Peter Overzet reveals his three favorite stacks for Week 12 NFL DFS action, highlighted by Jayden Daniels and his Commanders teammates.

Last week's DFS tournaments essentially boiled down to two things:

  1. Did you stack up the Lions?
  2. Did you play Taysom Hill?

If the answer to both of those was "yes" ... Congrats on your big win.

If the answer to one of them was "yes" ... Hey, at least you cashed.

And if the answer to both of those was "no" ... Well, we're on to Week 12.

This week sets up as a tricky slate with six teams on byes and only one game with a total over 50. 

That means we'll need to get creative and embrace some spots that might feel a bit uncomfortable.

With that said, here are three stack ideas to toy with in Week 12 DraftKings tournaments …

🏆 The "Don't Give Up Yet" Stack (Commanders)

It's been a rough two-game stretch for Daniels and the Commanders offense, but I assure you that now is not the time to bail on this team for DFS purposes.

When you factor in the strength of their opponents during that stretch—the Steelers and the Eagles—and Daniels' rib injury, which appeared to be limiting his rushing, a dip in production was understandable. 

But now they get the ultimate bounceback matchup as 10-point home favorites vs. one of the worst teams in football that has been decimated by injuries and also happen to be traveling on a short week after playing on MNF. 

Most hand-builders will balk at this Daniels price tag due to recency bias, but the Cowboys give up the fourth-largest fantasy boost to opposing QBs:

This sets up as an explosion spot for Daniels, who still ranks No 1. in scramble rate (13%) and designed rush share (15%) among all QBs (h/t Utilization Report > Season Stats).

In last week's piece, we talked about unconventional QB/RB stacks (hey, at least Bo Nix got there) and this is another situation where I really like the idea of pairing the QB (Daniels) with his RB (Robinson).

As Dwain highlighted in his rankings risers piece, Robinson has been dominating rushing attempts (64% and 67% over the last two weeks) and gets a juicy matchup against a Cowboys run defense that allows the fourth-largest fantasy boost to RBs (4.6 points per game).

By playing both Daniels and Robinson together, there's a very good chance you can capture the totality of the Commanders points in this game.

As for the stacking partners, I'd prefer to go cheap with either Brown or Ertz. My lean would be Brown, though. Not only do we get a revenge game angle for Brown, but the Cowboys will likely be without both of their starting CBs—DaRon Bland (foot) and Jourdan Lewis (neck).

I know it's hard to pass on Terry McLaurin ($6800) when playing Daniels, but it's hard to justify him costing $2600 more than Brown when Brown has had the better role over the past three weeks (h/t Matthew Freedman):

  • Brown (Weeks 8-11): 83% route rate | 18% target rate | 20% target share | 23 targets
  • McLaurin (Weeks 8-11): 80% route rate | 16% target rate | 17% target share | 19 targets

Btw, can someone forward this to Matthew? I'm angling for a Christmas bonus.

🏆 The "Powder Keg" Stack (Seahawks)

Apologies if you are getting sick of me featuring the Seahawks in these pieces, but I can't help myself.

And thanks to a condensed target tree and a juicy matchup, Geno & Co. have graduated from "Vomit Stack" territory to a "Powder Keg" that's about to explode.

This Seahawks/Cardinals game is my favorite game of the week. With a 48.5-point total and massive playoff implications on the line in the NFC West, I expect to see plenty of fantasy fireworks.

Death, taxes, and Geno being too cheap on DraftKings. He currently leads the NFL in passing yards (278.1) and the Seahawks lead the league in pass plays per game (37.4). There is nothing scary about this Cardinals defense either. They rank No. 29 in defensive dropback success rate and struggle to get pressure on the QB. 

The nice thing about a Geno double stack this week is that we don't have to guess where the targets are going. Noah Fant continues to miss practices with a groin injury and the 32-year-old Tyler Lockett is getting phased out of the offense (10% target share over last three games).

That means we can comfortably pair Geno with Metcalf (he returned to a 29% target share after missing two games) and JSN (he's been on fire with a 37% target share over the past two weeks).

The fact that JSN was able to maintain a gaudy target share despite the return of Metcalf is extremely bullish for his outlook this week (and the rest of the season) and confirms what the Seahawks said they wanted to do coming out of the bye.

If you want to add James Conner ($6500) as a bring back to this stack, I don't hate it, but I wouldn't force it.

🏆 The "Vomit" Stack (Colts)

Every week I think I'm going to retire the "Vomit Stack" section and every week I can't help myself.

This week's edition centers around the Colts and leans into a very interesting game-theory angle in tournaments.

At $5600, the field will certainly be willing to fire up Richardson after he exploded vs. the Jets in Week 10. But my hunch is that DFS players will prefer to play him naked (aka unstacked) and once again bank on him generating the majority of his fantasy points on the ground.

This angle certainly has merit. He had 29% of the designed rushing attempts and 2 rushing TDs vs. the Jets, but I think it's shortchanging what he did (and can do) as a passer. In addition to his rushing production, he showed massive strides as a passer, completing 67% of his throws for 272 yards and a TD. 

With how the Lions tend to manhandle opponents, it seems more likely that Richardson will be forced to throw more than normal as opposed to being able to control the game on the ground. 

Due to these game scripts, the Lions have allowed the 8th-biggest fantasy boost to opposing WRs (4.2) as teams play catchup in garbage time. They also just lost linebacker Alex Anzalone for 6-8 weeks with a broken arm.

Because of this, I actually like the idea of stacking Richardson with Downs and/or Pittman.

Downs scored the TD in Week 11, but Pittman actually led the team in targets with 7.

It takes a leap of faith to play a Richardson double stack, but the matchup, game script, and game theory all point to this being a sneaky play.

***

If you'd like my favorite plays and sleepers for Underdog contests, I'll be posting a strategy video on the Deposit Kingdom channel on Friday afternoon. 

Good luck this week.