FanDuel Week 16 Starting Stacks

I just posted my Week 16 FanDuel stacks. I cover highly-owned stacks, less common stacks, matchups with shootout potential, and defensive stacks. Here's one stack idea. Be sure to check out the full article for tons of other stacks.

Tom Brady ($8,800) + Rob Gronkowski ($8,200) = $17,000

The Patroits' top duo is coming off of back-to-back games where they combined for less than 35 FanDuel points. Negative recency bias, relatively high prices, and a tough road matchup against the Jets will scare most people away. That's the perfect time to roster high-upside players in GPPs, hoping for a bounceback. There's plenty of value at other positions this week to create space for Brady and Gronkowski on your roster. Brady hasn't been this cheap since Week 5. And Gronkowski played well against the Jets with a 11/108/1 line back in Week 7. With Danny Amendola and Julian Edelman unlikely to play, Gronkowski will be highly-targeted again.

Twist: James White ($6,600) has 27 targets and two touchdowns in the last three games. He's a great combination of upside and value for a Patriots triple stack.

Shootout: Vegas' 45.5 point total for this game doesn't scream shootout. But so much of the Jets' offense flows through Brandon Marshall ($8,300) and Eric Decker ($7,600) that you'd be wise to add one of them to your New England stack. The Patriots tend to take away teams' greatest weapons. So much like Week 7, I expect the focus of New England's defense to be on Marshall. Decker is the better value.

Saturday Staff Cash Plays

Hello, welcome to the post-Christmas Day review of the Footballguys.com Staff Cash Plays for the FanDuel contests that commence on Sunday afternoon.

Heading into Week 16 every team in the playoff picture continues to have reasons to play ball - including the Carolina Panthers, who have yet to sew up home field advantage throughout the playoffs. So there isn't any worry about teams resting their starters here in Week 16 - the playoff picture regarding seeding isn't fully determined.

Before you pull the trigger on certain players fighting to play through injury (Karlos Williams (shoulder injury); Adrian Peterson (ankle injury)) I suggest that you check out Dr. Jene Bramel's and Craig Zumsteg's work exploring/explaining the prospects for players who enter Week 16 with an injury. These are invaluable aids for fantasy owners.

Turning now to the Staff Cash lineups for the Sunday games:

ALL in on David Johnson ($7,300): As my colleague Andrew Garda pointed out on Thursday Staff Cash plays, I was the lone holdout on Thursday lineups (the only Footballguy without Johnson in my cash lineup). However, I have a different array of players on my Sunday slate, and David Johnson is one of those guys, making it unanimous among the seven staffers who have put together cash lineups for this feature. 

ALMOST all in on DeAngelo Williams ($7,400): There are five staffers who paired DeAngelo Williams with David Johnson, while Justin Howe preferred Christine Michael ($5,500) and yours truly is rolling with Denard Robinson ($6,400). Though Robinson didn't thrill me in Week 15 (11.4 points, short of two times his then-salary of $6,300), Robinson draws the Saints' truly awful rush defense this weekend. Over the past four weeks, the Saints average 28.8 fantasy points allowed per game to opposing running backs, second-most in the NFL. Detroit's lack-luster running back stable trampled this unit for 23/150/2 rushing last week.

 Footballguys love Antonio Brown ($9,300) - Five of seven staffers have Brown on their Sunday Cash Plays lineups  - in all five cases he is paired with Rueben Randle ($5,700) and in four of the five lineups Jeremy Maclin ($6,900) appears. The staff is convinced that the absence of Odell Beckham Jr. due to suspension will lead to a healthy bump in targets and receptions for Randle against Minnesota.

Kai is OK - the upcoming game in the Superdome against the Jaguars have the Footballguys coming down on Kai Forbath most often at placekicker (he's on five lineups). With wintry weather/blustery winds expected in most outdoor venues this weekend, the game in the Louisiana Superdome which figures to be a high-scoring affair looks very attractive for the Saints' kicker.

Enjoy the games this weekend everyone - and if you are in the finals of your season-long fantasy leagues this weekend, GOOD LUCK! Have a safe Holiday weekend!

Week 16 FanDuel Show on The Audible

Check out the Week 16 FanDuel show on The Audible. Every Friday morning Cecil Lammy, Alex Miglio, and Austin Lee dig into the Vegas lines, cover the key WR/CB matchups, dissect some unique tournament stacks, and make their out-on-a-limb picks of the week.

Listen here or subscribe to The Audible on iTunes and never miss an episode.

Week 16 Footballguys + Rotogrinders Show

Be sure to check out the Week 16 episode of The Footballguys Daily Fantasy Hour presented by Rotogrinders. Dan Back, John Lee, and Austin Lee air live every Wednesday at 9:30pm ET. They cover key injuries, discuss matchups, and make their bold picks of the week. This week the Lee Brothers play a practical joke on Dan, who pays off his DubSmash bet with some fancy, finger-pointing dance moves.

Staff Thursday Cash Plays - Week 16

Merry Christmas Eve! Our present to you is…well exactly the same thing we give you every Thursday—our insight into FanDuel’s Thursday Night Cash games.

