Best Ball Late-Round Backdoor Stacks

We’ve spoken a great deal about stacking this offseason and have broken down the importance of maximizing correlation across your roster and limiting the things you need to get right in order to hit a ceiling outcome. When a stack hits, the players associated with the team get brought along for the ride and often outperform expectations and exceed their ADP. Paying up for premium stacks feels a lot more comfortable, but you’re usually forced to spend significant capital in order to lock up the high-end, consistent production we’ve already seen.

With that said, the later or “backdoor” stacks are usually the ones that offer a greater return on investment and post much higher advance rates due to the cost of acquisition. Think of teams like the Texans and Packers last season, who were almost free in drafts, getting pushed down the board due to the uncertainty of their situation. In this article, I’m going to highlight a couple of my favorite “backdoor” stacks, available in Rounds 12-plus. 

Los Angeles Rams

• Matthew Stafford, ADP: 151.3, QB19
• Demarcus Robinson, ADP: 169.3 WR76
• Colby Parkinson, ADP: 208.6 TE29

The Rams were a “backdoor” stack I highlighted around this time last offseason, who outside of Cooper Kupp and Cam Akers were all available in Rounds 12-plus. There may not be better picks than Kyren Williams and Puka Nacua in the history of Best Ball Mania, with both players going undrafted in most leagues and finishing inside the top six at their respective positions. Even Matthew Stafford paid off his ADP by missing just one game excluding rest and finishing as a top-15 quarterback despite missing Kupp for nearly a third of the season. Now entering his fourth year with the Rams in the Sean McVay system, Stafford may have the best arsenal of weapons ever in his career and is already looking ahead to the future with a potential contract extension. Nacua and Kupp are both going off the board inside the top 30 picks.

However, Demarcus Robinson is severely discounted in drafts as the clear WR3 after signing a $1.165 million deal to return to Los Angeles earlier this offseason. From Week 12 on, Robinson officially usurped Tutu Atwell as the WR3 and posted over a 90% route participation rate in each of the last five games including the playoffs and excluding Week 18. He had his best games in the last five weeks of the fantasy regular season (Weeks 13-17) and carved out a 20% target share on 4.2 receptions, 63.8 receiving yards and 13.7 half-PPR points. He also found the end zone in 80% of his games during that span. Like Robinson, Colby Parkinson provides another cheap way to gain exposure to LA’s lethal aerial attack. He’s currently going undrafted in most lobbies. Parkinson hasn’t done much up to this point in his career and had been buried on Seattle’s depth chart since being selected in the fourth round of the 2020 draft. However, he was picked up by the Rams early in free agency and signed a somewhat significant three-year up to $22 million deal, with $10.25 million fully guaranteed. With Tyler Higbee still recovering from a late-season torn ACL, Parkinson looks to be the starting tight end to open the season and a unique way to gain leverage with your last-round pick.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

• Baker Mayfield, ADP 168.9, QB23
• Bucky Irving, ADP: 175.2, RB54
• Cade Otton, ADP: 176.4, TE20
• Jalen McMillan, ADP: 189.8, WR82

Baker Mayfield usually went undrafted in the entirety of Best Ball Mania last season and entered training camp in a quarterback battle against Kyle Trask with no guarantee to start or hold on to the job. Not only did Mayfield win the starting gig, he set career-high marks across the board, and threw for 4,044 yards and 28 touchdowns and finished as a top-10 quarterback in fantasy. Although losing the offensive coordinator Dave Caneles hurts Mayfield’s 2024 outlook, he may be in an even better situation in his second year with Tampa. He enters training camp as the locked-in QB1 with upgraded weapons. The Buccaneers added wide receiver Jalen McMillan in the third round of the 2024 draft, who has already been turning heads early in the offseason and looks to be in pole position as the WR3.

Following the McMillan selection, the Buccaneers also added depth to the running back room and spent their fourth-round pick on Bucky Irving as a complementary piece to Rachaad White. White was one of the few backs with a near three-down role last season, but a lot of his production was driven by volume, as he benefited from a lack of competition. Irving should immediately step in as the RB2 with a chance to spell White. He handled 155-plus carries for 1,550-plus yards in each of his last two seasons in Oregon. He could also see some work in the passing game after he logged 56 receptions for 413 yards in his final collegiate season. Along with the two rookies, third-year tight end Cade Otton is also worth tacking onto Buccaneers stacks. He hasn’t flashed much of a ceiling outside of a handful of spike weeks, but he rarely ever leaves the field and posted an 89% route participation rate in 2023 – first overall at the position. Otton closed the season strong in the playoffs and saw eight-plus targets in back-to-back games and averaged 6.5 receptions, 77 receiving yards and 13.95 half-PPR points during that span.

Carolina Panthers

• Bryce Young, ADP 192.1 QB26
• Adam Thielen, ADP 159.4 WR72
• Chuba Hubbard, ADP 162.7 RB51
• Honorable Mention — Jatavion Sanders, ADP 213.6/Tommy Tremble ADP 215.6, TE46/Ian Thomas, ADP 216.0, TE61

2023 No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young was disappointing to say the least, especially considering the future capital Carolina gave up to move up in the draft and compared to Offensive Rookie of the Year C.J. Stroud (No. 2) and the limited sample from Anthony Richardson (No. 4), who were both selected shortly after. Young won just two games in 16 starts, finishing 30th out of 31 quarterbacks (min. 300 pass attempts) in EPA per dropback (-0.178) and PFF pass grade (52.6). He was also dead last among qualified signal callers in passer rating (73.7) and yards per attempt (5.5). That said, Young didn’t get much help from his supporting cast, with the Panthers leading all teams in the NFL in percentage of deep incomplete passes attributed to wide receivers according to PFF (19.4%).

Entering year two, Young is set up much better for success, playing in a completely revamped offense with the addition of Diontae Johnson and first-round receiver Xavier Legette (No. 32) and the RB1 in the 2024 draft class, Jonathon Brooks (No. 46). If anyone can turn Young’s short career around, it would be new head coach Dave Canales, who has had a track record of developing raw signal callers into legitimate starters such as Geno Smith and Baker Mayfield. The entire team is priced at its floor, but no one more than Adam Thielen, coming off of a top-20 finish in the fantasy regular season (Weeks 1-17), averaging 11.1 half-PPR points during that span. Although he does have added competition entering his age-33 season, Thielen has more than enough juice in the tank to pay off his Round 14 ADP, catching over 100 passes for just the second time in his career (103), while surpassing 1,000 yards receiving for the first time since 2018 (1,014). Chuba Hubbard is also available in the 14th round, like Thielen getting pushed down the board with the insertion of younger talent. Hubbard will likely back up Brooks, who per Canales “still had a little bit of ways to go” recovering from a torn ACL

Even if Brooks is cleared by the start of the season, he’ll likely be eased in, sharing work with Hubbard, who took over as the lead back from Week 6 on, playing on 67% of the team’s offensive snaps on the last 12 games, averaging 19.4 opportunities, 77 yards from scrimmage and 11.3 half-PPR points during that span. Until there’s more clarity in training camp, I’m currently staying away from the tight end room with early signs pointing to a three-man rotation, between fourth-round rookie Ja’Tavion Sanders, Tommy Tremble and Ian Thomas.