As DFS players, we spend most of our time looking forward to the next slate, the next season, etc. Equally important, though, is looking back. Figuring out the thought process that leads to winning lineups is crucial. That’s what makes us better players long term.
Each week in 2022, I’ll look at the winning lineup in DraftKings Millionaire Maker Contest with an eye for how the lucky winner arrived at the lineup that took it down. Rather than going through every position, we’ll focus on key lessons that can be learned — and maybe even some mistakes worth avoiding.
While a high degree of positive variance is necessary to win a contest of this size (the standard $20 contests have over 236,000 entrants), there’s still a large amount of skill involved to get to a position to benefit from that variance.
Here’s Week 4’s winner:
The Lineup
Long-time DFS pro hoop2410 took it down this week, This was one of 150 lineups he entered, so we can use the FantasyLabs Contest Dashboard Tool to examine his overall exposures, not just the winning lineup. That paints a better picture of his overall strategy.
The Stack
We’ve spent some time discussing optimal stacking in this space, with my general preference being for single stacks (With or without a bring-back) in massive tournaments like this. Week 4 was unique though. Only one game had a total of over 50, and that was Buffalo vs. Baltimore.
That game was experiencing some pretty significant weather concerns. Additionally, both quarterbacks there were over $8,000, and they both provide much of their scoring on the ground — making stacking more difficult to achieve.
Hoop used just five quarterbacks in his 150 lineups, with Geno Smith and Jared Goff among them. He opted for full-on onslaughts of that game in many of his lineups, including the winner. Six of his eight offensive pieces came from that game — which produced a massive 93 points.
In retrospect, stacking Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf and Smith was an obviously strong spot. Against a historically bad Lions defense, getting two receivers of their caliber at a reasonable price was a great value. Bringing it back with three separate Lions though was an impressive call.
Fortunately, this game produces so much offense that all five skill position players and Smith all had massive days. Outside of Metcalf, they were all fairly high-owned. However, the number of lineups that played them all together is certainly much lower, making this a sneaky way to build a unique lineup.
One-Off Plays
Given how heavily invested this stack was in the Lions game, there were only two other plays to discuss. Both were running backs — also a somewhat unique construction given the prevalence of using wide receivers in the flex spot.
Both backs were projecting exceedingly well though, so it made sense. Along with Williams, Austin Ekeler and Josh Jacobs made up three of the top four backs in Pts/Sal in our models.
Jacobs was a home favorite, the perfect scenario for a back like him who generally gets there on the ground rather than through the air. He did add five catches on six targets as well this week. He seems to be more involved in the passing game with Hunter Renfroe out of action and opposing defenses loading up to stop Davante Adams.
Ekeler also benefited from a target hog receiver being out, in this case, Keenan Allen. More importantly, he found the end zone thrice after being held without a touchdown to this point all season.
There are two takeaways to be mindful of here. One, when a short aDOT, possession-type receiver is missing, targets are more likely to flow to the team’s running backs. Two — and we should already know this — touchdowns are highly variant. When we have a player like Ekeler who’d seen a ton of volume without a score, regression is due to hit at some point.
The Chalk
The chalkiest pieces here all came from Hoop’s main stack. As discussed above, while they were chalky individually, his somewhat unorthodox lineup construction means that the combination was fairly unique. In fact, the total number of users who played this exact stack was so low it rounds to 0.0% in our Contest Dashboard.
This is a very effective way to get leverage on the field while still playing the “good chalk” that you want. While stacking six players from a game is unlikely to take down another tournament this season, the stars aligned this time. Generally speaking, when rostering players like Williams or Hockenson, try to think about what other players aren’t likely to be paired with them.
That could be due to price — if a super expensive back or a receiver is highly owned, what about pairing him with another expensive option? Or due to perceived negative correlation — two running backs in the same game or pass catchers against a defense. We’ve seen the latter combination hit in the past, as quarterbacks throwing a pick-six is a best-case scenario for the defense but also gives them the ball back — usually while trailing.
The Sleepers
As is often the case with the winner, the least popular member of the lineup was the defense. Philadelphia wasn’t a top option on paper, but that’s almost the point — predicting defenses is extremely difficult. As always, in multi-entry play, it’s important to spread your defensive exposure.
Hoop did this perfectly, having exposure to 19 of the 24 defenses on the slate. That allowed him to be overweight on 13 of them — including the Eagles — setting him up nicely to take advantage when a non-chalk defense posted a big score.
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