Each week, I’ll be expanding on the DraftKings Millionaire Maker analysis provided by Adam Levitan here and The Wolf here. I encourage you to look at those articles first if you haven’t already.
Breakdowns of trends in lineup structure for particular weeks can be found on the subreddit r/dfsports, and every week linestarapp.com gives you the highest possible scoring Millionaire lineup. Visit the latter to remind you how absurd this game can be, like how you should’ve stacked the Lions in Week 1, how Maxx Williams was apparently the tight end to roll out in Week 2, and Mike ThaGawd White at QB in Week 8.
In this series, I’ll be looking at trends that DFS players track, diving into the skill/luck dichotomy, and more.
Last five winning lineups: Week 12, Week 11, Week 10, Week 9, Week 8
WINNING STRATEGY
Gardner Minshew — $4000, 18.78 points, 11.7% owned
Sony Michel — $4300, 24.9 pts, 20.8%
Jamaal Williams — $5400, 9 pts, 22.5%
Diontae Johnson — $6800, 33.5 pts, 9.9%
Justin Jefferson — $8200, 38.6 pts, 14.2%
Chris Godwin — $6600, 33.2 pts, 17.6%
George Kittle — $5900, 42.6 pts, 7.2%
Dallas Goedert — $4500, 31.5 pts, 6.6%
Rams DEF — $4000, 10 pts, 5.8%
Total Draftkings Points — 242.08
- Stack: Single, no run back
- Used $49,700, the first winning lineup below $49,800, and just the fifth time all $50G wasn’t used. The stack used $8,500 (17%, $4,250-per-player, the lowest per-player amount per season)
- TE in the FLEX. Second time that’s happened, and both times the TEs were the top two scoring at their position for the week. That’s now five weeks in a row with a non-WR in the FLEX, whereas weeks 1-8 saw that only twice
- Stack used Vegas’ 7th-highest total points line out of 11 games
- MinshewMania’s pricetag makes it five out of 13 times a QB has cost at most $6700
- Back to having another week of uber-cheap RB chalk, as this week’s $4850-per-RB is only more expensive than week 10’s $4567
- Third time a WR hasn’t been involved in the stack/runback, including last week and week 2
- Total ownership percentage: 116.3. Normal af.
- The fifth winning RB-DEF stack this season (including weeks 5, 6, 9, and 11)
THE SKILL
With Jalen Hurts ruled out, Minshew was clearly in play as a QB-minimum price.
A Rams RB-DEF stack made sense against the Jags, even with the Darrell Henderson situation being unclear:
So why am I not putting Sony Michel in the “luck” category?
As there was a lot of doubt Henderson would be able to play, one reason is that there was a realistic shot Michel would be leaned on anyway.
Second, stacking with the Rams DEF implies a run-heavy game script, with LA having a big lead, and a big enough lead that the Rams wouldn’t have to risk having Hendo out there.
Third, facing the cross-country traveling Jaguars even further increased the odds of the big lead scenario happening, compared to other opponents.
And fourth, at $4,300? You’re not going to get much better scenarios at that price. Even if Henderson split the work, Michel could very well see enough volume to return value at that cost.
THE LUCK
It’s safe to assume that Adam Thielen leaving the game due to injury early in the first quarter meant more opportunities for Justin Jefferson.
I’m gonna leave a space blank __________________ in case anyone saw signs that Dallas Goedert would explode like that with Minshew filling in.
And speaking of exploding, Kittle, Jefferson, Diontae, Godwin, and Goedert are all capable of having these types of games, but to build a lineup where they all explode to this degree, embodies the advantage of setting multiple lineups.
Completely out of anyone’s hands, the art of setting up good players in good spots and letting them do the rest is on display here, in an unusual manner.
Unusual as in, getting the top three-scoring WRs in the winning lineup is hard enough. Let alone that it’s only the second time this season it’s happened, and the other time the winning lineup had four WRs at its disposal to try and accomplish that feat in week 8.
And let alone, that none of those WRs were part of the stack/runback, which asks even more of the fates to come together.
