Adam Strangis Well that was certainly an eventful week 1, with plenty of surprises around the NFL. This is a lookahead article though, so I will be turning the page to week 2. As usual I will be covering the top quarterbacks and players to stack with them for GPP contests across the 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. My number one QB for week 1 worked out pretty well and I hope our members were able to profit off of it as I had Kyler Murray in this spot. It would be easy to just go back to him again and you definitely can, but I will get a big more creative here. One of my favorite quarterbacks to target for week 2 is Mac Jones ($5,400 DK / $6,800 FD).Before you go calling me nothing but a homer, I have the data to back this up. First of all, those prices are insanely enticing for a quarterback that now has a real life NFL game under his belt, and also looked great in his debut to begin with. Mac had the highest completion percentage of any quarterback in their first NFL start in history. Now, he is rewarded with a matchup against the Jets, who rank dead last in DVOA vs. the pass and 28th in total DVOA. While it is tough to put much emphasis on rankings after just one week, the Patriots are favored by nearly a touchdown in this spot and I expect an NFL coming out party for McCorkle on Sunday afternoon.
B. While my first QB was a smash hit last week, my second two left a bit to be desired for us, so let’s make sure that all three do well this week. A second quarterback for us to look to in GPP contests is Baker Mayfield ($6,000 DK / $7,100 FD). Baker looked great on Sunday, as he lead the Browns (without OBJ), to a near wire-to-wire win over the reigning AFC champion Kansas City Chiefs. OBJ has already been ruled out again this week, but it would have been foolish of the Browns to bring him back against the hopeless Houston Texans. The Texans are right there with the Jets, ranking second to last in DVOA against the pass, and Baker should be able to pick apart this horrendous defense with ease. The Browns offensive line was not great, but the Jets defensive line was the 6th worst, so Baker should have plenty of time as well. While the game may not be competitive, Baker will play a massive part in any sort of blowout.
C. While I do expect Mac to be extremely low owned, Baker should garner a decent amount of ownership this Sunday. Going back to the low-owned well with my QB3, I will be targeting father time, Tom Brady ($6,900 DK / $8,200 FD). Brady looked sharp as ever on Thursday night, and all of the haters calling for him to drop off a cliff will have to wait at least another year. TB12 was still slinging absolute darts around the field like very few quarterbacks in this league can. So, what is his reward for this? A cakewalk matchup against an Atlanta Falcons team that never seems to know how to play defense year after year. The ATL ranks 29th in DVOA against the pass, and also ranks 26th in defense against specifically the QB position. This game is also not expected to be very competitive, but again, if it is not then Tom Brady will have 3+ touchdowns to his name, with potentially a rushing TD from Leonard Fournette tossed in for good measure. Nobody will play Tom due to his nonexistent rushing ability, but at these prices and ownerships 3 passing TDs and 300+ yards will do just fine.
The Stacks
A. The DVOA numbers against the pass that I mentioned above also apply to the pass catchers that I will be covering in this section, so I will not mention them again for the sake of brevity. Entering week 2, we do not have a clear-cut WR1 on this Patriots team, although the DraftKings pricing does favor Jakobi Meyers and his nine week 1 targets. I tend to side with the more seasoned Nelson Agholor in this 1v1, so I will gladly take the $300 salary savings if choosing just one wideout to pair with Mac Jones. Outside of these two, steer far away from any other Pats WRs, but you can always look to James White and his seven week 1 targets out of the backfield. The TEs are only priced $200 apart, which is not enough for me to have any interest in Henry over Jonnu Smith. Lastly, as is going to be customary with the Jets, I will not be looking to force in any bring-backs, although if you must then Corey Davis is definitely the go-to option for the rookie.
B. The Browns stack also is a bit less straightforward than our final stack of the week that I will cover below. With the Browns, it would normally be the easy options of OBJ and Jarvis Landry, however with OBJ already declared out for week 2, that puts Landry into near must play status in any lineups that have Baker in them. The TE situation in Cleveland is even less clear than the Patriots two-headed monster, as we have Hooper, Njoku, and Bryant all lurking on the depth chart. Due to this, my plan with the Browns is to have plenty of Mayfield/Landry combinations, and I will also sprinkle some Nick Chubb, and to a lesser extent Kareem Hunt, into those lineups. The nice thing about looking at an awful team for a bring-back is that it really makes things easy. Brandin Cooks is our absolute only viable option from this Texans squad so target him if you are looking to game stack.
C. To close out week 2, we get one of the easiest stacks to break down in the entire NFL. There are four pass catchers that will draw the large majority of targets from the arm that was sent from the gods. Here are their target shares from week 1: Evans – 6, Godwin – 14, Brown – 7, and Gronk – 8. Week 2 is one of the largest over-reaction weeks in all of sports, so I intend to be much higher on Evans than the three other options listed here because not only did he receive the fewest targets, but he also was the only one that did not catch a tuddy (hell, Gronk even caught two). As we saw on Thursday, three of these four can all eat in one game as long as the Bucs post 4+ touchdowns. I would limit our Bucs stacks to three of these pass catchers, but I am definitely more likely to stick with two, and Evans will almost always be one of them. Unlike our first two stacks, we do have some very intriguing options for the bring-back here with Calvin Ridley and Kyle Pitts. The Falcons absolutely laid an egg week 1, so Ridley and Pitts both underperformed and both were pretty popular DFS options. That is the premier recipe for low ownership, and this is my favorite game stack of week 2.
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!
