Favorite Best Ball stacks for 2022
Written by Cody Woodman and Thomas Madsen
This offseason, I started dipping my toe in the proverbial Best Ball pool, and I had very little in the way of knowing how Best Ball differs from your leagues where you set your lineup. There were some obvious things, such as shooting more for WRs who can get you a spike week every now and then with a long touchdown and valuing explosive plays higher in general, because you do not have to guess which player gets the bomb play every week.
However, one of the nuances I completely missed, to begin with, was how you can build your team for upside by stacking. This is where Cody comes in. Cody is an absolute Best Ball aficionado. He has already done somewhere in the neighborhood of 280 Best Ball drafts this offseason. When he told me, my response was, that it might be an addiction and he needs to get checked out 😊
Jokes aside, Cody has so much knowledge when it comes to Best Ball, so there is no one better to bring in to collaborate on an article like this, and hopefully many more in the future. In this article we will by diving into our Favorite Best Ball Stacks for the 2022 season, as well as how we (mainly Cody!) identify the best stacks, so everyone can learn this process for themselves in the future.
So let us get started with this new Best Ball adventure and see what we all can learn from picking Cody’s brain!
What are Best Ball Stacks and why is it good?
Before we dive into the actual stacks, let us first take a closer look at what it actually means to stack in Best Ball. Some people refer to stacking when talking about taking multiple players from the same offense.
However, Best Ball stacks generally refer to the practice of getting a QB plus at least one of said QB’s pass WRs (or TE in the instance of a couple of teams). Preferably you get more than one of your QB’s pass catchers, such as a second WR or the starting TE.
An example of stacking could be drafting WR Stefon Diggs, QB Josh Allen, and TE Dawson Knox.
The reason you want to stack is because of the upside a stack represents. If your QB connects with a WR or TE that you also have on your team, it represents more points for your Best Ball team. When it comes to touchdowns this is an incredible number of points. That is why you want to employ a strategy of drafting Best Ball stacks for your Best Ball drafts. If Josh Allen throws a 15-yard TD to Stefon Diggs, instead of getting just above 4 points from the Allen pass TD, now you get another 8 points on top from the Diggs TD reception.
Now you may be asking why the Best Ball stacks only consist of QBs and pass-catchers, and not RBs. While it can be fine to also stack RBs with QBs, a lot of the time, the two also vulture each other in a sense. You only get the combo points in situations where the QB and another player link up. Even in situations where a QB and his RB connect, those receptions are most of the time short passes, meaning that the combined points collected won’t be of much significance, especially for the QB side of the connection.
With WRs or TEs, you get a lot more points most of the time, because of more downfield passes and usually a higher chance of connecting for touchdowns between QB and WR.
What makes a good Best Ball Stacks?
The next big question is how do we identify teams that are going to make for good Best Ball Stacks?
This is where Cody’s expertise and research come in:
The first thing people should be looking at when deciding what teams to stack for is who they play in Weeks 16, 17, and 15 in that specific order.
The second thing anyone trying to identify a good stack in their Best Ball drafts should be looking at is what it is going to cost. Some stacks, like the Bengals or the Bills, are likely going to be very expensive, as in you almost HAVE to grab a player in the first round (Ja’Marr Chase) of your draft to really get the full potential out of the stack, or you have to grab specific players in both the first and the third round (Stefon Diggs and Josh Allen). This also goes for some of the other Best Ball Stacks where you have to get a QB-WR-WR and both WRs go fairly early.
Instead, trying to grab QB-WR-TE is quite a lot cheaper in terms of most teams, when you are trying to complete your Best Ball stacks. This also helps in terms of the third aspect of identifying good Best Ball Stacks: How many options/opportunities do you have to complete the stack?
Going back to the Bengals. You obviously have to get Burrow for the stack to really make sense. But there are up to 4 relevant pass-catchers that you can get for this particular stack. You obviously would love to get Chase in the first round (probably not possible to get him any later than 1.06), then Higgins in the second or third round. Then you have to ensure you get Burrow in the fourth round. If you miss out on either Chase or Higgins but would like the Bengals stack, you can then go with Tyler Boyd or Hayden Hurst late in the draft. This is the prime example of a team you can target in multiple ways for your Best Ball stacks.
With that out of the way, I think it is about time we take a look at the actual Best Ball stacks that we really like and why.
Our Favorite Best Ball Stacks
Arizona Cardinals
I am personally very much on board with Kyler Murray, and Cody still believes in Kyler’s talent too, so this stack is a very strong one to target.
The Cardinals go against the Bucs in Week 16, Falcons in Week 17, and Broncos in Week 15. Only the Broncos had a good passing defense last season, meaning that Murray and the Cardinals’ pass catchers could have a field day in the fantasy playoffs.
