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Mark Strausberg's NFL DFS stacks for FanDuel and DraftKings tournaments for Week 13. These GPP stacks are worth considering for daily fantasy football lineups.
Thirteen is thought to be an unlucky number, but I'm feeling good about this week and that extends to my Week 13 GPP DFS stacks. As we have discussed, pure chalk rarely wins a GPP, so let's start by eliminating what I believe will be some of the chalkier options this week.
Whether it is Colt McCoy or Danny Dimes at quarterback for the Giants, the Seahawks are still the worst passing defense, and I suspect many will flock to the Giants. I don't even like that stack, but the match-up alone should make it it popular. Meanwhile, some questionable coaching at the end of last week's game aside, the Chargers offense still carries plenty of voltage. They will be powering up against New England's miserable secondary and I suspect the Chargers stack to be heavily owned.
The most popular stack will probably be Minnesota against Jacksonville, who is tied for the allowing the second-most touchdowns in the league so far this year. With those three obvious cash stack options out of the way, that leaves us with a number of options to build our GPP stacks. Here are my week 13 GPP stack recommendations.
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The Expensive Pivot Stack
Seattle Seahawks
Playing the most expensive option on the board is always a risky venture. But when the stud quarterback has a tough match-up it means that his odds of a great game are lower, but his ownership will also be a fraction of what it usually is. And that's what we are looking at with Russel Wilson this week.
Wilson's ownership should also be low due to recency bias. He has just three touchdowns the last three weeks and did not pass for even 250 yards in any of them. He didn't do much with his legs either, running for a combined 112 yards over those three games. That's not bad, but we expect more from Wilson. That's the bad news. But very quietly Russel Wilson raised his completion percentage to over 70% during the last two weeks.
And there's more good news. While the Giants have allowed the 7th fewest fantasy QB points per game, let's remember who they have played. Just in their division, they've had the "challenge" of the Redskins passing game twice, the game where Dak Prescott got injured, plus two matchups against Carson Wentz and his 15 interceptions. They also have had the luxury of a Burrow-less Bengals team, plus the high flying 49er and Bear offenses. Therefore it should be of little surprise that their DVOA pass defense is actually the eighth-worst pass defense in the league. Amazingly, the aforementioned Wentz plus Nick Mullens and Alex Smith all passed for 300+ yards against them. I'm fairly confident when I state that Russell Wilson is a better quarterback than any of those three. I'd bet on Wilson throwing for 300 against the Giants.
It does help however that he does have two WRs with whom I am happy to stack him, Tyler Lockett and DK Metcalf. With all the pub that Metcalf has received this year, I'm a little surprised about a story that kind of went under-the-radar. I'm not talking about the Ochocinco story. That's fluff and nothing else. But apparently, DK Metcalf has a little Steve Smith "What did you say I can't do?" in him:
DK Metcalf says #Eagles DC Jim Schwartz came up to him pregame and said, “I was in Detroit with Megatron but you're not there yet."
Metcalf said that upset him. "I had a little chip on my shoulder the whole game."
Metcalf then went off for 10 catches & a career-high 177 yards.
— NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) December 1, 2020
Quick, somebody tell Metcalf he's not the kind of player who can score three touchdowns in a game! In the meantime, we will have to deal with "typical" Metcalf who is averaging just 94 yards a game and not even a whole TD a game (only .818 touchdowns per game)
What I really like about the Seattle passing game is how the fieriness of Metcalf is balanced by the serene and more cerebral but equally talented Tyler Lockett. Lockett is also not as consistent as Metcalf has been this season, but he has slate-breaking capability like when he caught 15 balls for 200 yards and 3 TDs against Arizona the last week in October. Or the 9 catches for 100 yards and three TDs he had the last week of September. Looks like he's late with a big performance the last week of November. Wanna bet he delivers this first week of December?
I'm being facetious, but I want to share a little nugget that Football Outsiders shared. The G-men are the number 4 DVOA defense against number one receivers but are the number 22 against number two receivers. I suspect one of the best CBs in the NFC, James Bradberry, will cover Metcalf and might even get a little safety help. Everyone was all over Lockett this past week, but I think they were just a week early.
The "Super Cheap" Stack
Of course you can always go the flip side and go with one of the cheapest QB options on the board.
Jacksonville Jaguars
This stack follows the old formula of Acceptable Production+Low Price+Strong Matchup=DFS Success. The Vikings are giving up the ninth most fantasy points per game and are being scored upon more than all but five teams.
Yet, this game has an over/under of 51 points with the Vikes favored by double-digits meaning we should see Glennon take to the air again. The Vikings interestingly have been either very good or very bad when you review their games individually. But the fact remains they have allowed more than half the quarterbacks they've faced to finished with more than 18.5 fantasy points against them. Glennon did even better than that last weekend, when he completed 20 of 35 passes for for 235 yards and a pair of touchdowns. Priced as low as he is on both sites, Glennon should return some easy profit.
