Willing To Lose 18.22

Larejo is a mid-stakes tournament mastermind who specializes in outmaneuvering 150-max players with a small number of entries

Stack them up this week.

It’s Week 18, and we know by now stacks that are “in.” Correlation is key and not having a pass catcher with your quarterback on a roster is not a sharp move. This field stacks. And this season, though we’ve seen game stacks win a million dollars many times (Ravens // Dolphins in Week 3, Seahawks // Lions in Week 4, Seahawks // Raiders in Week 12, Cowboys // Jaguars in Week 15, and Giants // Vikings in Week 16), it’s still an underutilized strategy. Four or five or even six player blocks in one game do not work every week. But when it does, boy does it work.

In Week 18, where certainty does not exist, and the obvious “game to stack” does not exist, we should continue to see rosters being spread across many games, as the field looks to get exposure to sure points, wrongfully assuming that we won’t see a game total go north of 55 points. Your rosters can be better than the field this week!

Here is what is going up on my proverbial mirror this weekend:

• Even though we think we know how these teams will all approach these games, we actually know nothing other than how playoff seeding will shake out if they win or lose.
• Don’t forget that uncertainty drives people towards comfort, and comfort lives in high-priced players and household fantasy football names.
• Most DFS players start their research with Vegas totals . . . and they are all under 44 on this slate . . . and because of this fact, game stack a minimum of four players, preferably five, in every lineup.

Stack #1: Patriots at Bills (Allen, Cook, Davis, Rhamondre, Jakobi)

On DK, starting with this core leaves a remaining average salary of $4,850.

With what the Bills went through this past week, and fortunately now with the trending positive health of Damar Hamlin, I expect the Bills to come out firing in this game. The Patriots, for all their mediocrity this season, pose a perfect yet difficult matchup for them. As Hilow and JM pointed out in the NFL Edge writeup for this game, the Patriots did a few interesting things in their 24-10 loss to the Bills back in Week 13. Among them was their defense playing a lot of zone coverage, which should drive ownership again this week toward Stefon Diggs and away from Gabe Davis. The other beneficiary of a lot of zone coverage should be James Cook, who has seen his snap rate hovering around 40% in every game but produced a season high six catches in that Week 13 divisional matchup with New England. Betting on the “dinks and dunks” from Allen but with Davis slotting into downfield spaces in the zone and Cook underneath is an interesting way to get exposure to the Bills offense.

If going to the Bills, the other factor we should consider is the Patriots still somehow being alive for the playoffs. Not that anyone thinks they will win, as even covering the spread here seems like a longshot, however, we should expect they will be playing this game to win throughout. There really isn’t a path of least resistance with the Buffalo defense, but their rush defense remains stout at 3rd overall DVOA, and of the small portion of the game we saw with the Bills and Bengals last week, we saw the Bengals choosing to air out the ball early and have success doing so. I expect a similar approach here with the Patriots, sending Meyers and Parker to find holes in the defense, with Stevenson handling underneath dump-offs and misdirection screens, attacking this game to let Mac Jones win or lose it for them (woof, that’s uncomfortable). Field goals won’t win this one so being aggressive on offense seems like the Patriots most viable option early and often.