You can check the full lineups here, while we break down a few interesting things we’ve noticed.

Staff Trends

David Johnson…again

Once again the staff is all in on Arizona rookie David Johnson. Well, all but Mark Wimer. Still, it’s impressive that we mostly are on board with him despite a rising price tag. The Packers still have issues stopping the run, so Johnson is a good bet to match value.

Lower Tier Quarterbacks

While we have Ben Roethlisberger and Cam Newton sightings, Blake Bortles, Alex Smith, Teddy Bridgewater and Derek Carr also got nods. Interestingly, Carr, tight end Antonio Gates and Danny Woodhead are the only players from Thursday night who are getting starts, including Amari Cooper.

Carr should be a good play against a weak San Diego defense, and Blake Bortles gets the start in the hopes that the New Orleans Saints defense continues to be solid for opposing fantasy quarterbacks. 

With Allen Hurns and Allen Robinson catching balls for Bortles, we think it will be. Alex Smith sees a weak Cleveland defense and is generally underrated by fantasy GMs this year. Finally, Teddy Bridgewater faces a bad Giants defense, but is my least favorite of the starts as his value can depend on what Norv Turner does with the gameplan. I don’t expect four passing touchdowns like last week and no more than perhaps 250 yards at most. The price is OK though, and he has upside.

What can (Antonio) Brown do for you?

Brown is in all the lineups but mine. For me it wasn’t so much about avoiding him as it was chasing value elsewhere. And I really like DeAndre Hopkins this week. It’s hard to do both players.

The Steelers offense is on fire, and if Brown’s $9300 price tag seems high, consider that he has been over 30 points in four of the last six games on FanDuel, as pointed out by Chad Parsons in the FanDuel Value article.

Diamonds in the Rough

Aside from the quarternack values, we have a few interesting other plays to look at. Danny Woodhead ($5900) is coming off a huge game and should be a big factor Thursday night, though prior to last week he hadn’t been doing much lately.

Christine Michael ($5500) had a great game last week against the Cleveland Browns, but faces a tougher match against the St. Louis Rams. He’s a long shot play but he might be owned by a very low percentage of people as well.

Mike Gillislee ($5300) could share Karlos Williams’ carries if Williams is still banged up Sunday. The problem is how uninspiring Gillislee has been since he hit the NFL. He has had two touchdowns in the last two weeks and broke a super-long run last week, but there’s risk if he can’t find the end zone.

A couple of staff members are chasing Rueben Randle ($5700) as Odell Beckham Jr is suspended for the game against Minnesota. Randle is underwhelming though he has had two straight games where he scored a touchdown. You’re dependent on that though as he has just five games over 54 yards and none over 70, plus just six touchdowns. He’ll have chances this weekend, but he may do his usual thing and drop them.

Early Thoughts on Week 16

I love going cheap at quarterback. The salary savings allows for another stud wide receiver or Rob Gronkowski most weeks. This week features Alex Smith at $6,800 with a saucy matchup against the Browns (see Jeremy Maclin note below as well). Sam Bradford at home, against Washington, for $6,300 and Johnny Manziel at $6,000 are also in play for cheap.

David Johnson is more expensive, but still a screaming value. Johnson is leading the running back position in points since taking over the lead gig in Arizona. He has RB7 in terms of salary and more than $1,000 less than RB1 (Devonta Freeman). Another week, another high exposure of David Johnson.

Jeremy Maclin has had a steady floor of targets and the Chiefs have another good matchup with Cleveland, in Kansas City, this week. Maclin is outside the top-20 receivers in salary and stacking with Alex Smith will be one of my rotations in tournaments for Week 16.

Will Tye is interesting for $5,100 with Odell Beckham Jr. remaining suspended after his appeal. However, I have consistently rolled with the likes of Jordan Reed, Greg Olsen, and Delanie Walker in recent weeks and doubt I fewer than 70-80% of my lineups have one of the trio included for Week 16.


Follow @ChadParsonsNFL

FanDuel Week 15 Starting Stacks

I just posted my Week 15 FanDuel stacks. I cover highly-owned stacks, less common stacks, matchups with shootout potential, and defensive stacks. Here's one stack idea. Be sure to check out the full article for tons of other stacks.

Aaron Rodgers ($9,000) + Randall Cobb ($7,200) = $16,200

It's been a disappointing season for the Packers' offense, but we were saying the same thing about the Seahawks offense before they blew up in Week 11. Playing at Oakland seems like the perfect bounce-back spot for Green Bay. The Raiders have a solid rush defense and pass rush, which should force some quick passes to Cobb out of the slot. Rodgers high price and negative recency bias should kill his ownership percentage.

Twist: Richard Rodgers ($5,500) will be more heavily owned than Cobb and his quarterback, but he still probably won't crack the top five at his position. He rounds out a nice triple stack.

Shootout: Amari Cooper ($6,900) and Michael Crabtree ($6,700) are solid correlation plays in case of a shootout. I prefer Cooper.