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.
This week’s winner rolled out one of the stranger lineups I’ve seen in a while with just one entry in a contest. As they say, it’s not a dumb idea if it works, and joenip166 has a million reasons why this one worked.
Let’s see how they did it.
The Lineup
The Stack
I’m not sure if it necessarily qualifies as a stack, but joenip166 filled four of his nine roster spots with Tampa Bay Bucs, who rolled the Saints in a 51-27 win.
Notably, the lineup didn’t include quarterback Baker Mayfield despite having two pass catchers while also including the defense.
My guess is joenip166 is a Tampa fan, given the onslaught in this lineup. Chris Godwin and Cade Otton were both solid plays on paper — we were expecting a high-scoring game but Mike Evans to struggle against Marshon Lattimore. That went according to plan, with Godwin having a massive day and Otton putting up a reasonably solid score by tight end standards.
Similarly, the Bucs defense was projecting as by far the top option against rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler, with that going about as expected. They stacked the Bucs defense with a running back — but not 38% owned Bucky Irving, who was projecting for massive value.
Instead, they rostered third-stringer Sean Tucker at 0.0% ownership. Obviously, that number involves some rounding, but I’ve never seen a player check in at 0.0% while actually playing.
In retrospect, it wasn’t the worst idea. The field all assumed that Irving would get the bulk of the role in Rachaad White’s absence but didn’t look past that to Tucker. As we sometimes see at wide receiver, the next man on the depth chart doesn’t always slide into the #1 spot, sometimes players have specific roles, with direct backups for those roles.
The big takeaway here is to look a step further when we get big injury news. Taking the obvious play is probably the better move for smaller GPPs and cash games, but in massive lotteries like the Milly Maker it pays to go beyond that. The leverage is absolutely massive, and this isn’t the first time a running back nobody heard of takes down the Milly Maker.
Other Correlations
The only other loosely correlated pieces here were the Baltimore pairing of running back Derrick Henry and wide receiver Zay Flowers. I thought both were very strong plays heading into the week — but never considered them together.
Which was probably a mistake. A Team’s top back and receiver correlate fairly positively, and the story of how they get there makes sense. Particularly with a positive game script dependent back like Henry. Essentially, a team builds a lead by throwing to their top receiver (Flowers) and then holds onto it through the ground game.
Keep that in mind moving forward, especially when teams come in with a high total and a chalky quarterback. This pairing gets a decent amount of exposure to the QB through the receiver while adding leverage through the running back.
The Chalk
The most popular player in this roster outside of defense was the Cowboys de facto WR2, Jalen Tolbert. He didn’t do much in a game where the Cowboys didn’t score a touchdown, but it didn’t matter in a lineup that got 37 points from a min-priced 0% owned running back.
We’ve touched on all the other chalky pieces of this roster, including some of the Bucs pieces and Henry. They were all correlated in ways that avoided most of the combined ownership (most Henry rosters didn’t have Flowers, etc.) though. While we can’t replicate that every week, thinking about which other players will be paired with your chalk in most lineups is always wise.
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The Sleepers
Outside of the pieces we’ve covered (Tucker mainly), this lineup also featured Joe Mixon in his return from injury and Jordan Love against a bad Cardinals defense. The lineup could’ve won with other quarterbacks (including Baker Mayfield, who was cheaper and scored slightly higher), but Love was a fine play, given the circumstances.
Mixon was a better one. The Texans had struggled to establish a ground game in his absence, were playing without their top wide receiver, and were heavy favorites against the Patriots. In retrospect, that was clearly a solid situation for Mixon, who stepped into a big role in his return from injury.
As we often say, if you wait a week to see if a player’s health or role is intact, you’ll probably be too late. That was the case here — as it often is.
