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.
The winner of the Week 15 Millionaire Maker was shaunsmithttu, who had a portfolio of 150 lineups. The winning lineup had a comfortable 14-point lead over second place, which is impressive in a contest of this size. We’ll take a look at some of their other rosters as well to see what the thought process that led to the million-dollar takedown.
The Lineup
The Stack
The winning stack involved a Lions double, with Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta paired with quarterback Jared Goff. That exact combo was the top suggested stack in my SimLabs Building Blocks piece for Week 15. That was due to the way LaPorta and St. Brown matched up against the zone-heavy Bills defense, as well as the likely game script.
There are a couple of twists, though. Not bringing the stack back with any Bills pieces was fairly unique. Bills bring-backs are typically hard when stacking the opposing team due to the wide distribution of production from the Bills. Quarterback Josh Allen can score well — as he did this week — without bringing any pass catchers back.
It’s also notable that shaunsmithttu paired LaPorta with one of the slate’s value tight ends, a necessary step to make the salary work. They also had just 2% exposure to Jared Goff in their 150-lineup portfolio. Sometimes, it pays to be able to play 150 lineups.
Other Correlations
The other correlated parts of this lineup centered around the Jets-Jaguars game. Wide receivers Brian Thomas and Davantae Adams both projected fairly well on the week, and a back-and-forth game environment obviously benefited both wide receivers.
They also included Brenton Strange, one of the two value tight ends that stood out on the slate. For some reason, Stone Smartt came in at nearly three times the ownership despite similar projections for both players.
In situations like that, it makes sense to go with the lower-owned player. shaunsmithttu was roughly even on the two, but that led them to being well over the field on Strange.
Plus, by pairing the value tight end with the higher upside of LaPorta, they got a massive discount in combined ownership. That was a sharp way to build on a slate with some viable punt tight ends since most of the field took one of the cheap plays without including a high-upside player from the position.
The Chalk
The highest-owned pieces in this lineup still came in at under 15% ownership, which was impressive. Some of the slightly high owned pieces not already mentioned were Bengals running back Chase Brown and the Broncos defense.
They were well under the field on the Broncos defense, though they used a pretty wide distribution of defenses. That’s nearly always correct, given how hard it is to predict defensive production.
Conversely, they were well over the field on Brown. The field was heavily centered on Rico Dowdle and Chuba Hubbard, both of whom were in the same game. Going away from at least one of them made sense, as it was hard for both to hit a true ceiling outcome together since they relied on opposite game scripts.
Brown has been extremely productive since taking over as the Bengals lead back, with a true workhorse role. With the Bengals favored by nearly a touchdown, it was obviously a good spot for the Bengals rushing attack.
The Sleepers
The last piece in this lineup we haven’t touched on is Rhamondre Stevenson, who was by far the least productive member of the lineup. There were cheaper options that could’ve led to this lineup being even higher scoring — but considering the huge winning margin, it obviously didn’t matter.
Sometimes, the best thing a player can do is leave enough salary to allow you to fit more expensive players.
