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Erickson: Overvalued best ball team stacks for the 2021 fantasy football season

Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers quarterback Trey Lance (5) drops back to pass during the first day of a rookie minicamp at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports

Defense wins championships, but stacking wins best ball leagues. It’s a tried-and-true approach to building a championship-winning roster stacking entire NFL offenses to capitalize on the maximum upside.

Because of the strategy's noted success, it has become mainstream. So, to create an edge against our opponents, we need to stack smarter. For instance, some drafters will reach one or two rounds to add to a stack and throw value out of the window. That’s not the way you want to play. Value still reigns supreme as an integral element in fantasy football drafts.

For that reason, I’ve identified specific team stacks that might not be all they’re cracked up to be based on the average draft positions (ADPs) of their top-six players and total projected fantasy points. Several teams are better left unstacked for the sake of value.

Editor's Note: Dive into PFF's 2021 Best Ball Draftkit for everything you need to win it all at the end of the year!

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES

The fantasy football community is substantially overrating the Philadelphia Eagles.

For an offense that performed well below expectation last season (second-most fantasy points scored under expectation at RB/WR/TE), the unit ranks in the middle of the pack in ADP (18th) among all teams despite a 27th-ranked mean fantasy projection. The Eagles' overall outlook doesn’t improve when factoring in their forecasted win totals (28th overall), either.

Teams that win more games score more fantasy points. Seventy percent of the teams that ranked in the top 10 in fantasy points scored collectively by their running backs, wide receivers and tight ends finished with at least 11 wins in 2020. Philly’s current win total sits at 6.5 wins in a 17-game season.

I understand that the Eagles' offensive line is healthy, and the team has added DeVonta Smith, but there’s still unknowns regarding how the offense will play out in Year 1 under first-year head coach Nick Sirianni.

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