This article focuses on building lineups with a quality foundation by utilizing the powerful Groups and Rules/Limits tools within the industry’s optimization tools. All of the concepts and pairings included below can also apply to hand-building. The goal is to create lineups with strong correlations among likely point-scorers to maximize the gains from infrequent scoring events within stacks while limiting the likelihood of building inefficient or negatively correlated entries for a full slate of NFL DFS lineups.
This video was made in a former life and features a detailed demonstration of how to apply these concepts in one leading optimizer tool: Fantasy Cruncher – How-To Video
All references to Sims were done via friends of the site: acemind.io
Don’t miss the Above/Below feature article for a few of our top picks, coming Sunday morning
Game notes are updated during the week and initially posted as “work in progress” as they take a long time to create, if teams are missing notes simply check back later in the day/week and they should be updated.
2025 Week 5 DraftKings & FanDuel NFL DFS Stack Rankings
The following stack rankings were created by pairing each team quarterback with his top three scoring options, whether they are three wide receivers, two wide receivers and a tight end, a wide receiver, tight end, and running back, or any viable combination. In some cases, an expensive running back can push the overall price point of his team stack in the value rankings.
| TEAM | OPP | FD$ | FDpRank | FDvalRank | DK$ | DkpRank | DKvalRank | Vegas |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DET | CIN | $32,400 | 1 | 12 | $27,300 | 1 | 12 | 1 |
| IND | LV | $28,900 | 2 | 1 | $23,600 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| PHI | DEN | $29,900 | 4 | 6 | $25,300 | 3 | 7 | 7 |
| LAC | WAS | $29,300 | 3 | 3 | $23,800 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| DAL | NYJ | $27,300 | 5 | 4 | $23,600 | 5 | 8 | 3 |
| NYJ | DAL | $27,200 | 7 | 8 | $20,100 | 6 | 1 | 9 |
| MIA | CAR | $25,700 | 6 | 2 | $22,100 | 7 | 6 | 8 |
| CIN | DET | $29,900 | 8 | 18 | $24,700 | 8 | 16 | 19 |
| LV | IND | $26,700 | 11 | 10 | $23,200 | 9 | 10 | 14 |
| SEA | TB | $28,000 | 9 | 16 | $23,100 | 10 | 11 | 6 |
| TB | SEA | $26,600 | 9 | 9 | $23,800 | 11 | 15 | 15 |
| NO | NYG | $25,200 | 12 | 7 | $20,400 | 12 | 3 | 10 |
| ARI | TEN | $25,100 | 14 | 11 | $21,100 | 13 | 9 | 5 |
| HOU | BAL | $25,700 | 13 | 13 | $21,700 | 14 | 14 | 13 |
| WAS | LAC | $25,300 | 15 | 15 | $22,200 | 15 | 19 | 11 |
| NYG | NO | $24,600 | 16 | 14 | $20,900 | 16 | 13 | 17 |
| CAR | MIA | $22,800 | 17 | 5 | $18,400 | 17 | 5 | 12 |
| DEN | PHI | $26,500 | 19 | 19 | $21,200 | 18 | 18 | 17 |
| BAL | HOU | $27,300 | 18 | 20 | $21,500 | 19 | 20 | 16 |
| TEN | ARI | $23,000 | 20 | 17 | $18,900 | 20 | 17 | 20 |
Week 5 DraftKings & FanDuel NFL DFS Stacks & Optimizer Groups
Overview
Rules and limits are powerful tools for lineup creation for NFL DFS where our primary focus is creating highly correlated lineups via stacking players from the same game. Lineups will typically be coordinated around the quarterback selection, which informs at least one pass-catcher choice, establishes a budget, eliminates a defense, and sets the tone for the lineup. We will typically look to correlate a quarterback and at least one of his pass-catchers in every lineup, with many of those including a skill player from the opposing team. This player is included to support the stack in a high-scoring game that drives offense on both sides, creating additional correlated scoring potential. Stacking multiple pass-catchers in the same lineup is a sound approach, though there are typically overall ceilings on how much volume is available at any given position. While pass-catching running backs can be prioritized in stacks and group tools, including running backs who are not involved in the passing game is less important at this stage, they will fall naturally into shares as needed. High-volume backs and pass catchers out of the backfield can be included in the groups utilized below, but it is frequently not necessary to do so with the very best players, they arrive in lineups without help.
Rules and limits are typically applied in an optimizer’s Advanced Options menu. Notes are included to illustrate the reasons behind each rule and explain what it does during the lineup creation process. These settings can typically be saved for re-use, which is highly recommended. Saving the groups created below is also a good idea that will save time with updates instead of recreation each week. These groups are created manually, but most optimizers include automated group creators that can help accelerate the curation process.
DraftKings + FanDuel Settings & Advanced Options
Note – Terminology may vary from site to site but these are common functions across most industry tools.
Unique Players Per Lineup– This setting forces the optimizer to utilize at least X new players who were not in Lineup 1 when it creates Lineup 2, and so on. We recommend a setting of at least two unique players, more can be applied depending on the degree of differentiation desired within lineups.
Team Salary– a minimum or maximum salary spend can be applied here as needed, although leaving salary on the table is an easy path toward creating unique lineups while not necessarily making a negative expected value play.
FLEX position– allows restrictions on what positions can be rostered at the FLEX spot. The primary position to restrict is the tight end so that lineups do not include two players from the position. In many industry tools this is a separate option via a checkbox, it can also be handled specifically within groups.
Global Exposure Setting – allows caps on the maximum percentage of lineups a player can appear in within a given pool of lineup construction. This is a powerful tool for shaping lineups but if settings are too low, attempts to build a full set will fall short due to a lack of available players, one of the most common errors in optimizer building. Most optimizers include the ability to calculate ownership caps continuously or at the end of the pool creation process. If caps are calculated continuously, a player with a 25% cap who is utilized in Lineup 1 will not be available for use again until Lineup 5, we recommend turning OFF continuous calculation.
Randomness – provides a random multiplier to each player’s projected point total based on the set values. This valuable tool helps differentiate lineups instead of simply creating them in order of the highest median projected scores. Using some randomness for lineup generation is strongly recommended but the degree to which it is applied is down to personal preference, 15-25% is fine to get started. We suggest heavier randomness to more event-based players like wide receivers while tracking volume-based positions like running backs more toward their median or ceiling projections.
DraftKings + FanDuel Team Stack Rules
This set of rules will force optimizers to build lineups with certain combinations. We are looking to stack at least one skill player, almost always a pass-catcher, with his quarterback while frequently playing a skill player from the opposing team in the lineup. The theory behind this build is that a high-scoring stack will require some response from the opposing team to deliver a ceiling score in most situations. Most optimizers utilize a “complete the sentence” approach for rule creation with selections from drop-down menus following a very straightforward logic. Exceptions to these rules can be added for specific teams and players on most optimizer products.
- QB with at least one WR/TE from Same Team (note: It is fine to set this to two or to utilize two versions of this rule, one with WR/TE and one with RB/WR/TE, but we can also refine this via Groups)
- optional – QB with at least one RB/WR/TE from the Opposing Team (we typically prefer the pass-catchers but high-volume running backs can be effective here)
- QB with at most zero DST from the Same Team (this is a personal preference; high-scoring teams and quarterbacks tend to leave their defenses on the field, exposing them to simple point-scoring negatives)
Limits & Custom Rules and Requirements
Limit rules can be applied to restrict certain combinations from coming together. This is powerful for limiting multiple running backs from the same team or getting overweight to a certain stack within a lineup.
- Limit QB/RB/WR/TE from Same Team to three
- Limit RB/WR/TE from the Same Team to one unless paired with QB from the Same Team OR the Opposing Team (this prevents multiple players from a team that is not a primary quarterback-based stack)
- optional – Limit RB from Same Team to one (we can also do this with WR in a separate rule that adds an “unless paired with QB or opposing QB” but it’s a personal preference for NFL DFS, we typically do not want two pass-catchers from the same team without their quarterback)
We will maintain the list of rules and limits throughout the season, with occasional tweaks. Each week sees another fresh crop of value plays as situations change and injuries create opportunities around the league. These changing roles and emergent value plays are accounted for in creating these groups from week to week. After a large pool of lineups is created utilizing these groups, it is still critical to filter them for factors including ceiling projections and leverage potential. These groups should help ensure that a highly correlated premium set of options that rotates through various combinations is utilized to create the full lineup pool.
Sunday Updates
Any changes and recommended boosts to specific players will be provided in an early morning update each Sunday.
NFL DFS Week 5 Features & Projections
- Week 5 Projections
- Week 5 Above/Below
- Week 5 Quarterback Scoring & Value Rankings
- Week 5 Running Back Scoring & Value Rankings
- Week 5 Pass-Catcher Scoring & Value Rankings
- Week 5 Defense Scoring & Value Rankings
Construction Concept
Team groups are built by utilizing the quarterback as the KEY player in group settings. The quarterback decision is the driving factor in determining which stack the lineup utilizes and which corresponding plays are made to work within the structured requirements. In Fantasy Cruncher, built to specification, each team will have two groups, a team group, and an opponent group, both of which utilize the same quarterback as the key player. Each game will have a total of four groups. This is the best approach to truly capture the requirement of playing individual “run-back” plays from the opposing team. A more basic approach would be to include all of the skill players from a game in each quarterback’s group and rely on rules and limits to restrict any potential overflow. It is highly recommended to save the early season groups as a foundation that will be updated for the rest of the season. The recommended groups will include skill players who have an active role in their offense and provide significant correlation with their quarterback’s scoring, often bell-cow running backs who do not specialize in the passing game will not be included in groups as they are projected highly and appear on their own in basically correct distributions, while also not always providing the strongest positive correlation plays. Stacking quarterbacks with pass-catchers and allowing running backs to fall into the lanes created by settings, available salary, and randomness should create a well-distributed set of quality lineups. These groups are updated weekly to account for changes in utilization, schemes, injuries, target shares, and more.
Team Groups for DraftKings & FanDuel – Week 5
The goal is to create a large pool of well-built lineups that can be utilized in any large-field GPP contest. Our approach is to build far more lineups than needed and utilize a sorting table or sim process to filter to the best set of entries. The lineups created in these crunches should provide a broad distribution that includes some of the lower-owned high-upside skill players from each stack. Applying boosts is critical in pushing and pulling ownership to individual players within their team’s stacked lineups if they appear too much or too little.
The groups below are designed so that each quarterback will have two groups to create, one with his skill players and another with the opposing team. A more basic approach would be to add them all to one large group with an “at least three” and let rules and limits set things, but there is a more granular level of control in creating them separately.
Utilizing two groups also allows us to place running backs into the “run-back” position in certain teams while not including them in the primary stack for their team. This is useful when a situation has an extremely highly projected running back that does not necessarily fit into his team’s passing game. These players are threaded throughout the following construction recommendations.
Note for all optimizers the rules can be utilized to force bring-back plays in some sets of crunches and turned off for others as a global function instead of changing each group to “exactly one” bring-back play, wherever applicable, but it will apply to all teams.
Arizona Cardinals
Game Total: 41.5 / ARI -7.5 (24.5)
Offense: 39.66% rush / 60.34% pass / 20.5 ppg / 4.5 ypa rush / 5.7 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.8 ypa rush / 7.4 ypa pass / 30.0 ppg / 3.08% sack / 2.38% int
Key Player: Kyler Murray
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Trey McBride, Marvin Harrison Jr., Michael Wilson, Greg Dortch (Q), Michael Carter (on/off), Emari Demarcado (on/off)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Tony Pollard, Calvin Ridley (Q), Elic Ayomanor, Chig Okonkwo, Tyler Lockett
Game Notes: The Cardinals are going to go with a hot-hand approach at running back, not good for anyone.
Quarterback
Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray has managed just 16.37 fantasy points per game across sites, ranking him in the bottom-third of starting quarterbacks over roughly a quarter of the season. The quarterback draws a strong matchup against a bad Titans team in Week 5 however, putting him firmly on the board for stacking purposes on DraftKings and FanDuel slates. Murray sees more than enough volume to support the potential for fantasy production against the Titans, he threw the ball a season-high 41 times last week and averages 32.5 pass attempts per game for the season. Despite the volume and a cadre of talented pass-catchers, Murray checks in with just 5.7 yards per pass attempt and just 185.5 yards per game for the season. The quarterback has six touchdown passes against three interceptions and, perhaps most concerningly for fantasy scoring, is operating with just a 5.8-yard intended air yard per attempt mark on limited big attempts. Murray also has ability to put points on the board in the ground game, he averages 5.9 yards per attempt on 6.3 carries per game but is yet to find the end zone. Given the matchup against a team that ranks 25th with 4.8 yards allowed per rush attempt and 23rd with 7.4 yards allowed per pass, on the way to giving up 30.0 points per game over four contests, Murray stands a chance to finally shine in 2025. With the team’s top two running backs both out of commission we we should see plenty of Murray action this week, he ranks as QB5 by points and QB7 by value on DraftKings and is QB5 by points and QB4 by value on FanDuel and should overcome a -2.9 CPOE with a shot at more than 250 passing yards for the first time on the season.
Running Backs
With Trey Benson following James Conner out the injury door, there are some question marks in the Arizona backfield. While Emari Demercado has been more involved to this point, the expectation should probably be that he will remain more of a passing downs and hurry-up option behind fellow emergency option Michael Carter. Demercado played 26 snaps with the offense last week, carrying the ball twice for eight yards and drawing a pair of targets, both of which he caught, for 13 yards and a touchdown. Carter, meanwhile, barely saw the field with Benson active to start, carrying the ball once on four snaps with the offense. Both running backs should see an uptick in both snaps and potential touches in Week 5 but the unpredictable split is not a great situation. The Titans defense is bad against the run and both Demercado and Carter have explosive run potential with the ability to make a big play. Carter saw action in Weeks 17 and 18 last season, carrying the ball 13 times for 70 yards and catching two of two targets for 11 more over 52 snaps in the first game and adding 43 yards and a touchdown with another 16 yards on 4-4 receiving in Week 18, he could post similar numbers this week. Carter ranks as RB22/17 on DraftKings, he is RB21 by points but RB9 by value on FanDuel this week. Demercado is slightly lower-rated in the mid-twenties across categories on both sites, he is more of a value dart at a big play, but he picks up a bit of potential in full-PPR scoring.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Trey McBride checks in as one of the top-rated tight end options again in Week 5. McBride has posted 1.56 yards per route run over 37.5 routes per game, drawing 8.8 targets per contest for a team-leading 27.3% target share on routes run. McBride was slow to find the end zone last year but he hit paydirt early in 2025, though he has only scored once on the season which can be a constant limiter to his fantasy production when he slots in at upper-echelon pricing. The tight end draws a 6.5-yard average depth of target for 29.44% of the team’s air yards and he has seen four targets in the red zone over four games, he has ability up and down the field and when it comes time to score and remains a solid weekly option who can be a slate winner if he finds the end zone.
Marvin Harrison Jr. is the second-most targeted pass-catcher and by far the leader among the wide receiver group. Harrison Jr. draws a 21.1% target share overall and is tied with McBride with four red zone opportunities on the season. The wideout gets down the field for big potential scoring plays, pulling in a 10.7-yard average depth of target on the whole for a healthy 39.09% of the team’s air yards. Harrison Jr. has a pair of touchdown receptions on the season and puts up 1.35 yards per route run on 6.8 targets per game. Both Harrison Jr. and McBride should see a bit of an uptick in potential opportunities with the team’s crumbling backfield situation, he is WR20 by points and WR18 by value on DraftKings and WR21/22 on the FanDuel slate but has ceiling beyond those marks.
MIchael Wilson is a dart throw at the position, he ranks just inside the top-40 at wide receiver across both sites and is a playable depth option with a shot at low-volume big play production of fantasy points. Wilson sees just 3.5 targets per game and is putting up a mere 0.27 yards per route run for the season, but his 11.9-yard ADOT and 19.37% air yards share have appeal. Wilson has a touchdown on the season, he is at best the third option in the passing attack but he is a mainstay on the field with a 77.0% snap share overall and a 97.0% rate last week. Wilson should see ongoing opportunities to produce, he is on the board as a depth option in stacks and a limited dart in other lineups.
Greg Dortch and Zay Jones both rank outside of the top-50 in the wide receiver pool, they only offer appeal as stack padding. Dortch runs 14.5 routes per game for 0.81 yards per route run while Jones runs 19.0 routes each week and puts up 0.51 yards per route run, neither has caught a touchdown pass this season.
The Cardinals rank as Stack 13 by points and Stack 9 by value on DraftKings, they are Stack 14 by points and Stack 11 by value on FanDuel. It is also worth a note that the Cardinals defense is D1 by points and D5 by value on DraftKings and D1 across the board on FanDuel. There is matchup-based potential for scoring, particularly with a few missing starters in the backfield driving either value running back production or upside in the passing game. This is an interesting but likely popular option for Week 5.
