I’m not breaking any new ground when I say this: You gotta stack in NFL DFS. Duh. But just knowing how to build NFL DFS stacks isn’t the lone meal ticket to winning tournaments. What helps the most is the Stokastic Sims — they simulate thousands of scenarios for any given slate to give you the full picture of how it will go down and spits out the lineups that return the most on your investment, balancing salary, stats and their NFL DFS ownership projections. And then you can break it all down by stacks that perform the best: The number of players in these stacks, the pass catchers to throw in, everything. That’s what we’ve done here. Here are the top Week 1 NFL DFS stacks for DraftKings and FanDuel as curated by runs of the Stokastic’s NFL Sims.
Week 1 Top NFL DFS Stacks Based on Simulated Stack ROI
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Top Week 1 DraftKings NFL DFS Stack: Indianapolis Colts
For any stack combination (quarterback plus one, two or three), the Colts are simulating with highly positive ROI. Anthony Richardson-led stacks are No. 1 when pairing him with one receiver and two receivers and though he drops to fifth when pairing him with three, the Colts are still among the highest-ROI stacking options at that level as well. Here is the top 5 for two-receiver stacks:
Now, you probably don’t need anyone to tell you that it’s Richardson, no necessarily his pass catchers, that is the main reason Indianapolis is simulating so well. Richardson was one of the top fantasy quarterbacks in his brief time at the helm for the Colts in his rookie 2023 season, and if he stays healthy (and develops as a passer, of course), he is one of the highest-upside stack leaders in the league.
Those ceiling performances in the sims have also made him the top-ROI quarterback in DraftKings stacks by a wide margin — 12.9 percentage points ahead of second-place Baker Mayfield.
The question now is whom to pair with Richardson to get the most out of that upside.
The Colts have quietly collected a solid group of pass catchers, but no one who can be considered the elite of the elite. Luckily, that makes this a cheaper stack, and rostering the best receivers on the team alongside Richardson is easily doable while still leaving room for higher-end one-offs.
Michael Pittman Jr. is the most obvious choice, and he is simulating with positive ROI, but he is actually not the top Colt pass catcher in that regard. That honor goes to tight end Kylen Granson, who is the No. 1 tight end on the main slate in DraftKings simulations.
Those two are effective on their own if going for the two-receiver stack, which is the best +ROI option. However, if you want to add a fourth Colt, then Josh Downs is also simulating slightly more positively than Pittman, and he is also a potential high-upside receiver coming off a rookie season where he caught 68 passes for 771 yards.
Top Week 1 FanDuel NFL DFS Stack: Miami Dolphins
FanDuel stack projections are much tighter than DraftKings, as no single quarterback is projecting for simulating with positive ROI across all stack sizes. In fact, only two (Richardson and Jayden Daniels) are +ROI for one-receiver stacks, and both are negative elsewhere. There are a few options for two- or three-receiver groupings that are viable as top stacks, however; Deshaun Watson, Trevor Lawrence and Matthew Stafford all simulate quite well.
We’re going with Tua Tagovailoa and the Dolphins, though, since pairing him with one receiver is only slightly negative in simulations, whereas Watson, Lawrence and Stafford all need at least two receivers to return close to positive ROI. Tagovailoa offers a bit more flexibility.
You would think that Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill would both pull high individual returns alongside Tagovailoa, but individually they may leech production from each other as high-end teammates. They both still clearly have value as stacking pieces despite Hill only being about 1% +ROI in the latest run of sims on his own and Waddle slightly negative. Waddle appears in many of the lineups simulating with the top ROI, and Hill is in nearly all of them as either part of a Tagovailoa stack or as a one-off — and in over 50% of the 150 best-simulating lineups.
The leader in simulated ROI, however, is Jonnu Smith, who is the No. 1 tight end on the board in that regard at this moment. Still, the majority of high-ROI Dolphins stacks opt for the two-receiver method with Waddle and Hill, so Smith is only appearing in around 5% of those. But if you want to go three pass catchers with Tagovailoa, Smith is probably the way to go.
De’Von Achane also appears in around 5% of high-ROI lineups, but individually he is simulating negatively. Granted, only four running backs have positive simulated ROIs, and Achane is still a top-12 option for FanDuel main slate stacks.
