NFL Playoffs Stack Targets for Wildcard Week One – 01/06/17

Chris Durell

Welcome back fantasy footballers! I went over the game by game breakdown at the beginning of the week in my Early Article and will now go over my favorite stacking options. Playoffs are a bit of a different animal for a few reasons, the biggest being the smaller four-game slate. It is also very tough to break down matchups as most of the poor defenses that we love to target have been eliminated.

To further explain this point let’s take a quick look at the Player Lab where we see that only two of the eight teams have defenses that rank worse than 20th against the pass. The good news? The Player Lab has much more data available to help you sort through the players and their matchups to make the best decisions for your lineups. Let’s dig in and take a look at some of my favorite stacks using these filters.

Seattle Seahawks
QB – Russell Wilson
Elite Options – Doug Baldwin
Secondary Options – Jimmy Graham

It was a pretty simple model to build this week for the first stack. I entered the “Poor Defense vs. Pass”” filter and only two quarterbacks get a matchup vs. a defense that is 20th or worse in that category. As you will read later in the defense/running back section, I am extremely high on Le’Veon Bell and the run game in the MIA/PIT matchup so I will be directing my attention to Russell Wilson and the Seahawks. As we all know the Seahawks are a much better team at home and should be able to handle the Lions who have a starting quarterback that hasn’t been the same with a special glove on his throwing hand. When first looking at this game it appears Thomas Rawls would be in a fantastic spot with a splendid game script but looking further I will most likely be fading him. To close out the season Rawls finished with three straight games where he averaged under two yards per carry. OUCH! What does this mean for Wilson? Volume, volume, volume! He should see an uptick in pass attempts and very likely rush attempts as well. There have been reports he will shed the knee brace this week which really gets me excited about the upside of his rushing to go along with the passing. He gets an elite matchup vs. the Lions who rank 30th in Defense vs. the Pass, gave up the 3rd most fantasy points to QB’s all season and the 5th most rushing yards to QB’s. He has shown incredible upside with top wide receiver Doug Baldwin and tight end Jimmy Graham. Playoff games are usually lower scoring so I wouldn’t stack Wilson with both but I will make multiple lineups with Wilson/Baldwin and Wilson/Graham.

Green Bay Packers
QB – Aaron Rodgers
Elite Options – Jordy Nelson, Devante Adams

For my final QB/WR stack, I turn to the Game of the Week between the New York Giants and Green Bay Packers. Both teams are definitely in play here as both showed up in a big way using the “High Team Pass & TD %” filters. The big difference here and why Eli was eliminated from this list is his low passing yards per game that falls outside the 270 or more window. With those filters in place, we have three options, and I have already explained why I am not stacking Big Ben or Stafford. That leaves us with Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers. Although the matchup is not ideal (NYG rank 10th in Def vs. the Pass), it is going to be hard to ignore one of the front-runners for the MVP award. Rodgers put the team on his back down the stretch, leading them to the NFC North title despite a hobbled hamstring and lack of running game. Over the final seven games of the season, Rodgers was near perfect throwing 18 touchdowns with zero interceptions and ended up leading all quarterbacks with 40 touchdowns on the season. A large majority of those touchdowns went to two guys this year, both finishing inside the Top 3 among all wideouts. Jordy Nelson lead the league with 14 scores while Devante Adams finished right behind him with 12. Like I mentioned with the Seahawks, I wouldn’t stack both options with Rodgers but will have multiple Packers stacks with Rodgers/Nelson and Rodgers/Adams. I will most likely hedge a little bit more towards Adams this week as Nelson gets the very tough task of facing Janoris Jenkins.

Defense/Running Back Stack of the Week

I started with the defense/running back stack this week as I feel it is pretty cut and dry this week. Before even looking at the Player Lab I was confident in both these choices but plugging in the filters totally confirmed my thoughts. Let’s take a look.

Houston Texans Defense & Lamar Miller

The Texans defense are the highest priced option on DraftKings and second highest on FanDuel but the difference in salary between the top defenses is extremely thin. The big difference here is Lamar Miller who comes at a $3,200 discount on FanDuel and a $4,200 discount on DraftKings when looking comparing him to Bell. When comparing talent Miller and Bell are not in the same conversation as Bell is the arguably the best running back in the game today. In daily fantasy we don’t just look at talent, we also have to evaluate the value of a player and situation. Miller and the Texans defense allow you to construct a much more balanced lineup this week. Without J.J. Watt, the Texans defense still ranked first overall in yards allowed per game (301.3) this season and while they ranked 26th in takeaways they get an elite matchup this week vs. a rookie QB making his first career start…..in the Playoffs!!! As for Miller, he missed last week’s game but the Texans had already locked up their playoff position so it was most likely a maintenance game off. That was somewhat confirmed this week as he practiced fully on Wednesday and will get a plus matchup vs. the Raiders who rank 20th in Defense vs. the Run. Miller had a bit of a disappointing season with just six touchdowns but he did reach 1,000 yards in just 14 games played.

Pittsburgh Steelers & Le’Veon Bell

A little more obvious this week is Le’Veon Bell who has everything going for him. Well, except the salary that has reached a season high on both sites. He is very likely to be 80%+ owned in cash games this week and I honestly think the 20% that don’t use him are crazy. The position gets real thin after Bell in a four-game slate and like I mentioned above he is arguably the best running back in the NFL. Then there is the matchup and situation. The Steelers will open the playoffs at home vs. the short-handed Dolphins who are without their starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill. The Steelers open as 10 point favorites and Bell will go up against a Dolphins Defense that ranks 30th in Defense vs. the Run and has given up the 6th most fantasy points to the position this season. Look for some high usage from Bell with the high probability of a monster game.

The Steelers defense started the season slow from a fantasy point of view but finished strong with three double-digit fantasy point games in their final seven played. They also recorded an interception in each of those final seven games to go along with 25 sacks. They get a matchup vs. backup Matt Moore who threw an interception in three straight games to close out the season. This stack is more about Bell but the defense does have big upside in this matchup.

Honorable Mentions: Seattle Seahawks & Thomas Rawls

Thanks for reading this week’s article and stay tuned later in the week for my favorite stacking options for the main slate this weekend. If you have any questions in the meantime be sure to hit us up on Twitter @jager_bombs9 & @lineuplab