Baltimore Ravens
Game Total: 41.0 / BAL +1.0 (20.0)
Offense: 40.95% rush / 59.05% pass / 32.8 ppg / 6.2 ypa rush / 8.4 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.2 ypa rush / 5.9 ypa pass / 12.8 ppg / 7.64% sack / 1.50% int
Key Player: Cooper Rush (Lamar Jackson has been out of practices and is currently unlikely to play)
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Zay Flowers, Mark Andrews, DeAndre Hopkins, Derrick Henry (on/off), Justice Hill (on/off), Rashod Bateman, Isaiah Likely
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Nico Collins, Christian Kirk, Dalton Schultz, Woody Marks, Xavier Hutchinson, Jaylin Noel, Jayden Higgins
Game Notes: The Commanders confirmed that Jayden Daniels will play without restrictions.
Quarterback
There is a gaping slate-changing absence at the quarterback spot for Baltimore in Week 5 with Lamar Jackson officially out of action. Jackson will hand the reins to Cooper Rush, a far less inspiring option for fantasy scoring but a quarterback who no less will be heading up a strong offense with plenty of skill player upside. Rush played 16 snaps in Week 4 at Kansas City, completing nine of his 13 pass attempts but gaining just 4.0 yards per attempt and 52 overall. The 30-year-old career backup played in 12 games for Dallas last season, a career high. Rush threw 308 passes, completing 187 of them for 12 touchdowns but only 6.0 yards per pass attempt, while losing five interceptions and rating poorly in all accuracy metrics. The quarterback is moderately capable, he will not necessarily destroy the chances of production from his team but Baltimore does not rate as an appealing stack at just a 20.0-point implied total against a defense that is strong against the pass. Houston has allowed just 5.9 yards per pass attempt to rank 6th in the league and they have come away with 11 sacks on the season. Cooper Rush is QB20 by points but QB13 by value on DraftKings, he is QB20/19 on the FanDuel slate.
Running Backs
Derrick Henry could see massive volume with Rush taking the wheel, at least as long as Baltimore hangs with the opposing Texans, a task that may not be challenging considering the Texans’ current 16.0 points-per-game average. Houston brings a capable pass defense to the board but just a mid-ranked rush defense that allows 4.2 yards per rush attempt to rank 17th. Henry’s production has been held somewhat in check this season despite a fantastic 5.8 yards per rush attempt over 12.3 carries per game. The veteran has a 12.24% explosive rush rate with 2.7 yards after contact per attempt. Henry has been in the end zone three times in four games, he only sees 1.3 targets per game on the season and his overall volume has not been tremendous with 13.6 potential touches per game but we could see that number with a +10 or better this weekend. Henry is RB8 by points and RB15 by value on DraftKings and RB7/16 on the FanDuel slate, he has major scoring potential with a high ceiling in Week 5.
Justice Hill slots in just inside the top-30 running backs on this slate, he is just a dart throw option at a poached touchdown with a bit of big play potential. Hill gains a tremendous 8.6 yards per attempt but is limited to just two carries per game while drawing 3.8 targets as the passing downs option. The running back picks up a touch of value in full PPR formats for his utilization in the offense but he lacks the significant volume of the heavy scorers in the pass game at this position. Hill has one touchdown reception on the season while gaining 7.1 yards per target, he could operate as a bit of a safety valve for the limited quarterback in Week 5 but there is not a high ceiling in play.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Zay Flowers is likely to be held somewhat in check by both the play of his backup quarterback and by a solid opposing pass defense. The receiver has played well to start 2025, putting up an excellent 2.44 yards per route run over 31.3 routes per contest and drawing a team-leading target share and air yards share at 29.5% and 32.23% respectively. Flowers has a 21.74% explosive play rate on receptions and a solid 9.5-yard ADOT but has only scored once this season with the team punching the ball in with a variety of premium options and spreading touchdown catches among seven different pass-catchers in four games. Flowers is still the primary read in the passing game but he oddly is yet to draw a red zone target on the season, limiting his scoring potential in the offense. Given the negative attributes in the matchup and the limited times the team has called his number when it comes time to score, Flowers is a mere mixer with Rush at the helm, he is WR16 by points but WR32 by value on DraftKings and rates similarly as WR15/23, the points values are essentially at his season-long scoring average ranking at the wide receiver position.
Mark Andrews is a highly playable tight end option, though he rates as just TE11 for points on both sites. Andrews should be relatively low-owned relative to his potential to score a fairly-priced touchdown with a few catches along the way. The tight end has a pair of touchdowns on the board this season while drawing a 17.1% targets share and 4.5 opportunities per game and posting 1.38 yards per route run. Andrews sees a 6.5-yard average depth of target for a mere 13.57% air yards share but he is capable all over the field and hears his number called frequently when it comes time to score, with three red zone targets already this season. Andrews is TE11/17 and TE11/15.
Rashod Bateman is WR43/52 and WR45/49 across sites this week, he is a limited option against a good pass defense with the backup quarterback in play. Bateman can stretch the field, his 11.6-yard average depth of target puts him into big play range and he sees 21.63% of the team’s air yards on 4.3 targets per game but manages just 1.06 yards per route run. The receiver has seen a 64.71% catchable target rate from Jackson to this point, while we can easily blame some of his limited production on a few poor throws on tough looks, that is unlikely to improve in switching from Lamar Jackson to Cooper Rush. Bateman is no more than a dart at a cheap touchdown catch on a deep pass and that looks thin.
Veteran DeAndre Hopkins has two touchdown catches on just 1.8 targets per game to start the season, he has been used sparingly in the offense but has produced 2.55 yards per route run and provided quality when called upon. Given the limitations for volume, Hopkins functions best within stacks of Ravens, which are unappealing this week, he remains a very interesting sneaky Showdown option in this game and going forward in this offense but not much more than a low-probability dart in main slate action.
Isaiah Likely went untargeted over 20 routes run on 25 snaps with the offense in his season debut last week, he could see similar limitations again in Week 5 and should be considered a very thin option who would absolutely need an unlikely touchdown to provide any value.
Tylan Wallace is another depth option who is used to stretch the field here and there. Wallace has a pair of touchdowns and leads the team with a 19.3-yard ADOT but sees just 1.3 targets per game for a 4.8% target share on routes run. Wallace is another dart in the quiver in stacks but nothing more than that.
The Ravens are a limited Stack 19 by points and Stack 20 by value on DraftKings, they are Stack 18 by points and Stack 20 by value on FanDuel. Derrick Henry is by far the most interesting piece of this offense on both sites, he is a high-caliber high-ceiling standalone running back this week.
Carolina Panthers
Game Total: 44.5 / CAR +1.0 (21.75)
Offense: 39.53% rush / 60.47% pass / 18.8 ppg / 3.9 ypa rush / 5.4 ypa pass
oppDEF: 5.1 ypa rush / 8.8 ypa pass / 29.5 ppg / 6.96% sack / 0.0% int
Key Player: Bryce Young
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Tetairoa McMillan, Hunter Renfrow, Xavier Legette, Rico Dowdle, Tommy Tremble
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: De’Von Achane, Jaylen Waddle, Malik Washington, Darren Waller, Ollie Gordon II (on/off), Nick Westbrook-Ikhine
Game Notes:
Quarterback
After giving quarterback Bryce Young the benefit of the doubt in a good spot last week we are a bit more reluctant in what could be an equally compelling matchup for a more capable NFL quarterback. Young draws a Miami defense that has been abused for 8.8 yards per pass attempt to rank 31st on the season while coming away with eight sacks and zero interceptions in four games. This is not an intimidating opponent but Young is not a high-caliber passer. The quarterback has steady volume with 36.0 pass attempts per game but he averages a mere 5.2 yards per pass attempt. He has a tidy ratio with five touchdown passes and only two interceptions but that is far from an inspiring touchdown total in four games. Young has a -3.9 CPOE that rates second-worst on the slate behind Cam Ward’s unbelievable -7.9. Despite facing a bad pass defense, Young will be without one of his primary weapons with running back Chuba Hubbard out of action, thrusting Rico Dowdle into the top spot. While Dowdle is productive in his own right, this is a limiting factor for an already bad team. Young has a strong connection with rookie receiver Tetairoa McMillan to start the season but not much more than that, he is QB17 by points on both sites but leaps to an unfortunate QB3 by value on the DraftKings slate where he costs just $4,700. At $6,600, Young is just QB13 by value on FanDuel.
Running Backs
Rico Dowdle leaps into the lead spot in the Carolina backfield after serving as the understudy to Chuba Hubbard over the first four weeks of the season. Dowdle is coming off of a productive year in Dallas that saw him carry the ball 235 times for 1,079 yards in 16 games, though he managed just two touchdown runs in the effort. The running back gained an excellent 4.6 yards per rush attempt in 2024, and he has talent in the passing game as well, he added 49 targets for 39 catches and 249 yards with another three touchdowns in Dallas’ passing game last season and could provide a safety valve for Young this week. Dowdle saw just seven carries and 1.5 targets per game to start the season and disappointed with 3.0 yards per rush attempt, 1.5 yards per attempt below expectation. The running back has zero explosive runs in the limited action but he did punch in a touchdown on the season and should see plenty of opportunities to make plays filling in for a running back who was drawing 17.6 potential touches per game ahead of him on the depth chart. Dowdle is RB13 by points on DraftKings and RB12 by points on FanDuel but he vaults to RB1 by value on both sites, he is likely to be a popular high-priority building block around the industry in Week 5 against a defense that has yielded a ridiculous 5.1 yards per rush attempt to rank 29th with 1.3 rushing touchdowns allowed per game over four weeks.
Trevor Etienne ranks just inside the top-40 as the presumptive backup behind Dowdle. Etienne is not much of a DFS option this week despite potential for an uptick in touches, he would still probably need to break one big play to make value. The running back has gained 4.6 yards per attempt on two carries per game with a 12.5% explosive rush rate and limited targeting in the passing attack to this point.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Tetairoa McMillan is a fairly-ranked top-15 receiving option on both sites. The rookie has been one of the top of the class with a 24.5% target share and 1.9 yards per route run over 36.5 routes per game to start his career. McMillan has seen three targets in the red zone but has failed to come away with a touchdown on the season, though a 57.14% catchable target rate from his quarterback is a big part of the problem. The receiver has operated on a big-play-adjacent 10.6-yard average depth of target for 42.27% of the team’s air yards, he has premium receiver potential on any given slate but lives and dies with the quality of his quarterback’s play. McMillan is WR15/13 on DraftKings and WR14/7 on FanDuel where he picks up a bit of a value bump for $6,200.
Hunter Renfrow and Xavier Legette both rate right around the WR-40 mark in all categories across sites this week, neither has significant appeal outside of stacks and they are volume-based stack padding options in Carolina builds. Either receiver is in play in that context, but it is unlikely that we would see them both explode for points in the same week. Renfrow draws 5.3 targets per game for a 14.7% target share on routes while Legette sees 7.5 targets per game but a lower share of targets on routes run with 38.5 routes per game to Renfrow’s 28.5 to this point. Both receivers operate on limited ADOT marks with Renfrow seeing an average depth of target of 7.6 yards and Legette at just 6.3. Between the two, Renfrow has been slightly more productive for DFS scoring with two touchdowns to Legette’s zero, but those both came in a big Week 2 that saw him haul in seven of nine targets for 48 yards and the scores. Renfrow has exactly two catches and not more than 11 yards in each of the other three games the team has played this season.
Tommy Tremble slots in as a limited TE19/19 and TE18/17 across sites, he lacks significant appeal with 3.5 targets per game, though he has seen three red zone chances that put him on the board for a cheap touchdown or for correlated scoring potential with Young in Carolina stacks. Tremble has one touchdown on the board and has drawn the most accurate passing among regular targets on this team with a 78.57% catchable target rate, though that is probably a product of his limited 4.3-yard ADOT over limited volume as the backup to Ja’Tavion Sanders who remains out. Tremble is a longshot for value at tight end this week but he draws a solid matchup and could see a cheap touchdown opportunity if things break in his favor.
The Panthers are Stack 17 by points but Stack 5 by value on both sites against a terrible Miami defense. There is plenty of available value but it is difficult to generate enthusiasm for Young-led stacks of Panthers, there is a strong chance that the quality skill options from this team play better in standalone situations while the stack remains a bit of a potential pitfall.
Cincinnati Bengals
Game Total: 49.5 / CIN +10.5 (19.5)
Offense: 36.36% rush / 63.64% pass / 15.3 ppg / 2.6 ypa rush / 5.8 ypa pass
oppDEF: 3.8 ypa rush / 7.6 ypa pass / 22.0 ppg / 10.61% sack / 2.54% int
Key Player: Jake Browning
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Mike Gesicki, Noah Fant, Chase Brown (on/off), Andrei Iosivas (large field)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Jahmyr Gibbs, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Sam LaPorta, David Montgomery, Isaac TeSlaa (large field), Kalif Raymond (large field)
Game Notes:
Quarterback
Jake Browning is averaging just 6.65 fantasy points per game in his two starts since taking over for Joe Burrow, his overall average is significantly boosted by solid relief work in his first appearance in the game Burrow exited in Week 2. Browning has thrown three touchdown passes against five interceptions already, while managing just 6.0 yards per pass attempt. The quarterback does carry a surprising 2.1 CPOE mark, but completion percentage over expectation is clearly not everything. Despite some of the best pass-catching weapons in the league, Browning has provided very little in matchups against strong defenses, it will be interesting to see if a draw against a Lions defense that yields 7.6 yard per pass attempt is at all helpful. Browning ranks as QB18 by points but QB8 by value on DraftKings for just $4,900, a price that makes it easy to reach his top-shelf pass-catchers. On FanDuel he is just QB18/14 for $6,600.
Running Backs
Chase Brown gains a hilariously bad 2.3 yards per rush attempt on his 14.3 carries per game in 2025. The running back has a touchdown on the season but he is yet to break an explosive run with teams keying on the run. Brown has been completely bottled up over four games, even if he had gained his 0.9 yards per rush attempt below expectation it would still leave him a pathetic 3.2 yards per rush attempt, there is just no appeal here without a competent passing game to relieve the pressure. Detroit’s defense will also not help, the Lions are allowing a seventh-ranked 3.8 yards per rush attempt on the season. Brown is in for another long afternoon as RB16 by points and RB19 by value on DraftKings and RB17 by points and RB20 by value on FanDuel.
Both Samaje Perine and Tahj Brooks are low-end options who rank poorly at the position in a bad situation. Perine has not been involved in the passing game in 2025, he sees the same 1.3 carries per game that Brooks has drawn in early action.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Ja’Marr Chase is WR3 by points but WR33 by value on DraftKings, he is WR5 by points but WR29 by value on FanDuel and he will once again see limitations with bad quarterback play. Chase has only scored once this season, though he has managed to gain 2.05 yards per route run over 32.3 routes per contest. The elite receiver sees a 30.7% target rate on routes run, catching 6.5 of his 8.8 targets per game and returning an additional 1.6 yards after the catch above expectation for 5.6 yards after the catch per reception. Chase has a 7.9 yard ADOT but 33.84% of the air yards on steady volume, he remains a top option positionally and he will find the end zone here and there even with Browning driving. The team should be in a better situation against the gettable Detroit pass defense than they were against the Vikings and Broncos over the past two weeks, something that could work to vault Chase onto the board for standalone plays at the very least.
Tee Higgins sees similar benefit to his running mate in the offense, the team is simply in an easier spot to find a bit of success in the passing game. Cincinnati is also the biggest underdog on this week’s slate, they are very likely to be playing from behind and throwing the ball aggressively, for better or worse. Higgins remains a high-caliber route runner who plays major volume with an 83.0% snap share while running 31.5 routes per week. Higgins has been bad over the team’s four games, he caught a touchdown pass among his three grabs in Week 2 to save his scoring in that contest, he has no other touchdowns this season and failed to gain even 35 yards in Weeks 1, 3, or 4. The culprit for any underproduction is the quarterback. Higgins has seen an extremely limiting 50.0% catchable target rate from Browning, when we cut 5.0 targets per game in half there is simply no chance to find success. Higgins has seen three targets in the red zone and will continue to draw scoring chances, he could surprise in a return to form game with a bit of help from Browning in a decent matchup in Week 5. Higgins is an interesting WR21/36 and WR22/31 at a price that continues to respect the true nature of his talent, the hope is that the field will not and he will wind up under-owned.
Mike Gesicki and Noah Fant will share chances at the tight end position in Week 5 with the latter returning from a one week absence after a concussion. Fant played just 17 and 18 snaps in Weeks 2 and 3, but he was targeted on half of the routes he ran and he caught three passes for 28 yards and five passes for 26 yards in those games. The tight end is involved when he is on the field but Gesicki cuts into the action, drawing similar targeting and snap counts in Week 3 and out-snapping Fant with 36 to Fant’s 17 snaps in Week 2. Overall, Gesicki sees 2.8 targets per game to Fant’s 4.7 chances and neither has found the end zone in 2025. These are limited options who are sharing targets and dragged down by bad quarterback play, they are difficult to reach outside of stack padding. Gesicki slightly outpaces Fant as TE17/15 and TE16/16.