However, it is his WRs that have the potential for big games. Amongst the myriad of fantasy points that Minnesota has allowed, WRs have a healthy 55.4 percent share, the fourth highest this season. They've been pillaged for 18 WR touchdowns, second-most in the league. Only Dallas has allowed fewer scores than the one every 12.6 that Minnesota has. We have not had a chance to see Glennon and DJ Chark play together. However, Glennon is a veteran quarterback and Chark is clearly this team's best WR, who is averaging more than seven targets per game. I would be shocked if Chark doesn't see between half a dozen and ten targets this week as well, giving him top-15 WR upside. However, reports on Chark's status right now are murky. If he can't go, it will be Collin Johnson again, who had 96 yards and a touchdown last week. Johnson was not recommended by many, but at least one reader out there listened to one of our more insightful writers and did well:
@MarkStrausberg I had no idea who you were before Friday. In my news app. a DFS article by you pops up onto my feed. I play a ton of DFS. I had no idea who Collin Johnson is, but minimum priced, you recommended him. I put him on a number of teams. Wow! Amazing call!
— Billy Charlebois (@pakman888) November 29, 2020
Meanwhile, Keelan Cole is obviously a Jag, but he also might be J.A.G. this week as well---Just Another Guy. However, he continues to be targeted regardless whom lines up under center for Jacksonville and has 18 targets over the last three weeks. That's important given that Minnesota is allowing 2.03 PPR points per target, tied for second-most this season. Cole has at least five targets in nine of 11 games this season, meaning he is likely to notch double-digits PPR points this week. Furthermore, one of Minnesota's biggest weaknesses in the secondary is rookie Jeff Gladney who covers the slot. Gladney has allowed 30 completions of 48 attempts for 364 yards and five touchdowns while covering the slot.
The other beauty of stacking the Jags is that you can afford some stud "runback" options. It's not like the Jags have shutdown opposing receivers either. Jacksonville's secondary has enabled 14 different wide receivers to score 14.5-plus PPR points against them. That's a particularly significant number given that was the threshold per game at which the top 24 wide receivers finished last season. Expect big games from both Adam Thielen and Justin Jefferson.
The "Let's Not Give Henry The MVP Just Yet" Stack
Tennessee Titans
Derrick Henry is having an MVP like season. And the Browns are not great against the run either. Which is I why expect many will plug Henry into their lineups and not think twice about the rest of the Titans. And that's a mistake.
All Ryan Tannehill has done this year is put together a 23:4 TD to INT ratio with a QB rating of nearly 107 putting him on pace for nearly 3800 passing yards and more than 32 touchdowns. That's pretty good, and we add his pair of rushing touchdowns and 152 rushing yards and it becomes very easy to explain how he's currently a top ten fantasy quarterback. The Titans have the third-highest team-implied total on this slate (29.8 points), giving Tannehill a solid floor on which for us to rely. However, Cleveland is tied for giving up the fifth-most passing TDs in the league, so we might be looking at a game closer to Tannenhill's ceiling in this one.
Tannehill is affordable enough that we can pair him with both of his WRs for a formidable stack. We of course start with AJ Brown, who is an absolute beast...
AJ BROWN. GONE. @Brown1arthur
?: #TENvsIND on CBS
?: NFL app // Yahoo Sports app: https://t.co/bEHwkuL043 pic.twitter.com/gRzGfjzcp6— NFL (@NFL) November 29, 2020
We know Brown is a YAC monster. In any highlight of Brown, he seems to be shedding tacklers on his way to the end zone. He has seven TDs in his last eight games. Brown has yet to see double-digit targets, but still managed over a dozen PPR points in seven of his last eight games as well. Terrance Mitchell will probably be tasked most frequently this weekend with trying to contain Brown and Mitchell has allowed 37.8 percent of his yardage in coverage after the catch.
And then there's Corey Davis. Davis was very much under the radar this preseason, often going in the neighborhood of Round 20 of most drafts. It is very safe to say that he was typically being drafted outside of the top 50 WRs, maybe even beyond 70. Care to guess where Davis ranks this year in a PPR league? He's 38th and should continue to rise.
That's even more impressive when we recall that Davis missed a few games earlier this season when he was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list. Davis has double-digit PPR points in eight of the nine games he has played this year. It's been a few weeks since he scored, but he has more than 200 receiving yards the last two weeks combined. And with A.J. Brown likely to draw the bulk of Cleveland's attention in coverage, I expect the Browns will have a hard time containing Davis this week. The Browns' defense has been particularly weak away from First Energy Field. They have allowed the most fantasy points to receivers on the road (51.8 per game) this year and given up eight touchdowns. Furthermore, it looks like their top DB Denzel Ward is going to be out as well.
This could get ugly quickly, which might actually limit how effective this stack is. However, the Tennessee defense has not been as strong as its offense, and this is one of my favorite week 13 GPP stacks.
