It’s nice to see the calendar flip to October. Although I talk a lot about Winning September for fantasy football (and that’s always the goal), most of my seasons play out like this: Survive September, Play Smarter in October.
Now we have four weeks in the books. Now we should know some stuff, what players to trust, what defenses to truly exploit.
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I was also wondering about something else this morning: is stacking dead? Has stacking actually helped any fantasy managers in season-long fantasy football this year?
I was trying to find any big-name quarterback and receiver stack that’s actually paid off so far, and I came up empty. They’re all underwhelming. Some of them are drawing dead.
Disappointing fantasy stacks
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Bengals: Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase (or Tee Higgins)? It’s too depressing to think about.
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Vikings: Maybe you linked Justin Jefferson with J.J. McCarthy. Nope
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Cowboys: Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb? Not happening.
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Jaguars: The Jacksonville receivers aren’t dragging Trevor Lawrence to relevance. Heck, maybe they’re holding Lawrence back.
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Eagles: The team is 4-0 and yet we never know when the passing game will pop. Jalen Hurts didn’t have a single completion in the second half last week. A.J. Brown is obviously unhappy.
Maybe we can cheat a bit. Do the best wideouts so far have stackable quarterbacks? Do the best quarterbacks come with a stackable wideout?
Elite WRs paired with middling QB production
Rams: Puka Nacua is the ultimate cheat-code receiver in the game right now (I worried about his touchdown equity all summer, a take that proved comically wrong). Is he dragging Matthew Stafford to a big year? Not really. Stafford’s weekly grades are QB20, QB19, QB14 and QB2. Stafford is merely the QB16 in points per game. And that’s despite Nacua being a god and Davante Adams also playing well.
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Lions: Amon-Ra St. Brown sure looks like a right answer, the WR2. Is Jared Goff coming for the ride? Not really. Goff was QB1 in Week 2, but he’s been outside the top 20 at the position in his other three games.
Seahawks: Jaxon Smith-Njigba is a target hog in Seattle, a rising star. And yet Sam Darnold (great in the efficiency stats) has a mediocre log of fantasy results: QB31, QB21, QB10, QB18.
Elite QBs production paired with middling WR production
Maybe if we examine top quarterbacks, the surveys will look better.
Bills: Josh Allen is the QB1, no surprise there. But he doesn’t have a WR in the top 25. (Touchdown deodorant does have Dalton Kincaid at a fluky TE3.)
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Ravens: Lamar Jackson is the QB2, and now hurt. Zay Flowers has been okay, WR19, a little inconsistent. This stack wouldn’t be killing you, but it’s not covering you in glory, either.
Chiefs: Patrick Mahomes is the QB3. Nice to have him back in our lives. None of his receivers are in the top 30.
Patriots: Drake Maye is the QB4. He’s fun, isn’t he? The New England wideouts are not fun — all outside the top 45 (Hunter Henry is smashing at tight end, though).
Are there any lessons?
We’ve meandered through the plot for enough time. Let’s try to figure out what this all means.
Injuries have crushed so many plausible stacks
Burrow, Chase and Higgins were a flying circus last year, locked in and pushed by the lousy Cincinnati defense. Obviously that all died on the vine when Burrow got hurt. The Prescott-to-Lamb dream was derailed by injury. And it’s so strange that the running back position continues to run reasonably healthy while the quarterback and wideout positions have been crushed with ailments. Jayden Daniels, Brock Purdy, Justin Fields, J.J. McCarthy, they’ve all missed time. Malik Nabers and Tyreek Hill are gone for the year. Injuries have held back Terry McLaurin and Mike Evans.
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We can play this game all day. If injuries come for you, it’s hard to survive. It’s not a satisfying answer, but it’s always part of the game.
The best QBs are runners, and that hurts a stack
We love when our fantasy QBs have mobile skills — the Konami Code lives forever. But when a quarterback gets rushing production (or a rushing touchdown), no one else benefits. Sure, it’s nice when Hurts plunges in from the 1, but the Hurts/Brown manager would get more from a touchdown pass.
Let’s look at that QB leaderboard again. Running is a common staple with everyone. Allen and Jackson are dynamic in that area. Mahomes has 130 rushing yards and two touchdowns, looking for answers on an offense that needs them. Maye has 98 yards and two touchdowns. You know what Hurts does.
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Caleb Williams is QB6, helped by 110 rushing yards and a score. Daniel Jones has three rushing touchdowns. Baker Mayfield, playing every snap like it’s his last, has 129 rushing yards. Even QB9 Justin Herbert has 93 rushing yards.
Fields has missed time, but if we use points per game, he’s QB7. We know what he does best.
Where are the pocket QBs? Lower on the board. Prescott is QB10 (he does get a boost from the lousy Dallas defense). Jordan Love is QB11. Stafford is QB12. Goff is QB13. All worth rostering, but the blowup potential isn’t the same.
Some usage trees are too wide for stacks to pay off
The Buffalo wide receiver room remains a platoon. The Chiefs don’t bury anyone with targets. I know Romeo Doubs had three touchdowns last week, but the Packers haven’t had any pass-catcher move past 100 targets since Adams left town. We can play this game all day.
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Maybe the +EV stacks were sneaky secondary things
Let’s go back to that WR leaderboard for a second. Consider some of the surprises. Rome Odunze is the WR3. Quentin Johnston is the WR4. George Pickens (unstoppable in Week 4) is the WR5. Emeka Egbuka ranks WR7. Deebo Samuel Sr. slots WR10.
These players all have something obvious in common — none of them were the first fantasy receiver drafted from his own team.
There was a preseason case for Odunze ascending to the top chair in Chicago, and that’s apparently happened. Johnston’s leap over Ladd McConkey is a shocker, but after four weeks, we have to accept that Johnston looks legit. A healthy Lamb will always be the alpha in Dallas, but it was fun to see what Pickens could do last week when truly featured. The classy and polished Egbuka has never looked like a rookie. Samuel obviously has benefited from the clunky McLaurin runout so far.
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And I realize no one wants to say this out loud, but Fields to Garrett Wilson (WR6) has been mostly fun.
Not all of these early risers are destined to stick, of course. Samuel has regression written all over him. No one thinks Johnston will be top 10 all year. Pickens will eventually have to share with Lamb, later in the year. I’d like to roster all of these guys, but let’s keep expectations in a reasonable area.
But I dream of what an improving Williams might do with an emerging Odunze. And given how Wilson is the obvious target hog in New York, maybe Fields and Wilson — working with an especially narrow tree — could be a collaborative pairing that could pay off.
And while tight ends generally don’t score like wideouts in our game, there are some nifty QB-to-TE combos that are thriving. We mentioned Maye and Hunter, and although I don’t fully believe in it, Allen and Kincaid. Tyler Warren (Jones) is the TE5.
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Maybe stacking just isn’t a big deal (in season-long leagues)
I understand why stacking is a buzz word for DFS players, or anyone looking to win a large contest with a top-heavy payout. You need the simplest plausible path to winning in those spots, and that often means backing a scenario that has the lowest number of necessary variables. This is still a good process.
But I suspect we’ve gotten too stack-happy with season-long teams. Maybe we should focus more on just getting good players. And at quarterback, it’s often about finding that running QB — knowing that all that running will leak potential value from a possible stack.
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We’re four weeks in. We’re all chasing a butterfly. Nobody knows where that butterfly will flap its wings around Halloween, or Thanksgiving, or when the snow starts falling.
That’s the cruel agony of the game. And it’s what makes the game great, too.
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