Andrei Iosivas is a low-end value dart as WR54/54 and WR55/57 across sites. Iosivas is a field-stretcher with a 12.7-yard ADOT on the season but he has not been interesting for fantasy scoring with zero touchdowns and two total catches on six total targets over four games, going entirely untargeted in two of those contests.
The Bengals are a bad stack with good wide receiver options for standalone play. Cincinnati is Stack 8/16 on DraftKings and Stack 8/18 on FanDuel this week, their expensive receivers are pushing the scoring potential up in projections while providing most of their value in other lineups.
Dallas Cowboys
Game Total: 47.5 / DAL -2.5 (25.0)
Offense: 35.16% rush / 64.84% pass / 28.5 ppg / 5.1 ypa rush / 6.8 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.1 ypa rush / 7.5 ypa pass / 30.0 ppg / 5.13% sack / 0.0% int
Key Player: Dak Prescott
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: George Pickens, Jake Ferguson, Jalen Tolbert, KaVontae Turpin, Javonte Williams (on/off), Miles Sanders (Q; on/off)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Breece Hall, Garrett Wilson, Mason Taylor, Allen Lazard, Josh Reynolds
Game Notes:
Quarterback
Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott is perceived as a less productive fantasy player than he is in reality. Over nearly a quarter of the season, Prescott averages 20.49 fantasy points per game across sites, good for sixth among main slate quarterbacks in Week 5 and separated from third by only 0.5 fantasy points. Prescott has a completion percentage 8.9 points over expectation while throwing for 6.7 yards per pass attempt on 7.3 intended air yards per attempt with six touchdown passes and three interceptions on the season, he would have a couple of additional scores were it not for a few key early drops. Prescott has already been over 300 yards twice in four games, throwing for 361 on 38-52 passing in Week 2 against a terrible Giants defense. He broke out for another 319 yards on 31-40 passing with three touchdowns and zero interceptions against Green Bay in Week 4 and stands a strong chance at another big day against a Jets pass defense that yields 7.5 yards per attempt to sit just 24th in the league this season. Prescott will be without star receiver CeeDee Lamb for the next few weeks but he still has premium options across skill positioned in a now more focused attack, he should remain a sharp option this week and rates as QB8/14 on DraftKings and QB8/8 on FanDuel where he costs just $7,300.
Running Backs
Javonte Williams has surprised early in 2025, posting an excellent 5.0 yards per rush attempt on 15.8 carries per game. Williams has found the end zone four times already this season and has a solid 2.6 yards after contact per attempt but just a 7.94% explosive rush rate. The Jets are a middle-of-the-road rush defense with 4.1 yards allowed per rush attempt landing them 15th overall, if Williams sees anything like the 20 carries he drew in Week 3 – and he could, with Miles Sanders questionable to play – he will be a big upside play. Williams turned those 20 carries into 85 yards and a touchdown, adding another 15 yards on three catches to get over 100 yards from scrimmage for the second time this season. Williams sees steady involvement in Prescott’s plans as a passer, picking up 4.5 targets per game and three looks in the red zone. Javonte Williams slots in as RB9/9 on DraftKings and RB8/8 on FanDuel and should be easy to reach on either site.
Miles Sanders is questionable with an ankle issue. Sanders played just seven snaps with the offense and carried the ball only twice last week before exiting in the first half, he was more involved over Weeks 1-3 but that is to the tune of around 10 potential touches as a true number two in the offense. With his banged-up status there is very limited appeal here and the potential to just push upside toward Javonte Williams. Sanders is no better than his RB35/34 and RB35/35 ranking would suggest.
Receivers & Tight Ends
George Pickens is the clear top wide receiver in this offense with star counterpart CeeDee Lamb out of action. Pickens is a highly-talented receiver in his own right, he should stand a chance to shine in Week 5 in a great situation against the Jets with the team uncharacteristically struggling against the pass this year. Pickens stepped up in the offense after Lamb was lost in Week 4, totaling 134 yards and a pair of touchdowns on a season-high 11 targets for eight catches over 39 routes run. The receiver is a fixture in the offense, even with Lamb active he had drawn nine targets in each of Weeks 2 and 3, catching five passes for exactly 68 yards and a touchdown in both contests. Pickens essentially doubled that production while operating as the primary downfield weapon in the passing game, he is a tremendous option to pair with Prescott, a key priority in any Dallas stack, and an easily playable standalone receiver as WR5 by points but WR17 by value on DraftKings and an excellent WR4/5 on FanDuel.
Jake Ferguson draws the second-most targets per game on this team in regular action with 9.8 per game to Pickens’ average of 8.3, there is plenty of volume to support both pass-catchers with Lamb out of play. Ferguson has a 23.4% target share on routes run while getting out into coverage 33.8 times per game as a regular target. With Lamb knocked out of Week 4, Ferguson led the way with 14 targets over his 29 routes run for a tremendous 48.3% target share on routes run. The tight end caught 13 of those 14 opportunities, giving him major PPR scoring potential, but gained just 82 yards and failed to score as part of Prescott’s big game. Ferguson could see the same volume potential with full-PPR upside creating additional value in those scoring systems, he is a top-rated option at the position and would explode for scoring if he finds the end zone as TE4/3 on DraftKings and TE3/2 on FanDuel.
Jalen Tolbert is also likely to benefit in this offense with Ka’Vontae Turpin also out in Week 5. Turpin is a dynamic player who draws about four targets per game in regular action, with Tolbert only slightly outpacing him with 4.5 opportunities each week. Tolbert gains just 0.78 yards per route run over 32.5 routes per contest on the season, he has been of extremely limited value for DFS with zero touchdowns on the board over four weeks but his 10.7-yard ADOT draws the eye when hunting for big play beneficiaries in the absence of Lamb. If Tolbert sees a bonus chance or two on a deep pass he could deliver cheap lower-owned value as a piece of Prescott+2 builds, he has less value as a standalone or +1 option with Pickens and Ferguson far more likely to draw massive targeting and healthy volume dedicated to the running back as well. Tolbert is a dart at a big play, he functions best in stacks but could be viewed as a low-cost low-probability value option in standalone play as well, he is WR36/20 and WR35/38 across sites with a bit of value on the DraftKings slate.
Ryan Flournoy and Jonathan Mingo could get into the mix from further down the board, they are ranked outside of the top-60 and are unlikely contributors who could see the odd target or two in the absence of better options. Flournoy is the far more likely option, Mingo is just returning from the IR and was still limited in practices this week, he may not even play. Flournoy was targeted three times on 18 routes run over 24 snaps in Week 3 and twice on eight routes run over 16 snaps in Week 4.
Even with missing pieces, the Cowboys are a highly-rated stack this week as Stack 5 by points on both sites. The team draws a 25.0-point implied team total that rates as one of the better marks on the slate, Prescott+1 and Prescott+2 stacks should provide significant scoring potential and they rate well for value as Stack 8 by value on DraftKings and Stack 4 for value on FanDuel.
Denver Broncos
Game Total: 43.5 / DEN +4.0 (19.75)
Offense: 44.66% rush / 55.34% pass / 24.0 ppg / 5.1 ypa rush / 6.3 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.8 ypa rush / 6.3 ypa pass / 22.0 ppg / 3.52% sack / 2.19% int
Key Player: Bo Nix
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Courtland Sutton, Troy Franklin, Marvin Mims Jr., Evan Engram, JK Dobbins (on/off), RJ Harvey (on/off)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Saquon Barkley, AJ Brown, DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, Jahan Dotson
Game Notes:
Quarterback
Bo Nix ranks just 11th among main slate quarterbacks in fantasy scoring per game, posting 18.56 points each week. Nix has been hampered a bit by a completion percentage over expectation of -3.5 on his steady 34.25 pass attempts per game. The volume is appealing and Nix works with some still-underappreciated talent at the receiver position, but his 6.3 yards per pass attempt and 215.25 yards per game are somewhat limiting. Nix has seven touchdown passes on the season but has also lost four interceptions, which is high for a quarterback playing it safe at just 6.6 intended air yards per attempt. Nix has also been a bit more limited on the ground early in 2025. After rushing for 4.7 yards per attempt with 430 yards and four touchdowns on 92 carries last season, the quarterback has slipped to just 3.1 yards per attempt for 78 yards and a score over nearly a quarter of the 2025 campaign. Nix is still easily capable of punching one in on the ground to help with scoring, he may have to do just that with Philadelphia’s defense allowing a stingy 6.3 yards per pass attempt on the season. Nix is QB9 by points but QB12 by value on DraftKings, the situation is a bit different as QB9 by points but QB6 by value on FanDuel, where he costs $7,100.
Running Backs
JK Dobbins and rookie RJ Harvey are in a bit of a split situation with neither ranking particularly well, though Dobbins is just inside the top-20 by points on both sites and both running backs are coming off of quality performances in Week 4. Harvey played a season-high 33 snaps with the offense last week, adding 11 to his previous high, which had come in Week 1. The rookie gained 58 yards on 14 carries and added 40 more yards and a touchdown on 4-5 receiving over 14 routes run, putting him in the thick of things on 28 of his 33 snaps. Meanwhile, Dobbins played his standard 36 snaps with the offense, carrying the ball 16 times for 101 yards but drawing just one target on 13 routes run. Dobbins gets out into coverage fairly regularly in his role with the offense but has not been targeted more than twice in any game this season, Harvey is looking like the go-to option on passing downs with an angle toward more overall involvement. Against a Jets defense that sits 25th with 4.8 yards allowed per rush attempt, it would not surprise to see either or both Denver running backs have a decent DFS scoring day on Sunday but there is good reason to think that they will limit one another’s ability to truly bend or break a slate. Dobbins still draws the slight edge, he has a 14.04% explosive rush rate and three touchdowns on the season, though Harvey could quickly equalize the scoring if he sees ongoing red zone touches. Dobbins is RB19/21 on both sites while Harvey is RB21/20 and RB22/22, the inability to Voltron options like these into one good player remains a DFS frustration.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Courtland Sutton is the easy go-to in the Denver passing attack. Sutton was a strong contributor last season, particularly down the stretch with touchdowns in three of the last five games of the season and six touchdowns After Week 9. Sutton totaled 1,081 yards and eight scores with 8.0 yards per target last year and he has pushed those numbers as the prime receiver early in 2025. Sutton has three early touchdowns while gaining 9.9 yards per target and 1.9 yards per route run over 35.0 routes per game. The receiver has a fantastic 12.9-yard average depth of target for big play scoring potential, which he has already delivered given a 27.78% explosive play rate on receptions. Sutton gains 4.7 yards after the catch per reception as well, 0.8 yards over expectation per catch, his 38.95% air yards share creates major weekly scoring potential for DFS, though Troy Franklin has drawn more chances in the red zone early this season. Sutton is WR19/31 on DraftKings, he is WR20/33 on the FanDuel slate against a good Philadelphia pass defense.
Troy Franklin has been targeted six times in the red zone over the first four games of the season but it has resulted in just one touchdown. Franklin sees 6.8 targets per game for a 20.5% target share on routes run, with a 74.07% catchable ball rate delivered from Nix on a fairly healthy 8.6-yard ADOT. With Sutton drawing the lion’s share of the attention, Franklin can slip through as an underpriced under-owned option for DFS scoring both in and out of stacks, but the potential is knocked down somewhat by the Philadelphia pass defense. Franklin is WR30 by points but WR12 by value on the DraftKings slate, he is an interesting mixer on that site, but is just WR28/24 on FanDuel.
Marvin Mims Jr. slots in as WR35 by points and WR21 by value on DraftKings and WR37/36 on FanDuel, he is a simple mixer with a 12.1% target share on routes run over his 20.8 routes per game. Mims Jr. has returned 1.31 yards per route run, a highly pedestrian number despite drawing 18.71% of the air yards and a 10.1-yard average depth of target. Mims does have one touchdown on the board and he is capable of breaking explosive plays, he has a 16.67% explosive play rate on receptions this season. Mims is a low end dart who functions best as stack padding in Week 5.
Evan Engram missed Week 3 after posting low-end production in the first two games. The tight end returned to catch a season-high four passes on seven targets over 26 routes run on 35 snaps but he gained just 29 yards in the effort. Engram had his most productive season in 2023, catching 114 passes for four touchdowns, though he still fell short of 1,000 yards at 7.8 yards per reception. Engram has not developed much of a connection with Nix in his first year in Denver with 4.3 targets per game, though he did see two chances in the red zone in his three contests. Engram is capable of putting up sturdy PPR numbers if nothing else, true value would ride on a touchdown, he is just TE14/18 and TE17/19 and is not a priority on this slate outside of Broncos stacks.
Denver is just Stack 18 by points and value on DraftKings and Stack 19 in both categories on FanDuel, they are a low-end play against Philadelphia, given a sub-20.0 implied team total.
Detroit Lions
Game Total: 49.5 / DET -10.5 (30.0)
Offense: 48.57% rush / 51.43% pass / 34.3 ppg / 4.7 ypa rush / 7.6 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.5 ypa rush / 7.1 ypa pass / 29.8 ppg / 3.77% sack / 3.27% int
Key Player: Jared Goff
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams, Jahmyr Gibbs, Sam LaPorta, David Montgomery (on/off), Isaac TeSlaa, Kalif Raymond (large field)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, Chase Brown, Mike Gesicki, Noah Fant, Andrei Iosivas
Game Notes:
Quarterback
Detroit lands with the highest implied team total of the slate at 30.0, they are -10.5 point favorites against the lousy Bengals in Week 5 and lead the slate for stack-scoring potential, though they dip noticeably for value on both sites. The team’s quarterback and his premium skill players land with top-shelf projections on most slates, they are an elite bunch that has steadily produced big fantasy scoring over the past few seasons with very few changes. Jared Goff is a high-end passer with nine touchdowns against just two interceptions so far this season. Goff gains 7.6 yards per pass attempt on 7.9 intended air yards per attempt for steady production and 232.25 yards per game. The quarterback’s 8.3 CPOE mark is one of the better completion percentages over expectation on the slate and he has nothing but quality options no matter where he looks on the field. Goff is an easy QB7 by points on both sites, though he dips all the way to QB19 by value on DraftKings while landing as QB12 by value on FanDuel at a high price. Despite the challenging value-proposition, Goff is simply too likely a premium scorer to disregard on this slate, if he gets overly popular, which is likely, an undercut is a fair approach for both the quarterback and Lions stacks in general, but a bit of exposure in various roles in a portfolio of lineups looks almost mandatory this week.
Running Backs
Jahmyr Gibbs is RB4 by points on both sites, though he rates a bit worse than that by value at hefty price points. Gibbs is well worth the effort, he has four rushing touchdowns and gains 4.7 yards per rush attempt on 14.5 carries per game. The running back sees major targeting to put him at 19.8 potential touches per game, he gains 3.8 yards per target and has a 10.34% explosive play rate on receptions to go with his 8.62% explosive rush rate, while picking up four red zone targets in early action. Gibbs is a leading touchdown candidate on any given slate, he and David Montgomery are the most – read: only – functional running back tandem for DFS scoring on a regular basis.
David Montgomery has seen lighter volume but remains incredibly productive on a per-touch basis. Montgomery gains 5.7 yards per rush attempt over just 10.8 carries per game and has punched in three rushing touchdowns in four games. The running back has a 9.3% explosive rush rate and gains 3.2 yards after contact per attempt, his volume is lighter in the passing game with 1.8 targets per game but he has picked up a chance in the red zone and is a capable pass-catcher out of the backfield when called upon. Montgomery is slightly less likely than Gibbs but that also makes him far less popular each week. Montgomery is RB18/16 on DraftKings and RB18/18 on FanDuel but he could easily break expectations with a multi-touchdown game.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Amon-Ra St. Brown is one of the leading overall scorers on the slate with 24.35 DraftKings and 20.98 FanDuel points per game so far in 2025. St. Brown has been a tremendous scorer over the past few seasons, he has back-to-back seasons with double-digit touchdowns and is coming off of three straight years of well over 1,100 receiving yards. St. Brown is on his way to that type of production again this season and could set a new career-high in touchdowns if his current pace continues. The receiver has a league-leading six touchdown catches already this season, putting him one ahead of Rome Odunze and two ahead of the field. The elite Motor City receiver gains a ridiculous 2.44 yards per route run over 31.5 routes per game. St. Brown sees fantastic opportunities from his highly accurate quarterback, despite his heavy volume on an 8.0-yard average depth of target he has seen a 90.63% catchable target rate from Goff this season. Other than a big price tag and even bigger popularity marks, there is nothing to dislike about St. Brown this week, he WR1 by points on both sites, WR15 by value on DraftKings, and WR11 by value on FanDuel.
