Fantasy Football: Should You Stack Teammates in Redraft Leagues?

If you've ever played best-ball or daily fantasy, you likely know how valuable stacking can be.

Stacking is when you pair players from the same team on the same fantasy roster. The thought process is that if a quarterback does well, so will the pass-catchers on his team, allowing you to double-dip in points scored in some categories.

But for both best-ball and daily fantasy tournaments, you're trying to top a boatload of competitors. This forces you to focus almost entirely on the best-case scenario, a mindset that will include stacking.

For season-long, things are a bit different. You typically have to beat only 9 to 13 competitors, and stacking comes with risks. If your quarterback gets hurt, it can torpedo the output of his pass-catchers and vice versa.

So, should we still stack in redraft fantasy football? Or is it best to leave that approach for more top-heavy game types?

The Downsides of Stacking in Fantasy Football

As alluded to above, there are risks involved with stacking.

The output of players in the same offense is correlated. If that offense puts up a ton of points, everybody can benefit.

The reverse, then, is also true.

Take the 2023 Kansas City Chiefs as an example. Their offense lacked explosion during the regular season, and Patrick Mahomes finished as just the QB10 in half-point-per-reception (PPR) points per game, among those who played at least half the season. You could potentially recover from that alone.

But with Travis Kelce the lone player inside the top 10 at his position in half-PPR points per game, Chiefs stacks didn't pay off. It likely would have led to your team missing the playoffs.

That's a situation where no injuries are involved. But that risk obviously exists, as well.

So, the downsides here are clear. From a floor perspective, you have some incentive not to stack.

But in fantasy football, it often doesn't matter much whether you finish 5th or 12th in your league. The payout is likely close to being the same.

We should want to win. And even in a smaller format, the upsides of stacking should be our focus rather than the downsides.

Why Stacking in Season-Long Is Best

We'll talk about the data angle behind stacking in a second, but the bigger thing for me is a mindset.

What is your goal in playing season-long fantasy? Obviously, we all want to have fun, and it isn't fun if your team is dust in Week 2. You may just want to have a team that's relevant all year and can make the playoffs.

Personally? I'd rather win. That means focusing more on the ceiling than the floor, and the ceiling -- as you can see in best-ball and DFS -- is most easily obtained via stacking.

Think about your roster as a bet. You're effectively betting on every player you draft to either meet or exceed expectations. That makes your roster, effectively, one big round robin bet where the more legs you have hit, the higher your payout.

But if you roster both Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase, the odds of hitting one leg go up if the other does well. You want correlated bets within that round robin, and that's exactly what stacking is.

The Data Behind Stacking

That's the anecdotal side of things. We can see empirical evidence about the upsides of stacking, as well.

Let's look at the difference-makers last year in fantasy. This is the top five quarterbacks and tight ends and the top 10 running backs and receivers in half-PPR scoring. These are the players who truly moved the needle in pushing you toward a championship.

That's a total of 30 players. Only eight of them had zero teammates also in the difference-making category.

That means 22 players were paired with at least one teammate. Ten were with multiple teammates, and one team had a whopping four players in the difference-making category.

If you invested in one of those teams in your draft, you were in the hunt for a championship.

Which Positions Should You Stack?

Sticking with the difference-makers last year, you can obviously pair a quarterback with a pass-catcher. Three of the top five quarterbacks were paired with a difference-making receiver or tight end, a charge led by the QB4 and WR2, Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb.

But that's just six of our correlated teammates laid out above. Clearly, there were a ton of non-quarterback/pass-catcher stacks, as well.

A bunch of these were a running back paired with a pass-catcher. Of the top 10 running backs in half-PPR points per game, seven also had a difference-making teammate at receiver or tight end. These players aren't competing with each other directly for touches, so the "rising tide lifts all boats" theory applies. Even if it's not as obvious as a quarterback and pass-catcher, we should be actively okay with pairing a running back with a pass-catching teammate.

There were even some stacks with players who were competing for touches. That includes three of five tight ends being paired with a fellow receiver and -- weirdly enough -- two backfields that pushed two teammates into the top 10 (the Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins).

I wouldn't actively look to pair running-back teammates together as you are putting a lid on your ceiling there. But a receiver-tight end combo is fully greenlit.

Basically, we should just want to buy into specific offenses overall, regardless of whether those players may cannibalize each other to a certain extent.

When Not to Stack

For the most part, stacking is a good approach.

You just don't want to torpedo your team in order to do so.

In best-ball tournaments, you have incentive to reach a bit -- or take a player above their typical draft slot -- in order to complete a stack. You need more upside to take home the grand prize there, so your incentive is to be aggressive.

That's not as true in season-long. Yes, you'd like to invest more wholly in an offense, but you don't need a 100th-percentile roster to win. You can potentially get it done with just a 75th-percentile team, and in that scenario, reaching for a player well above their typical slot may do more harm than good.

Conclusions

Again, I understand why you may not want to stack in season-long fantasy. Nobody wants a lost season because a stack you took flopped.

But if you focus on the upsides and the increased chances at claiming victory, stacking is the way to go.

This is true both at quarterback and pass-catcher but also at other positions, as well. If the Lions' offense goes nuts, we should want exposure, even if that doesn't include drafting Jared Goff.

This doesn't mean your team is toast if you can't get a stack in, and you shouldn't egregiously reach in order to add another piece to a stack. But when it makes sense, stacking is a good way to boost your odds at cashing a check and taking home some glory.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.