On top of that, you can get several pieces of a Cardinals stack without paying a premium. Hollywood Brown is going in the third/fourth round, Kyler in the fifth, Hopkins in the seventh, and Ertz in the tenth. That makes 4 pieces to the stack that you can go after. You could potentially get all four, but Cody prefers Kyler, Hopkins, and Ertz, as that is the cheapest price you can get the stack at, and Hopkins coming back and being a WR1 rest of the season is in the range of outcomes. This is my preferred stack personally, as you can get all four receiving options without having to invest extremely heavily in the early parts of the draft. You just have to make sure you have enough solid WRs to make up for Hopkins missing the first six weeks of the season.
Dallas Cowboys
Amari Cooper has left town, but this offense still has the weapons to be very potent. They were Top 5 in 2021, and Ceedee Lamb might take another step forward.
The ‘Boys are facing the Eagles in Week 16, Titans in Week 17, and Jaguars in Week 15, so there should be some good games to be had here.
Where the Cowboys stack gets a little difficult is that there are only 3 good options: Dak Prescott, Ceedee Lamb, and Dalton Schultz. Lamb is going to cost an early second, Schultz in the sixth, and Dak in the eighth.
Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals are one of the deepest teams when it comes to creating Best Ball stacks. Their strength of schedule in the fantasy football playoffs probably lands somewhere in the middle, with games against the Patriots in Week 16, Bills in Week 17, and Bucs in Week 15.
Now, you need to have pick early in the first round to really initiate this stack, it is possible to pull off without Chase if you reach a bit to ensure you get Higgins. However, this stack possibly has the highest ceiling of any of the Best Ball stacks you can possibly get, so the price could very well end up being worth it in Best Ball tournaments.
Chase is currently the fifth overall pick in ADP, with Tee Higgins going at the back of the second round. Joe Burrow’s ADP is in the sixth round, whilst you can get Tyler Boyd in the tenth. Hayden Hurst rounds out the options in the fifteenth round. It’s a tough one to pull off but might just lead you to a championship.
Buffalo Bills
Another one of the harder Best Ball stacks to pull off, the Buffalo Bills, like the Bengals, present considerable tournament-winning upside.
They face the Bears in Week 16, Bengals in Week 17, and Dolphins in Week 15. All of these should be games where the Bills’ offense can score plenty of points.
This stack, while one of the best Best Ball stacks available, is also the most expensive. If you want to get the most out of a Bills stack, you are going to have to grab Stefon Diggs in the first round, where he is currently the eighth overall player in ADP. Josh Allen is also going at the very beginning of the third round, whilst Gabriel Davis is being selected in the fourth round.
It will probably be better to pick up Dawson Knox instead of one of the receivers. Knox can be had in the ninth round, rather than paying either a first or a fourth to get Diggs and Davis. Especially considering the fact that Allen will also cost a third-round pick.
Jacksonville Jaguars
The last one might be a bit of a surprise, but that is also part of the idea. This is probably one of the Best Ball stacks that fly under the radar more than any other. As Cody smartly points out, Doug Pederson likes for his offense to target TEs. That is why the Jaguars paid Evan Engram. Additionally, they paid Christian Kirk, so the assumption is that he is going to be heavily targeted in the offense.
Now, Engram hasn’t been much of a fantasy producer since the beginning of his career, and Kirk has never proven to be WR1 while he was with the Cardinals, although he has been productive at spurts of his career. However, if the guy orchestrating it all, Trevor Lawrence, takes a step forward in his progression as an NFL QB, this stack could end up heavily outproducing the ADP cost.
Kirk is the first player that would have to be selected for this stack, something that can be achieved in the late seventh round. Next is Trevor Lawrence who has an ADP in the twelfth round and Evan Engram rounds out the stack in the fifteenth round.
When it comes to the playoff schedule, it’s a great one. Week 16 against the Jets, Week 17 at the Texans, and Week 15 against the Cowboys.
You should seriously consider going for this stack if you believe Trevor Lawrence is going to show why he was the consensus #1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. Cody really loves this stack. As he puts it: “The biggest reason for my love of this stack is the forgotten-ness of it and the playoff schedule. Last year Rashaad Penny and Amon-Ra St. Brown were the 2 MUST haves to win big in Best Ball. Both were playing for forgotten teams.”
That it’s, our favorite Best Ball Stacks for 2022. A huge thank you to Cody, for sharing his thoughts on the subject and helping a Best Ball rookie such as myself out! Hopefully, this is going to be the first of many Best Ball articles that we collab on.
Thank you for reading Favorite Best Ball Stacks for 2022
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