Those seeking St. Brown alternatives are fortunate to have an option as strong as Jameson Williams in the second banana role at the wide receiver position in this offense, though Williams competes for targets with premium tight end Sam LaPorta. To this point in 2025, LaPorta has slightly outdrawn Williams with 5.3 targets per game to Williams’ 5.0, but both pass-catchers are steadily involved in the gameplan. While LaPorta offers plenty of scoring potential with a pair of red zone targets and a 17.9% target share on routes run, Williams is probably the slightly more interesting DFS option with his explosive play nature and ridiculous 21.5-yard average depth of target. Williams has one touchdown on the board this season, he is a more difficult target for Goff and has seen just a 60.0% catchable target rate on his deep opportunities but there is a vaulted ceiling for scoring on any given slate, Williams is one of our favored slate-breaking big play receivers week-to-week, he is WR25/19 on DraftKings and WR24/32 on FanDuel but plays up from those marks. LaPorta, meanwhile, is TE5 by points on both sites and rates as TE8 by value on DraftKings and TE7 by value on the blue site. LaPorta’s only failing has been a lack of touchdown scoring, his 1.72 yards per route run and steady involvement are both appealing at the tight end position.
Beyond the productive pair of running backs, two excellent receivers, and a top-5 tight end, the Lions offer a couple of interesting darts in the form of Isaac TeSlaa and Kalif Raymond, with Raymond picking up 2.3 targets per game and TeSlaa offering a shot at one big scoring play, which he delivered once so far this season. Neither option is truly appealing outside of depth plays to pad a ninth or tenth Lions build in a large field portfolio of lineups. TeSlaa went untargeted on six routes over a dozen snaps last week and has two catches on four targets all year, though one went for a 13-yard touchdown in Week 1. Raymond tied his season-high with three targets last week, catching two of them to also tie a season high.
The Lions are a premium option once again in Week 5, this is Stack 1 by points and Stack 12 by value on both sites at high but worthwhile pricing. All of the team’s top-end skill players are playable both in and out of stacks.
Houston Texans
Game Total: 41.0 / HOU -1.0 (21.0)
Offense: 44.05% rush / 55.95% pass / 16.0 ppg / 4.1 ypa rush / 7.1 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.6 ypa rush / 6.8 ypa pass / 33.3 ppg / 2.45% sack / 0.63% int
Key Player: CJ Stroud
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Nico Collins, Christian Kirk, Dalton Schultz, Woody Marks (on/off), Nick Chubb (on/off), Xavier Hutchinson, Jaylin Noel (large field), Jayden Higgins (large field)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Derrick Henry, Zay Flowers, Mark Andrews, DeAndre Hopkins, Justice Hill (on/off), Rashod Bateman, Isaiah Likely
Game Notes:
Quarterback
CJ Stroud has led his team to just 16.0 points per game while passing for 7.1 yards per pass attempt but only 208.0 yards per game on 7.0 intended air yards per attempt. Stroud has provided little value in DFS lineups with four touchdown passes against three interceptions over four contests and he adds nothing with his legs in 2025, gaining 5.4 yards per rush attempt on 4.3 carries per game but failing to score. Stroud has one excellent pass-catcher in Nico Collins, but that creates a very obvious pairing in DFS lineups that leads to commonality of builds across already limited Texans stacks. Christian Kirk adds the idea of depth but he has not been a big contributor in his two games this season, nor have any of the team’s other wide receivers. Houston leans into the pass somewhat, there should be more here with Stroud throwing the ball nearly 30 times per game, there simply has not been. Stroud is QB13 by points and QB11 by value on DraftKings and QB13/10 on FanDuel against a defense allowing just 6.8 yards per pass attempt while coming up with merely four sacks on 16.9% pressure. With Baltimore lacking Lamar Jackson this week, Houston is actually favored on the road, it will be interesting to see if Stroud can manage to find some fantasy production as well. Against a terrible Titans defense last week, Stroud completed 22 of 28 pass attempts but threw for just 233 yards while connecting for a pair of touchdowns and zero interceptions, he could produce similar numbers in Week 5.
Running Backs
Woody Marks was a popular recent add in season-long leagues as the emergent talent in this backfield and with steady coach-speak about additional chances with Nick Chubb failing to inspire at just 4.0 yards per rush attempt. Marks has seen rising snap counts each week, going from seven to 13 to 30 to 40 in Week 4. The running back carried the ball 17 times, roughly three times his normal volume, and caught four of five targets to boost him over the 20 potential targets mark. If he sees anything approaching this type of volume in an ongoing basis he could be an explosive scorer for DFS. Marks gained 69 yards and put a ball into the end zone on the ground and added a second score with 50 yards in the passing game in a monster breakout last week. As RB15 by points and RB11 by value on DraftKings he should be just fairly popular, as RB14 by points but RB4 by value at a cheap $5,400 on FanDuel, Marks should be highly popular as a value running back on the blue site.
Nick Chubb is a lower-end option as RB23/26 and RB23/25. Chubb dipped to 29 snaps and carried the ball just 13 times last week, gaining 47 yards and failing to score. The running back caught two of two targets for another 15 yards but failed to create much in either aspect of the offense. Chubb gains just 1.8 yards after contact per rush attempt for the season, he has a rushing touchdown on the board but just a 4.26% explosive rush rate and a 2.13% broken tackle rate. The running back is likely to see fewer carries again this week, he was a low end option on more touches, he is borderline untouchable now.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Nico Collins is the top option in the Houston passing game with 2.10 yards per route run over 31.0 routes per contest this season. Collins is heavily targeted, drawing a 27.2% target share on routes run and 7.8 targets per game overall with spikes into double-digit range. Collins gained 104 yards on eight catches in Week 3, drawing 11 targets on 35 routes run in that contest. He saw just six targets last week but still managed 79 yards on just four catches. The receiver has two touchdown catches on the season and he has seen four red zone targets in the four games but zero since Week 2. Collins leads the team in deep targeting with a 10.5-yard ADOT and 42.3% air yards share, he is the easy go-to option but not the only viable pass-catcher working with Stroud.
While he has not produced in two games this season, Christian Kirk is a talented option who is likely to be almost entirely overlooked against a very gettable pass defense in Week 5. Kirk draws 6.0 targets per game on 27.0 routes but has delivered a mere 0.83 yards per route run in early action while lacking for touchdown scoring. The receiver draws a solid 9.7-yard ADOT that puts him in big play range down the field and he operates primarily out of the slot, a position against which the Ravens pass defense has been particularly weak. Both in and out of Texans stacks, there is a fair amount of appeal in an affordable Christian Kirk in Week 5, he is WR33/34 and WR34/35, which puts him roughly in play but probably leaves him mostly unnoticed by the public. Kirk could play up from those marks and is worth considering as a mixer in standalone lineups at low exposure and as something of a priority in stacks of Texans.
Tight end Dalton Schultz rates outside of the top-10 at the position in Week 5 and is best considered as stack padding. Schultz has not caught a touchdown in four games and has seen only one chance in the red zone in a passing attack that could use a reliable option not named Nico when they get into scoring territory. Schultz has been a relatively productive touchdown-scorer throughout his career, peaking with eight in 2021 but posting five in each of 2022 and 2023 before dipping to just two scores last year and none so far this season. The tight end saw just eight red zone targets in 2024, if the team is not calling his number in scoring position he is unlikely to find DFS value.
Xavier Hutchinson is the somewhat forgotten third man in the wide receiver group. Hutchinson sees just 2.8 targets per game for a 9.6% target share on his 25.0 routes run each week. The receiver has not scored and draws an unappealing 7.6-yard ADOT that holds him to low-end production at 0.92 yards per route run in his limited involvement. Hutchinson played 68.0% of the snaps with the offense last week and averages a 64.0% snap share, he will have unpredictable outbursts for minor production given the involvement but he has very few plays on which the team is truly looking to get him the ball.
Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel are limited options from down the depth chart. Higgins sees 1.5 targets per game on 13.3 routes run, posting 1.68 yards per route run in the limited action. He has an early touchdown on the board and comes with an intriguing 14.2-yard ADOT that technically leads the team, though that comes on a total of six targets in four games, with three in Week 1 and exactly one in each subsequent game. Higgins’ touchdown did come in Week 4, he hauled in his lone look for a 24-yard touchdown. Noel played 17 snaps with the offense last week after seeing similar counts in Weeks 1 and 2 but dipping to just nine in Week 3. The receiver was had one catch in each of the games in which he played double-digit snaps, he has yet to gain 10 yards or score.
The Texans are a mid-board option as Stack 14/14 on DraftKings and Stack 13/13 on FanDuel, they do not provide much projected potential but could carry off a bit of a surprise against a Ravens defense that has been bad against the pass this season. If nothing else, the skinny Stroud+Collins stack is easy to reach this week, if it also comes up under-owned it could pay bills, at which point a Stroud+Collnis+Kirk stack could be even more appealing.
Indianapolis Colts
Game Total: 48.5 / IND -7.0 (27.75)
Offense: 49.19% rush / 50.81% pass / 30.8 ppg / 4.5 ypa rush / 8.9 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.0 ypa rush / 7.2 ypa pass / 24.8 ppg / 5.76% sack / 1.53% int
Key Player: Daniel Jones
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Jonathan Taylor, Tyler Warren, Michael Pittman Jr., Josh Downs, Adonai Mitchell (large field), Ashton Dulin (very large field)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Jakobi Meyers, Brock Bowers (Q), Ashton Jeanty, Tre Tucker, Dont’e Thornton Jr.,
Game Notes: As expected, coach-speak suggested that Adonai Mitchell will take a hit for his stupid mistake last week, pushing Ashton Dulin up the board for deep threat opportunities.
Quarterback
The Colts are highly ranked in Week 5 while drawing the second-highest implied team total on the slate at a whopping 27.75. The team has been undeniably good over four weeks, though the Daniel Jones bandwagon hit the first of what is still likely to be many speedbumps in a shaky performance last week. Jones took his first loss as a Colts quarterback, throwing for 262 yards on 24-33 passing but losing a pair of key interceptions to Rams defenders and coming away with his fourth-straight game of just one touchdown pass. Jones early fantasy scoring was padded by rushing touchdowns, he ran the ball in twice in Week 1 and once in Week 2, his Week 3 performance was unspectacular with just 228 yards and one touchdown pass while rushing for 27 yards on four carries. Jones is averaging 20.88 fantasy points per week, putting him among the elite names at the position, but that still feels like a highly fraudulent number. We have seen plenty of Jones over the years and he has not stood out in early passing numbers, despite the strong average he has looked much more like the quarterback we thought we were getting with 15.82 and 12.38 points in Weeks 3 and 4 respectively, though he did see a Week 4 touchdown pass turn into a touchback via a boneheaded fumble by his receiver. This is a tremendous matchup, of course, Jones is facing a pass defense that allows 7.2 yards per attempt with limited pressure on the quarterback. The quarterback does have excellent marks when it comes to yards per attempt at 8.9 and his CPOE mark is well above expectation at 7.40, there are things to like in the passing game with the Colts’ propensity to take big shots down the field as well. Jones is leading one of our top-rated Stacks of the week and he rates well at the position despite a projection that comes up below the industry averages in our model, he seems destined for another listing in our Below section of Sunday’s Above/Below article while still rating as a top option by the numbers in a bit of a DFS paradox. The quarterback lands as QB6/6 on DraftKings and QB6/3 on FanDuel this week and his heavy ownership on both sites is a good tiebreaker, Jones should be owned but dipping below the field to grab shares of less popular upside options seems like the move.
Running Backs
The best path to exposure to the Colts offense is running back Jonathan Taylor who is not only RB1 by points but also player 1 overall by projected scoring on this week’s slate. The outstanding bell-cow running back will also be very popular but he is far less likely to go bust than Jones, he comes with a very high floor that can be worth paying for and a significant ceiling that can quickly become mandatory on the right slate. Taylor gains a fantastic 5.4 yards per rush attempt on 19.3 carries per game, adding another 3.5 potential touches via targeting in the passing attack, he is one of the most productive and one of the most involved options at the position with the 22.8 potential touches per game. Taylor has turned that into three rushing touchdowns and a receiving touchdown over four weeks while averaging 103.5 yards per game and putting up a tremendous 16.88% broken tackle rate with a 7.79% explosive rush rate and 3.1 yards after contact per rush attempt. This is a ridiculously productive option who sees incredible volume, he is a go-to priority on this slate in spite of a Las Vegas defense that has limited running backs to 4.0 yards per rush attempt to rank 10th against the run.
Jonathan Taylor eats the volume of DJ Giddens and Tyler Goodson, they both drop outside of the top-40 running backs.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Michael Pittman Jr. has caught three of Jones’ four touchdown passes this season with one in each of Weeks 1, 3, and 4, though he has not been over 80 yards in any of those games. Pittman pulls a 24.4% target share on routes run over his 29.0 routes per contest, gaining 2.02 yards per route run for the season and posting 4.8 yards after the catch per reception for 0.7 yards over expectation after each catch. The receiver has a 9.7-yard average depth of target that can grown somewhat on deep looks with Alec Pierce still out of action, though the team features several burners for that role. Pittman is the target leader and the first read option at a 27.6% first read share, he is a go-to pairing with Jones and functions well both in and out of stacks as a +1 or +2 in Colts builds. There is plenty of scoring potential and Pittman Jr. offers clear PPR scoring upside as well.
Tyler Warren is our top-ranked tight end of the week with another premium positional option across the field. Warren is TE2 by points and TE1 by value on DraftKings and TE1 across the board on the FanDuel slate, he has been heavily involved in his first four games as a rookie with an average of 6.8 targets per game and a 22.7% target share on routes run over 28.0 routes per game. Warren has seen a team-leading three looks in the red zone, though he has not scored yet this season (Jones’ fourth touchdown pass went to Taylor). Warren has taken over this position for the Colts, a refreshing change from the last few years of a low-end tight end rotation, he is going to find the end zone in short order with continued targeting in scoring territory and overall. The tight end has been over 70 yards in three of his four games but is yet to go beyond 79 total yards, his first 100-yards and a score slate bender could be in the cards in a good spot in Week 5.
Josh Downs drew five targets and caught four of them for 24 yards in Week 4, a performance that was entirely within norms despite the absence of Alec Pierce in the offense. Downs is a dink-and-dunk option on a 7.3-yard average depth of target for a 14.72% air yards share, he has not scored this season but his 1.53 yards per route run on 19.8 routes per game are also not a bad mark. Downs gains a solid 6.4 yards per target with 1.7 yards after the catch coming up a bit disappointing and acting as a limiting factor. That mark is 0.1 yards below expectation after the catch per catch, for a receiver in this role we would like to see more game-breaking upside. Downs has managed just a 7.04% explosive play rate on receptions this season. The receiver is WR29 by points but WR7 by value on DraftKings for just $4,100, he is WR31/17 on the FanDuel slate at a more realistic price. Downs’ popularity may outpace his actual utility at the very low price on the DraftKings slate, an important consideration when weighing his overall value.
Adonai Mitchell is a talented player whose Week 4 production was destroyed by stupid mistakes. Mitchell looks fine in the box score with 96 yards on just three catches over four targets and 30 routes run on 54 snaps with the offense but he threw away a touchdown by celebrating before crossing the goal-line then losing the ball out of the back of the end zone for a touchback that also dings his quarterback’s numbers. That score would have capped a gigantic gain of more than 70 yards on a dynamic set of moves by the talented receiver, Mitchell should see similar chances, though he also cost the team with a late holding call to kill another touchdown, and could have lost some trust. Mitchell is WR41/42 and WR42/41 across sites with upside for more but also a pretty clear path to downside if the team punishes him for a lack of discipline.
With Mitchell landing as a popular play going into last week’s game, we were already eyeing lower-ranked Ashton Dulin as a pivot point, if the team admonishes Mitchell, even if it is just in the first half, Dulin could see a few of those deep targets. The receiver ended up playing just a dozen snaps with the offense with one catch for 11 yards on his lone target over four routes and one carry for seven yards. Dulin had only produced one carry for 15 yards on the season prior to that, so technically it was an explosion in Week 4. The receiver remains a very limited option that is not for the weakhearted, he is very unlikely to succeed and he has not even drawn downfield targeting early in 2025 after an outstanding 18.6-yard ADOT last year and double-digit targeting each two prior seasons. Dulin would be a total wildcard option but it is not impossible to see the path to success.
The Colts are highly regarded in this week’s model and in Vegas, pushing them to Stack 2 by points and value on the DraftKings slate and Stack 2 by points and Stack 1 by value on FanDuel. With fairly significant popularity our lower-than-average faith (and projection) on Jones is a point of concern, there are plenty of reasons to remain skeptical but he is leading a premium stack and demands shares. Undercutting the overall exposure to the quarterback while riding plenty of shares of Jonathan Taylor, up to or beyond field levels, seems like the best approach. When playing Jones, focusing on mixing +2 stacks is probably the best move with popularity among the pass-catchers.
