Sleeper Late-Round Stacks for Best Ball Tournaments

In large-field best ball contests, where we are competing with thousands of entrants, we want to maximize our chances of hitting a high-end outcome since the difference in payouts ranges from a hearty handshake to life-changing money. And the simplest approach to building a 90th-percentile lineup is by betting on big-picture outcomes; i.e., reducing the number of situations we need to get right. That’s where stacking and correlation can help.

As Michael Leone pointed out in his Best Ball Manifesto, having 3-5 of your skill players stacked with your QB in the regular season is optimal. So there’s no pressing need to reach for a huge stack; 1-3 stacked players per QB is +EV. And that’s where we can help.

The following is an ETR aggregated list of stacks (and smaller combos) that are manageable in the last handful of rounds of large-field tournaments. This list will be updated weekly throughout the offseason as players gain steam and are no longer stackable at ADP.

1. New England Patriots

Drake Maye, Kyle Williams, Demario Douglas, Hunter Henry

Last-Round Flier: Mack Hollins

Ignore Josh McDaniels’ most recent stint with the Raiders, where they finished 27th in Expected Points Added per play — a statistical metric that measures a team’s scoring potential by considering the context of each play — as one of the NFL’s least efficient units before he was let go on Halloween; zooming out, he’s consistently (surprisingly?) engineered relevant offenses when allowed to finish the year, elevating both the Patriots and Raiders to an above-average EPA/play in nine of his last 10 seasons, the lone outlier being New England’s 7-9 finish in 2020 when Cam Newton passed for eight scores (but was cleverly schemed for 12 more from the ground).

Stefon Diggs encouragingly participated in minicamp despite October’s torn ACL, and can always be tacked on in the sixth round — we’re even ahead (albeit slightly) of his current 80 ADP. If attempting to stack New England through all of their discounted players, however, it’s the team’s nice No. 69 overall pick, Kyle Williams, who stands out more: Unlike Demario Douglas (79% slot rate) and Diggs (53%), who ran a majority of their routes from the middle of the field last year, Williams ran a career 81% of his routes from out wide, encouragingly earning a 22.1% target share at 19 years old. (For what it’s worth, he also finished second among his class in Yards Per Route Run against man coverage in 2024.) Mack Hollins is mentioned as a last-round flier if only for his career-high marks in targets (94), receiving yards (690), and fantasy points per game (9.1) in his lone season under McDaniels with the Raiders.

Drake Maye is the all-too-obvious winner regardless of who’s on the field, averaging 18 points (QB14), including 4.2 via rushing, in his 10 full starts. The Patriots logically improved on 2024’s 31st-ranked Pass-Block Win Rate in signing veteran RT Morgan Moses, former Vikings C Garrett Bradbury, and drafting stud OT Will Campbell with the fourth overall pick.

2. New Orleans Saints