The NFL playoffs are here and that changes everything in DFS. In Week 17, we had a blueprint and followed it to a tee with 16 games on the slate. The plan was to avoid all teams who already clinched a postseason berth and instead target those teams playing for something — even if that just meant playing to keep another team out of the postseason.
We returned incredible value on the Blake Bortles stack when you factor in how cheap he was, but our Drew Brees-Michael Thomas stack is what won the week.
In the Wild Card round, things get a little trickier. We have just four games to choose from and this means that game theory plays a much greater role in choosing our stacks for large tournaments.
As always, we’ll factor in price, value, upside and ownership. You don’t want to run out a stack that most of the field is playing; you want to differentiate yourself. Our goal is to find you a stack that you can feel confident using, but also one that will allow to take a more contrarian approach to DFS tournaments.
We’ll look to grab a stack on each of the main DFS sites that has a lot of upside and one you can get back value with so you can spend at other positions. Let’s jump right in.
DraftKings
Matt Stafford, QB; Golden Tate, WR (Lions vs. Seahawks)
We kick things off with our most contrarian stack of the week. It feels good to live on the DFS edge. What makes this arguably the most contrarian stack of the week is that most of the DFS advice and money is rushing in on a host of Russell Wilson stacks. The Lions defense has been near the bottom of our pass rush and pass coverage grades all season and they’ve been especially leaky in recent weeks. This all makes sense if you forget the fact that the Seahawks have struggled to move the ball against lesser defenses thanks in large part to their offensive line.
The issue with playing Stafford is that you have to worry about possessions and snaps. The Lions’ run defense has let them down in recent weeks, and it is arguably one of the league’s worst, but keep in mind this Seahawks running game couldn’t even get going against the 49ers in Week 17. Yes, we’re talking about the same 49ers defense that finished with historically bad numbers against the run. So Stafford should have the ball and plenty of opportunities to score.
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