Fantasy Football Millionaire Review: Week 15
The Millionaire review series will provide the reader with a breakdown of the exposures of “top of the leaderboard” players, the top single-entry lineup, and a comparison between all single entry lineups and professionals for the weekly DraftKings Millionaire Maker GPP.
This week, we looked at the $3.33M Fantasy Football Millionaire [$1M to 1st!] on DraftKings with a buy-in of $27 and maximum entry limit of 150 lineups per person.
Multi-Entry Grinders of the Game
ChipotleAddict played the role as contrarian as he faded most of the high-owned picks on the weekend in favor of the alternate stud plays in less optimal conditions. Carson Palmer has looked like a shell of himself and had been relying on David Johnson as one of his leading receivers. Drew Brees had faltered over his last two weeks and Jameis Winston wasn’t a popular play going up against the run-heavy and clock-eating Dallas Cowboys. DeMarco Murray and Ezekiel Elliot were pivots to the favored Le’Veon Bell and David Johnson. What sealed the 48th place finish for Chipotle was his Brees to Cooks stack, mixed in with Ezekiel’s kettle jump and Devonta’s steamrolling of the hapless 49ers. While Chipotle did feature a contrarian approach, he still cashed at a 46% rate due to several key chalk players falling short of expectations.
Ehlowel featured the more standard approach as he featured Matt Ryan, Tyrod Taylor, and Phillip Rivers. He still had a fair share of Le’Veon Bell and David Johnson, but differentiated by flexing nearly all running backs and took the high performing Devonta Freeman and LeSean McCoy at over a 60% clip (it pays to target the 49ers/Browns on the ground). With James Starks out, Ty Montgomery filled in nicely with plenty of volume as an additional running back that could be used from the WR slot on Draftkings. Aldrick Robinson filled in nicely as a deep threat with Julio Jones still out, while J.J. Nelson was looking to capitalize on the release of Michael Floyd. Ehlowel went back to the well as he lead his TE ownership with Travis Kelce, followed up by Ladarius Green and value-conscious Jermaine Gresham. Ehlowel was able to peak at a 6th place finish with an overall cash rate of 88%.
While others may have tripled the field’s ownership for Brees, Mallen21 smashed it (46.7% for Brees and 79.4% combined with Palmer) as he saw fireworks in the NO@ARI matchup. He was rewarded handsomely as Brees topped 5x salary and Palmer nearly touched 4x. He figured the Saints to play with the lead as he nearly faded David Johnson completely and opted for the McCoy, Elliott, and Bell trio of studs. He paired each QB, and some lineups with the opposing WR, with his perceived top receiver (Cooks, Nelson) while mixing in a healthy dose of Ty Montgomery, Mohamed Sanu (returning from injury), and Stefon Diggs (facing a terrible colts secondary). Mallen21’s lineup construction as close to all-or-nothing as you generally see and he killed it, cashing in 82% of lineups and landing five top-10 finishes (including 1st for the cool mill), with 19 in the top-100.
Single-Entry Winner of the Game
Drew Brees had struggled over his last two weeks, against a weak Lions defense at home and on the road against the Buccaneers. On the road against a solid Cardinals defense certainly yielded rock bottom ownership, but Joshuatynes saw it as an opportunity to buy low and pair him with his play-making WR in Brandin Cooks. From there LeGarrette Blount would certainly be featured against a Broncos defense that had been susceptible on the ground. With everyone else playing combinations of Le’Veon Bell and David Johnson, Josh pivoted to Ezekiel Elliott who had shown he can take over games when needed. The Golden Tate play made sense as a pure volume play due to the fact that Riddick had been delcared inactive with plenty of time before the start of the slate. Joshuatynes pivoted to several elite players in bad matchups while playing the cheap players flush with increased opportunity (Ty Montgomery) to take down a 12th place finish.
Single-Entry vs. ChipotleAddict/ehlowel/Mallen21
Out of 142,581 entries in the Fantasy Football Millionaire, 26.6% of those entries were entered courtesy of players using a single bullet. The table below compares the exposures of those single entries to the exposures of ChipotleAddict, ehlowel, Mallen21, and 80 other top professionals picked off of RotoGrinders’ leaderboard:
