Fantasy Football Quarter Millionaire Review: Divisional Round
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 $2M Fantasy Football Quarter Millionaire Championship [$250K 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
Makisupa rolled with 100% Dak Prescott on his way to a nice payday. He paired him with his top target, Dez Bryant, on 64% of his lineups and penciled in Terrance Williams and Jason Witten in on 14.7% and 38.7% respectively. Projecting the Cowboys to control the game through the ground, Makisupa also added a 51.3% ownership in Ezekiel Elliott. With Green Bay trailing and in catchup mode, they would frequently air out the long-ball to Davante Adams (56.7%) with a lesser role put on possession receiver Randall Cobb (26.7%).
With Le’Veon Bell’s salary still above $10k, Makisupa opted to fade him, compared to the field, on the road in a tough Arrowhead stadium to make room for the stud WRs. Devonta Freeman was the feature back remaining and at a paltry $5900. The Seahawks had a solid rush defense, but were worse on the road and Devonta’s pass-catching ability and volume would make up for any deficiencies in his YPC. On the same token as the Cowboys gameplan, the Vegas’ favorites, Kansas City Chiefs, would likely look to keep Big Ben off the field with the capable Spencer Ware. As many of these players were already quite chalky (even on a 4-game slate), Makisupa really made up room by avoiding the flops of the weekend, almost entirely fading the Seahawks and Texans. Makisupa parlayed his tight GB/DAL core into a 94% cash rate and an 18th place finish.
Looking quite familiar with his ownerships, which isn’t hard from a grouping of the most successful pros on a four-game slate, TeeJayOrTJ felt strongly about the Dak & Dez connection as well. The differences were that TJ saw the increasing workload of Dion Lewis for the Patriots, while avoiding the Pittsburgh run-game altogether. As TJ projected an even heavier passing game for the Cowboys by his reduced ownership in Ezekiel Elliott, he stacked Terrance Williams (44.7%) and Jason Witten (67.3%) despite their recent box score woes. Jason Witten was the savvy veteran that would undoubtedly be the safety blanket in Dak’s first playoff game while Terrance Williams would see a majority of Demarious Randall in coverage (PFF grade of 39.1; giving up a massive 0.51 fantasy points per route).
Without the Le’Veon Bell salary and reduced Zeke ownership, TJ was able to slot in Julio Jones in a bit higher ownerships and even squeezed in some Doug Baldwin. While having much of the same core, TJ was able to cash in on 90% of his lineups and settled into a 10th place finish.
Single-Entry Winner of the Game
Doughy83 managed to feature the same nine players as two other DraftKings entries. However, I’m sure he wasn’t too broken up about it as all three players split a 2nd-4th place pot good for $58,333 each. While Doughy83 didn’t necessarily share the same vision for the Cowboys as Makisupa and TJ, he still saw success in Dez Bryant, Jason Witten, and Jared Cook. Matt Ryan has truly had a break-out season in 2016 and has been leading the MVP race. A home-game against a beat up Seahawks would not stand in the way of Matty Ice. Thus Doughy83 stacked Julio Jones and Devonta Freeman, who had each gone for over 1400 yards from scrimmage in the regular season.
Doughy83 rounded out his lineup with a few complete no-brainers. The Patriots’ may have struggled to a 18-point drubbing of the Texans, but they still funneled their offense through their key playmakers, Julian Edelman and Dion Lewis. As Brock is who we thought he was, he promptly threw three interceptions and failed to amass 200 yards through the air, allowing the Pats D to finish with 16 points.
Single-Entry vs. Makisupa/TeeJayOrTj
Out of 85,634 entries in the Fantasy Football Millionaire, 26.5% 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 Makisupa, TeeJayOrTj, and 80 other top professionals picked off of RotoGrinders’ leaderboard:
