Top Fantasy Football Stacks To Build in 2020

**Big News** FantasyData is excited to announce our all-new DFS Stacking Tool for 2020! This page helps you find the sweet spot with DFS salaries by comparing stacking options and player projections. It’s a perfect way to start building a DFS lineup for DraftKings, Fanduel, or Yahoo. We’re also happy to announce that FantasyData has an NFL Optimizer for the upcoming NFL season. This fast-loading, mobile-friendly DFS toll will be a lifesaver for you this season, check it out!

Why Do We Chase “Stacks” In Fantasy Football?

There is a certain comfort that comes with drafting a QB and their top receiver for your fantasy team. Seeing the points stack on a forty-yard touchdown pass from your starting QB to one of your starting receivers is the sweetest feeling one can experience in the realm of fantasy football. Particularly in DFS and BestBall leagues, “stacking” pass-catchers with their QB can be a tremendous strategy as well, particularly during weeks where the offense draws a bottom tier pass defense. Though the concept of “stacking” players from the same team is often flawed and impractical as a long-term strategy, the desire to invest our interest in the operations a single team often overrides logic and rational thinking. It’s easy to be burned by a stack, as the pass-catcher will often be at the mercy of their quarterback’s performance, for good or for bad. If players from the same team come at a great value in your draft then there’s little harm to creating a stack either. With that being said, let’s take a gander at a few teams with very nice “stacks” for the 2020 season. 

Houston Texans

Though DeAndre Hopkins is now a free bird out in the desert, the Texans offense is poised to keep on chugging without him. Houston’s offense will still run through aggressive playmaker Deshaun Watson who will still be surrounded by a variety of explosive playmakers, including offseason acquisition Brandin Cooks and incumbent starter Will Fuller. It’s been well established that Watson is his best self when Fuller is on the field. The following excerpt from an SI article published prior to the team’s matchup with the Bills in last season’s divisional playoff round goes to show just how valuable Fuller’s role in the offense really is. 

The Texans offense is .59 yards per play with Fuller on the field and this season he played 564 offensive snaps (53%). Absent for 453 of the Texans offensive snaps this season, that would mean he left at least 267 yards of offense without being in the lineup. The closest regular starter behind’s Fuller’s yard per play was DeAndre Hopkins at .33 yards per play. When the Texans have Fuller on the field, Deshaun Watson turns into a much better quarterback. According to ESPN Stats, Watson’s passer rating jumps from 89.8 to 104.3 while his QBR goes from 64.4 to 77.3 with Fuller on the field. Over the three years with Fuller on the field, Watson’s career splits are similar to what they were in 2019, and the only quarterback with a better QBR over that span is the Kansas City Chiefs Patrick Mahomes at 77.3.

Though asking Fuller — who has missed at least five contests in each of the past three seasons — to stay healthy is a big ask, his upside as a vertical threat in Houston’s offense is as high as any receiver in the NFL, a claim which is best evidenced by Fuller’s record-setting performance against the Falcons last season when he tallied 14 receptions, 200 receiving yards, and three touchdowns. As for Cooks, we already know what we’re getting in him, as his abilities as a vertical threat are well-documented. Seeing how well Watson has worked with Fuller — whose skillset mirrors that of Cooks in a variety of ways — it’s hard not to love the former Pro Bowler’s upside this season, particularly for an offense with the sixth-most vacated targets in the league. As of August 18th, 2020 you can have Cooks and Fuller as the WR31 and WR32 respectively in PPR leagues (Per Fantasy Football Calculator). Given their upside as the primary pass-catchers for the prolific Watson, it’s hard not to love this stack from the Texans offense. 

Atlanta Falcons

There are many folks in the fantasy football community who believe that the Falcons have the best 1-2 punch at the wide receiver position in the league. We’re well aware that Julio Jones is a candidate to be the best wideout of the 2010s, as the former first-round pick has amassed 12,125 receiving yards and 57 receiving touchdowns in 126 games since entering the league in 2011, being selected to seven Pro Bowl squads during that period. In the last decade, we have seen Jones and QB Matt Ryan form an almost symbiotic relationship that has resulted in Ryan finishing as a top-10 QB on five occasions and Jones finishing as a top-ten WR six times. By stacking Ryan and Jones we know exactly what to expect; utter dominance. As potent as the combination of Ryan and Jones can be on their own, there are a few other players from the Falcons offense that you may want to consider drafting to expand your stack this season. 

Calvin Ridley (Fantasy Football Twitter’s top choice for breakout receiver of 2020), Hayden Hurst (a top candidate for FF Twitter’s breakout tight end), and Russell Gage (a favorite of the more “alternative” sector of FF Twitter) may be great values at their current ADPs. With the Falcons offense having vacated 258 targets this offseason (the most in the league by a wide margin), this trio will likely be the biggest beneficiaries of the redistribution of these targets. Though Hurst is largely unproven, we saw just how successful the starting tight end in Atlanta’s offense can be last season, when Austin Hooper finished as the TE6 in PPR despite missing three games. As a former first-round pick, it’s clear that Hurst has the talent to thrive as a starting tight end for an NFL team, and he will have a perfect opportunity to do so for Atlanta this season. As for Ridley and Gage, we’ve seen flashes from both players that suggest they could be legitimate starting wideouts for an NFL team, particularly Ridley who finished as the PPR WR22 in his rookie season. The Falcons offense is known for its potency, so owning as many of these guys as you can will be a major boost this season, particularly in BestBall formats. 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

It’s really hard to argue against the upside of an offense that features Tom Brady, a pair of thousand-yard receivers, and Rob Gronkowski. It goes without saying that the Buccaneers should feature one of the most effective passing attacks in the NFL this season so long as everyone can stay healthy. Following a season that saw this offense produce the league’s leading passer (the departed Jameis Winston), the PPR WR2 overall (Chris Godwin), as well as the WR15 (Mike Evans), we can only imagine the upside with a player like Brady now taking snaps under center. Say what you will about Brady’s age, mobility, and deep-passing ability, but he’s still one of the most dominant passers in the NFL when he has weapons at his disposal. And boy does he have weapons. 

Godwin (19.7) and Evans (17.9) finished in the top-five of fantasy points-per-game among receivers last season despite catching passes from the turnover-prone Winston. With a far more accurate passer (Brady) taking over Winston’s role this season, one has to think that the quality of targets for both players will increase for both Godwin and Evans. Though both players are currently coming off of the board within the first three rounds, stacking both with Brady will lead to some massive weeks for your fantasy team. As for Gronkowski, it’s unclear exactly what we can expect his snap share to be, particularly with O.J Howard and Cameron Brate still on the roster. While his current ADP of TE6 is a bit rich for my blood, the former All-Pro will almost certainly have some weeks that will help pay off that steep price of acquisition. Though completing this stack will leave your lineup looking very Buc-heavy, the upside of this offense is as high as any in the league. 

Cleveland Browns

While this stack may have burned many teams to the ground last season, there’s a decent chance that the trio of Baker Mayfield, Odell Beckham, and Jarvis Landry will rebound under new head coach Kevin Stefanski. Though Stefanski’s reputation as a run-heavy play caller may scare some away from Cleveland’s passing offense this season, the Browns currently have the easiest strength of schedule in regards to pass defenses. Moreover, establishing the run may very well benefit Cleveland’s passing game, as the team would often struggle to keep defenses honest last season, frequently resulting in broken plays and turnovers. Yes, Baker Mayfield regressed across the board last season. But with an inept coach like Freddie Kitchens calling the shots, it’s honestly worth wondering if any passer could have overcome those circumstances.

While Landry is still dealing with some issues relating to his surgically repaired hip, Beckham is reportedly at full health for the first time in a long while, which leads me to believe that he may very well surpass his current ADP of WR11. When healthy, both Beckham and Landry have been top-ten fantasy receivers. I fully believe that both are capable of reaching that ceiling this season and if they do Mayfield in turn should also vastly improve his numbers from last season. Unlike the offenses of the Bucs and Falcons, the Browns’ current tight end situation is a bit….mucky. Though the team signed former Falcons standout Austin Hooper to a record-setting contract in free agency, incumbent starter David Njoku appears to be in-line for a role in the offense as well. With both Hooper and Njoku fending for a limited amount of targets, it’s hard to trust either player as a startable option this season. Yet the trio of Mayfield, OBJ, and Landry should make for a tremendous stack in redraft leagues, both BestBall, and non-BestBall. 

Cincinnati Bengals

How could we forget about Joe Burrow and the Bengals? The number one overall pick and reigning Heisman Trophy winner will be walking into an offense that threw the ball 616 times in 2019 and has a rather favorable strength of schedule for this season (13th). With Tyler Boyd (WR35), A.J Green (WR26), Tee Higgins (WR64), and John Ross (WR73) all coming at discounted prices, it won’t cost much to own the entirety of this offense for 2020. In general, pass-happy offenses with poor defenses will find themselves in a lot of shootout type games, so we can likely expect this exact result from Cincinnati. Sure, Burrow will have his fair share of hiccups as a rookie. But as the QB18, the price of investing in the former LSU standout is very much worthwhile when you consider his opportunity to produce in an offense filled with capable playmakers, curated by a coach (Zac Taylor) who cut his teeth with a team that featured a similarly structured lineup (Sean McVay and the Rams).

Though it’s unclear at this point whether Higgins or Ross will be the team’s tertiary receiver this season, both players have the talent to thrive in a system that will ask Green and Boyd to draw coverage away from them. Speaking of Green and Boyd, that duo may very well be a darkhorse tandem for the distinction of “best 1-2 receiver punch in the league” (sorry Julio and Calvin). If both players can stay healthy, it’s entirely possible that this offense can sustain a pair of top-25 receivers and a QB1. I wouldn’t typically invest so much interest in an offense piloted by a rookie passer, but given what we saw from Burrow in his final season with LSU, the sky is the limit for him and the Bengals in year one.