DraftKings Playoff Picks: Best lineup stacks for divisional round NFL DFS tournaments, cash games

Bennett Bedford

DraftKings Playoff Picks: Best lineup stacks for divisional round NFL DFS tournaments, cash games image

It’s hard to beat the NFL’s divisional round setup with two second-round playoff games on Saturday and Sunday. While last week’s wild card round featured more defensive matchups, this week’s slate has much more upside on the offensive side, with every game featuring a total of 45.5 points or higher. We can project that the Chiefs-Colts matchup will see the highest ownership on the NFL DFS slate with their game featuring by far the highest total of the week at 56.5 points, but to be honest I can see a route to every team stack having the ability to be the highest scoring in DraftKings daily fantasy football contests.

Something else to keep an eye on is the weather in the Chargers-Patriots game in Foxboro, as their projects to be up to five inches of snow during the game, which would obviously have a severe effect on both offenses.

DIVISIONAL ROUND DFS: Y! GPP Lineup | FD GPP Lineup | DK GPP Lineup

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Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST Kicker

Divisional Round NFL DFS Strategy: Top DraftKings stacks for cash games

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QB Jared Goff and RB Todd Gurley, Rams vs. Cowboys

Spending up for QB Patrick Mahomes is awfully tempting this week, but if you want to jam in two or three high-end running backs and Travis Kelce in cash games, then you’ll likely need to spend down at quarterback. Goff in a home matchup makes a ton of sense. Goff was dominate at home this season, posting a plus/minus of plus-10.0, which was good for an average of 28.1 fantasy points per game. At $5,500, it’s hard to say that Goff isn’t among the best value options on the slate.

You can look to pair Goff with pretty much any of his pass catchers in tournaments, from Robert Woods all the way down to Gerald Everett, but in cash games the safest option is likely Gurley, who has more than enough pass-catching upside out of the backfield to justify the stack. Gurley has been dealing with a knee injury over the past few weeks, but it was clear that the team was being extremely cautious with their star RB and he likely could have played the last two weeks of the regular season if they were must -win games. Gurley is priced way down at $8,000 despite posting a plus/minus of plus-8.2 in seven home starts this season.

QB Patrick Mahomes and TE Travis Kelce, Chiefs vs. Colts

The Chiefs have the highest implied team total on the slate at 30.5 points, and the QB-TE combination of Mahomes and Kelce offers the highest floor among quarterback and pass catcher. The Colts defense has been a revelation over the second half and shut down the Texans offense on the road last week, but heading into Arrowhead to face likely MVP Mahomes and veteran head coach Andy Reid is a much more difficult task.

Mahomes has been simply automatic for DFS this season -- posting a plus/minus of plus-8.9 with an 81-percent consistency rating and an incredible zero-percent "dud" rate (less than 75 percent of his weekly projection). Kelce, meanwhile, has the best individual matchup among Chiefs skill position players, as the Colts gave up the third-most fantasy points to tight ends this season. The Mahomes-Kelce stack has an excellent correlation score of 0.54, which ranks third among all QB-pass catcher stacks on the slate and is easily the highest among QB-TE. Add in a floor of 28.42, which is also the highest among QB-pass catcher on the slate, and you have a cash game stack that is worth the lofty $14,000 of salary on DraftKings.

MORE ROTOQL: DFS Lineup Builder DFS Strategy 101

Divisional Round NFL DFS Picks: Best stacks for daily fantasy football GPPs/tournaments

QB Dak Prescott and TE Blake Jarwin, Cowboys @ Rams

The Mahomes-Kelce stack is a great option in cash games, but you have to expect both of them to be extremely popular options that you can gain leverage on over the field if you go a more contrarian route. To do that, I’m looking at Prescott and Jarwin. Prescott has been excellent over the second half, posting a plus/minus of plus-5.2 with a consistency rating of 82 percent from Week 7 and beyond. On top of that, Prescott has flashed upside to go six times his salary expectations at his $5,200 price tag on DraftKings, with three games this season of 27 or more fantasy points. All of those came over the final seven weeks of the season.

You can look to pair Prescott with either top WR Amari Cooper or RB Ezekiel Elliott, but I like the idea of going back to Jarwin coming off a subpar outing last week against the Seahawks. Jarwin carved out a nice role in the Cowboys offense, seeing seven or more targets in three of his five starts. Jarwin also has the best individual matchup on Dallas against a Rams defense that funnels targets to the middle of the field, which resulted in them ranking in the bottom third of the league against tight ends.

RB Melvin Gordon and WR Keenan Allen, Chargers @ Patriots

There are some serious weather concerns for the Chargers-Patriots game that could have a major impact on both offenses. For this article, I’m going to be under the assumption that the snow isn’t a complete blizzard and the offenses won’t get too huge of a downgrade. The Chargers skill position players are at season-low prices after some uninspiring offensive outings, albeit against a brutal schedule of BAL, DEN, BAL over the past three weeks.

Gordon is only $6,200 on DraftKings, which is a season low for a player that posted a plus/minus of plus-5.0 with an average of 22 FPTS in seven road games this season. We should absolutely have some concern about Gordon’s health after leaving last week’s game against against the Ravens with a knee injury, but all reports are that he will be good to go for the matchup with the Patriots, who rank 13th DvP against running backs.

You can also look to find even more value out of the Chargers offense by targeting Allen, who is also at his lowest price point of the season on DraftKings at $6,400. Allen has also been hurt by brutal matchups against the Ravens and Broncos over the past three weeks, but he should have a much better time finding space against a Patriots secondary that is mediocre outside of stud CB Stephon Gilmore. Gordon and Allen have a very strong correlation score for a RB/WR stack at 0.38 and are viable in cash games as well if the weather turns out to be decent.  

There's plenty of strategy that goes into putting together a winning DFS lineup, and the best place to start is RotoQL’s DFS tools. Our RotoQL's Lineup Optimizer is a massive advantage when you're building lineups, regardless of contest size or site.

Bennett Bedford