Las Vegas Raiders
Game Total: 48.5 / LV +7.0 (20.75)
Offense: 42.32% rush / 57.68% pass / 19.3 ppg / 4.5 ypa rush / 7.5 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.5 ypa rush / 6.8 ypa pass / 20.8 ppg / 6.67% sack / 2.86% int
Key Player: Geno Smith
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Jakobi Meyers, Brock Bowers (Q), Tre Tucker, Ashton Jeanty (on/off), Dont’e Thornton, Raheem Mostert (on/off), Michael Mayer (Q; on/off), Ian Thomas (on/off), Albert Okwuegbunam Jr. (on/off)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Jonathan Taylor, Tyler Warren, Michael Pittman Jr., Josh Downs, Adonai Mitchell, Ashton Dulin
Game Notes: Brock Bowers is now expected to miss Week 5
Quarterback
Quarterback Geno Smith has a slightly disappointing -2.0 CPOE mark on the season while throwing for 237.0 yards per game and 7.5 yards per pass attempt, if anything he can bolster performance going forward with a bit more accuracy. The quarterback leads a talented group of pass-catchers into action on the other side of the appealing game against the Colts and a brave soul could take an approach of leading with a Raiders stack that utilizes Colts upside as a bring-back play in an effort to get to this game via the oblique angle. The quarterback’s performances have been up and down this season, he threw for 362 yards in Week 1 and 289 yards in Week 3 but was under 200 yards in the other two contests this season. Smith has also thrown a concerning seven early touchdowns, including three last week and three in Week 2. With more interceptions than touchdowns (6), Smith does not look the part of a productive passer but his 7.5 yards per pass attempt on an 8.2 intended air yards per attempt is very appealing for DFS production and we know that he can spike upside. Smith faces a mid-ranked Colts defense that still benefits somewhat from their Week 1 shutout of the Dolphins, overall they are allowing 4.5 yards per rush attempt and 6.8 yards per pass on the season, while ranking in the bottom-five in passing touchdowns and passer rating allowed. Smith’s Raiders check in as underdogs with just a 20.75-point implied team total, they will be throwing the ball steadily to stay in the game, typical of a team with a 57.68% pass rate overall on the season. Geno Smith is QB12 by points and QB10 by value on DraftKings, he is QB11/11 on the FanDuel slate.
Running Backs
Ashton Jeanty is up to 4.1 yards per rush attempt on 17.0 carries per game and had his first big performance in Week 4 against Chicago. Jeanty carried the ball a season-high 21 times on 44 plays with the offense, gaining 138 yards and scoring his second career touchdown on the ground. The early first round pick also added a pair of touchdown catches for a massive DFS performance, though those were his only two catches and only two targets of the day on 15 routes, following a week in which he went untargeted over 16 routes run. The running back’s YPA mark lands 0.1 yards above expectation per attempt and he has a 10.29% explosive rush rate with a 22.06% broken tackle rate and 3.2 yards after contact per attempt, all excellent marks. Jeanty should gain a few potential touches in the pass game most weeks, if he is able to keep up an 18-20+ potential he is a go-to option for DFS scoring while he remains fairly priced. Jeanty is RB10 by points and RB13 by value on DraftKings and RB10/14 on the FanDuel slate.
Raheem Mostert returned to action last week, playing just 8 snaps with the offense in a direct backup role. Mostert gained a ridiculous 62 yards on four carries in the tiny sample, adding another 11 on his one catch and target over two routes run. Mostert clearly still has his explosive any-given-slate potential and the team will probably try to get him the ball a few more times in his second game of the season, but it is unlikely that he takes much off the table from the rookie. Mostert is just RB36/36 across both sites this week.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Jakobi Meyers is WR12 by points and WR8 by value on DraftKings and WR13/4 on the FanDuel slate with strong pricing on both sites given the involvement. The receiver slots in with a 26.8% target share on routes run over a team-leading 32.5 routes run per game. Meyers gains 1.98 yards per route run on the stead involvement in the passing attack, his 8.3 targets per contest have resulted in 7.8 yards per target on a 9.2-yard ADOT for 29.5% of the air yards but an absence of touchdowns. Despite two red zone chances on the season, Meyers is yet to find the end zone. There is plenty of upside in getting to Smith+Meyers pairings, particularly if the slightly more common skinny stack is built with the team’s tight end instead.
Second year man Brock Bowers lands on his side of the tight end duel as TE3 by points on DraftKings and TE4 by points on FanDuel, he is a highly ranked value option as well. Bowers is a weekly leader at the position, he averages 9.25 FanDuel and 11.62 DraftKings points per contest this season, ranking him second at the position in full PPR scoring. Bowers draws 6.8 targets per game for a 22.0% target share on routes run over 27.0 routes per game. The tight end was a positional breakout as a rookie last year, putting up 1,194 yards and five touchdown catches on 112-153 receiving, he has not scored in 2025 but it is only a matter of time. Bowers is an excellent play in and out of stacks, he works well as a +1 or +2 option in builds with Smith and is one of the go-to bring-back plays on the slate.
Tre Tucker unsurprisingly let down the world in Week 4 after exploding for 145 yards and three touchdowns in the team’s Week 3 contest against Washington. Tucker sees 5.5 targets per game, he is not an uninvolved receiver and he draws a solid 11.3-yard ADOT for 24.45% of the team’s air yards, but his team-leading four touchdowns are somewhat deceptive after the big game. Tucker averages 93.0% of the snaps with the offense, he is the clear third receiver but he may be pressed on some of the big play chances as the team spreads out to include Dont’e Thornton. Tucker is just WR37/43 and WR36/39, he is playable but not much more than that, and should function best within stacks of Raiders.
Dont’e Thornton slots in as WR44/45 and WR43/40 across sites, he has seen 3.5 targets per game, gaining 0.98 yards per route run on his 24.0 routes per contest, falling well short of the 31.8 routes per game that Tucker is running. Still, Thornton checks in as an interesting option given a massive 20.0-yard average depth of target for a 26.09% air yards share, good for second on the team. While he has failed to score, it seems like only a matter of time before he finds the end zone on a big look from Smith. Thornton was mentioned in this space last week as an alternative to Tucker, he disappointed with zero catches on just two targets over a limited 15 routes run on 31 snaps, all season-low marks for the fourth round rookie.
The Raiders are a fair mid-board option with talent as Stack 8 by points and 11 by value on DraftKings and Stack 10/11 on the FanDuel slate, they are in play on both sites with functional skill players both in and out of stacks.
Los Angeles Chargers
Game Total: 47.0 / LAC -3.0 (25.0)
Offense: 36.36% rush / 63.64% pass / 22.0 ppg / 4.7 ypa rush / 7.1 ypa pass
oppDEF: 3.6 ypa rush / 8.6 ypa pass / 22.8 ppg / 7.52% sack / 0.81% int
Key Player: Justin Herbert
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Keenan Allen, Quentin Johnston, Ladd McConkey, Omarion Hampton (on/off), Oronde Gadsden II (on/off, rotation), Will Dissly (Q; on/off, rotation), Tyler Conklin (on/off, rotation)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Deebo Samuel, Zack Ertz, Chris Moore, Jaylin Lane, Jacory Croskey-Merritt
Game Notes:
Quarterback
The Chargers’ high-flying passing attack draws another excellent matchup in Week 5 with a Washington team that has allowed 8.6 yards per pass attempt to rank 30th in football on the other side of one of the slate’s more interesting matchups. The Chargers are one of the better options on the slate at a 25.0-point implied team total and the team features three excellent options at wide receiver with a premium passer and an upstart rookie running back. Quarterback Justin Herbert drops in as QB1 by points and QB 2 by value on DraftKings in this matchup, he is QB1 across the board on the FanDuel slate in what looks like pole position for GPP entries as the most popular option. Herbert is projected for nearly a third-again as much ownership as the next-most popular quarterback across the industry on both sites this week, he will be heavily owned but is also worth exploring as a premium option. Herbert averages 265.75 yards per game and 7.1 yards per pass attempt on an excellent 8.6 intended air yards per attempt. He has seven touchdowns against three interceptions on the season and has been slightly above expectation with a 1.7 CPOE. Herbert has not distributed touchdowns equally as some other quarterbacks have this season, four of his scoring passes have gone to Quentin Johnston and the other three have connected with veteran Keenan Allen. With Allen lagging somewhat behind both Johnston and Ladd McConkey in projected public popularity around the industry, that old school Chargers pairing seems like an easy path toward at least lowering some ownership weight in a Chargers stack.
Running Backs
Omarion Hampton was highly rated and discussed in this space going into Week 4 and he did not disappoint. The rookie running back smoked the inept Giants defense for 128 yards and a touchdown on just 12 rushing attempts and added another 37 yards on 5-5 receiving over 31 routes run. Hampton was inexpensive and highly rated for value and scoring potential last week, this week he lands as a good play across both categories but at slightly higher pricing and significantly higher popularity. Hampton gains 5.0 yards per rush attempt on 13.5 carries per game, good for 1.4 yards over expectation per rush attempt. The running back has a 14.81% broken tackle rate but just 1.7 yards after contact per rush attempt on the season with a 7.41% explosive rush rate. Hampton has been an involved receiver early in his career, drawing four targets per game for 6.9 yards per target. The running back has not scored in the passing game and has not seen a red zone target but the padding for scoring, particularly in PPR formats, is excellent for the rookie. As long as he is pushing for around 18 potential touches, Hampton will be an interesting option at this price point, but the Commanders defense has been excellent in limiting opponents to just 3.6 yards per rush attempt, ranking them fourth in the league. Hampton is RB5/6 across sites this week.
Between the passing game and Hampton there are only crumbs for other running backs, they are not truly on the board for scoring potential.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Ladd McConkey rates as a top option in the Chargers passing attack this week but he is at best only competitive with his teammates, both of whom have been far more productive over four games. McConkey draws an excellent matchup for a slot receiver and he is a talented player coming off of seven touchdowns and 1,149 yards on 82 catches as a rookie in 2024 but he has seen diminishing returns for volume and production over the early part of this season. McConkey caught just one of his six targets over 41 routes run on 58 snaps with the offense last week, a 14.6% target share over those routes. He gained 11 yards on the play. He had four catches for 41 yards on seven targets over 55 routes run for a 12.7% target share in Week 3 but drew a more significant target share on his routes run the first two weeks of the season, posting six catches for 71 yards in Week 1 and five for 48 in Week 2. The receiver has not found the end zone in 2025. McConkey will dip in Saturday rankings with a slightly reduced projection in favor of Allen and Johnston but he still rates highly for both points and value. The receiver draws an 18.6% target share overall on a terrific 39.8 routes run per game and sees a 9.1 yard ADOT, big plays are inbound. McConkey is a popular option in this offense, it is easy to pivot to Allen shares if he outpaces the veteran in public lineups.
Quentin Johnston has been the most interesting receiver in this passing attack this season, drawing a team-leading 9.3 targets per game on a 12.7-yard ADOT for 38.27% of the air yards. Johnston has four touchdown catches as Herbert’s favorite early season option. The receiver is outstanding down the field and he has broken big gains with 5.5 yards after the catch per reception, good for 1.4 yards beyond expectation per reception. Johnston has been tremendous but his price has also climbed along with the production. The receiver is a strong option in +1 or +2 stacks with Herbert and is in play for shares as a popular but highly-productive player in non-stacked entries. He rates better for scoring than value but he is a strong play in all formats.
Keenan Allen has three touchdowns on the season and is drawing upside and involvement like he never left. The veteran receiver draws 8.8 targets per game, good for .27 per route run on his 33.0 routes per contest. Allen has delivered 1.75 yprr on his 24.1% target share over those routes, which comes in spite of just a 68.57% catchable target rate. Like his teammates, Allen operates down the field by a fair bit, though he lags behind the other two somewhat at just an 8.0-yard ADOT. The receiver has picked up five early opportunities in the red zone, equaling the scoring chances given to Johnston and far outpacing the one chance that McConkey saw in scoring territory. Allen slots in as a good mid-board play with a ceiling across both sites, if he is the lowest-owned of the Chargers receivers it probably makes him the most interesting in the group.
Will Dissly, Oronde Gadsden II, and Tyler Conklin slot in to break the tight end position for this squad. Dissly is questionable with a knee issue but seems likely to play after practicing in full late in the week. In Weeks 1 and 2 the tight end was loosely involved in the passing game, drawing one target in each contest despite running regular routes in Week 1, he ran fewer routes over fewer snaps in Week 2. Gadsden and Conklin split snaps in Dissly’s absence, it was Conklin seeing regular chances alongside Dissly the first two weeks with Gadsden out of action. Neither player has been productive in limited action, though Gadsden caught five passes on seven targets for 46 yards over just 22 snaps with the offense in Week 3. The tight end earned more time with the offense last week but was less productive, with Dissly back in action it is anyone’s guess how this situation breaks down.
The Chargers are a high-end stacking option with multiple premium pass catchers and a quarterback who can deliver the ball. Los Angeles is Stack 4 by points and by value on DraftKings and Stack 3 by points and by value on the FanDuel slate. Herbert +1 or +2 stacks are easy to construct and highly appealing but also very popular, which weighs on the consideration. Any build around the quarterback will be a popular first step in a build, but starting with Keenan Allen as the paired pass-catcher is a more lightly owned approach among the three wide receivers. All four of the highly-projected skill players in the offense are playable in standalone situations as well as stacks.
Miami Dolphins
Game Total: 44.5 / MIA – 1.0 (22.75)
Offense: 38.97% rush / 68.85% pass / 20.8 ppg / 4.7 ypa rush / 6.4 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.9 ypa rush / 6.9 ypa pass / 23.8 ppg / 1.68% sack / 3.42% int
Key Player: Tua Tagovailoa
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: De’Von Achane, Jaylen Waddle, Malik Washington, Darren Waller, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, Dee Eskridge (very large field)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Tetairoa McMillan, Hunter Renfrow, Rico Dowdle, Xavier Legette, Tommy Tremble
Game Notes:
Quarterback
Tua Tagovailoa has thrown two touchdown passes in each of the last three games but has been under 180 passing yards in three of four games this season. Tagovailoa found a connection with veteran tight end Darren Waller in his return to action last week but that came on the heels of losing star receiver Tyreek Hill to a season-ending knee injury, not a fair trade in the long term. The loss of Hill will have a big ongoing impact on any potential production from this offense which was already a bit difficult to reach. Tagovailoa manages just 6.6 yards per pass attempt on 6.5 intended air yards per attempt and averages just 188.0 yards per game on 28.5 pass attempts with a below-expectation CPOE mark. The quarterback does not provide value with his legs, in fact he should never run with the ball given his history with concussions. Overall, Tagovailoa is a limited QB14/17 and QB14/16 across sites, though the Miami stack rates somewhat better as bolstered by skill player projections against a bad Carolina team. This could be another situation in which the skill player pieces are better than the whole stack.
Running Backs
De’Von Achane is a premium individual skill player option who is also easy to reach in the Miami stack if a build around the limited quarterback is desired. Achane is an involved pass catcher who draws 6.3 targets per game and carries the ball 12.5 time for 4.9 yards per rush attempt. The combined volume and steady production with explosive potential make the running back a desirable DFS scoring option, he has a 16.0% broken tackle rate and gains 2.7 yards after contact per rush attempt on the season and will face a team allowing a 27th-ranked 4.9 yards per rush attempt. Achane stands as a fantastic option in standalone play or in stacks of Dolphins but he is also very likely to be extremely popular on this slate. The running back is RB2 by points and RB4 by value on DraftKings, he is RB2 by points and RB3 by value on the FanDuel slate.
Ollie Gordon II has seen just 4.5 carries and under a target per game, he is not a particularly strong consideration at 3.3 yards per rush attempt but gains quality by virtue of the matchup and a few potential bonus touches if the game gets away from Carolina’s defense. Gordon is RB28/29 and RB27/28 across sites.
Receivers & Tight Ends
With Tyreek Hill out for the season there is a massive void in which Jaylen Waddle is the most obvious option at the wide receiver position. Waddle was a disappointing player over the long term last year, falling short of 1,000 yards for the first time and ending the season with only 58 catches and two touchdowns. Waddle has already matched that touchdown total and has gained 185 yards on 17-23 receiving early in the season. Waddle has drawn an 8.0-yard ADOT for 24.51% of the air yards on the season but those numbers are likely to shoot up in the absence of Hill. While it was the tight end who immediately benefitted for scoring with Hill’s exit last week, it is Waddle and his fellow wide receivers who will gain overall. Waddle has gained 1.64 yards per route run but should do a bit better against Carolina’s defensive scheme, he slots in as WR11 by points and WR4 by value on DraftKings and is WR12 by points and WR1 by value on the FanDuel slate.
