NFL Stack Targets for Week 16 – 12/23/16

Chris Durell

Well, boys and girls, just a couple more slumbers until Santa comes to town. If you’re an NFL fan, Christmas comes a day early with the main slate of games moving up to Saturday with a two-game slate on Sunday and the regular Monday Night Football game. This gives us a ton of slates to play with seven early, four afternoon and a primetime game on Saturday followed by one afternoon and one primetime game on Sunday. If you can manage to sneak away from your families, this is an exceptional opportunity to play multiple slates with a ton of people’s heads and lineups in the Christmas gutter. If you are playing a Sunday-Monday slate beware when considering Dallas players as a Giants win on Thursday night means the Cowboys have nothing to play for in the final two weeks. Expect the starters to be on the field but any sign of a tweak to an injury and you can all but guarantee they will be on the sideline. Let’s dig in.

I have removed the “Contrarian Stack” portion of this article. I feel each of the three quarterbacks shown above will be contrarian in their own rights and are excellent tournament options this week. Let’s take a look.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers
QB – Jameis Winston
Elite Options – Mike Evans
Secondary Options – Cameron Brate

Out of the three options listed above, Winston and the Bucs will most likely be the highest owned but still contrarian. Why? Recency bias is a real thing and you will find a ton of people chasing Drew Brees and the Saints after their unlikely offensive explosion last week. It only takes one week as Brees was the contrarian stack last week and was sub 5% owned across the industry. I am certainly not saying I won’t have exposure to the Saints but they make it a much tougher route to the top of the tournament leaderboard.

I will be focusing a much larger portion of tournament exposure to the other side of the ball this week. They are going to be low-owned for a couple of reasons, first of which is the fact that the 16-11 dud vs. the Saints a couple of weeks ago is still fresh in people’s minds. Brees was in the middle of one of his worst slumps (2 games lol) of his career which completely killed the game script. Things are different this time around as the game will be played in New Orleans and Brees is coming off a monster game. Another reason the Bucs will be a low owned stack is the fact Mike Evans is the most expensive WR option on both sites this week. His upside is more than worth it leading the league in targets per game (10.9) and sits second in touchdowns by a wide receiver. Winston is very up and down but has shown us 25-30 point upside and at a projected lower ownership than Brees makes the better tournament option this week.

Oakland Raiders
QB – Derek Carr
Elite Options – Amari Cooper, Michael Crabtree

The Raiders and Colts both have a ton to play for this week so expect a playoff atmosphere in the Black Hole. Oakland has already clinched a playoff berth but with a win and a Chiefs loss, would clinch the AFC West division title. For fantasy purposes, the Raiders make an intriguing option that I would consider a three-headed monster that is going to be low-owned this week. *Derek Carr is coming off back to back brutal fantasy performances throwing for 330 yards and one touchdown. TOTAL! Don’t worry; you can’t keep a good man down. Carr has shown us explosive upside with eight games of 20 or more fantasy points and nearly touching 40 back in Week 8 vs. Tampa Bay. He has two receiving options who have both been limited in practice this week but are projected to start in this important game. Amari Cooper is my favorite option coming off a dud last week, shadowed by Casey Hayward, Cooper was only able to catch just one of his season-low three targets. He has big play ability but has been hurt by the lack of touchdowns. The good news is the Colts allow 7.6 yards per attempt which is 25th best in the league. If you want to nail down the Raider touchdowns it is best to ride with Michael Crabtree who has eight on the season and has scored in two of his last three games. Both have great matchups against a Colts secondary that ranks 25th in Defense vs. the Pass. You can pair Carr with one or both of these options in large field tournaments.

Carolina Panthers
QB – Cam Newton
Options – Tedd Ginn Jr.
Correlation WR – Julio Jones

It appears to be a little too late for the Panthers although there is a tiny glimmer of hope if all the pieces fall their way. First of all, they need to win their game and not worry about everyone else’s matchups. It starts with their franchise, former MVP quarterback Cam Newton. He got back on track in Week 15 with his first 300-yard passing game and only second multi-TD game since Week 6. He looked extremely comfortable and was accurate from the pocket, limiting his rushing to just three attempts for zero yards. Playing Cam naked (no receiving options, get your head out of the gutter) is always a great choice as Kelvin Benjamin has fallen off the face of the Earth and Greg Olsen is a bit banged up and missed practice on Thursday. The one WR option I will pair Cam with is Ted Ginn Jr. who comes at a very low cost and is the deep threat option. He saw eight targets last week, catching four for 64 yards and a touchdown.

One strategy I love implementing in these high projected scoring games is stacking one side and taking the other team’s top wide receiver. If one team is scoring a bunch, the correlation is there that the other team will also have to throw a ton to keep up. I don’t even think it matters if the Panthers or Falcons come out scoring first, Julio Jones will be heavily involved when he makes his return. He leads the league in receiving and completely torched these Panthers earlier this year becoming the sixth receiver in history to record a 300-yard game. While I don’t think he will come close to that in Week 16, I do think he will get 100+ and a score at an extremely low-ownership due to the Q tag.

Defense/Running Back Stack of the Week

Green Bay Packers & Ty Montgomery

I fought between two or three options for this spot (TEN/Murray, PIT/Bell) but here I am going against my own team. Remember when the Vikings lead the league with a 5-0 record and were among the leaders in not turning the ball over? That is a thing of the past as they have now lost seven of their last nine games and coming off one of their worst of the season against the Colts where they turned the ball over three times. They go from facing a bottom end Colts defense to a surging and red hot Packers team that has tallied nine interceptions, three fumble recoveries, and 10 sacks over their last four games. Look out Sam Bradford!

Ty Montgomery is officially listed as RB after last week’s explosion. He rushed the ball 16 times for 162 yards and two scores against the Bears and now gets a Viking defense that has allowed 100+ yards rushing to their opponents in six of their last nine games. The three games that they limited opponents under 100? 85, 94, 97. Montgomery could be in for another large workload on the frozen tundra in Green Bay.

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