My favorite piece of content that I wrote last season was my Millionaire Maker Review. As DFS players, it’s extremely valuable to reflect and review rather than always looking forward to the next slate.
I consider myself primarily a cash game player, but these articles allowed me to sharpen my GPP skill set, and hopefully, readers were able to as well.
It paid off for me in Week 1 of this season, as I was able to take down the $75,000 3-entry max Screen Pass contest with a top prize of $10,000. Instead of reviewing the millionaire maker lineup, I’ll be going over the lineup I used to win that contest — and the other two lineups that didn’t win.
There are two reasons for this. First, it’s a lot more valuable to discuss the actual process that went into building a lineup rather than speculate about what the player was thinking. Second, medium-field contests like this are a better starting point for the majority of DFS players.
I entered the same lineup that took down this contest into the $3 Play Action contest and finished 72nd — a top 0.03% outcome — and still only made $200.
Which I’m not complaining about, but it is a valuable reminder of just how lucky you need to be to take down the massive field contests.
The Lineup
This was one of three entries I made into this 3-max contest, all based around stacking the Chargers and Dolphins game. It was a sweat down to the wire, with the second and third-place lineups both featuring Austin Ekeler as the Chargers tried to mount a late comeback.
It’s worth noting that in contests of this size (5,882 entries), you don’t need a perfect lineup to win. I was able to survive a near-zero from Taysom Hill at tight end and a disappointing day from Mike Williams, which wouldn’t be possible in the Millionaire Maker or Play Action.
The Stack(s)
As mentioned above, all three of my entries in this contest were based on stacking the Dolphins-Chargers game. This was the only game on the board with a total above 50, making it a fairly obvious choice. I was OK with eating that chalk in a contest of this size, though.
Especially considering the relatively low ownership projection on Tua Tagovailoa, who we had projected at 6.6%, or eighth place on the slate. That seemed like a huge edge for tournaments, especially with the Dolphins’ run game in shambles. If they were going to live up to their Vegas total, it would probably come through the air.
Then, the debate became how to build the stack around Tagovailoa. I prefer single stacks for their elevated ceilings, and no receiver has a ceiling like Tyreek Hill. Jaylen Waddle was firmly in play as well, but his salary made it difficult to fit without taking massive leaps on cheap players elsewhere.
Of course, for the Dolphins to throw enough to win a tournament, the Chargers would need a productive day too. I went with their deep threat receiver Mike Williams as a bring-back. He has a wider range of outcomes on paper than the low aDOT Keenan Allen.
It almost cost me, as Williams missed roughly half of this game with an injury before coming back in the fourth quarter. His pair of late catches allowed me to move past the other lineups in the top 10, nearly all of which featured Tyreek Hill and one of Justin Herbert/Austin Ekeler.
Not bringing this one back with Ekeler was my big regret here. One of the lessons I learned from last year’s pieces was the value of the opposing RB/WR correlation. Rostering Ekeler while saving money elsewhere (like going from Williams to one of the many viable $3,000 wideouts) would’ve made this a much less sweaty win.
I’ll file that away for next time.
The Chalk
The most popular offensive piece here was Tyreek Hill, who I paired with his far less popular quarterback. That’s one way to build around chalky wide receivers if they have lower-owned quarterbacks. The pairing ends up correlated and far less popular as a group.
The other extremely chalky piece here was the Commanders Defense. They projected extremely well against an Arizona team starting a quarterback off the street, even without star pass rusher Chase Young.
Normally I try to avoid the chalkiest defenses since their scoring is so random — and I went with other units in my other two lineups. However, Ravens tight end Isiah Likely was also an extremely popular budget option. He ended up being rostered in over one-third of the lineups in this contest.
With cheap tight end similarly unpredictable, I decided I would be willing to eat the chalk on one of those two spots, but not both in the same lineup. Likely ended up scoring just 1.4 points, so I made the right call in this lineup with the Commanders — though I got even less from my tight end play.
I also thought that pairing the Commanders with Brian Robinson would be a slightly more unique construction. Robinson profiles as their early down back, and a Washington domination likely meant increased touches for him. With Washington leading most of the way, he got a solid 19 carries. He was fairly inefficient, though, and saved the day with a receiving touchdown.
Aaron Jones was also somewhat popular, but I was big on him this week, thanks to my offensive line matchup analysis. I expected the Packers to lean heavily on Jones with Jordan Love under center — in the running game and as a receiver.
Jones nearly kept pace with Ekeler at more than $2,000 cheaper, so I was happy to eat the ownership.
Calvin Ridley was my favorite mid-range receiver on the slate. He was a bit of a risk, as he missed all of last season with a gambling suspension. However, I was happy to trust our projections. While I hoped to get him closer to his 15% projected ownership, he more than made up for it with his production.
The Sleepers
This lineup featured two extremely low-owned plays. Let’s start with the bad. Reports had Taysom Hill as likely to handle some backfield work in the Saints opener. Alvin Kamara is suspended, and rookie Kendre Miller is injured. That left very little behind Jamaal Williams.
Nobody wants to feed Jamaal Williams 20+ carries a game, so it seemed logical that Hill would get some touches. With tight end extremely thin — and concentrated on Likely — I was happy to take a swing at a sneakier option.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out, with Hill getting four yards on three carries. On the positive side, the other chalk at the position failed too, so I survived the snowflake.
The other sleeper play was Brandon Aiyuk of the 49ers. I liked the 49ers offense, and both he and Deebo Samuel were popping as leverage plays in our projections. Aiyuk actually drew a larger target share than Samuel during Brock Purdy’s starts last season. His deeper aDOT role also helps for tournaments, giving him a higher ceiling than Samuel.
On top of that, Aiyuk came at a discount in both salary and ownership. That made him my favorite way to get exposure to the explosive 49ers offense.
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