Malik Washington is the potential shakeup option in this stack. Washington will not go as an unknown commodity for the public, he was a buzzy sleeper during draft season and a popular waiver wire pickup going into this weekend, but he will be under-owned by comparison to both Achane and Waddle both in and out of stacks and is likely to fall below the popularity of Darren Waller as well. Washington draws 3.8 targets per game for a 12.4% target share over his 22.3 routes run per game but he gains just 0.53 yards per route run and will need to do more to produce any DFS value. The receiver has seen a 5.1-yard ADOT over four games for a limited air yards share, he will continue to operate on short yardage but could see a few deeper looks and improve upon those numbers over the long term. Washington will have to piece together a game on catches and yardage if he does not find the end zone, his limited depth out of the slot may drop him back behind Nick Westbrook-Ikhine when it comes to explosive DFS scoring potential, given the latter’s double-digit average depth of target in every one of his five NFL seasons. As it stands, Washington is WR31/16 on DraftKings and WR30/14 on the FanDuel slate.
Darren Waller caught a pair of touchdowns in limited action in his return in Week 4, doubling his scoring from last year’s 12 games and getting most of the way to his recent season-long touchdown averages. Waller has not been over 1,000 yards since 2020 and has not been over three touchdowns in the same stretch. The tight end drew a 20.0% first-read share in his first game back, catching four of 10 targets for 2.7 yards per route run over just 10 routes on 16 snaps with the offense. The limited action and volume is reason enough for concern, as are the player’s recent run of season-long output over four years. Waller has not found the fountain of youth but he could carve out a productive role in this offense and he could easily find the end zone against a bad Carolina defense that struggles to contain tight ends. Waller is TE10 by points and TE7 by value on DraftKings, he is TE9 across the board on the FanDuel slate.
As mentioned, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine is a deep threat in the passing game and will surely be the forgotten man in public stacks that defer to Malik Washington’s short-yardage popularity. Westbrook-Ikhine is not someone to mistake for a good receiver and it is important to note that he has just a 4.3-yard ADOT in four games with the Dolphins this season, but his career ADOT is 11.38 yards, putting him in big play territory that could replace Hill on a few big opportunities. Westbrook-Ikhine is unlikely to see major volume but he also may not need it, he does not rate as a standout at just WR46/44 and WR47/46 but he has ceiling beyond those marks on the right slate.
The Dolphins are popular up top with both De’Von Achane and Jaylen Waddle drawing significant ownership in a stack that rates better around the skill players than the quarterback. Overall, the team is Stack 7 by points and Stack 6 by value on DraftKings and Stack 6 by points and Stack 2 by value on the blue site. Tua Tagovailoa is projected for far less popularity than Achane and Waddle, and all of the team’s other players are low-owned, so getting to the full Stack instead of the individual shares of both skill players could be the more appealing way to use them.
New Orleans Saints
Game Total: 42.0 / NO -2.5 (22.25)
Offense: 41.70% rush / 58.30% pass / 16.5 / 4.4 ypa rush / 5.1 ypa pass
oppDEF: 6.1 ypa rush / 6.4 ypa pass / 25.3 ppg / 5.88% sack / 1.88% int
Key Player: Spencer Rattler
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Chris Olave, Alvin Kamara, Rashid Shaheed, Juwan Johnson (Q), Brandin Cooks (large field), Kendre Miller (on/off)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Cam Skattebo, Wan’Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton, Theo Johnson
Game Notes:
Quarterback
New Orleans quarterback Spencer Rattler is having an interesting season. Rattler has thrown the ball a whopping 36.5 times per game and is actually putting up an above-expectation 1.9 CPOE for the season, completing 24.5 passes on average but throwing for just 191.25 yards per game and a very poor 5.2 yards per pass attempt on 7.0 intended air yards per attempt. Rattler has five touchdown passes against just one interception on the season and adds light production on the ground with 6.4 yards per attempt on 4.0 carries per game. Rattler has quality options around him with Chris Olave, Alvin Kamara, Juwan Johnson, and Rashid Shaheed in play, he is capable of posting big games between the volume and those weapons but the team has not unleashed much potential in the nature of their attack. Against a Giants defense that has yielded just 6.4 yards per pass attempt while generating a 21.7% pressure rate, Rattler may not be in the best position to find success in Week 5, which could easily turn into Alvin Kamara day with the Giants opening the gates for 6.1 yards allowed per rush attempt this season. Rattler is QB15 by points but does leap to QB4 by value for just $4,800 on DraftKings, he is QB16/9 on the FanDuel slate for $6,500.
Running Backs
Alvin Kamara has, so far, not been the player we remember from the salad days. Kamara is gaining just 3.9 yards per rush attempt on 16.3 carries per game in 2025, with only 1.6 coming after contact per attempt and an unsightly 1.54% broken tackle rate. Kamara has been held to just one rushing touchdown in four games, an uncharacteristic lack of scoring that the Giants are likely to help him correct this weekend. The veteran is still involved in the passing game but has not hit paydirt in that department on his 3.8 targets per game, despite two looks in the red zone for the season. Kamara is gaining 3.3 yards per target, mostly after the catch, but has been held to limited production across the board. His YPA on the ground is 0.6 yards below expectation per attempt on the season, but he still draws nearly 20 potential touches each week and will find his way into the end zone for a few big games this season just like he did last year. Kamara should benefit greatly from a Giants defense that allows the most yards after contact per attempt while giving up the second most yards per attempt with 1.5 rushing touchdowns per game allowed on the season. Kamara slots in as RB7 by points and RB5 by value on DraftKings and RB9/12 on the FanDuel slate, his DraftKings scoring is padded by PPR potential but he is a strong option on both sites this week.
Kendre Miller gains 4.4 yards per rush attempt and sees a bit of volume as the team’s steady backup to spell Kamara. Miller carries the ball 7.0 times per game and adds just under a target per game, he is also potentially seeing a bit of an increased workload after four games. Miller played just 11 snaps in each of the first two weeks before bouncing two 20 and 21 snaps in the two more recent games. His carries went from five in the early contests for seven and then 11 in Week 4, a game in which he gained 65 yards on the ground and scored a rushing touchdown. Miller carried the ball four times in the red zone in Week 4 and once in Week 2, he is on the board to poach a touchdown and gets interesting when we mix in a bit of volume against the bad Giants rush defense. Miller is just RB25/23 and RB25/24 but a cheap touchdown would make him an instant smash value.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Chris Olave was a target monster over the first three weeks of the season with 12, 10, and 14 opportunities before dipping to just six chances on 34 routes run in Week 4, his first week of fewer than 40 routes run despite a few trips to the injury tent. Olave caught three of those passes for just 20 yards but, ironically, found the end zone for the first time all season. At worst, Olave should remain a volume-driven receiver whose value will live and die with the quality of Rattler’s throws and the frequency with which the team calls his number in the red zone. Thus far, Rattler has managed to deliver Olave a limiting 65.12% catchable target rate on his 8.0-yard ADOT, though they have looked Olave’s way five times in the red zone. The receiver is WR14 by points but WR3 by value on DraftKings where he could push major quality through simple pass-catching. On FanDuel, Olave is WR17 by points and WR10 by value but he would become a bit more yardage and touchdown dependent.
Rashid Shaheed is WR26/9 and WR26/13 on this slate with expectations of steady volume. Shaheed draws 6.3 targets per game, a 17.7% share on his 35.8 routes run per contest and he is a deep threat in the passing game that could find success against Giants coverage. Shaheed draws a 25.42% air yards share, second on the team, on a 10.0-yard average depth of target for the season. The receiver has a touchdown on the board this year and was interesting in his limited action in 2024 as a similar deep threat to stretch the field.
Juwan Johnson is one of the more easily reliable tight ends for involvement and opportunity, he plays 94.0% of the snaps and runs 36.0 routes per game, matching the wide receivers for chances in the passing game. Johnson draws a 22.0% target share on his routes run, good for second on the team, and he operates on a 6.2-yard ADOT that is good for the position though unspectacular overall. Johnson found the end zone once already this season and has been targeted four times in scoring territory while seeing a team-best 80.65% catchable target rate from Rattler. Johnson is TE6/5 on both sites in Week 5.
Brandin Cooks and Devaughn Vele are nothing more than dart throws at low volume from down the slate. Cooks has seen var more action with 3.8 targets per game but has failed to crack the 26-yard mark or score a touchdown on about three catches per game.
The Saints rate as Stack 12 by points but Stack 3 by value on the DraftKings slate and Stack 12 by points and Stack 7 by value on DraftKings, though Alvin Kamara on his own may be the easiest approach to access this team’s quality, the Giants have been far better against the pass than the run this season, though simply being better than “atrocious” is no major accomplishment.
New York Giants
Game Total: 42.0 / NYG +2.5 (19.75)
Offense: 43.97% rush / 56.03% pass / 18.3 ppg / 4.0 ypa rush / 6.8 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.0 ypa rush / 8.0 ypa pass / 30.3 ppg / 9.02% sack / 0.90% int
Key Player: Jaxson Dart
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Cam Skattebo, Wan’Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton, Theo Johnson, Jalin Hyatt (large field), Beaux Collins (large field), Devin Singletary (on/off)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Chris Olave, Alvin Kamara, Rashid Shaheed, Juwan Johnson (Q), Brandin Cooks (large field)
Game Notes:
Quarterback
Giants rookie Jaxson Dart played about to our model’s expectation in his first career start in Week 4. Dart completed 13 of 20 pass attempts for just 111 yards and a single touchdown, adding another 54 yards and a rushing touchdown on 10 attempts. Dart lost the team’s most important piece early in the game, with Malik Nabers gone for the season to a devastating knee injury that will chop the overall scoring potential for Dart down by a significant measure. With only Wan’Dale Robinson, Darius Slayton, and other misfits to throw to, there is not much to work with behind the shaky New York offensive line. Dart is QB10 by points and QB5 by value on both sites this week, he gains ground by facing a New Orleans defense that has been picked apart for 8.0 yards per pass attempt to rank 27th in the league while coming away with just one interception. The Saints have bottled up the run more effectively, which could impact Dart somewhat on the ground on his designed runs. With the Giants rating poorly overall as a stack around lousy skill players, this does not look like a premium passer for Week 5.
Running Backs
Cam Skattebo drew massive volume in Week 4 with Nabers falling off the board and Dart limited to just 20 pass attempts. The running back more than doubled his previous career high with 25 carries for 79 yards but lacked a crucial touchdown that would have put him where he needed to be given his price and popularity on last week’s slate. Skattebo gained just 11 yards on two catches over 17 routes, his least productive game in the passing attack. Against a Saints team allowing just 4.0 yards per rush attempt to sit 10th in the league and on a limited offense overall, Skattebo has been productive and involved in recent weeks and should remain the lead option even after Tyrone Tracy Jr. returns to the fold, but this is not a reliable offense and the Saints will be able to key on the smashmouth running back. Skattebo is RB12/12 and RB11/11, he is entirely playable and could have a productive day, particularly if he falls into the end zone, but his production might fall short of popularity once again.
Devin Singletary is uninvolved and unproductive in the offense. The veteran gains just 3.5 yards per rush attempt, he carried the ball seven times for 28 yards last week but remains a distant second behind the rookie running back.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Wan’Dale Robinson is WR24/28 and WR25/30 across sites on 6.8 targets per game for a 22.1% target share over his 31.8 routes run. Robinson is one of the Giants leading receivers with 4.5 catches per game, he is the presumptive number one option in the absence of his superstar teammate but has very little chance to adequately fill Nabers’ gigantic shoes. Robinson has a single touchdown this season and a healthy 10.0-yard average depth of target for 23.87% of the air yards, a number that should grow in coming weeks. The receiver gains 1.87 yards per route run, he is a quality filler piece in full PPR formats under normal circumstances but should not be expected to hold up to increased expectations.
Darius Slayton checks in as WR32/29 and WR32/28 across sites in Week 5, he has lacked production despite playing 90.0% of the team’s snaps over four weeks. Slayton sees a 9.8% target share on routes run over his 34.8 routes per game, he has largely been running sprints for this team early in the season but should see a big uptick in chances going forward. Slayton also operates downfield, he has a 12.5-yard ADOT on the season but has not found the end zone on 2.3 catches per game. The longest-tenured Giants player posted 44 yards on three catches over four targets and 31 routes in Week 4, his 61 yards in Week 2 are a season high. Slayton has never been as good as the eight touchdowns he scored as a rookie in 2019 and has never gained more than 770 yards in a season, he is a low-end option who will gain too much attention for his role and potential this week, he is at best a mixer from the middle ranks.
Theo Johnson is the clear top tight end option in this offense with Daniel Bellinger dipping to around a 25% snap share and limited targeting. Johnson sees 3.8 targets per game and picked up five opportunities last week, catching his second career touchdown pass while gaining 17 yards on three catches. Johnson caught 29 of 43 targets for 331 yards and a touchdown in 12 games as a rookie last season, he is a fourth-round pick with only modest potential but he could deliver another cheap touchdown for low-end DFS scoring value. Johnson is TE9 by points and TE4 by value on DraftKings, he is TE10 by points and TE8 by value on FanDuel and makes for a sneaky option to shake up bland straightforward Giants stacks as-needed.
Finally, Jalin Hyatt is a low-end dart at a big play. Hyatt is a field stretcher who tends to come up short of actually catching passes or delivering the big plays his ADOT promises. Hyatt went untargeted over 14 routes last week and has yet to see a chance to catch a pass after running five untargeted routes in Week 3 and missing the first two games of the year. The receiver had a tremendous 18.7-yard ADOT last year and an even more potentially explosive 20.3-yard mark the season before, he caught 23 passes on 40 targets in 2023 and came away with just eight of 19 opportunities in Year 2. Hyatt has zero NFL touchdowns a quarter of the way into his third season after the team spent a third round pick on the speedster, disappointing is not a strong enough word. Hyatt is a weak option who could bend a slate with one huge play but is unlikely to do so.
Beaux Collins is another depth option on this team, though he may not even see the field.
The Giants are Stack 16 by points and Stack 13 by value on DraftKings, they are Stack 16/14 on the FanDuel slate and lack true appeal on either site.
New York Jets
Game Total: 47.5 / NYJ +2.5 (22.5)
Offense: 48.47% rush / 51.53% pass / 22.5 ppg / 5.2 ypa rush / 6.8 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.0 ypa rush / 9.2 ypa pass / 33.0 ppg / 3.57% sack / 0.74% int
Key Player: Justin Fields
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Garrett Wilson, Breece Hall, Mason Taylor, Allen Lazard, Josh Reynolds, Arian Smith (large field)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: George Pickens, Jake Ferguson, Javonte Williams, Jalen Tolbert, Ka’Vontae Turpin
Game Notes:
Quarterback
Justin Fields rates highly again in Week 5, despite delivering on such promises early in the season this is still an uncomfortable position for the quarterback to land in for DFS gamers. Fields is an unreliable passer in general, even in productive play this year he has a -1.9 CPOE and has completed just 13 of 20 pass attempts per game. Of course, the quarterback more than makes up for any lackluster passing with his productivity on the ground, Fields has three rushing touchdowns in just two full contests on the season, he threw for a touchdown and ran for two more in a terrific Jets debut in a shootout against the Steelers then followed that with an injury after just 29 weak snaps and 27 yards on 3-11 passing against the Bills before missing Week 3 entirely. Fields returned to action with a solid 226 yards on 20-27 passing with a touchdown against Miami last week, padding scoring as usual with 81 rushing yards and a touchdown on seven attempts on the ground. As long as he can produce scoring via rushing, Fields will land with elite DFS scoring ceilings, his matchup against a league-worst Dallas pass defense pushes him into the upper-tier of quarterback options on this slate. Fields is QB4 by points on both sites and QB1 by value on DraftKings, he is QB2 by value on FanDuel and leads a Jets stack that ranks as one of the better options of the week. The Cowboys have allowed an absurd 9.2 yards per pass attempt on the season while coming up with just five sacks in four games, Fields could dance his way to productivity in Week 5 and he looks far too low-owned across industry projections.
Running Backs
Breece Hall slots in as RB6 by points on both sites and is a top-5 value option at running back across the industry. Hall averages 4.6 yards per rush attempt on steady volume with 13.0 carries per game and another 4.8 chances coming via targeting with the pass. Hall’s 17.8 potential touches per game truly gain value when he pushes up over 20 actual opportunities, but he has been productive in early action despite losing a touchdown to his backup in Week 1 and failing to find the end zone overall this season. Hall has managed a 9.62% broken tackle rate and a 15.38% explosive rush rate while gaining 2.2 yards after contact per rush attempt. Hall is a premium play for DFS value across sites, though he will be easily the most popular Jets player. Hall functions both in and out of stacks, given his popularity and Fields’ lack thereof, he may be best utilized within Jets stacks, his involvement in the passing game more than supports the play.
