Fantasy Football Millionaire Review: Week 17
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 $4M Fantasy Football Millionaire Championship [$1M to 1st!] on DraftKings with a buy-in of $20 and maximum entry limit of 150 lineups per person.
Multi-Entry Grinders of the Game
With all the value at running back this week, CSURAM88 predictably flexed a running back a majority of the time in his 150 lineups. However, he didn’t do so as heavily as the other two players below and instead chose to flex a healthy percentage of tight ends as well. This proved to be a smart play with Zach Ertz and Kyle Rudolph going bananas. He went back to the well and didn’t get cute with his quarterbacks, rostering a stable of Matt Ryan, Drew Brees, Aaron Rodgers, and Kirk Cousins (playing to get into the playoffs) unlike previous years of taking cheap quarterbacks in GPPs.
Across the rest of his positions, it looked familiar as he played the “professional” chalk almost across the board (the field as a whole didn’t seem to get the memo on Rex Burkhead or Jerick McKinnon). CSURAM88 finished with a plus cash rate of 56.7%, but really shined on his top-end finishes as he landed in 7th and 40th place (rostering the elusive TE-flex on his 7th place finish: Zach Ertz and Kyle Rudolph).
Rayofhope switched up his quarterback ownership a tad and played more of the less obvious choices: Andrew Luck at home versus a competent Jaguars defense and on/off again Russell Wilson on the road. His running back core looked part for the course aside from a high ownership in DeMarco Murray (increasing usage of Derrick Henry) and low ownership of Thomas Rawls and Jacquizz Rodgers (tough matchup and Winston had tempered his interception problem reducing the need to run). His wide receivers didn’t look too out of the ordinary either, but we begin to notice a trend of attacking the 49ers defense. He had an increased ownership in Russell Wilson, but beyond that, a further ownership increase in all receiving skill positions in the “get right” matchup: Doug Baldwin at 20.7% and Jimmy Graham at 19.3%. Rayofhope finished with a less stellar cash rate of 39.3% due to some of his higher-ownership plays not panning out, but found the right combination to finish in 3rd for $75k.
SaahilSud re-appeared in Week 17 to make sure we didn’t forget about him before the season close. He avoided the minimal QB tail-off of less than stellar options and focused mainly on the aforementioned key plays (minus Andrew Luck and Kirk Cousins; both in tough matchups regardless of narratives). On the RB-side, he is usually good for one or two sharp under-owned plays. This week he went heavy on Charcandrick West (minimal ownership even between all pros) and Mark Ingram; both of which produced over 28 points. I was surprised to see Saahil have no ownership in Isaiah Crowell, who he had been playing weekly in cash during a few weeks leading up to Week 17. However, that may have been due to Saahil taking the other side of the Browns and playing Terrelle Pryor at a 27.3% clip (cheapest he had been since Week 3).
From there, we don’t see too many surprises aside from being over-owned or under-owned on a few receivers. He did take a stand on three DEF/ST in particular, the chalk Cardinals against the turnover-prone LA Rams, Eagles playing Dallas’ backups, and the Titans facing the anemic Texans offense (although I would like to believe Saahil had advanced analytics pointing to the return of Brock Lobster). Saahil finished with a solid 62.7% cash rate and reached an 18th place finish.
Single-Entry Winner of the Game
Bharathiram took a clear direction from the Vegas totals as a majority of his lineup featured the heavy-hitting games on the slate: NO@ATL and GB@DET. Aaron Rodgers was fairly popular as he has been fairly resurgent late in the season and in the midst of MVP talks. A dome matchup against the Lions with a hobbled Darius Slay was prime pickings to finish out the division lead. With that said, for how Jordy Nelson had been performing, Davante Adams seemed like a good leverage play (Jordy at 41% ownership to Davante’s 22%). Taking an opposing receiver on the other side of the ball as a positive correlation play was a smart play, and going along with his prior reasoning, Marvin Jones would be the deep threat for the Lions playing catch-up at (while projecting for low ownership due to his struggles). In the other dome matchup, Bharathiram projected a Atlanta lead with Devonta toting the rock and Michael Thomas playing catch-up. From there he pivoted off of the chalk in Travis Kelce for Zach Ertz against the soft Dallas middle. Charcandrick West was likely to see a heavy load with Spencer Ware out and a pivot off the more popular plays: Rex Burkhead, Jerick McKinnon, and Jacquizz Rodgers.
Single-Entry vs. CSURAM88/rayofhope/SaahilSud
Out of 211,094 entries in the Fantasy Football Millionaire, 25.3% 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 CSURAM88, rayofhope, SaahilSud, and 80 other top professionals picked off of RotoGrinders’ leaderboard:
