Week 16 NFL DFS Picks: Jump on Caleb Williams Bears Stack
Peter Overzet reveals three stacks for the Week 16 NFL DFS Picks.
Welcome to Week 16. While others are rightfully preoccupied with their semifinal matchups or best ball sweats, us DFS sickos are laser-focused on one of the last good slates of the year.
Week 18 is a free-for-all with so many teams resting starters, which means we need to soak up these next two weeks before the slates shrink and our galaxy-brain GPP ideas go into offseason hibernation.
Fortunately, the Sunday main slate provides plenty of intrigue with 11 games and a handful of teams projected to score 25+ points.
I'm not here to tell you to play Jahmyr Gibbs at $7500 (unless you were considering not playing him, in which case—PLAY GIBBS, DAMNIT). Instead, this column is all about going off the beaten path and finding some unpopular, contrarian ideas that can help vault you to the top of the leaderboard.
These salaries/plays are specific to DraftKings salary cap contests, but the macro matchups and correlation principles can apply regardless of where you are playing DFS.Â
If you'd like my favorite plays and sleepers that are specific for Underdog draft contests, I'll be posting a strategy video on the Deposit Kingdom channel on Friday afternoon.Â
Alright, let's get to it…
🏆 The Week 15 Flop Lag Stack (Cardinals + Chuba)
- QBÂ Kyler Murray ($6100)
- TE Trey McBride ($6200)Â
- RBÂ Chuba Hubbard ($6800)
If you haven't heard the term "flop lag" before, it comes from the world of poker. It describes when a flop perfectly matches your cards from the previous hand.Â
So, yes, I'm suggesting that you play the exact same hand as last week because I believe the flop will be much more favorable in Week 16.Â
Despite a few ceiling games, Kyler has been a big disappointment in 2024. He's not rushing as much as we thought he would—10th in designed rush rate (9%) and 16th in scramble rate (6%)—and he's been erratic through the air as well.Â
But here's the thing … we do know he has a ceiling, as I outlined last week. And now he gets a chef's kiss matchup vs. the Panthers, who allow the sixth-highest fantasy boost (3.5) to opposing QBs and rank 30th in defensive pass DVOA.Â
The oddsmakers, who are famously immune to recency bias, are projecting the Cardinals for a 26-point outing, which is one of the highest on the slate.Â
As long as Kyler can stay warm, this is a choice bounceback spot.
As for McBride, we know the drill at this point. The dude is a target magnet—he's second in targets at the position (116) behind only Brock Bowers. He leads the position in targets per route run (26%).Â
There's just one small issue, of course, and it's that he is legally barred from entering the end zone. The team continues to try to get him a TD, though. He was tackled at the 1-yard line on a shovel pass last week and now Kyler is on TikTok promising to get him 6 points.Â
The Panthers, fortunately, struggle just as much with TEs as they do QBs. They are No. 2 in most fantasy points allowed to TEs (12.4). I'm playing this until it hits, whether you like it or not.
And then there's Chuba. Everyone is going to want to play this game through James Conner, so this flop lag stack flips that chalk build in a cheeky way. For Kyler and McBride to get pushed to chuck, Hubbard will need to bounce back.
After a 26-carry outing in Week 14, he logged only 10 last week. Still, his involvement in the passing game (9 targets over the past two weeks) gives him a high floor and ceiling combo. There's no reason he can't have success on the ground here in this spot and force our Cardinals into a pass-heavy script.
🏆 The Thanksgiving Memorial Stack (Bears)
- QBÂ Caleb Williams ($5500)
- Min 2: WR DJ Moore ($5700), WR Keenan Allen ($5300) and WR Rome Odunze ($5100)Â
Similar to the Cardinals, people are fed up with the Bears, who have routinely disappointed this year.
But we don't need to make up wild hypotheticals to envision how they could produce vs. the Lions. All we need to do is go back in time a few weeks and remember what they did on Thanksgiving in Detroit.
They trailed 16-0 at halftime and then Williams and the passing game went nuts in the second half. Here's how this trio finished in that game:
- Williams: 256-3
- Moore: 8-97-1
- Allen: 5-73-2
We've seen it week after week this year, the Lions force teams into pass-heavy game scripts because they simply don't stop scoring points.Â
The field is going to jam Gibbs (and rightfully so), but don't forget about the garbage-time goodness waiting on the other side.Â
🏆 A Sneaky RB/DST Pairing (Raiders)
- RBÂ Alexander Mattison ($5100)
- DST Raiders ($2700)
Sincere McCormick—one of the most random names to pop up with fantasy relevance that I can remember—is done for the year.
That means we are back to the iteration of the Raiders backfield that featured Mattison and Ameer Abdullah from Weeks 5-8. As Ian pointed out in his Week 16 Manifesto column, Mattison had a very fantasy-friendly role during this stretch, averaging 16.5 rushing attempts and 4 targets.
In other good news, AOC should be back this week so we don't have to deal with Desmond "Not The Rizzler" Ridder.
The Jaguars give up the third-most PPR points per game to opposing RBs, which provides Mattison a clear path to a sneaky fantasy day.Â
The Raiders defense is conveniently priced at $2700, as well. I like the idea of pairing Mattison with his defense and playing a correlated game script where the Raiders are forcing turnovers and Mattison is rolling on the ground.Â
Good luck in Week 16.Â