Week 5 DraftKings DFS Picks & Fades (2025 season)

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That said, please note that what you're about to read does not necessarily represent the views, opinions or beliefs of Mikey or anyone at Basement Brewed Fantasy Football.

We've been having some macro discussions in our BBFF Discord over the past week or two regarding contest selection for these DFS contests that DraftKings puts out. They're all interesting, but one thing is for certain: the contests you select are probably the most important thing to worry about.

A bit ironic coming from someone who's giving out stacks, picks and fades each week, but it's true. Knowing what type of contest you're entering should dictate how you build out your lineups. If you need to beat 100,000 people, you are way more likely to need the best scoring lineup possible, and as such, your lineups need to have way more ceiling and, likely, lower floors. But if you only need to beat 5,000 people, that's a bit different - you can be a little bit more narrow and take fewer risks.

For me, personally? I think the super large field stuff is fun, but from an ROI perspective, it's not my best contest. I look for more of the "mini" contests and enter those as 20-maxes, plus some smaller single-entry or 3-max stuff, for the main slate, while I'll exclusively do single-entry contests for any non-main slates. There are some who actually see better ROI on the short slates than the main ones, too.

All in all, spend some time this week thinking about what types of lineups you like to build and what contests may be best suited for those contests. It might be the first step to being more profitable. And as always, we chat about this stuff regularly over on Discord, so join up if you want to get more granular in how we, as a collective community, approach things from different angles as we try to beat the field.

With that, on to this week. Here are my week 5 DraftKings DFS picks & fades that I'm considering for my lineups.

Week 5 DraftKings DFS Stack of the Week

New York Jets: QB Justin Fields ($5,600) + WR Garrett Wilson ($6,100)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's chalky. But for good reason. Dallas' defense is terri-bad, and yet the Jets are still home underdogs to this team. The offense flows through basically three guys (with the third being Breece Hall, who you certainly could include as part of a stack), so if we think bad offense + high total + favored game script for passing + mobile QB, on process alone we should be considering this. Figure out how to get different elsewhere - this needs to be in your pool of stacks this week.

Week 5 DraftKings DFS Picks

RB Cam Skattebo, New York Giants ($6,000)

It's not always pretty watching Cam Skattebo run, but it is generally effective. This whole offense took a major blow when Malik Nabers was ruled out for the season, but we have two things going for Skattebo specifically:

1. For this week, the New Orleans Saints defense doesn't scare me; and

2. With Jaxson Dart at QB, who himself can run, I think this offense could move more into an RPO-type offense, which could open up more lanes for Skattebo to hit.

On volume alone, Skattebo could get there at this price. Is the ceiling lower for the season after Nabers went down? Probably, but we're not looking at the season for this week.

WR Quentin Johnston, Los Angeles Chargers ($5,700)

I don't understand it either, okay? None of this makes sense, it will never make sense. I fully expect the QJ train to slow down at some point - maybe to my own detriment. But he's filling in the prime Mike Williams role extremely well, to the tune of 23 targets in the last two games. Those type of target numbers for a guy under $6,000 are immediate consideration plays, even into ownership.

Is it bad chalk? I don't know. Is it chalk that's worth the risk in the right lineup? I think so.

(I also still believe in Ladd McConkey...)

TE Tommy Tremble, Carolina Panthers ($2,900)

Need a cheap punt in your lineup this week? Look no further. Tommy Tremble, filling in for the injured Ja'Tavion Sanders, immediately hopped into the lineup with a somewhat inefficient eight target game. But eight targets is eight targets, and this Miami defense isn't scaring anybody. I'd bet that volume drops a bit, maybe down to the 5-6 target range, but that could be enough with possible touchdown equity to pay off if you're paying up for other players in a slowly-tightening pricing pool for players.

Week 5 DraftKings DFS Fades

RB Tony Pollard, Tennessee Titans ($5,400)

I'm getting less convinced every week that Tony Pollard has a ceiling game in him in this year's version of the Titans offense. His usage in the passing game is not enough to float him up, and the offensive line is meh. Plus, teams aren't really threatened by Cam Ward, and certainly not by the weapons they have on the outside right now, despite the mini-emergence of Elic Ayomanor.

If I'm chasing top percentile outcomes, it's not coming from here. Not when he's in a price range with others who have clear ceiling cases.

WR Tee Higgins, Cincinnati Bengals ($5,900)

Speaking of players lacking ceiling games, it's been not great for Tee Higgins. Obviously the downgrade to Jake Browning hurts things - hence his price tag sitting under $6,000 - but even in week one, he only saw four targets from Joe Burrow. I just don't believe in this offense, and if the Lions end up running 40 times, it means fewer plays overall for the Bengals to run, limiting the garbage time potential.

Tee Higgins is a very, very good football player. Fading good football players can be scary, but I'd rather miss out in this game environment - and probably next week's game environment, too.

Basement Brewed Fantasy Football has you covered for week-to-week DFS decisions

I incorporate the weekly Weekly Winners tool (formerly Heat Map) into my DFS process during every regular season week, and our private Discord server features sharp minds for DFS, sports betting, redraft, dynasty, best ball, and more. And despite the name, the chatter is multi-sport, too - there's MLB discussions, PGA discussions and more going on.

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