One of my favorite pieces of content to make is my weekly review of the winning Millionaire Maker — or occasionally other large prize pool — lineup. While we (rightfully) spend most of our time looking forward to the next slate, reverse-engineering what works in GPPs is a valuable exercise to make us better DFS players.
Week 9 featured an 11-game slate with the standard $20 buy-in Millionaire Maker contest.
We were back to having an MME player take down the top prize, as user ikeyser21 won with one of their 101 rosters:
The Lineup
The Stack
The Bears were mentioned frequently in my Week 9 Main Slate Breakdown, all as solid value plays on a slate where saving salary was important due to the presence of some star players who also had elite projections. Most of the logic was the matchup — Cincinnati is either the league’s worst or second-worst defense by nearly every available metric, with the only other team in that ballpark being the Cowboys, who weren’t on the main slate.
Add to that an extremely concentrated offense due to the absence of key players at wide receiver and running back, and we ended up with a clear stacking opportunity on Williams, Monangai, and Zaccheaus. I was shocked Zaccheaus wasn’t more popular, and pairing a RB and QB from the same team is also a relatively contrarian structure.
ikeyser21 was nearly triple the field on Williams’ exposure, well ahead of the crown on Monongai and Zaccheaus, and also was heavily invested in DJ Moore and Rome Odunze. That put them in an excellent position if the Bears came through, no matter which specific players did the heavy lifting.
They also brought this lineup back with Ja’Marr Chase, which seemed like an obvious option given Chase’s 50%+ target share the first two weeks with Joe Flacco. This lineup would’ve done even better with Tee Higgins as the bring-back, but Chase clearly did enough to keep it on a first-place pace.
Other Correlations
Outside of the main stack and bring back, there were no other correlated plays in this lineup.
The Chalk
Christian McCaffrey was in a great spot this week as the 49ers were again without Ricky Pearsall as they took on a mediocre (at best) Giants defense. It was especially easy to afford McCaffrey thanks to the obvious value on Monangai, and I’d wager that almost all of the McCaffrey lineups in most tournaments also featured the Bears back.
McCaffrey came into Week 9 second in the NFL in carries and third in targets, making him effectively an elite RB and an elite WR who only takes up one roster spot. Given his popularity and performance in Week 9, his salary will probably jump enough to make him a tougher option next week, but anyone who rostered him this week was glad they did.
The only other piece in this lineup at double-digit ownership was tight end Brock Bowers. He was priced at a discount after missing the previous three weeks and was yet another example of why it’s important to get exposure to injured players before they “prove it.” While there was some luck involved in his box score since the game went to OT, it was still the right time to play the star tight end — who almost certainly sees a price jump in Week 10.
Be sure to check out all the pick’ems Sleeper has to offer with our Sleeper Fantasy promo code.
The Sleepers
ikeyser21 was only slightly ahead of the field on Drake London but was lucky to have him in a lineup that also featured some of the best plays. London has quietly put up at least 28 DraftKings points in about half of his games with Michael Penix dating back to last season, as the young QB seems locked on to his top wide receiver. His overall numbers in that span have been held down by Penix missing games, so both of them returning from an absence in Week 10 was a very good opportunity in retrospect — but one neither I nor most of the field saw coming.
Jaylen Warren was projected as one of the best values at running back but got lost in the shuffle of backup RBs thrust into starting roles due to injury. While that didn’t apply to Warren, he was priced within $1,000 of Treyveon Henderson, Tyrone Tracy, and Monangai. ikeyser21 rostered Warren more than any players outside of CMC and Monangai. Ironically, that hard stance wasn’t really why they won the million, though Warren did enough to not hurt the lineup either.
Finally, they rostered the Titans defense, who came in at less than 2% overall ownership and surprisingly scored two defensive/special teams touchdowns. They weren’t much over the field on Tennessee and had fairly flat exposure to plenty of defenses, which is yet another reminder to mix and match teams at that position since it’s extraordinarily hard to project.
Pictured: Kyle Monangai
Photo Credit: Imagn
