Daily Fantasy Sports
Sharp App
Season Long Fantasy
Free Month
Wall of Champions
Discord

Shark Autopsy Report – Analyzing DraftKings Milly Maker Lineups to Make You a Better Player

Welcome back to the Shark Autopsy Report, NFL Edition Week 3! Over the course of the remainder of the NFL season this article will deconstruct winning DraftKings lineups of contests where the dark waters of GPP contests are ripe with sharks. Navigating these waters where the sharks smell blood in the water is not easy, but the DFSArmy have you covered, providing you with the essential daily tools to help our VIPs turn into sharks!  The article will be released weekly, with each day’s article looking at either single entry or multi-entry GPP contests. Each contest requires a different lineup construction.

Follow me on Twitter and if you are a VIP I will see you in the NFL channels. I enjoy seeing and hearing from all of the VIPs when things go well.  If you aren’t a VIP member, there’s an easy way to get a free month to test the Army out.  The Army has all of the content, tools, second-to-none Domination Station Optimizer, and the most accessible NFL staff and coaches in the industry to guide you in your journey of becoming a better DFS player.

In this edition of the Shark Autopsy Report, we look at the illustrious Milly Maker, a massive GPP tourney that pays out $1 million to first place. A true tale of the tape contest that everyone, even their mothers knows about and is discussed about extensively throughout the course of the week. Many think that lineup construction to win this tourney is all about the most contrarian construction possible, and sometimes that is the case.

A Little Bit about the Army

For those of you who are new to DFS and looking for a top notch, second to none DFS site that can provide you with the tools to construct quality DFS lineups, then look no further as the DFSArmy has you covered. At DFSArmy, we pride ourselves on the ability of the coaches to teach and provide our members the methodologies, processes, tools and thought process to become a DFS player that can grow their bankroll with proper bankroll management and turn your everyday DFS Joe into a DFS Pro. Like NFL week 1, the Army had multiple members take home great payouts in week 2.

DraftKings’s $4.2M Milly Maker Contest

At 5 AM this morning when I was rising and shining, I took a look at my emails from overnight and saw an email from a Fantasy Football site about their site breakdown of the Sunday Million on FanDuel. Everyone is wanting to get in on the action of making sure their site is breaking down the winning lineups of these massive payout contests that are the Milly Maker and Sunday Million.

If this is your first time reading the Shark Autopsy Report, Welcome! The Shark Autopsy Report is different from those other lineup breakdown reports that you can read online (there’s a multitude of them), as the Shark Autopsy Report shows you the top ten winning lineups (position-by-position), the number of lineups the top 10 players entered into the contest, the average amount spent by position in the winning lineup, top 10 player ownership percentages, and week-to-week salary distributions of top 10 lineups to determine if there’s salary correlation amongst top ten lineups that could help better predict winning lineup construction in future weeks.

We are SO attracted to the allure and appeal of winning the $1M dollar first place prize on DK and FD Milly Maker and Sunday Million contests, and because of this I can understand why DFS sites are analyzing these winning lineups. I have read a few of these articles and their analysis are good, but they don’t provide the distinct factors of the Shark Autopsy Report (as shown throughout this article) that sets this article apart from those other articles written.

The Shark Autopsy Report continues to evolve and morph (where necessary) as the respective season progresses, in last week’s article weekly salary distribution was introduced and will continue throughout the course of the season. This week’s article will introduce the NFL players who were most drafted each week and their field ownership percentage, how many fantasy points were scored by said players and the percentage of ownership across the top ten scoring lineups for that week’s contest.

For the third week in a row, the winner of the Milly Maker DID NOT MAX ENTER the tourney. Milly Maker winner in week 3, TheHodgesFactor entered only three lineups. Gone are the days of Max Multi Entry to take down the colossal tourney. This week there was a shift, of the top ten scoring lineups in the week 3 Milly Maker, there were three players had max entered the contest.

This week’s contest winner, TheHodgesFactor, took down the tourney by a slim margin of 3 DK PTs. This week’s contest wasn’t won with as slim of margin as in week 2, but still had a sweat going into the 4 PM slate of games with Chicago Defense, Robert Woods and Zeke Elliott playing. These three plays put TheHodgesFactor over the top scoring a collective 68.5 DK PTs on 10.93% average field ownership with Zeke coming in at 6.9% ownership, TheHodgesFactor’s lineup soared up the rankings.

Top 10

Winning Lineup

In week 3, the winning lineup did not utilize the onslaught methodology to constructing the winning lineup, as was used in the prior two weeks. As I expected in the week 2 Shark Autopsy Report, the onslaught lineup construction methodology was probably not likely to win in week 3. NFL is so dynamic and scoring can come from anywhere (I.E. Vance McDonald on Monday Night), which made weeks 1 and 2 winning Milly Maker lineups so unusual as compared to years past. Regression to the mean typically wins out over a large enough sample size, hence why weeks 1 and 2 are outliers in the grand scheme of winning roster construction.

