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 13, Week 12, Week 11, Week 10, Week 9
WINNING STRATEGY
Josh Allen — $7800, 42.22 points, 9.6% ownership
Saquon Barkley — $6000, 18.5 pts, 13.3%
Rashaad Penny — $4800, 29.8 pts, 2.3%
Cole Beasley — $5000, 15.4 pts, 9.7%
Ja’Marr Chase — $6900, 25.3 pts, 10.7%
Robby Anderson — $4300, 21.4 pts, 1.6%
Mark Andrews — $5900, 31.5 pts, 7.2%
Hunter Renfrow — $6100, 32.7 pts, 14%
Seahawks DEF — $3100, 6 pts, 14.5%
Total DK Points — 222.82 points
- Stack: Single, no runback. The fifth time season, becoming the most common, followed by double/no run (4), single/one run (3), and double/one run (2)
- Salary used was $49,900. Stack used $12800 (25.6% of the cap, $6400-per-player)
- WR in the FLEX, ending a five week streak of a non-WR there
- Stack used Vegas’ highest overall points game out of 11 (BUF at TB, over/under 53)
- Allen’s third appearance in the winning lineup marks the ninth time a QB has cost over $6700
- More cheap RB costs at only $5400-per-RB
- Mark Andrews’ pricetag marks consecutive weeks of a TE costing $5900. Before that, the only TE to cost more than $4900 was Travis Kelce in weeks 1 and 6
- Consecutive weeks of a winning RB-DEF stack for the first time this season, and the sixth time overall
- Total ownership percentage: 82.9
THE SKILL
Given Seahawks coach Pete Carroll‘s history of the hot hand approach to their backfield, Rashaad Penny made a risky, but understandable, play at only $4800 against a bad Texans run D. In a similar vein, Saquon Barkley, facing arguably the NFL’s worst run D in the Chargers, produced about what one could expect on a Giants offense that’s been riddled with injuries all season, including relying on Mike Glennon at QB.
Ja’Marr Chase couldn’t stay down forever. After not surpassing 13.1 points since week 7, his showing against the 49ers was the kind of performance he was due for.
THE LUCK
This week’s candidates for good players who greatly outproduced expectations are Robby Anderson, Mark Andrews, and Hunter Renfrow. Greatly unfortunate circumstances led Renfrow not to be matched up against Chiefs cornerback L’Jarius Sneed, who was ruled out after the death of his brother. Hunter was slated to be relied on a lot anyway, but who knows what kind of difference Sneed’s absence made.
And who is the real Robby Anderson, his WR5 performance this week, or his WR87 performance when he was part of week 12’s winning lineup? While it doesn’t take a lot to outproduce a $4300 price tag, I’d say it’s safe to assume that no one was relying on him to put up a top-5 performance at his position.
FUN FACT OF THE DAY
Remember when it was odd to see Robby Anderson in a winning lineup with his opponent’s DEF back in week 12 because of implied negative correlation? This week, Hunter Renfrow was Draftkings’ WR1, and his opponent’s DEF, the Chiefs, was DEF1. Don’t overthink it too much.
