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Which potential shootouts have the most potential for stacking and/or super-stacking this week? Are any landmines where you can see fading them can be the correct side?
- Cardinals at Buccaneers
- Falcons at Saints
- Panthers at Packers
Also, discuss the Packers backfield and its wild hot-hand weekly swings, do you trust the Tampa Bay or Arizona offense more considering both are suspect defenses and do you need to have Matt Ryan back this week to buy a Falcons stack or into the Atlanta offense in general?
JASON WOOD
The Packers will get right at home against the Panthers, and that makes Aaron Jones a near must-play in cash lineups. I expect Jones to put up exceptionally strong numbers this week. Jamaal Williams is too up-and-down to use in cash but certainly is worth being part of builds in diversified GPP lineups.
The Cardinals and Buccaneers should be a bonanza, and both Murray and Winston are top-5 choices at quarterback this week. The tricky part of the Buccaneers is Godwin and Evans are both premium-priced, and both have had massive games lately. It's hard to afford a super-stack of Winston/Evans/Godwin, but if you can make it work it's probably worth pursuing because ownership will be low. I think Winston/Godwin or Winston/Evans builds will be super popular, and might be worth fading in GPPs but are fine in cash.
As for Arizona, the receivers have been difficult to get right each week, but Larry Fitzgerald's price makes a Murray/Fitzgerald stack intriguing. With David Johnson possibly back, it's difficult to trust either he or Kenyan Drake.
PHIL ALEXANDER
- Most Stacking Potential: Falcons at Saints - The Saints side of this one might be mega-chalk, but it's my highest priority team stack this week. New Orleans is at home, fresh off a bye, implied to score 32 points, and has an advantage over every level of Atlanta's defense. It's the perfect week to roll out Brees-Saints RB-Michael Thomas stacks. If you're stacking the most expensive Saints players, bringing it back with Julio Jones isn't easy. You can look to Calvin Ridley and Austin Hooper, who are both plenty affordable considering the high-scoring game environment.
- Possible Landmine: Cardinals at Buccaneers - Austin Lee's Normalized Strength of Schedule tool shows Arizona and Tampa Bay as the two best matchups for opposing quarterbacks over the last five weeks. In theory, we should see a shootout, but if one of these three games has the potential to go completely off the rails, it's this one. The Cardinals and Buccaneers are a pair of bad teams. Sometimes games between bad teams are just bad games. I'm not suggesting a stinkbomb is the most likely outcome. But if this game is projected for the most collective ownership on the slate, I'm not sure I agree with the crowd. Jameis Winston and Kyler Murray are a couple of high-variance quarterbacks.
JAMES BRIMACOMBE
Out of these three games, I prefer to go with the Cardinals at Buccaneers as I think it is two teams that are equal in talent that both give up a lot of points to opposing teams. They both play fast and that being said there is potential for this game to score the most points on the slate. You also have both teams without a true identity in the running game right now with the Cardinals having both Johnson and Edmonds banged up and bringing in Drake, while Tampa Bay wants to believe in Ronald Jones II but still split the workload. To me, this is a game you want to stack both teams passing attacks as many ways as possible when it comes to tournaments. Going with Winston paired with Godwin and Evans or Murray with Fitzgerald and Kirk on the other side. For Tampa Bay especially you know that if they score a passing touchdown it almost feels like it is going to either Godwin or Evans and if they happen to score multiple again it will be either one of those two.
DAN HINDERY
Each of these three games has some attractive options that are likely to make up much of the core of my player pool this week. Christian Kirk might be my favorite wide receiver on the slate. Tampa Bay is allowing 44% more fantasy points to opposing wide receivers than those wide receivers average. Kirk looks like he is emerging as the top target we expected him to be coming into the season and I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a breakout game on Sunday. On the other side, it is hard to fade Mike Evans right now. He has 45 targets in his last three games and has at least nine receptions in each of those games. In an uptempo game against a mediocre pass defense, I like Evans’ chances of staying hot.