In TheHodgesFactor’s winning lineup, the top stack from a scoring and value perspective came from a high projected Vegas game of the Saints and Falcons game. The Vegas lines closed at Atlanta -1.5 with total projected score of 54. The game blew the total projected score out of the water with 77 total points scored. Matty Ice exploded for 5 TDs on 374 yards passing. The benefactor of Matty Ice’s success was rookie and first round draft pick Calvin Ridley, whose performance up until last week was suboptimal. On the opposite side of the ball in the game, TheHodgesFactor ran back the Ryan-Ridley stack with Alvin Kamara. DFSArmy’s correlation matrix showcased that Kamara had a 0.04 point correlation with Matty Ice. This may not seem like a very strong correlation, but when looking at the week’s other RBs correlations opposite that of the opposing team’s QB, the correlations are negative. Ridley wasn’t the highest correlated play on the Falcons with Matty Ice, that went to Julio Jones, who carried the 2nd highest field ownership % of 29.07%. Ridley’s correlation with Matty Ice was the third highest at 0.29.

Tyler Boyd jumped off the DFSArmy correlations page with a 0.34 correlation with Andy Dalton. An extremely strong correlation, and though many thought he would be chalky, it turns out his ownership was lower than expected at 10.7% for the Milly Maker field.

Robert Woods was another very nice play with a correlation of 0.32 with Goff, and he capitalized alongside Cooper Kupp, scoring 2 receiving TDs and over 100 yards receiving.

The winning lineup incorporated 3 RBs and 3 WRs at an average salary spend of $8,550 for RBs and $4,167 for WRs. As you can see below, 5 of the top 10 lineups utilized the RB in the Flex position.

As compared to week 2, week 3’s winning lineup allocated $400 less towards the QB position, $1,950 more towards the RB position, $1,800 less towards the WR position, $2,500 less towards TE positions and $1,300 more towards the DEF position.

Top 10 Lineups at a Glance

Over the course of the 2018 NFL season, on a weekly basis we will be comparing how the top 10 scoring Milly Maker lineups have distributed their salary across each position within their lineups to determine if there’s correlation week-to-week amongst the top 10 lineups.

Weekly Salary Distribution

From the three week sample of Milly Maker top 10 lineups, though a very small sample, we can see some trends across each allocable position that will continue to progress as the season continues each week. For the QB position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 10.94% and 12.54% of their $50,000 salary cap to the QB position. For the RB 1 position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 14.26% and 18.94% to the RB 1 position. The RB 2 position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 9% and 15.44% to the RB 2 position. The WR 1 position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 11.88% and 14.54% to the WR 1 position. The WR 2 position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 7.94% and 13.24% to the WR 2 position. The WR 3 position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 7.4% and 9.92% to the WR 3 position. The FLEX position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 10.76% and 11.74% to the FLEX position. The TE position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 8.78% and 11.32% to the TE position. The DEF position salary distribution, the top 10 lineups are allocating between 5.4% and 6.22% to the DEF position.

The most consistent week-to-week distribution of salary comes from the DEF position, where the percentage swing from week-to-week is 0.82%. The next most consistent is the FLEX position, which really shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, as there was only approximately 3% of the weeks 1 – 3 lineups that utilized the cost saving TE position in the FLEX position. The highest fluctuations in allocation of salary are from the RB 2 and WR 2 positions, and this is very logical as the top 10 lineups are looking to utilize a stud running back and receiver in the RB 1 and WR 1 positions. Therefore, a cost savings needs to occur within the RB 2 and WR 2 positions. Further cost savings occurs in the WR 3 position, where finding the true value of a low priced WR is vital to your lineups success.

It will be very interesting to see how the salary trends continue over the course of the season, especially as the DraftKings salary algorithms tighten up and finding value amongst each position in your lineups becomes more important than in the opening few weeks of the season.

Weekly Highest Owned Plays (Top 10 vs. Field)

The below graphic displays the week’s highest owned (by field ownership) NFL players and the percentage of top 10 scoring Milly Maker lineups employed the highest owned plays in the tourney. What can be gleamed from the below graphic is that of those top 10 scoring lineups in the weekly Milly Maker contest, the winning top 10 lineups are either over-weight or under-weight on the highest drafted NFL players that week as compared to the tourney’s overall field ownership. For example, in week 1, Alvin Kamara and James Conner’s field ownership was 33.51% and 25.54% respectively, whereas the top 10 scoring lineups employed Kamara and Conner at 80% and 100% respectively. This was similar in the case of Rob Gronkowski in week 1 as well. The top 10 lineups went overweight on these plays in week 1. In week 2, outside of Melvin Gordon and James Conner, the top 10 scoring lineups were under-weight the remaining top 10 field owned plays. In week 3, the top 10 scoring lineups were massively over-weight on Alvin Kamara as compared to the field by nearly 70%.

The top 10 scoring lineups take a stand on a play or two and either go under or over weight on those respective plays that week. Week 3 was indicative of this approach and the top 10 scoring lineups felt that Corey Clement and Julio Jones would be duds, and these lineups shifted their ownership to Calvin Ridley in Jones’ case and instead of paying down at RB for the likes of Clement, they opted to pay up for their RBs and pay down at WR.

Hmm…. GAME THEORY IS THE NAME OF THE GAME TO SCORING IN THE TOP 10 OF THE MILLY MAKER!

To conclude this installment of the Shark Autopsy Report, the DFS Army was started based on the concept that bring high-level tools, projections, and information to average players would allow them to compete on a level playing field with the DFS pros that have been dominating the industry for years. Check out our full Wall of Wins to see countless other screenshots from regular players utilizing DFS Army tools and advice to take down 6 figure prizes on a regular basis. Sign up as a DFS Army VIP today to take your game to the next level and start competing like a pro.