The Anatomy of a $1M DFS Lineup: Dissecting the NFL Week 17 DraftKings Millionaire Maker Winning Lineup

The Burrow-Chase stack took home the Milly.

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 16, Week 15, Week 14, Week 13, Week 12

WINNING STRATEGY

Joe Burrow — $6900, 37.84 points, 8% ownership

Sony Michel — $5800, 18.9 pts, 24%

Darrel Williams — $5800, 25.7 pts, 15.7%

Brandin Cooks — $6000, 19.6 pts, 13.7%

Ja’Marr Chase — $7600, 58.6 pts, 4.5%

Braxton Berrios — $3700, 26.7 pts, 22.4%

Rob Gronkowski — $6200, 21.5 pts, 6.9%

Jaret Patterson — $4800, 20.8 pts, 8.4%

Bears DEF — $3200, 21 pts, 11%

  • Stack: Single, with a runback. Fifth one of the season
  • Lineup used all $50G, 11th time this season. Stack used $20,300 (40.6% of the cap, $6767-per-player)
  • RB in the FLEX, seventh time this season, compared to eight for WR, and two for TE
  • Burrow’s third appearance marks the tenth time a QB has cost over $6700
  • Stack/runback used Vegas’ second-highest projected overall points game out of fourteen (KC at CIN, over/under 51)
  • $5466-per-RB, because why not? The story’s been the same pretty much all year. All three running backs in the lineup are not their team’s RB1 when everyone is healthy
  • Gronk makes five weeks in a row that the winning TE has cost at least $5900. That only happened twice weeks 1 through 12
  • Total ownership percentage: 114.6. Besides week 11 (28%), winning ownership percentage this season has fallen between 72 and 121.8-percent

THE SKILL

A Bengals stack with a Chiefs’ runback is a tall ask after Burrow and Chase’s price went up a combined $15,000 after last week’s showing against the Ravens. Rolling with Darrel Williams was a solid way to prevent too much cost stress on the rest of the lineup.

Brandin Cooks was in play as the only real receiving threat versus a 49ers defense that has allowed opponents’ WR1’s to see good production regularly. Same with Ja’Marr Chase.

Gronk’s had a difficult past couple of weeks with the Bucs’ other receiving options out and not attracting as much attention. But this was a good get-right opportunity versus the Jets. Game stack him with a still-cheap Braxton Berrios who I’m sure we all saw having such a great connection with Zach Wilson before the season started.

Chicago’s defense was a clear play considering the Giants’ never-ending problems with injuries this season, a problem that will make Washington’s defense a tasty week 18 option,

THE LUCK

Darrel Williams’ 80-percent snap count without Clyde Edwards-Helaire active was his highest of the season. Coming into the game, he was averaging a 62.6-percent snap count in the same situation, over five games.

We’ve all seen Ja’Marr Chase’s talent, but his monster performance against the Chiefs wasn’t set in stone. Sure, he had a good outing against the Ravens’ very depleted secondary in week 16 (22.5 points), but in weeks 8 through 15, he only amassed 11.4 Draftkings points per game. Without week 14’s performance against San Francisco (25.3 points), that stretch falls to 9.1-per-game.

Since the 49ers’ and the Chiefs’ defenses have been susceptible to large outings by opponents’ WR1’s, there is a correlation that makes sense for Ja’Marr to break out of the rookie slump he had found himself in. However, his $7600 price tag was an expensive gamble to bet that he’d come out of it.

HIGHER-SCORING ALTERNATIVE

Sony Michel and Darrel Williams weren’t as high on my radar this week as much as Rashaad Penny and Devin Singletary, a combo that would have been $100 cheaper but scored 16.9 points. Amon-Ra St.Brown outscored Brandin Cooks by 18.8 points for the same price, and his potential to continue his monstrous month-long stretch was no secret.

It continuously surprises me how realistic and attainable higher-scoring lineups are in a contest averaging around 200,000 entries a week. Not so much that one person making one entry didn’t accomplish it, but more so to the ones who enter the maximum 150 lineups (or perhaps close to it) into the contest.

Because of the different nature of week 18, with NFL teams either out of the playoff race or whose seeding is unaffected by a final win or loss, I won’t be doing a week 18 Milly Maker analysis. Instead, I’ll look at the season in review, and offer a way to approach contests if you decide to enter the maximum 150 lineups.

Author

  • Driven by profit, has the lobes for business. Prioritizes anchors as part of a diversified portfolio. Seeks to be the first hue-mon to become the Grand Nagus. On Twitter @ChaseM_G

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