DFS Player Wins Milly Maker The Same Week He Visits RG Offices!
It is a dream of every DFS player – regardless of bankroll, buy-in level, or weekly commitment:
To visit the RotoGrinders headquarters in Nashville, and to play one-on-one basketball on the office mini-hoop with RotoGrinders co-founder and 2017 Millionaire Maker winner Cal Spears!!!!
I have been to the offices several times myself – for meetings, and for fun. I have built lineups from the offices. I have recorded the Friday night Round Table from the offices. I have played ping pong in the offices.
I am still waiting on my invite for a one-on-one NBA Jam showdown with Cal. Maybe someday I will get there.
Maybe someday I will take down the Millionaire Maker as well. That would also be cool…
This last week, DFS player cubsfan333 took down first and second place in the DraftKings Millionaire Maker – leading the charge with a massive game stack of the Texans and Seahawks. I could not be more pumped about this. CubsFan and I became friends three years ago, and while he keeps a low profile in the DFS industry (and is therefore “one of the best DFS players no one has heard of”), I can tell you that he is one of the kindest, most genuine persons I have ever met. He is an awesome husband, an awesome dad, and an awesome friend – and I could not be more thrilled that he took down the Milly Maker.
When RotoGrinders wanted to put together an article about his win, I asked if I could write it myself.
Sure, it’s fun to read something like this. But there are also some things in here that I feel are incredibly instructive for those DFS players who work a full-time job (either out of necessity or love of what you do), and have limited research time each week.
Here’s what we came up with.
cubsfan333: Daily Fantasy Sports’ Newest Millionaire
JM:
One of the things I talk about quite often in DFS is the value of “letting others do the research for you.” Anyone with a full-time job has a limited amount of time to study, and those who properly use the time they have (relying on information and thoughts from those who do have tons of time for research, rather than trying to do everything themselves) end up having a lot more success. How important do you feel it is that you have learned to trust the research of others? And was this a difficult skill to learn?
CubsFan:
That’s a great question. I’m not a handyman. I’m not stubborn. If something is broken at my house, I’ll call someone who is more skilled than me to fix it. If someone has a skill set far superior to mine, and/or has the time to dig deeper than I dig, I am 100% for it. At the same time, when I started playing DFS (and losing constantly), I thought I knew sports better than almost anyone. Then I met Jonathan Bales, through Bales I met you and others, and I started reading articles from people like you, Notorious, and STLCards (which is the worst screen name ever; who could like the Cardinals!). It was a hard thing to admit, but I realized I didn’t have a chance at being successful in the DFS world unless I made changes.
That’s when I revisited my process and began leveraging the research of people who know more in these areas, or who have more time than me. At that point, I turned the corner in DFS and never had to redeposit again. I’ve had three straight years of six-figure profits.
If I’m being honest, I don’t do any player research anymore. My time can be spent more optimally on roster construction, and on listening to and reading the best minds in the industry. I’m also strapped for time, as I have a 50-plus hour job, and a wife and two awesome daughters at home that I love spending time with. I want to spend my time optimally in order to build the best lineups I can.
For instance, my favorite read each week is the NFL Edge. I wish someone else were interviewing me so that would sound more honest! But it’s truly the one thing I read weekly. Often two or three times. The other required listen for me is the Expert’s Round Table that you and Adam Levitan do. This last week, Levitan mentioned the Cowboys’ D as a play, and when the weather showed up as really windy and rainy I grew to like them more and more. In the same show, you mentioned Paul Richardson, which brought up a guy I just would not have uncovered had I not watched the show – and I would not be doing this interview right now.
JM
Obviously, your plan was to heavily attack this game – a decision driven largely by the line movement in Vegas. But while most people went to the Seattle side, you leaned more heavily on the Houston side – which was far lower-owned.
CubsFan
During the Round Table, you mentioned the huge bump in the line movement, and the fact that everyone was focusing on the Seahawks while no one was on the Texans. This added fuel to my belief that the Texans were an offense to target this past week. You also pointed out in the Week 7 NFL Edge that the Seahawks are a reactive offense. They only get aggressive when forced to. I figured if the Seahawks were going to have the good game so many people were expecting, that would mean the Texans would be having a good game as well. Those were big keys for me. Without that knowledge, I would not have taken down the Milly!
