders

Somehow Denver was able to snatch Jerry Jeudy in the draft and sign Melvin Gordon III. QB Drew Lock is far from a great and proven fantasy (or real-life, for that matter) asset, but the Broncos have quite a promising group of players rostered for the 2020 season. Not only that, but they will also have the third-best SOS for the mid-year stretch facing the softest defenses against the rush and the third-worst group of defenses against the pass (if you wonder which will face the absolute worst, that's Washington, which I didn't even consider talking about in detail due to how bad they look on offense).

The Chargers' backfield might scare you if they truly go the RBBC-way in 2020, but Denver's is in a similar position, to say the least. Both Gordon and Phillip Lindsay are studs at the position, will eat big-time, and to that, you have to add the potential touch here and there from Royce Freeman. A two-man backfield brings fantasy tallies down; a three-headed monster destroys them.

Even with that, Gordon and Lindsay have massive upside each and every time they get a chance and will always be able to turn a single play into a touchdown and big fantasy points. That and the easy set of games they'll face here make both of them quite palatable options to play even if they share opportunities.

Other teams/players worth considering: Washington (best SOS for QB/WR/TE, second-best SOS for RB), Houston (fourth-best SOS for RB), Kansas City (fourth-best SOS for QB/WR/TE).

Favorable Late-Season Schedules (Weeks 11-14)

New York Jets

BYE, Dolphins, Raiders, @Seahawks, @Rams

We will never grow tired of talking about what the Jets are going to do with Le'Veon Bell. We will also never grow tired of wondering how good Sam Darnold truly is and where is his ceiling. Those thoughts are okay, but they are just that, thoughts. What is clear is that the Jets will be facing the most-favorable SOS during the last few weeks of the fantasy regular season against both the pass and the run.

Darnold is already an established NFL quarterback and although he's far from a fantasy darling he should be more than a reasonable option to stream down the road. I don't think I need to introduce you to Bell and his exploits. Sure, he's coming off a rather down year, but he's capable of much more than he's shown as of late. Just check his ADP. Bell isn't going off the boards later than the third round in most re-draft leagues and that speaks volumes of his abilities.

Throw in some other players at low prices (TE Chris Herndon, WR Jamison Crowder, WR Breshad Perriman) and the Jets profile as one of the teams that will provide the most waiver wire-goodies during this stretch with potentially huge returns on investment for those banking on them.

Miami Dolphins

BYE, @NY Jets, Bengals, Chiefs, Patriots

Started from the bottom, now we here. Miami untanked their 2019 season, finished the year with a relatively good record for what they put on the field, but got to draft their No. 1 target in Tua Tagovailoa anyway. Now they find themselves in a good position entering 2020.

The Dolphins have quite a nice SOS during the late-season stretch both against the pass and the run (both the second-softest) and with 10 weeks on his belt (whether learning from Ryan Fitzpatrick on the sidelines or playing himself) Tua should be more than ready to put on some good performances.

Nobody is drafting either either Miami quarterback in redraft, but I have always loved the boom/bust nature of Fitz and Tagovailoa should be a flier worth considering adding through waivers.

Who could also benefit from all of this? DeVante Parker had his best season ever in 2019 playing for a mediocre, losing team. We might be asking a lot from him going forward and in the short term, but there is no reason to think he can't keep it up this year. Mike Gesicki can only improve, and perhaps the most interesting players from Miami during this run are their new running backs, Matt Breida and Jordan Howard. Most people are sleeping on Preston Williams  because of his late-season injury and he's leaving draft lobbies undrafted, so he might be one free agent to target in your league midseason, especially before this end-of-the-season span of games.

Other teams/players worth considering: Las Vegas (third-best SOS for QB/WR/TE), Cincinnati (fourth-best SOS for QB/WR/TE), New York Giants (third-best SOS for RB), New Orleans (fourth-best SOS for RB).

Favorable Fantasy Playoff Schedules (Weeks 15-17)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

@Falcons, @Lions, Falcons

Congratulations to the conspiracy theorists out there, because you definitely must be dancing on pure excitement! The Bucs, that team that now employs both infinite QB Tom Brady and comeback-lord Rob Gronkowski will face the softest of schedules for the last three weeks of the season, just in case they need a little push to make the postseason, you know?

Jokes aside, the Bucs will end the year facing Atlanta and Detroit (and Atlanta again in Week 17, in case your league has some games left to be played by then). The Falcons look like the worst defensive unit overall (bad against the run, terrible against the pass) while the Lions are a bit worst against the run than against the pass but still horrific on average. Looks like some folks will be primed to rack up points in the sunny winter of Florida.

Just in case you are not keeping track, this is how Tampa Bay's offense looks like: Brady leading; Ronald Jones II and rookie-RB Ke'Shawn Vaughn (most probably the second-fiddle to Jones) on the backfield; Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Rob Gronkowski plus O.J. Howard just in case more firepower is needed.

Of the aforementioned players, all but Howard are being drafted inside the top-100 slots of most re-draft leagues and even he has a 12th-to-15th-round appeal for some fantasy GMs. This offense is stacked as no other in the league, and they should be running over the Falcons and Lions bodies by season's end.

Baltimore Ravens

Jaguars, NY Giants, @Bengals

The Ravens have the reigning MVP in Lamar Jackson, a top-three tight end in Mark Andrews, a loaded backfield which features Mark Ingram II and rookie-RB J.K. Dobbins, and an explosive wide receiver in Marquise Brown. Same as in Tampa Bay's offense, all of those assets are top-100 picks at the time of this writing, and the drop off from them to the next player of the team in terms of ADP (Justice Hill, ADP 244) is of almost 150 slots (obviously undrafted in most leagues).

Baltimore will go against Jacksonville (an easy-to-predict tankity-tanking team) in Week 15, then face the Giants (which could very well be also throwing everything away by then) in Week 16. Finally, they close the season against Cincinnati which might also be on the losing path and not putting on much effort if things don't go well with Joe Burrow. That means the Ravens will see the second-softest set of defenses against the run and the third-most favorable one against the pass.

It will be hard to swing a trade for the likes of Jackson, Andrews, or Ingram, but you might still find a way to get Hollywood Brown or Dobbins on your roster late in the season and take advantage of this season-end cupcake on your way to a championship.

Other teams/players worth considering: Los Angeles Rams (second-best SOS for QB/WR/TE, and third-best SOS for RB), Washington (fifth-best SOS for QB/WR/TE).

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