NFL $4.44M Fantasy Football Millionaire Review: Week 3
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 $4.44M Fantasy Football Millionaire [$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
CSURAM88 played a copious number of quarterbacks, but keyed in on a select few (Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Ryan Tannehill) that were projected by Vegas to outscore their Week 1-2 averages by a significant margin and carried a reduction in cost. You’ll see a significant number of chalk running back and wide receiver plays in his ownership sheet, but you may overlook the absolute golden plays scattered throughout. Having Terrelle Pryor Sr., Jordy Nelson, Doug Baldwin, Travis Kelce, etc. at such high ownerships over the field really cemented a number of his top lineups (three finishes in the top-33) and launched him into serious contention.
Papagates entered 150 lineups as well, but played fewer players, and at higher ownerships, in order to reduce the effect of varying combinations. He also almost exclusively flexed wide receivers and faded most conventional running backs. This strategy hit gold when the struggling Bills leaned on LeSean McCoy to steamroll the Arizona Cardinals. Headlining most positions on his ownership sheet are players who possessed a significant workload at a reduced price, due to injuries (Terrelle Pryor Sr., Shane Vereen) or slow price adjustments (Marvin Jones Jr., Stefon Diggs), and regardless of matchup (T.Y. Hilton, LeSean McCoy). He leapfrogged a majority of the field with significant ownership over the field in LeSean McCoy (48% vs 1.8% field ownership). While he heavily favored a few players, a couple of his lower-owned players in Matthew Stafford and Zach Miller were crucial to his 1st place finish (tied – $600K each).
Shawnzhan showed a combination of the previous two players strategies: He split his QB ownership evenly between five players, some chalk, some contrarian. From there, we see significant chalk at RB ownership while differentiating himself with a majority of contrarian TE and DST plays (which are inherently more volatile). His core of WR was a mix of chalk and contrarian but hit significant value on almost every single one (barring Travis Benjamin and some below 20%). This was a great approach as he was able to secure a 81.3% cash rate while placing twice inside the top-100.
Single-Entry Winner of the Game
DizzleWizzle was the highest placed single entry player without a single sexy play in sight (Stefon Diggs, Travis Benjamin, DeAngelo Williams, etc.). He relied on a number of volatile players who had negative recency bias (Doug Baldwin, Darren Sproles) but still had the game script in their favor. With Odell being shadowed by Josh Norman, Sterling Shepard saw a heavy dose of targets and Marvin Jones benefited from four Packers starters out with injury (including their #1 CB, Sam Shields). However, even with Brandon Marshall hobbled, I’m not sure Dizzle was expecting Fitzmagic to gift-wrap him a mid five-figure payout via a 35 point Chiefs defensive performance (on 6 INT, 2TD).
Single-Entry vs. CSURAM88/papagates/shawnzhan
Out of 256,904 entries in the Fantasy Football Millionaire, 32.9% 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, papagates, shawnzhan, and 50 other top professionals picked off of RotoGrinders’ leaderboard:
