FanDuel NFL DFS Cheat Sheet: Week 1 Picks And Stacks
By Sam Smith
September 7, 2026
The free FanDuel NFL DFS cheat sheet from Stokastic opens Week 1 on Sunday, Sept. 13, with two rows jumping off its six panels: MarShawn Lloyd and the Dolphins defense top both exposure and leverage while the Jahmyr Gibbs chalk gets left alone. I turn the top stack into a full FanDuel roster below.
The Quick Answer
Play the two leverage rows: the Dolphins defense (60.3% leverage, top value at 2.98) and Lloyd (29.0% owned, 79.3% top-150 exposure, 50.0% leverage). Hold Gibbs at 46.9% ownership; the Sims match the field on him at 49.3% exposure. Jacoby Brissett's QB+2 is the stack the Sims build most at 8.7%; the board does not name his partners, so I anchor it with Trey McBride (42.0% exposure, 29.9% leverage) and one more Arizona pass catcher. How half-PPR scoring fills the other six seats, and the Shough-Olave build the ownership panel points at, is below.
The Week 1 Board For Sunday, Sept. 13
| Panel | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top Projections (Proj FP) | Justin Herbert 21.7 | Jahmyr Gibbs 21.1 | Josh Allen 20.8 | Joe Burrow 20.4 | Jalen Hurts 20.1 |
| Highest Ownership (Own%) | Jahmyr Gibbs 46.9% | Chris Olave 37.5% | MarShawn Lloyd 29.0% | Ja'Marr Chase 28.5% | Brock Bowers 24.1% |
| Top Values (Value) | Dolphins 2.98 | Justin Herbert 2.86 | Tyler Shough 2.79 | MarShawn Lloyd 2.55 | C.J. Stroud 2.54 |
| Top Exposures (Exp%) | MarShawn Lloyd 79.3% | Dolphins 71.3% | Jahmyr Gibbs 49.3% | Chris Olave 43.3% | Trey McBride 42.0% |
| Leverage Plays (Lev%) | Dolphins 60.3% | MarShawn Lloyd 50.0% | Trey McBride 29.9% | Tetairoa McMillan 24.4% | James Cook III 14.0% |
| QB+2 Stacks (Stack%) | Jacoby Brissett 8.7% | Justin Herbert 7.3% | Joe Burrow 6.7% | C.J. Stroud 6.0% | Bryce Young 5.3% |
Panels as of Sept. 7; re-check before the 1 p.m. ET lock. Value is points per $1,000 of salary, leverage is the gap between the Sims' optimal exposure and projected field ownership, and Stack% is how often the Sims build each QB+2. Lloyd's row is the one I keep coming back to: not top five in projection, yet the Stokastic Sims put him in 79.3% of the 150 highest-ROI lineups, and I build every entry from that gap. The Sims play the slate tens of thousands of times with ownership modeled as a distribution, and with Week 1 projections still leaning on last season and camp, that sim exposure outranks the raw ranking. Josh Jacobs is out on the commissioner's exempt list and Lloyd is reported atop the Green Bay rotation.
Half PPR Reorders The Value Panel
FanDuel is half PPR with no yardage bonuses, so a catch pays half of what it does on DraftKings. That is why three quarterbacks and a defense take four of the five value rows: their scoring barely moves, with no reception points to lose and only DraftKings' 300-yard passing bonus gone, while every receiver's floor is cut in half. Herbert (2.86, and the top projection at 21.7) is the pay-up. The cheaper read is Shough (2.79) with Olave, his New Orleans teammate: a value-panel quarterback whose top receiver is the field's second-most-owned wideout is the stack the ownership panel is pointing at, so that is my third build. The Sims sit 5.8 points above the field on Olave (43.3% exposure against 37.5% owned), a modest overweight, not a fade. Lloyd is the only back or receiver on the panel; a back's yards and touchdowns carry over minus DraftKings' 3-point 100-yard bonus, a far smaller haircut than a receiver takes.
Worked Example: Brissett's Stack To A Nine-Man Roster
FanDuel's nine-spot roster (QB, two RB, three WR, TE, FLEX, D) runs under a $60,000 cap, and the stack panel is built as QB+2, so that trio is the primary stack and the other six seats go to a bring-back and one-off leverage:
- Stack: Brissett, listed as Arizona's quarterback, and McBride (who carries 29.9% leverage) plus one more Arizona pass catcher from the NFL DFS projections, ownership and stacks in the DataHub; the board does not rank Arizona's receivers.
- Backs: Gibbs and Lloyd. Fading Gibbs at 46.9% buys nothing when the Sims hold him at 49.3%; that is leverage you are not paid for.
- Defense: Dolphins, first in value and second in exposure.
- FLEX: Tetairoa McMillan at 24.4% leverage as a one-off, without Bryce Young. Four wideouts with only two of them stacked puts the leverage outside the correlation, which is the point.
The roster: QB Brissett; RB Gibbs, Lloyd; WR the second Arizona pass catcher, Olave, and a bring-back against Arizona, the one seat the board does not model, since it ranks neither side's receivers; TE McBride; FLEX McMillan; D Dolphins. For the run-heavy version, swap McMillan out and James Cook III (14.0% leverage) in at FLEX. Confirm Brissett's, Shough's and Lloyd's roles before lock.
The cheat sheet is free. Code CHEAT takes 15% off your first payment on the paid Stokastic NFL DFS packages, home of the full Sims, Ownership Projections and the ROI-ranked lineup pool behind these panels.
More on this: DraftKings NFL DFS Cheat Sheet: Week 1 Picks And Stacks · FanDuel PGA DFS Cheat Sheet: Sims, Projections And Ownership · FanDuel MLB DFS Cheat Sheet: Projections, Ownership & Stacks · DraftKings PGA DFS Cheat Sheet: Sims, Projections And Ownership · DraftKings MMA DFS Cheat Sheet: Sims, Projections And Ownership
Where My Entries Land
Week 1 on FanDuel is a play-the-leverage week, not a fade-the-chalk week. My second build swaps the Brissett trio for Herbert's stack at 7.3% with two Chargers pass catchers from the DataHub, keeping McBride at tight end as a one-off. Burrow at 6.7% is the stack I skip; Chase is 28.5% owned and not on the exposure panel. The one thing that flips this board is Green Bay news: if Lloyd is not the lead back by Sunday morning, the 50.0% row is gone and the FLEX leverage source rotates to Cook at 14.0%.
21+.