As DFS players, we spend most of our time looking forward to the next schedule, the next season, etc. But it’s just as important to look back. Understanding the thought process that leads to winning lineups is crucial; it’s what makes us better players in the long run.
Another small entry player dominated Millionaire Maker in week three. bruceleroygreen33 won the top prize with one of three lineups, and also placed in the other two. Read on to see how they did it.
This week’s winner is SamPit16. He entered eight lineups and placed five of them, including a first place winner. They took a commanding victory with their best lineup, beating second place by 12 points.
Lineup
stack
For the second week in a row, a stack centered around a cheap quarterback was put into a winning Milly Maker lineup, this time against Sam Darnold and the Vikings, who thumped the Texans 34-7 with Darnold throwing four touchdown passes.
I was high on Darnold this week because of the opponent and the game environment, and I preferred him over Daniel Jones, who is in a similar price range, with Justin Jefferson also being a very obvious stacking partner.
Two things are unique about this stack. First, it includes running back Aaron Jones, who had his most productive day of the season. Not only was Jones the second option in the passing game, but he also rushed for 102 yards on 19 carries.
This lineup also didn’t include the Texans’ bring-back, which they would normally build the game around. In retrospect, pairing a QB with a RB is essentially a gamble to win by a large margin — a team that’s going to make a big leap through the air and then hang on the ground while still holding on to a lead — so it made sense to build it that way.
Other correlations
The only play that correlated outside of the main stack was the RB/WR pairing of Kyren Williams and Juan Jennings in the 49ers/Rams game. Running backs correlate more with opposing receivers than any other position except opposing quarterbacks, and at nearly double the rate of the popular RB/defense pairing.
Jennings himself was an interesting choice: Injuries to the 49ers’ three main pass catchers (Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel and George Kittle) meant Jordan Mason and Brandon Aiyuk were the big names on the field, but Jennings was a much less popular choice despite arguably benefiting more from the increased workload.
It was also a classic “flop-lag” situation, with Williams performing mediocre as a moderate favorite in Week 2, only to fall out of favor with ownership rates dropping substantially by Week 3. There’s a lot of value in players who fall out of favor the previous week; whatever made them strong the previous week is often still there, and ownership rates are held back by the bad impressions they left in the mouths of those who registered them.
Chalk
There weren’t any standout, decisive plays in this week’s lineup, with Zach Charbonnet leading the way with 21.9%, followed by the Buccaneers defense at 15.8%.
Charbonnet was a solid play on paper in injury relief for Kenneth Walker, but his price tag was too high to be a clear value. I called him a GPP pivot for the 49ers’ Jordan Mason in my Week 3 analysis, so in a lineup featuring Jennings rather than the more popular San Francisco option, he was the logical play.
Defense is still a game of chance, the Buccaneers were predicted to do well and were somewhat of a favorite, then played badly, this lineup was good enough elsewhere that it didn’t matter, but many other defenses instead would have been easier to win.
The lesson here is the same: avoid reckless defenses. Projections are held with much less confidence than other positions, so leverage is more valuable than a projected median or cap.
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Sleepers
Besides the aforementioned low-possession backs, this lineup also featured Dionta Johnson and Dallas Goedert, neither of whom were huge surprises, but both were largely overlooked on the field despite the obvious bullishness.
Johnson has always been a valuable player in full PPR formats if you have a quarterback you can hand him the ball to, and the move from Bryce Young to Andy Dalton in Carolina did just that, with the “Red Rocket” completing eight of 14 passes to Johnson.
Philadelphia was also short on pass-catching personnel with AJ Brown and Britten Covey out, and Goedert and DeVonta Smith barely played, with Smith leaving in the third quarter with a concussion.
The rest of the game was down to Goedert, who was having a good day up until that point. Goedert needed a bit of luck to score that many points, but he should have been more productive at the tight end position, which is very understaffed.
