Adam Zibuda I know that we say this every single week, but it truly is hard to believe that we have already arrived at week 6 of the NFL. While we are still not approaching the halfway point of this new longer season, we are rapidly approaching the halfway point of the season-long fantasy football season. This is not a season long article though, so let’s focus on our top targets for DFS contests this weekend. As usual I will be covering the top quarterbacks and players to stack with them for GPP contests across the NFL DFS industry, so any stack that I recommend is in play for both FanDuel and DraftKings. With that said, let’s get to the picks!
The QB’s
A. The Kansas City Chiefs are shockingly 2-3 after losses to the Ravens, Chargers, and most recently a blowout loss to the Bills. The narrative going into this season was the the Chiefs cover at a high rate early in the season and then fail to cover later in the season as they coast towards the playoffs and keep the playbook close to their chest. Clearly, that is not accurate, which is why we should always be careful following a narrative and really never make bets based on them. What we should do, however, is roster Patrick Mahomes ($8,300 DK / $9,000 FD) in our DFS lineups this Sunday. While Mahomes is far from “on sale”, his ownership has been very low this season due almost exclusively to his prohibitive price tag compared to other signal callers. This is the week to pay that price when the DFS industry and football world as a whole is way down on this team. To add to that, the Chiefs draw an absolute dream matchup against a Washington Football Team defense that is ranked 28th in DVOA and 29th at defending the pass. Worst of all, they are ranked dead last in defense against opposing quarterbacks, which sounds like a 400+ passing yard and 3+ TD game for Mr. Mahomes to me.
B. The second quarterback that I will be looking to target in GPPs for week 6 of the NFL is Matthew Stafford ($6,700 DK / $7,900 FD). Stafford and the Rams draw a matchup against the hapless New York Giants who just seem to be awful year after year, very similar to the other team in New York. It truly does not get much worse as a sports fan than New York football. The G-men are ranked 26th in DVOA, 25th against the QB position and 22nd against the pass. In other words, any way that you slice it this team is not very adept at defending opposing passing attacks. The Rams are listed as massive double digit favorites in this game, but if this game turns into a blowout then we should expect at least 2-3 touchdowns provided by the arm of Matt Stafford. To make matters worse, the Giants are the worst team on the main slate in terms of adjusted sack rate, which combines with the Rams offensive line to give Stafford the lowest chance of being pressured or sacked of all quarterbacks in the 10 game main slate. Lock and load Stafford in all formats if you do not have the salary cap to get up to Patrick from State Farm.
C. With two safe options at QB1 and QB2 this week, I will be taking a shot with my QB3 and looking to target Joe Burrow ($6,300 DK / $7,400 FD). I have yet to roster Burrow through the first five weeks of the season, but the narrative that he is nowhere near at the level that he was at prior to his gruesome injury has still made its way into my head. This looks to be accurate when it comes to ceiling, as JB has yet to eclipse the 25 fantasy point mark on DraftKings, but he has had a pretty solid floor with the exception of his brutal performance against the Bears in week 2. Where he has really struggled is with turning the ball over, currently sporting a 11/6 TD/interception ratio which is pretty awful. The good news is, he hit a season high in both attempts (38) and completions (26) last week against the Packers, so we may see him beginning to come out of his well-deserved injury shell. I cannot think of a better “Joe is back” smash matchup than the one that the Bengals draw in week 6 of the NFL, the Detroit Lions. It is no secret that the Lions are the bottom of the barrel in the NFL on both sides of the ball, so I will save you the metric overview and just say that I love Burrow as a low-owned GPP option this Sunday.
The Stacks
A. With the Chiefs starting running back Clyde Edwards-Helaire being placed on IR, many may be looking to get some Darrel Williams exposure this week, which is certainly an acceptable proposition. However, I am of the belief that the Chiefs will be throwing even more than they do on a typical Sunday this weekend. I do not think that anyone could have anticipated how dreadfully awful this Chiefs defense has been, but here we are in week 6 of the NFL with the Chiefs surrendering nearly 30 points per game to opposing offenses. Andy Reid is well aware that his best chance to win is by putting the ball in the hands of Patrick Mahomes as much as possible, which will result in extremely high ceilings and floors for the likes of Travis Kelce and Tyreke Hill. If you are feeling frisky and want to target fringe pass catchers like Hardman or Robinson feel free, but I will likely stick to the two studs on both this side of the ball and the other side. Speaking of the other side, the Washington Football Team has two clear cut receiving options that also happen to be at the WR and the TE position. Of course I am referencing Terry McLaurin and Ricky Seals-Jones, now that Logan Thomas is expected to be out for another 3-4 weeks. You can look to bring the Chiefs stack back with Antonio Gibson, but as with any Chiefs stack, you will need to find as many places to save salary as possible.
B. The Cooper Kupp vs. Bobby Trees debate is one as old as time, and while Kupp has certainly taken the early lead, teams tend to then focus more on defending the brighter star, which in turn leaves more opportunity for the other play maker. We saw Woods come to life a bit last week, and these two still have drastically different prices which have me leaning towards Woods much more often. Darrell Henderson is another excellent option this week and I love pairing him with one of either Woods or Kupp to go along with our Stafford lineups. Not to be forgotten is tight end Tyler Higbee, who is always a big red zone target for Stafford to turn to. For the G-Men, Kadarius Toney absolutely smashed in week five, but DraftKings was quick to shoot his price up into the mid-tier of wideouts. At 5.6K, I am more likely to look to the returning Sterling Shepard as an option and save the $600 salary. Regardless, do not get carried away with this team as they are listed as one of the largest underdogs of the entire week.
C. To close things out we will double click into the Cincinnati Bengals vs. the Detroit Lions matchup. The Lions lost breakout wide receiver Quintez Cephus to a broken collarbone last week, further depleting the already extremely slim options that former Rams quarterback Jared Goff has to deal with. I will continue to avoid any Lions receiving options, but T.J. Hockenson and D’Andre Swift are two solid options that have been gathering quite a bit of steam around the industry early this week. If either of them get too chalky, I am more than fine running Bengals stacks without a bring-back, because this Lions squad is a threat to put up a goose egg on the scoreboard any given week. Switching over to the main side of this game that we want to target, it appears that Mixon will play although he is banged up to a certain extent. I will be focusing my attention on the three favorite passing targets of QB Joe Burrow, which are Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd. While Chase’s price and ownership are starting to really creep up, Higgins and Boyd are still at more than reasonable levels and therefore make for the better options in GPPs. Chase is definitely the optimal choice here however, so we can plug him into our stacks and look to differentiate elsewhere as well.
That will do it for this week’s article. If I am not taking down the million this Sunday, then I hope that it is a member of our WDS fam! Please make sure to check out our projection model by clicking here, and if you have any questions about GPP strategy or the top stacks for the week, I will be in our expert chat in Discord leading up to Sunday afternoon. Feel free to shoot me a DM or @ me in chat! Lastly, do not forget to subscribe to the WinDaily YouTube channel and follow me on Twitter: @AThr0ughZ!