Isaiah Davis is a low-potential backup with Braelon Allen out of action, he is not on the board for DFS scoring.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Star receiver Garrett Wilson has touchdown catches in back-to-back games with more than 80 yards in each performance. Wilson has still not exploded for a ceiling game but he had a touchdown and a season-high 95 yards in Week 1 and has produced a strong DFS score in three of four games. The Week 2 contest in which Fields was not throwing the ball well and then left with an injury was the one game in which Wilson did not produce, something we are willing to write off for the talented wideout after three straight years of more than 1,100 yards. Wilson scored a career-high seven times last season and could break that mark this year, he had four touchdowns in his rookie campaign and three in year two, so we are already at those hurdles. Wilson posts an elite 2.25 yards per route run on 34.5 routes per game and sees 47.65% of the team’s air yards on an 8.2-yard average depth of target, he is an under-owned WR6/6 on DraftKings and WR6/19 on FanDuel this weekend, with only his blue site price working against him.
Mason Taylor checks in as TE12 by points but TE2 by value on the DraftKings slate where his price is a silly $2,800. For $4,700 on FanDuel, he is a more limited TE12/11 and does not warrant as much attention. Taylor draws 4.0 targets per game but spiked to seven targets last week after seeing six in Week 3. Taylor is slowly emerging as more of an involved pass-catcher in the offense, he has not scored this season but he gained 65 yards on five catches last week while running 26 routes over 50 snaps with the offense. Taylor sees a 6.5-yard ADOT on the season, he operates all over the field and has a red zone target on the board already this season despite the lack of touchdowns. Taylor is an interesting value option on DraftKings and more of a dart throw on FanDuel.
Josh Reynolds is the second option in the wide receiver room, though he has managed to play just two games so far this year. Reynolds draws just 2.5 targets per game so far this season, a 4.8% target share on his limited 25.5 routes run per game. Reynolds sees a solid 11.6-yard average depth of target and should gain ground as he sees more action. The wide receiver has not been a major contributor throughout his career, peaking at five touchdowns in 2023, he is not a sudden revelation in New York but he has the chance to catch a big scoring play from Fields to support the stack. Reynolds is WR52/55 and WR57/58.
Arian Smith is an even lower-rated option on this week’s slate, falling outside the top-65 wide receivers. Smith draws just 1.0 targets per game for the season and has done nothing with them, he is a very limited dart throw who can safely be left on the shelf.
The Jets rate as Stack 6 by points but leap to Stack 1 by value on the DraftKings slate, they do not seem popular enough given the potential for quality in an extremely good matchup for scoring so far this season. New York has several premium skill position options and an interesting quarterback play who is dramatically under-owned for what this spot looks like. As uncomfortable as it may be, the Jets are looking like a premium value play that people are mistakenly ignoring in Week 5. They have plenty of appeal on FanDuel but land a bit more expensively as Stack 7 by points and Stack 8 by value on the blue site.
Philadelphia Eagles
Game Total: 43.5 / PHI -4.0 (23.75)
Offense: 54.36% rush / 45.64% pass / 27.0 ppg / 3.5 ypa rush / 6.0 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.1 ypa rush / 6.4 ypa pass / 16.8 ppg / 10.07% sack / 0.75% int
Key Player: Jalen Hurts
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Saquon Barkley, AJ Brown, Devonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, Jahan Dotson, Will Shipley (on/off)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Courtland Sutton, Troy Franklin, Marvin Mims Jr., Evan Engram, JK Dobbins (on/off), RJ Harvey (on/off)
Game Notes:
Quarterback
With a stout Denver defense coming to town, the Eagles dip ever so slightly compared to their typically top-of-heap stack rankings. Philadelphia is still a go-to option for scoring potential and they still rank inside the top-5 by collective fantasy point projections however, it is easy enough to envision their typically solid output, at least on the ground, where Denver has allowed 4.1 yards per rush attempt. The Eagles are led by excellent quarterback option Jalen Hurts, who sits as QB3 by points on both sites while taking a points-per-dollar hit on both. Hurts has been limited to 25.25 pass attempts per game this season with a clean five touchdown passes against zero interceptions over the first four games. The quarterback is elite for scoring in the ground game, he has four rushing touchdowns on the season while gaining 4.4 yards per rush attempt and providing true danger when things get up close and personal. Hurts is a premium scorer on any given slate and his passing is underrated, he has an excellent CPOE mark 6.2 points over expectation and consistently delivers the ball when and where it is needed. Hurts is surrounded by fantastic skill players who bolster the Eagles’ scoring potential, he is a strong play even against a defense yielding just 6.4 yards per pass attempt to rank 10th while pressuring the quarterback at an unfathomable 37.0% rate that has already generated 15 sacks on the season.
Running Backs
While alarm bells are not exactly sounding around Saquon Barkley, it is coming on time to talk about his limited 3.1 yards per rush attempt on stead volume this season. Barkley has been 0.5 yards below expectation per attempt over those carries, a massive falloff from his bonkers 5.8 yards per rush attempt last season. Barkley posted 2,005 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns on 345 carries last season, adding another 278 yards on 33 receptions, volume like that has broken running backs in the past but we remain optimistic, particularly given the team’s willingness to continue feeding him touches. Barkley has not been over 100 rushing yards this season and has failed to eclipse the century-mark even when we add receiving yards, it is pretty shocking to see this player fail to gain 100 yards from scrimmage in any of a four game stretch, though it is not the first time that has happened. Barkley gained just 3.9 yards per rush attempt over 14 games his final season in New York but is in a far better situation to help him regain his mojo with the Eagles. Barkley remains a highly rated option as RB3/8 on DraftKings and RB3/10 on FanDuel, if nothing else his elite 23.3 potential touches per game are worth paying for in this offense.
Will Shipley returned to action last week but did not carry the ball in his four snaps with the offense, he saw more action in 22 snaps on special teams. AJ Dillon is similarly uninvolved but may be the more likely backup for a three to five carries.
Receivers & Tight Ends
AJ Brown is WR7/11 and WR9/12 across sites. The star receiver has been another somewhat underwhelming Eagles player when compared to expectation starting the season. Brown gains just 1.29 yards per route run over 29.3 routes per game, drawing 7.0 targets per contest for a 29.5% target share on his routes run. Brown has a 10.9-yard ADOT and a team-leading 47.9% air yards share but has found the end zone just once and has seen a surprisingly limited 50.0% catchable target rate from Hurts. By comparison, 1A receiver Devonta Smith has seen a 90.0% catchable target rate on similarly deep targeting and Dallas Goedert has seen a 92.31% catchable target rate on a 6.5-yard ADOT. Brown’s volume alone has appeal, he is a major target with a 37.3% first-read share on the season, but he will draw extremely tough coverage from Denver this week with a likely shadow from Patrick Surtain. While we tend not to focus on individual defensive matchups, coverage of that quality on a 1:1 is a bit daunting even for a receiver of Brown’s quality, it’s not as though Surtain has seen previous success against the slouch in every group, he consistently covers the opponent’s top option on more than 50% of their routes and shuts them down on those plays, holding opposing receivers scoreless over four games.
Devonta Smith is WR23 by points and WR10 by value on DraftKings, he is WR23/15 on the FanDuel slate and could spike a bit of an uptick in value as the alternative option atop the passing game for a week. Smith has an early touchdown on the board in 2025 but has managed just 1.35 yards per route run over 29.3 routes per game. The receiver has three red zone targets on the season and has drawn highly-accurate passing from his quarterback at all turns. Smith operates on a 9.6-yard ADOT and a 29.47% air yards share, he is an appealing option on any given slate but Denver is a tough opponent who will press Smith’s quarterback, shortening potential deep routes.
Dallas Goedert is TE8 by points on both sites, he is TE11 by value on DraftKings and TE10 for value on FanDuel. Goedert leads Philadelphia pass-catchers with three touchdown receptions on the season despite missing a game and drawing just 4.3 targets per game. Goedert scored twice on four catches last week and once on a single catch in Week 3. The tight end caught seven of seven targets in the season’s first week, he can provide PPR value in addition to the scoring but expectations should be for a touchdown-dependent tight end at mid-level volume in most weeks. Goedert gains 1.44 yards per route run while pulling in a 13.7% target share over his 26.3 routes per game.
Jahan Dotson is a low-end value dart who sees just 1.8 targets per game. Dotson had an early red zone target and has an appealing 11.3-yard ADOT but his lack of volume in most situations knocks him way down the board and outside of the top-65 among wide receivers in Week 5.
The Eagles are Stack 3 by points and Stack 7 by value on DraftKings and Stack 4/6 on the FanDuel slate against a tough Denver defense, they have plenty of scoring potential and are impossible to fully suppress but there is a lot of danger in play for limited scoring at high pricing. Philly may slip slightly in weekend projection and ranking updates but they are at worst playable on any given slate and their stars remain stars both in and out of stacks.
Seattle Seahawks
Game Total: 44.5 / SEA -4.0 (24.25)
Offense: 53.02% rush / 46.98% pass / 27.8 ppg / 3.6 ypa rush / 8.9 ypa pass
oppDEF: 3.3 ypa rush / 6.6 ypa pass / 24.3 ppg / 7.35% sack / 0.79% int
Key Player: Sam Darnold
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Cooper Kupp, Kenneth Walker III (on/off), Zach Charbonnet (on/off), Tory Horton, Elijah Arroyo (on/off), AJ Barner (on/off), Jake Bobo (very large field)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Emeka Egbuka, Chris Godwin Jr., Sterling Shepard, Rachaad White, Cade Otton
Game Notes: As expected, coach-speak on Sunday morning suggests that Rachaad White will operate as by far the primary option out the backfield this week.
Quarterback
The high-scoring Seahawks will face a Tampa Bay team that has been decent in limiting YPA while still allowing 24.3 points-per-game. Seattle ranks sixth in the league with 27.8 points per game while posting a tremendous 8.9 yards per pass attempt. Sam Darnold has been highly accurate on the season, completing 70% of his passes for a 5.60 CPOE, he has five touchdown passes and two interceptions on the year and is among league leaders in yards per attempt as well as intended air yards per attempt. Darnold’s lack of touchdowns is glaring given his strong marks across the board and the big play nature of Seattle’s passing attack, the statistical blip has held the quarterback to just 14.25 fantasy points per game on the season, ranking him 17th among main slate quarterbacks going in to Week 5. The likely perception that Darnold is not playing well could be a benefit to sharp gamers in a good spot, Seattle has a 24.25-point implied team total in one of the better game environments of the week with Vegas slotting them in as 4.5-point favorites at a 44.5-point game total despite quality defense early in the year from Tampa Bay.
Running Backs
A fair amount of the Seahawks heavy scoring has gone through the running back position, Kenneth Walker III has three rushing touchdowns and Zach Charbonnet has punched the ball in twice on the ground. Between the two, Walker is more involved in the passing game but neither is a heavy consideration with Walker drawing just 1.7 targets per game. On the ground, it is still Walker in the lead role with 14.5 carries per game to Charbonnet’s 13.0 opportunities. Walker has been the more explosive and more productive of the two so far this season, posting 4.2 yards per rush attempt with a 10.34% explosive rush rate to Charbonnet’s limited 2.5 yards per attempt. Charbonnet missed Week 3 but returned to carry the ball a dozen times over 31 snaps with the offense last week. He scored a touchdown and gained 39 yards on the attempts and caught his first two targets of the season for another five yards. Walker, meanwhile, carried the ball 19 times on 33 snaps, posting 81 yards on the ground and adding another 29 on 1-2 receiving, but failing to score. Walker had two touchdowns but only gained 38 yards on 16 carries with Charbonnet out in Week 3, he is the slightly favored running back option but both players are on the board for value shares while functioning best as standalone plays outside of stacks. Kenneth Walker III is RB14/18 and RB15/17 across sites while Charbonnet is RB20/22 and RB20/19, either player could connect but they have a bit of a limiting impact on one another, whoever finds the end zone is the most likely to deliver.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Jaxson Smith-Njigba is the seventh-most expensive player on FanDuel and 10th-highest priced on DraftKings this week. “JSN” checks in with a strong projection for action on both sites – slightly better for full PPR – but his overall mark falls short of the quality of many of the slate’s quarterbacks and a handful of skill players at both wide receiver and running back. Among those options, “JSN” is the eighth-most highly projected skill player in our model on FanDuel and the sixth-best on DraftKings, though only Amon-Ra St. Brown outdraws him among wide receivers on either site. The Seattle pass-catcher is a fantastic option on both sites, but there is a fair argument to be made that he is a bit overpriced across the board as well. The receiver draws 8.5 targets per game and returns a fantastic 4.10 yards per route run over four games, an utterly outstanding mark that is pushed up by the surprisingly low 24.5 routes per game the receiver has run. “JSN” rates as WR2 by fantasy points on both sites but dips to WR5 by value on DraftKings and WR9 by value on the blue site. He is a strong buy in Seattle stacks as the clear primary pass catcher, given a 35.4% target rate on routes run, and he has stretched the field with a 13.1-yard ADOT this year, putting him in big play territory with regularity.
Cooper Kupp has not scored a touchdown in a Seattle uniform, perhaps the week where the team is slated to wear throwback apparel will be a throwback scoring week for the wide receiver as well. Kupp draws a steady 5.0 targets per game and has been fine with 1.71 yards per route run over 23.8 routes per contest, but his 4.9-yard ADOT has not exactly kept him alive for big plays. Kupp has managed an outstanding 5.2 yards after the catch per reception, 1.2 yards above expectation per catch, similarly to Darnold he is a bit underappreciated for the quality football he played over four contest. The limiting theme for both players has been Seattle’s low-end neutral passing rate that has led to the sheer lack of routes run for both Kupp and Smith-Njigba. If the handcuffs are taken off for a week this team could explode for value scoring in an under-owned passing game. Kupp is WR27 by points on both sites but rates as WR14 for value on DraftKings at just $4,600, he is $6,600 on FanDuel and rates as just WR26 for value.
Tory Horton is WR47/46 and WR49/48, dropping just inside the top-5o on both sites. Horton has a pair of touchdown catches this season while operating on a team-leading 15.9-yard ADOT. The receiver has drawn just a 10.4% target share on routes run over his 15.8 routes per game, providing 1.17 yards per route run overall. Both of the team’s tight ends have seen more red zone targets with AJ Barner matching Horton’s touchdown production to this point. All three players are limited options unless the team unleashes the passing attack but they are all playable pieces in Seattle stacks in Week 5. Horton is a mixer value to play alongside either Kupp or Smith-Njigba, between the two tight ends we lean slightly toward Elijah Arroyo for the deeper ADOT, Barner has benefitted from more catchable balls on a matching 2.3 targets per game.
The Seahawks have significant weekly scoring potential that has come mostly from the ground game with a split situation that limits predictability and DFS quality, the true upside should come from the passing game as the season rolls on, but Seattle needs to begin to throw the ball more frequently to truly make that happen. Darnold is a capable quarterback with a star receiver, a veteran safety net, outstanding support in the ground game, he should be able to find success against a mid-board Tampa Bay defense. Seattle is Stack 10 by points and Stack 11 by value on DraftKings, they are Stack 9 by points on FanDuel but Stack 16 by value on the blue site.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Game Total: 44.5 / TB +4.0 (20.25)
Offense: 43.46% pass / 56.54% pass / 24.3 ppg / 4.4 ypa rush / 6.5 ypa pass
oppDEF: 3.6 ypa rush / 6.0 ypa pass / 16.8 ppg / 7.32% sack / 4.61% int
Key Player: Baker Mayfield
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Emeka Egbuka, Chris Godwin Jr., Sterling Shepard, Rachaad White, Cade Otton
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Cooper Kupp, Kenneth Walker III (on/off), Zach Charbonnet (on/off), Tory Horton, Elijah Arroyo (on/off), AJ Barner (on/off)
Game Notes:
Quarterback
The Buccaneers rank as an effective but mid-level option in a difficult spot against a strong Seattle defense. Tampa Bay has a solid offense but they are missing two big guns with both Mike Evans and Bucky Irving out of action in Week 5, a potentially limiting factor for a team drawing a mere 20.25-point implied total, more than two points below their season average. Tampa Bay has scored 24.3 points-per-game to beat those average implied totals on an offense that leans heavily into the passing game and should do so again in the absence of their primary running back. Baker Mayfield should find his way to success even against a Seattle pass defense that has held opponents to just 6.0 yards per pass attempt while generating a 25.30% pressure rate and coming up with 12 sacks and a ridiculous seven interceptions in four games. Mayfield averages nearly 35 pass attempts per game and should go over 40 in Week 5, he still has premium pass catchers in rookie Emeka Egbuka and the resurrected Chris Godwin Jr., and Rachaad White is a capable option out of the backfield who has broken slates with PPR scoring in the past. Mayfield slots in as a playable option, he has eight touchdowns against just one interception on the season and his limited 6.5 yards per pass attempt on the year masks a strong 8.5 intended air yards per attempt. Mayfield is QB11 by points on DraftKings and QB12 by points on FanDuel but he dips to QB20 and QB18 at hefty pricing in a bad matchup.
