Hittin' The Nuts - Squirrelpatrol's Top Stacks: Week 2

Want to hit the nuts and take down 1st place in these massive contests posted by FanDuel and DraftKings? Who better to walk you through their favorite NFL DFS stacks than Squirrelpatrol! Undoubtedly one of the best DFS players in the game today, Squirrelpatrol has accumulated 90+ Live Final seats, most recently taking 2nd place in the 2023 DraftKings Fantasy Baseball World Championship for a $600,000 prize. Should we roster the chalk stack? How off-the-board should we get in large-field tournaments? Squirrelpatrol answers all of these questions and more below!

As DFS strategies get more advanced, moving from hunch-based decision-making to play-by-play simulations meant to measure how often certain players or stacks appear in the optimal lineup, it’s important to pair both quantitative and qualitative analysis when putting together our NFL DFS lineups. Each week, I’ll be taking a look at our Optimal Stack Tool for both FanDuel and DraftKings and giving some thoughts on what the best NFL DFS stacks will be for different contest types and sizes.

NFL DFS Top Stacks for Week 2

Chalk Stack – Josh Allen vs. Las Vegas

The highest-owned QB on both FanDuel and DraftKings this week according to our projections will be Josh Allen facing the Raiders at home in Buffalo. More often than not, the results of simulations show that the highest-owned players in any DFS contest tend to be over-owned. And after tagging Allen and some of his Bills teammates in LineupHQ and writing them up in the Expert Survey, I sat down to write this article already making notes on how I would argue with our Top Stacks Tool on why I planned to be overweight Allen despite the simulation showing that he’s over-owned by the field.

Surprise! This week, the Top Stacks Tool is showing Josh Allen to be under-owned despite being projected as the highest-owned QB on the slate, and the positive leverage (4.40% on FD and 7.5% on DK) is the most of any QB on the week and the some of the highest numbers I’ve seen from our tools. It makes sense – the Bills have the highest implied point total on the week and they are playing at home against a statistically weak Raiders pass defense that allowed the 4th-most passing yards in the league last season. The Bills lost their season opener against the Jets in a primetime game in brutal fashion (punt return for a TD in OT), and I can only (jokingly) assume the Top Stacks Tool is calculating the possibility of angry Josh Allen coming out to make a statement against the Raiders.

When using Allen in a stack this week, I like the idea of making it a full game stack, pairing multiple receivers and/or running backs from this game. Stefon Diggs is a natural choice on the Bills, but I don’t mind the idea of using Gabriel Davis, Dawson Knox, or Dalton Kincaid in place of (or even in addition to) Diggs. The Raiders have a notoriously concentrated offense, and with Jakobi Meyers set to miss this game, running it back with Davante Adams or Josh Jacobs makes sense if this game shoots out over its total.

Pivot Stack – Lamar Jackson at Cincinnati

There are several games that have high point totals, and if I’m pivoting off of Josh Allen against the Raiders, I’ll be looking for a similarly high-point total game with a QB who can put up numbers in large chunks. Lamar Jackson fits that mold, where his running game can translate to huge gains that passing-only QBs can’t catch up with. Jackson is projected for 8.6% ownership (with slight negative leverage) on FanDuel, where he is just the 6th-highest salaried QB, and 4.5% ownership (-1.1% leverage) on DraftKings where he is the 3rd-highest owned QB. Jackson makes some sense on either site playing against the Bengals with his favorite target, tight end Mark Andrews, expected to return after missing Week 1 with an injury.

This is another instance where stacking Jackson with a full game stack makes sense in tournaments. As one of the highest projected point total games of the week, the players in this game could all rise or fall together depending on the pace and game environment. Pairing Lamar with Andrews or rookie Zay Flowers, and running that back with either Joe Mixon or Ja’Marr Chase from the Bengals side, makes for an appealing game stack and is possible on a week where value is popping up as a result of the Friday injury report.

Low-Owned Stack – Ryan Tannehill vs. Los Angeles Chargers

Oof, this one is a difficult one to write up. But one of the top low-owned stacks according to the Top Stacks Tool is Ryan Tannehill at home facing the Chargers at just 1-2% projected ownership on both FanDuel and DraftKings. I can see what the Tool may be looking at. Tannehill is extremely cheap (just $6,400 on FanDuel and $5,000 on DraftKings), he is playing at home as just a 3-point underdog, and the Chargers pass defense just allowed 466 passing yards last week, 132 more yards than any other team.

Tannehill is worth sprinkling into your builds if you are multi-entering for large-field contests – maybe the Chargers pass defense really is that bad, or maybe the chemistry developing with Deandre Hopkins is just taking a game to materialize – but I would leave this stack alone for smaller-field contests. If using Tannehill, especially in larger-field tournaments, I don’t mind the idea of also pairing him with Treylon Burks or Chig Okonkwo at what is expected to be very low ownership.

Leverage Stack – Brock Purdy at Los Angeles Rams

Brock Purdy suffers from what I think of as Kirk Cousins Syndrome. DFS players love to play any combination of Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, or George Kittle, but they routinely pass over the QB who is often getting those players the ball. Purdy doesn’t come with the rushing upside of the more expensive QBs, like Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson, but that is why he is priced at only $7,100 on FanDuel and $5,700 on DraftKings. Purdy projects for 3.1% ownership on FanDuel and 4.3% ownership on DraftKings, showing positive leverage on both sites. This game has a 45.5-point total, but with the 49ers coming in as 7-point favorites, San Francisco has a 25.75 implied point total that is behind only Kansas City, Buffalo, and Detroit this week.

Those are my top stacks for this Week 2 of NFL – good luck to everyone this Sunday!

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