For Week 6, this column is going to exclusively focus on Underdog DFS strategy. The game is incredibly simple—draft six players (1 QB, 1 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 FLEX)—but requires a lot of advanced strategy to compete at a high level.

Here's the rundown for the Week 6 DFS column:

• What winning lineups have looked like in 2025
• Week 6's version of Rico Dowdle
• My favorite contrarian stack
• The q-tag to click (even if it doesn't feel good)

If you want to watch me draft some Battle Royale teams on Underdog and talk through more strategy, be sure to check out the Week 6 DFS jam on the Fantasy Life YouTube channel.

Macro: What Winning Battle Royale Teams Look Like In 2025

With five weeks under our belt, I thought it would be fun to look at the winning constructions in the large-field Battle Royale contest so far. You always want to be careful about overfitting what's worked in previous weeks to future weeks, but I do think there are some lessons to be learned from these squads. 

Here are the notable elements of the winning rosters:

Week 5: Low-owned skinny stack (17% Baker Mayfield  > Emeka Egbuka), secondary team stack (Javonte Williams & Jake Ferguson)

Week 4: Naked QB (Patrick Mahomes), mini-correlation (Puka Nacua vs. Tyler Warren), low-owned RB (48% Ashton Jeanty)

Week 3: Naked QB with bringback (Jalen Hurts vs. Davante Adams), low-owned TE (5% Hunter Henry)

Week 2: Low-owned skinny stack (15% Jared Goff > Amon-Ra St. Brown)

Week 1: Low-owned skinny stack (6% Daniel Jones > 1.35% Michael Pittman Jr.), low-owned mini-correlation (25% Emeka Egbuka vs. Bijan Robinson). 

Takeaways:

• Uniqueness matters. Every single winning team had at least one piece that was less than 50% owned.
• Don't always force a QB stack … because QBs can spread the ball around (Mahomes) or score rushing TDs (Hurts), it isn't always necessary to stack.
• Secondary correlations are helpful. Four of the five lineups had an additional secondary stack (two teammates) or a mini-correlation (two players from the same game).

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A RB Sleeper: Rico Dowdle 2.0?

Even though he didn't appear on the winning lineup in Week 5, Rico Dowdle's 30.9 points vs. Miami were a crucial element to having a profitable slate.

On only 11% of the field's lineups, he proved to be the ultimate "scroll the eff" down RB selection.

And guess what? In Week 6, we have another back-up RB as a 4.5-point home favorite who gets to play this atrocious Dolphins defense. On the year, Miami is allowing 5.6 yards per carry and giving up the second-largest rushing yards boost of any team in the NFL:

Of course, deciphering the Chargers backfield sans Omarion Hampton is trickier than the clean Rico for Chuba Hubbard swap, but it's worth trying to figure out.

I know Dwain prefers Kimani Vidal—and I see the long-term vision with the pass-catching upside—but if one of these guys rushes for a ton of yards and scores rushing TDs, it's going to be Hassan Haskins, who played for Harbaugh at Michigan in 2021 (rushed for 1,327 yards and 20 TDs).  

Chargers beat reporter Daniel Popper has called Haskins the "next man up," and we saw the team give him some goal-line carries last year—even when both Gus Edwards and J.K. Dobbins were healthy. 

Ultimately, this situation likely doesn't have the same upside as Dowdle, but I'll have a handful of Haskins shares in the large-field Battle Royale thanks to the matchup and low ownership.

My Favorite Stack: A little cheese dip

This is an incredible spot for the Packers this week at home vs. the Bengals. Similar to the Lions last week in the same matchup, they have a 30-point team total.

This has (rightfully) resulted in both Josh Jacobs and Tucker Kraft getting selected in every draft as top-25 options. The rest of the passing game, however, is going a little overlooked based on these ADPS:

If these ADPs hold, Jordan Love will be selected in less than 50% of drafts and Romeo Doubs and Matthew Golden will go in less than 20%. 

Both WRs will be solid, contrarian stacking partners with Love, but I like the idea of playing for a post-bye jump for the rookie. His Utilization Score has increased every week, and his big-play ability is very attractive at these prices.

The Q-Tags To Embrace: Cowboys

There are two main reasons to embrace players who have "questionable" tags in Underdog drafts:

1. A discount. A q-tag generally results in the field proceeding with caution and not drafting that player at their true value if they are active.
2. Staying on the clock. Even if a player has a very small chance to play (say, Brock Bowers this week), you can use them as a "placeholder" when you draft. Because you'll get a swap if they are later ruled out, this allows you to essentially put a player on your team who maybe wasn't on your radar earlier in the week when you drafted Bowers as the primary swap. For instance, I did this exact same thing last week with Bowers and swapped him to Taysom Hill—who I learned had no restrictions on Sunday morning. The swap didn't work out, but I think the process is sound. I didn't have that Taysom info previously, so this was the perfect way to get Hill on some of my early-week squads.

For a full explainer on how to leverage q-tags and swaps, I put together a free course here.

This week, I like taking stabs on CeeDee Lamb (ADP: 32.5), who is making progress with his ankle injury and has a small chance to return in Week 6.

If he does—congrats, you just got a top-five WR in the last round of your draft.

If he doesn't—no big deal, there are plenty of swaps you can make (I like Brian Thomas Jr., Chris Godwin, and the Packers WRs this week).

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