Running Backs
Rachaad White should take the main running back job with Sean Tucker acting in a supporting role in Week 5. White was overtaken for the starting gig in Bucky Irving’s breakout 2024 but with Irving out of the way he should assume his old duties as a weapon in the passing game out of the backfield who also handled the primary rushing role. White carried the ball 144 times for 613 yards and three touchdowns in 16 games last year, adding 393 more yards on 57 catches with one receiving touchdown. The volume was better before Irving’s arrival, White had a career-best 990 yards and six touchdowns on 272 carries in 2023, his only year as the go-to option in the backfield. While that is not outstanding production it is noteworthy when it lands alongside 549 yards and three touchdowns on 64 catches over 70 targets. White was terrific for fantasy production, particularly in PPR formats, in the 2023 season and good last year, he should be at worst adequate in 2025 and is already gaining an excellent 4.7 yards per rush attempt on just 5.8 carries per game with 2.3 targets per contest. White is RB11 by points and RB3 by value on DraftKings, he is RB13 by points and RB2 by value on the FanDuel slate and looks like a strong option for potential scoring on both sites despite a Seattle rush defense that has kept opponents to just 3.6 yard per rush attempt to land fourth in the league.
Sean Tucker is just RB31/28 and RB31/27 across sites, he can be expected to handle some backup carries and spell White throughout the game but the opportunity is thin.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Emeka Egbuka has delivered on his talent over the first four weeks of his NFL career after the Bucs spent the 19th overall pick to add him to a solid group of receivers. Egbuka has four touchdown catches in four games on a team-leading 12.6-yard ADOT for 33.29% of the air yards. The rookie draws a 23.3% target share on routes run over 36.5 routes per contest and he saw an uptick to 10 targets in the absence of Mike Evans last week. Egbuka has proven to be a premium pass catcher and a sturdy deep threat and he has added a terrific 6.4 yards after the catch per reception, good for 1.5 YAC over expectation per reception. Egbuka checks in as WR10 by points but WR38 by value on DraftKings, he is WR10/25 on the FanDuel slate.
Chris Godwin Jr. returned to play 58 snaps in a starting role with the offense last weekend. The receiver showed mixed results, drawing 10 targets on 39 routes run for a 25.6% target share but managed just 0.67 yprr with three catches for 26 yards despite a strong 80.0% catchable target rate. Godwin missed most of last season, he had five touchdown catches on 50 receptions for 576 yards in just seven games before exiting with a long-term injury from which he just returned. Prior to last season, Godwin had a run of three-straight campaigns with more than 1,000 yards, though his touchdown production has waxed and waned, going from five to three to just two in 2023. Last season was looking like a big bounce-back in production with the early scoring, if Godwin can deliver any semblance of his pre-injury form he is a potential gem at $5,900 on both sites, though the matchup against Seattle is a major challenge. Godwin is WR18/26 on DraftKings, he is WR18 by points but jumps to WR8 by value on the FanDuel slate for the low price.
Sterling Shepard slots in as the third option at wide receiver, landing as WR45/48 and WR41/45 across sites, he is just an average receiver with mid-board volume at 4.8 targets per game and 1.30 yards per route run over 32.0 routes per contest. Shepard draws a solid 9.3-yard ADOT for a 15.12% air yards share and has contributed 5.5 yards after the catch per reception, good for 1.6 yards over expectation per attempt. The receiver is yet to find the end zone this season and sees only limited chances to do so, he has one red zone target on the season but should get into the mix somewhat more frequently in the absence of Evans.
Cade Otton rates as a lower-end touchdown-dependent tight end at TE15/13 and TE14/14 across sites. Otton has posted just 0.23 yards per route run while running 36.5 routes per game to equal the work put in by Egubka. The tight end is a far more limited pass-catcher however, he draws just 2.8 targets per game with one chance in the red zone this season, while operating on just a 5.4-yard ADOT. Otton has not found the end zone in 2025, he is only loosely playable.
Tampa Bay is Stack 11 by points and Stack 15 by value on DraftKings, they are Stack 9/9 on the FanDuel slate. The Seattle defense is an imposing factor in this matchup, particularly with Tampa Bay missing two huge pieces. This was a better game before the season started, it would have been a slate-leading option under normal circumstances but the Buccaneers still offer upside both as a stack and as standalone players, including as bring-back plays in under-owned stacks of Seahawks on the other side of this contest.
Tennessee Titans
Game Total: 41.5 / TEN +7.5 (17.0)
Offense: 38.26% rush / 61.74% pass / 12.8 ppg / 4.0 ypa rush / 4.9 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.0 ypa rush / 6.4 ypa pass / 18.5 ppg / 4.55% sack / 1.19% int
Key Player: Cam Ward
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Calvin Ridley (Q), Elic Ayomanor, Tony Pollard (on/off), Chig Okonkwo, Tyler Lockett, Tyjae Spears (Q; on/off), Chimere Dike (large field)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Trey McBride, Marvin Harrison Jr., Michael Wilson, Greg Dortch (Q), Michael Carter (on/off), Emari Demercado (on/off)
Game Notes: Calvin Ridley is expected to play
Quarterback
Titans rookie first overall pick Cam Ward checks into the fifth game of his career with a slate-worst CPOE 7.9 points below expectation. Ward has thrown for a fair amount of volume with 31.25 pass attempts per game but his 16 completions per contest fail to inspire, as does his anemic 4.9 yards per pass attempt. Ward has managed a pair of touchdown passes and a matching interception total in four games and has gained very little in the rushing attack. The quarterback has capable pass-catchers in play, he established an early connection with fellow rookie Elic Ayomanor but has been more of a limiting factor for veteran Calvin Ridley. Ward ranks as QB19 by points and QB15 by value on DraftKings, he is QB19/20 on the FanDuel slate and shows very little value at the helm of the week’s lowest-ranked stack for point potential.
Running Backs
Tony Pollard gains just 3.8 yards per rush attempt but sees solid volume with 19.3 potential touches per game. The volume and Pollard’s $5,400/$6,000 price points give the running back some upside, though he ranks as just RB17/14 and RB16/15 across sites in Week 5. Pollard has a touchdown on the board in the rushing game but he has been held to just a 1.47% explosive rush rate and a 5.88% broken tackle rate with 2.0 yards after contact per attempt. The running back is a steady mixer in a second RB or flex position but he is not a leading option in any format in Week 5.
Tyjae Spears may or may not make it back from IR for Sunday’s game, he is currently projected but should be limited in any action, he is not a strong DFS option this week but could gain ground quickly going forward.
Receivers & Tight Ends
Calvin Ridley ranks as WR28/27 and WR29/21 across sites, his price dip on FanDuel is a bit appealing but it comes with a general lack of production to justify the discount. Ridley sees 6.0 targets per game, second on the team to Elic Ayomanor, with a 21.2% target share on routes run over a team-leading 30.3 routes per game. Ridley has failed to score this season, his 11.3-yard ADOT has appeal for big play potential but Ward has found it difficult to deliver the ball accurately. Ridley has drawn just a 58.33% catchable target rate over the first four games of the season, making production extremely difficult on just three realistic targets per game, that number makes his 2.5 catches per game look a lot better. Ridley is a playable option but his appeal is limited by Ward’s lack of potential against a tough Arizona pass defense that has held teams to just 6.4 yards per pass attempt on the season.
Elic Ayomanor’s 6.3 targets per game lead the team by a thin margin, as does his 22.1% target share on routes run. Ayomanor nearly equals Ridley with 29.3 routes run per contest and he has the only two touchdown receptions that the team has managed this season. The rookie has also drawn a low-end catchable target rate of just 52.0% from Ward, effectively halving his 6.3 targets per game but, also like with Ridley, making his 3.0 receptions per game more of a standout number. The receivers have not been the problem in this equation, they are catching basically everything within reason but the quarterback simply cannot get them the ball. Until Ward finds his footing at this level there is only dart-throw appeal in this receiving group and even less value in stacking Titans. Ayomanor is WR34/30 and WR33/27 across sites.
Chig Okonkwo sees 4.8 targets per game but returns just 1.18 yards per route run on 26.3 routes per game. Okonkwo has not scored on the season, he does draw a 7.3-yard ADOT that puts him into action down the field but the limited delivery of the football remains a theme. Technically, Okonkwo has seen the best chances from Ward, his 78.95% catchable target rate leads the regular pass-catching group. There is no appeal here.
What is less appealing than “no appeal”? Whatever that is, Tyler Lockett is it in Week 5. The veteran receiver draws just 3.0 targets per game for 0.46 yards per route run over 25.0 routes per contest, drawing a 10.6% target rate on routes run overall. Lockett has produced nothing in 2025, though a 50.0% catchable target rate has not been helpful over his limited chances. So far the veteran is essentially seeing 1.5 catchable passes per game. Lockett is outside of the top-40 wide receivers on both sites.
The Titans are a very low quality team that ranks as Stack 20 out of 20 by points on both sites, they climb to just Stack 17 despite cheap pricing across the board, revealing the true lack of quality. Minor shares of Ridley, Ayomanor, or Pollard are fine here and there but the full stack is not an advisable play.
Washington Commanders
Game Total: 47.0 / WAS +3.0 (22.0)
Offense: 44.68% rush / 55.32% pass / 26.8 ppg / 5.9 ypa rush / 6.6 ypa pass
oppDEF: 4.5 ypa rush / 5.5 ypa pass / 17.8 ppg / 9.22% sack / 2.34% int
Key Player: Jayden Daniels
Setting: at least one / exactly two (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Team Group: Deebo Samuel, Zach Ertz, Chris Moore, Jaylin Lane, Jacory Croskey-Merritt (on/off), Luke McCaffrey, Chris Rodriguez Jr., (on/off), Jeremy McNichols (on/off)
Opposing Setting: at most one / exactly one (these can be alternated in a variety of lineup builds)
Opposing Group: Quentin Johnston, Keenan Allen, Ladd McConkey, Omarion Hampton, Oronde Gadsden II
Game Notes:
Quarterback
Outstanding Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels is due back after a two week absence with a sprained knee suffered in the Week 2 contest. Daniels played 68 snaps in that game, posting 200 yards on 24-42 passing with a pair of touchdown passes following a 233-yard performance with one touchdown pass in the opener, he is yet to throw an interception this season. The quarterback added 68 yards on 11 rushing attempts in Week 1 but was held to just 17 yards on seven carries before exiting the second contest. With a knee issue that is going to require him to wear a brace in the return to action it will be interesting to see the impact on Daniels’ rushing volume and overall fantasy scoring potential. Given free reign he has one of the leading overall projections on this slate but he is in a tough passing matchup against a Chargers defense that has limited opponents to a league-low 5.5 yards per pass attempt while generating a strong 24.8% pressure rate. Daniels threw for 3,568 yards on 480 pass attempts with 25 touchdowns against just nine interceptions, adding six rushing touchdowns and a fantastic 891 yards on 148 rushing attempts in a standout rookie season, but those totals make it easy to spot where the dip will come from if his volume is limited. While the player is outstanding and likely to be relatively low-owned, this is a truly challenging situation. Daniels rates as QB2 by points but QB18 by value on DraftKings, he is QB2/7 on the FanDuel slate but he could dip by a spot or two before 1pm Sunday in a close race.
Running Backs
The running back position is a bit of a mess in Washington with everyone’s favorite breakout candidate “Bill” Croskey Merritt stumbling on his way to seizing the job after Austin Ekeler’s season-ending injury. The rookie fifth-rounder slots in with three straight weeks of single-digit rushing attempts after picking up 10 and gaining 82 yards in Week 1 against the Giants. Croskey-Merritt played 20 snaps with the offense in Week 4, carrying the ball just seven times but gaining 47 yards and adding 10 more on 2-2 receiving. The running back has gained an outstanding 5.9 yards per rush attempt with a 10.34% explosive rush rate and 2.9 yards after contact per attempt but as long as the team is choosing to feed Chris Rodriguez Jr. and Jeremy McNichols carries he will be limited to explosive gains for production and will be highly touchdown-dependent. Croskey-Merritt leads the job-share as RB24/25 and RB25/26 across DraftKings and FanDuel.
Chris Rodriguez Jr. played 20 snaps with the offense and carried the ball seven times for 59 yards last week but went untargeted over eight routes run. He picked up 39 yards on 11 carries over 22 snaps the week before, essentially matching Croskey-Merritt for volume and production in the two week sample in which he has been active. McNichols played 18 snaps but drew just four potential touches with two carries and two targets on 12 routes run as a slightly more limited option.
The three-way timeshare is a friend to no one, if forced to play a Washington running back Croskey-Merritt is probably the correct answer but there is only limited appeal outside of cheap touchdown darts, the most likely rushing touchdown surely goes to Jayden Daniels even with potential limitations.
Receivers & Tight Ends
With Terry McLaurin and Noah Brown both still out in Week 5 there should be ample opportunity for Deebo Samuel to build on what could be a dynamic connection with his young quarterback. Samuel caught seven of 10 targets in Week 1, gaining 77 yards but failing to score, he had another seven catches and scored a touchdown but gained just 44 yards in Week 2. With an opportunity to put everything together and with a few chances on carries out of the backfield (three in each of the last two games and seven on the season), Samuel has intriguing potential on this slate. The Commanders are facing a rush defense that yields 4.5 yards per attempt, between Daniels and Samuel we may have an angle to exploit that aspect of the defense while still effectively ignoring the running back split. Deebo Samuel has a rushing touchdown on the board already this season and has gained 6.6 yards per attempt in the small sample while adding an 1.81 yards per route run in the passing game with two touchdown receptions. Samuel draws just a 5.9-yard ADOT, working underneath and using his extreme skills to create gains after the catch. The receiver has 5.0 yards after the catch per reception this season, though that amounts to just 0.3 yards over expectation per attempt. Samuel has seen a 92.59% catchable target rate from the two Washington quarterbacks this season, a side effect of operating in short-yardage patterns, but also a bump to his PPR scoring potential. Samuel is WR9 by points but WR24 by value on DraftKings, he is a strong FanDuel consideration as WR7 by points and WR2 by value on the blue site.
Zach Ertz is a top tight end who ranks as TE7 by points and TE6 by value on both sites. Ertz sees 5.0 targets per game for 1.3 yards per route run over his 28.8 routes per game. The tight end has already found paint twice this season, his 15.5% air yards share is a near match for Samuel’s targeting, which puts him in decent depth for the position. Ertz draws an 18.0% target share on routes run over four games and he has upside for regular red zone targeting, particularly with two of the team’s top wide receivers out of action. The tight end has been a longtime friend of fantasy gamers in all formats, very little should change this week.
Chris Moore and Jaylin Lane land next to one another in projections as the Commanders slide down the wide receiver depth chart. Moore played a full 40 snaps with the offense and ran 25 routes but drew just three targets in Week 4 against Atlanta, catching none of those chances. The receiver carried the ball for nine yards for his only gain. Moore did catch two passes on two targets for 25 yards over 14 routes on 33 snaps in Week 3 but his production and opportunities are limited. Lane came away from the Week 4 game with a pair of catches for 18 yards but those came on three targets over just 11 routes and 25 snaps with the offense, on a volume and involvement basis Moore should rate slightly higher. Lane did see 36 snaps in Week 2, running 29 routes and drawing four targets for one catch and two yards. Overall, the receivers have been nothing more than lousy dart throws that fall short of not only the board but the entire wall the board hangs on. Moore has posted 1.2 yards per route run while Lane is at just 0.48.
Luke McCaffrey, by contrast, has posted an outstanding 2.59 yprr but that comes on just 9.3 routes run per game and a 25.0% snap share that climbed to 37.0% last week. McCaffrey drew 21 snaps with the offense in each of the last two games and he has run either 11 or 12 routes in three straight contests, drawing one target on 12 routes in Green Bay in Week 2 but seeing three targets on 11 routes in Week 3 and another three chances on a dozen routes run in Week 4. McCaffrey was highly efficient with the limited chances in Week 3, posting a season-high 56 yards and a touchdown while working with Marcus Mariota at the wheel. While McCaffrey currently slots in as just WR50/56 and WR50/50 he could gain a bit of additional projection to at least equal or possibly surpass Moore and Lane for value.
The Commanders are an interesting stack against a tough pass defense, they will go as far as Daniels can carry them on 1.5 legs. The team ranks as Stack 15/19 on DraftKings and Stack 15/15 on FanDuel with additional diminishment of expectations coming from the absence of both McLaurin and Brown, as well as from the three-headed running back situation. Stacks that focus on Daniels, Samuel, and Ertz are the obvious focus but that is an incredibly straightforward approach to a lineup build that will be highly common among those who stack Washington in Week 5.
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