JM
Your plan heading into the weekend was to be massively overweight on Jordan Reed – who got injured and scored only 1.5 points (at almost exactly the same price as Jimmy Graham). How close were you to ending up with Reed on the winning team, over Graham? – especially as you already had Tyler Lockett and Paul Richardson on this team!
CubsFan
Jordan Reed was my favorite play of the weekend. It wasn’t close. But Graham may have been my second-favorite play (and I actually ended up using a bit more of Graham than of Reed in the Milly). You had pointed out in your article and on your show that he ranked second in the entire NFL in targets inside the 10-yard-line, so I liked the idea of rolling with both of these guys together.
But on my teams that finished first and second, I never considered Reed over Graham. I wanted two top running backs with as much exposure to the passing attacks in Seattle as I could get, in the hopes that the game would shoot out the way it did. The desire to pay up at running back on these teams pushed me off Baldwin (fortunately) and Hopkins (unfortunately). After watching the Seahawks try to run at the goal line against the Giants in Week 7, I felt that their run game was beyond embarrassing. So I wanted all the pass catchers on the Seahawks’ side of the ball. It was brutal that Graham didn’t see a target in the first half. I was going nuts! I honestly thought with all the passing in the first half that Graham had to be hurt or something.
JM
What was the sweat like toward the end of the day? A Cowboys DST touchdown with less than a minute to go was the only thing that could win it for you. How wild was the atmosphere at your house in those final seconds?
CubsFan
It was insane!
It was my daughter’s birthday party, so I spent the first part of the day at the bowling alley helping to manage a bunch of candy-filled seven-year-olds, and really had no idea what was going on in the games until I caught up a bit on the drive home, when the late games were already underway. The party wasn’t over, either! It was moving from the bowling alley back to my house! I texted my neighbor at halftime to let him know I had a legitimate shot at taking down the Millionaire Maker, but after the slow start to the second half, I texted him “false alarm.” Then, the fourth quarter got underway!
Jimmy Graham woke up. Richardson, Lockett, and Will Fuller all got the 100-yard bonus. I moved up to third and 12th place, and my wife gave me her blessing to disappear to the basement and sweat out the end of the games with my neighbor and another good buddy of mine! My daughters knew something fun was going on, as they could hear us talking and yelling at the television! Then Hopkins scored his long touchdown, and it seemed my sweat was over…
…then the Seahawks drove the entire field in no time, and Graham scored his second touchdown, and I was in second and third place!
Once the Houston/Seattle game ended, a Dallas touchdown was the only thing that could put me in the lead. I halfway did not even want Washington to get the ball back, because I could just see Josh Doctson catching a pointless pass and knocking me way down the leaderboard, and what were the chances of a Dallas defensive touchdown when they would be rushing three and Washington would be passing deep? But Washington got the ball back, and for some reason threw a couple short passes instead of going deep. The miracle happened! A tipped pass. A Dallas pick. We were yelling at the TV, “Don’t take a knee!!!” And he took it to the house!
I ran upstairs, knocked my three-year-old over in my excitement, and raced to tell my wife what had happened. Then, my stomach dropped. My neighbor yelled, “Oh my God, there’s a flag!” I rushed back down the stairs, and he was standing there smiling. “I’m just screwing with you. Congrats!”
JM
Any plans to visit the RotoGrinders offices again in the near future? Maybe give me a call next time – I’ll come along and win a million myself!
CubsFan
My wife is from Nashville, so we go there quite a bit to see her family! That was my first time visiting the RG headquarters, but it won’t be my last! Cal and I played a little basketball on the office mini-hoop. You’ll definitely have to come next time to represent RotoGrinders. Lord knows I need some better competition, and you must have a better jumper than Cal. He might have a Milly Maker win, but he has a jumper like Shaq!
Thanks to cubsfan333 for hanging out for a bit – and congrats again on the massive win!
Who’s next?