Week 17 NFL DFS Stacks for FanDuel, DraftKings

Welcome back to another week of NFL DFS GPP Stacks! This is where I talk about the slate and give three stacks you should consider for your GPP lineups!

I generally make 3-5 lineups, because it is hard to nail every stack. I use a different stack for each GPP lineup and hope one of them pops to the top of the standings! If I win a GPP with one lineup and do not cash in the other few, I will still have a very nice day and win a good chunk of cash!

Before just diving into the picks for this week, some reminders about guidelines I use for stacks:

I want games with high point-scoring totals. When looking for a stack, we want to have multiple pieces of a passing offense to score a lot of points. We want teams that can score a lot and will score a lot through the air.

I generally want to fade a stack combination that is projected to be the most popular in the slate. This means I may choose to stack up that team different from the crowd, or I may do an outright fade. With that said, on to the picks!

Week 17 Slate Context

As with the past few weeks with all the COVID protocols, it's difficult to know who exactly is playing and who isn't playing at this point in time. Below are my thoughts as of this writing on Wednesday, 12/29/2021, information is changing rapidly and I suggest you check lineups up to the minute for the latest news and updates on players' status. Hopefully, we do not have any postponed or moved games, but you never know.

We have Cardinals vs. Cowboys with a 51.5 point total. The next highest is Chiefs vs. Bengals with a 50.5 point total, Rams vs. Ravens with a 46.5 point total, Buccaneers vs. Jets with a 45.5 point total, Broncos vs. Chargers with a 45.5 point total as well. It would make sense to expect casual players to choose games from that list.

This week, we are going to dig one step further to come up with the best stacks.

(1) Tampa Bay Buccaneers 

This one is pretty straightforward. Tampa Bay has the highest implied total at 30 points. Tampa Bay also leads the league in pass play percentage at 65.84%. Lastly, the Jets are No. 28 against the pass, allowing 250 passing yards per game. Because the team total is towards the middle of the pack, ownership will not be as high as it probably should be. Last week, Antonio Brown had 15 targets. I anticipate he will continue to get targets at a high rate. I would look at either a Brady-Brown pairing or a Brady-Brown-Gronk stack, as Gronk is still a threat in the red zone and is liable to put up multi-touchdown games. If playing in a large-field GPP, I would recommend Mike Evans over Antonio Brown. Evans is more expensive on DraftKings, and I anticipate Brown being the highest owned wide receiver on the slate, coming off a big game.

(2) Buffalo Bills

Buffalo has the second-highest implied team total at 29.25 points. They are No. 9 in team pass play percentage and Atlanta is No. 23 against the pass. If going with Buffalo, Stefon Diggs is who you must roster with Josh Allen. It may not feel like it, but Diggs has 142 targets on the year and he has 9.47 targets per game. Cole Beasley is second on the team in targets is usually is a decent value play although upside can be limited. I would pair Allen and Diggs in this one.

(3) Kansas City Chiefs

Last week, Cincinnati won people a bunch of money. This week it could be Cincinnati's opponent that wins people a bunch of money. Kansas City is No. 8 in pass play percentage, they have an implied total of 27.5 points, and Cincinnati has the No. 29 pass defense allowing 252.8 passing yards per game. Although Tyreek Hill had just two targets last week, he is still the undisputed first option in the offense, averaging 9.73 targets per game which is 26% of the total targets or 46.5% of the wide receiving targets. Because of the down week last week by Hill, this stack could be low owned. Often NFL has a huge recency bias because when we miss on our plays, we have to dwell on them for a week instead of a day or two like other sports. This is a great spot to take advantage in a game that could shoot out! This is my favorite large field GPP stack this week.

Stacks I Would Fade

These are the stacks that I think are some of the biggest traps on the slate because of the relatively high point totals.

Arizona Cardinals: Arizona is just No. 24 in pass play percentage.  The offense does not look right without DeAndre Hopkins
Dallas Cowboys: Arizona has the No. 5 pass defense but the No. 15 run defense. Dallas has just the No. 14 pass play percentage.
Los Angeles Chargers: While the Chargers are No. 6 in pass play percentage, Denver has the No. 5 pass defense in the league.

Thanks for reading, and I wish you the best of luck with your Week 17 DFS Stacks!

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