Week 5 DraftKings Picks: Best lineup stacks for NFL DFS tournaments, cash games

Bennett Bedford

Week 5 DraftKings Picks: Best lineup stacks for NFL DFS tournaments, cash games image

Week 5 DFS presents some value pricing at wide receiver that allows us to put together some solid stacks for cash games and GPP tournaments on DraftKings. Everyone is on Auden Tate this week, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be. There's also an obvious opportunity in Falcons vs. Texans, where Matt Ryan/Julio Jones makes a solid cash-game pairing while Deshaun Watson and his wideouts could be useful in a GPP.

Last week was a rough week, as none of the Daniel Jones/Sterling Shepard, Russell Wilson/Tyler Lockett/Will Dissly or Case Keenum/Terry McLaurin stacks paid off. We saved our butt with the Jared Goff/Brandin Cooks stack - apparently we needed to add even another Rams' WR in that one.

WEEK 5 DFS LINEUPS:
Y! cash | Y! GPP | FD cash | FD GPP | DK cash | DK GPP

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Week 5 NFL DFS Picks: Top DraftKings stacks for cash games     

QB Andy Dalton and WR Auden Tate, Bengals vs. Cardinals

Everyone saw the Bengals offense look like absolute garbage on Monday night, but don’t let that recency bias sway you into fading them this week in a matchup with the Cardinals. I’m always a sucker for cheap QB/WR stacks in cash games if the situation is right, and this is certainly a spot where we can target Dalton and Tate at great value price points. 

Tate has seen his role in the Bengals offense rise over the first few weeks of the season, and he will slot into the number 2 receiver role in the Bengals offense in a perfect matchup against the Cardinals at home with John Ross set to miss a few weeks after suffering a shoulder injury on Monday night. 

Tate is a red-zone monster with his 6-5 frame, and he has great speed for a big wide receiver. Tate has 16 targets over the last two weeks, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him in the 8-10 target range should Ross be ruled out. The matchup could not be any better for Tate and the rest of the Bengals offense against a Cardinals team that inflates opposing offenses given their pace of play. I don’t see the Bengals having the same pass protection issues that they had on Monday night against the Steelers against a bad Cardinals pass rush, which should lead to Dalton having a week that more resembles this production from Weeks 1-3 rather than his dud in Week 4. 

The combined price of only $9,200 on DraftKings allows you to do a lot with the rest of your lineup and most importantly helps save you enough salary to jam in at least two of Christian McCaffrey, Ezekiel Elliott, and Dalvin Cook in your lineup - something that I’m making the number one priority in cash games this week. 

WEEK 5 NON-PPR RANKINGS:
Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST | Kicker

QB Matt Ryan and WR Julio Jones, Falcons @ Texans

The Falcons-Texans matchup has the highest projected point total on the slate, and I want exposure to that game in as many lineups as possible this week. Ryan is my top cash game QB at his price of $5,900 on DraftKings, and I have no problem pairing him with either Jones or Calvin Ridley. 

What’s drawing me to Ryan is the Falcons have shown zero ability to run the ball this season, which has led to Ryan averaging 44 passing attempts per game. Ryan has parlayed that passing volume to more than 300 yards passing in all four games this season, which gives him one of the most secure floors on the slate. I fully expect his touchdown numbers to positively regress after he was shutout last week at home against a stingy Titans defense. While the Houston defense is by no means a pushover, they are solidly in the middle of the pack and aren’t a team that I’m going to avoid, especially with the high total of this game. 

While both Jones and Ridley are excellent options here, I’m giving the edge to Jones despite his high price tag around the industry. There is more than enough value on this slate to be able to pay up for a high-end wide receiver if you choose to do so, and Jones has the best floor/ceiling combination among any wide receiver in the game over the last year. Calvin Ridley is a great value at $4,900 on DraftKings, but I can’t go that route in cash games given his inconsistent week-to-week targets. 

WEEK 5 PPR RANKINGS: Running backWide receiver | Tight end

Week 5 DraftKings Picks: Best stacks for daily fantasy football GPPs/tournaments

QB Deshaun Watson, WR DeAndre Hopkins and WR Will Fuller V, Texans vs. Falcons

For GPPs I’m staying in the Falcons-Texans matchup, but going to the other side of the ball with a 3-man Texans’ stack of Watson, Hopkins and Fuller. Watson is a little too pricey for cash games, but he makes a lot of sense as a spend up option in tournaments. We know that he has slate-winning upside given his rushing ability, and I expect him to have a nice bounce-back week against a Falcons defense that has been shredded by Marcus Mariota and Jacoby Brissett the past two weeks. 

Hopkins is the highest priced wide receiver on the slate this week, and I think that he will go relatively low owned in all formats with everyone wanting to spend up on the high-end running backs. Hopkins also performs well in high total games. He has posted a plus-minus of +5.1 over his last 9 games going back to last season that had a closing total of 45 points or higher. 

While anyone casually looking at the box scores will likely overlook Fuller, a deeper dive suggests that he should have some positive regression coming his way. Watson has missed Fuller on two would-be touchdowns in the past two weeks. The matchup couldn’t be much better against the Falcons, who were just lit up at home by A.J. Brown and Corey Davis. Atlanta will be without their best player in the secondary in Keanu Neal, and we saw how badly they struggled without him when he was out of the lineup in 2018.

WEEK 5:
Top waiver pickups | FAAB planner | Trade valuesSnap counts

QB Jameis Winston and WR Chris Godwin, Buccaneers, @ WR Michael Thomas, Saints

The Bucs-Saints matchup is intriguing in that I could see this game both being a shootout or a grind-it-out defensive game. Both teams have defenses that can get after opposing quarterbacks and create turnovers; however, both of them also have weaknesses in their defensive secondaries that have been exposed at points so far this season. 

For tournaments, I want to target this game with some full game stacks in the scenario that the passing games get rolling and my favorite combination is a Bucs’ stack of Winston and Godwin, and then running it back with Thomas. 

MORE WEEK 5 DFS: Values | Lineup builder

The Winston-Godwin stack was a GPP winner last week, and they should be in line for another nice week as long as Winston can maintain his red-hot form and avoid the turnovers that have plagued his career (a huge if). Godwin should have another excellent game in this spot playing indoors in the Superdome. Saints’ top CB Marshon Lattimore will be shadowing Mike Evans on the outside, and we have seen WR2s shred the Saints on plenty of occasions over the last few years. 

It makes a lot of sense to play a Saints’ player with any Bucs’ stack in this game. Alvin Kamara is undoubtedly an option, but I’m taking the great value that we are getting with Thomas. Sure, the switch from Drew Brees to Teddy Bridgewater is a massive downgrade, but that is factored in with Thomas’ price drop. The targets have still been there for Thomas, who has 29 targets in the three games in which Bridgewater has played this season. The Bucs' defense is much improved this season, but their corners remain their big weakness. 

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. RotoQL's Lineup Optimizer is a massive advantage when you're building lineups, regardless of contest size or site.

Bennett Bedford