Week 3 DraftKings Picks: Best lineup stacks for NFL DFS tournaments, cash games

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You won't go anywhere with your Week 3 NFL DFS lineups without hitting on at least one big stack. Last week could've gone better for our DraftKings stack picks, which we partially blame on Drew Brees's and Ben Roethlisberger's injuries, but that's the beauty of daily fantasy football -- we get another chance to hit it big a week later.

We're going right back to the Steelers' well this week, albeit at a much lower price. There's even a Cowboys QB-RB stack in here in hopes of nailing every touchdown Dallas scores against the brutal Dolphins. Between expensive stacks and value stacks for cash games and GPPs, you should have plenty of options to choose from when setting your lineup.

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Week 3 DFS Lineups: 
FD cash | FD GPP | DK cash | DK GPP | Y! cashY! GPP

Week 3 NFL DFS Picks: Top DraftKings stacks for cash games     

QB Kyler Murray and WR Christian Kirk, Cardinals vs. Panthers 

Murray has been up and down in his first NFL season, but for fantasy purposes, he has at least thrown for a lot of yards. It's worth noting that the Cardinals have played the Lions, who play at one of the slowest paces in the league, and in Baltimore, which is a tough spot to make your regular-season road debut. A home game against the Panthers should prove to be the easiest yet for Murray. We know Arizona will run a lot of plays, but what's really attractive about Murray is that we haven't fully seen his upside as a runner yet. He was held only 17 yards rushing through the first two weeks, but once he feels more comfortable taking off and running, he should have similar upside to Lamar Jackson.

While Larry Fitzgerald is also in play here as the stacking option for Murray, I'm going with the big play upside of Kirk after the Panthers allowed a big game on Thursday night to Chris Godwin and a few downfield completions to Mike Evans. Kirk has seen 20 targets through the first two weeks, and he should push for upwards of 10 targets yet again in this matchup. This stack is cheap enough on both DraftKings and FanDuel that it allows you to jam in two of the high-volume running back options and gives you some flexibility for your remaining wide receiver spots. 

MORE WEEK 3 DFS: Top values | Lineup Builder

QB Dak Prescott and RB Ezekiel Elliott, Cowboys vs. Dolphins

The Cowboys come into their matchup with the Dolphins as one of the largest favorites that you'll ever see in an NFL game at -24.5. Dallas is going to absolutely roll the tanking Dolphins in this game, and I have no problem with going with a Prescott-Elliott stack in both cash games and GPP formats. While Prescott and Elliott aren't the most correlated players on the team (that belongs to Prescott and Amari Cooper), Elliott still catches enough passes to provide the correlation upside that we are looking for from our stacks. 

The real draw to the Prescott-Elliott stack is that you are virtually guaranteed to capture all of the touchdowns that the Cowboys score in this game (unless Tony Pollard vultures a late score with the game already in hand). Michael Gallup will be out for this game, which does hamper Prescott's upside just a touch, but the floor should be secure after he has passed for 674 yards and seven touchdowns through only two weeks. 

WEEK 3 NON-PPR RANKINGS:
Quarterback | Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end | D/ST | Kicker

Week 3 DraftKings Picks: Best stacks for daily fantasy football GPPs/tournaments

QB Mason Rudolph and WR James Washington, Steelers @ 49ers

This is an interesting week for quarterbacks after so many have already gone down or been limited by injuries. The Steelers are in crisis mode right now after starting the season 0-2 and losing Ben Roethlisberger for the season with an elbow injury. They will turn to Rudolph for the remainder of the year, and he doesn't get a great first matchup on the road against a much-improved 49ers defense. 

With that being said, I like the idea of going with Rudolph in large-field GPPs. His price is extremely low ($4,800 on DraftKings and $6,600 on FanDuel), so he really only needs 200 yards and two touchdowns to pay off his salary. Rudolph is a talented thrower and showed great accuracy on downfield throws during his time at Oklahoma State. Much of his production in college came when he was throwing to current Steelers wide receiver Washington, who looks to be jumping Donte Moncrief in the Steelers passing hierarchy after Moncrief has looked horrible through two weeks. The Rudolph to Washington connection looked fantastic in preseason, and it wouldn't be surprising to see Rudolph lean on a familiar target in Washington in his first NFL start. At a combined price of only $9,300 on DraftKings, you not only have enough salary to play any of the studs on the slate in your lineup, but you also have a realistic shot at going 4x value on their combined price should the stack link up for a touchdown.  

WEEK 3 PPR RANKINGS: Running back | Wide receiver | Tight end

QB Jameis Winston, WR Mike Evans, and TE O.J. Howard, Buccaneers vs. Giants

The Buccaneers have one of the best matchups of the week facing the Giants at home. I almost prefer the Bucs matchup with New York over the Cowboys against the Dolphins and the Patriots against the Jets because it's hard for me to see Tampa Bay completely blowing out New York and turning the second half of this game into a garbage time slop-fest. 

Winston looked better in the Bucs' Week 2 win over the Panthers, and I expect him to continue his improvement under Bruce Arians after getting an extra three days to prepare for one of the worst defenses in the NFL. Winston's price, especially on DraftKings at $5,400, is way too cheap for the upside that he has shown over the last few years and for the matchup. 

The pairing with Winston is the difficult choice here. I absolutely love Chris Godwin, and I believe that at the end of the season that he will have better fantasy numbers than fellow wideout Evans. However, for this game, I'm going with Evans. Not only is Evans slightly cheaper across the industry, but this is also the perfect explosion spot for Evans at low ownership. Evans still sees the extremely valuable downfield targets for the Bucs, and he just missed a 20-yard touchdown reception last week against the Panthers. I'm calling a 100-plus yard game and a touchdown for Evans this week. 

You can certainly end your Bucs stack with Winston-Evans or Winston-Godwin, but I want to add the TE Howard to the mix. Howard has been one of the big fantasy disappointments this season after being shut out against the Panthers in Week 2. We know that Bruce Arians doesn't utilize the tight ends in his offensive scheme, but Howard is just too talented of a player to not see an increased role in the offense. A few extra days of preparation and some encouraging coach speak from Arians has me thinking that they could be looking to get Howard involved more in this game against a Giants team that has been one of the worst teams in the league against tight ends over the past few seasons. Howard's price is all the way down at $3,800 on DraftKings, and he makes for an excellent GPP pivot off of Greg Olsen or Darren Waller.

There's plenty of strategy that goes into putting together a winning DFS lineup, and the best place to start is RotoQL’s DFS tools. RotoQL's Lineup Optimizer is a massive advantage when you're building lineups, regardless of contest size or site.

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