Good morning or evening! Welcome to the Dossier on How to Win the DraftKings Milly Maker! If massive GPPs get your pulse pumping when you enter them and you crave that needed tool to add to your tool chest to help you take down the these massive GPPs, then you are in for a pre Week 1 treat! The dossier is the first part of a collection of Milly Maker lineup deconstruction articles I will chronicle over the course of the 2019 NFL season.
I am burns273 in Slack and you can follow me at Burns273DFS on Twitter. Last NFL season I wrote the Shark Autopsy Report series, chronicling the 2018 season’s Milly Maker. Last season I took 6th in the week 17 Milly Maker, and I wrote the Dossier as a primer for the 2019 NFL season to showcase the ideologies and methodologies I learned while chronicling the Milly Maker last season to enable me to hone in my mental approach on how to attack HUGE GPP tournaments.
The Shark Autopsy Report was a deep dive lineup deconstruction weekly article that showcased strategies and methodologies the top 10 weekly Milly Maker lineups were utilizing to maximize their score and place in the top 10. The article will be returning this NFL season and focus not only on lineup deconstruction, but dive even deeper into the mindset of the winning lineup(s) to unveil what their ideologies and methodologies could have been to construct the weekly winning Milly Maker lineup. The article will build upon last season and incorporate new and improved graphics.
The Dossier on How to Win the DraftKings Milly Maker is a VIP ONLY article that will provide you with a comprehensive in-depth review of the 2016 – 2018 season’s Milly Maker top 20 lineups and a look at the roster construction of the winning lineups. The Dossier provides you with the techniques and insight to craft lineups that could help you win large field GPPs and possibly the Milly Maker. The techniques and insights can be applied to all GPP formats, especially those massive DraftKings tourneys.
Within the Dossier, you are going to read tactics that buck trends that you are normally accustomed to reading and seeing touts publish, for example, you always need to target the highest projected total point(s) games by Vegas, BUT I am going to tell you that is not always the most optimal strategy for taking down the Milly Maker and massive GPP contests. What’s optimal in the smaller tournaments is not always going to be optimal in trying to take down the Milly Maker.
Vegas Lines
It’s instilled in you from the moment that you start your journey as a DFS player that the Vegas lines are a valuable piece of information needed for your starting point for researching a slate. That you should target the games with the highest Vegas point totals and construct your rosters with players from these teams. But, in reality how often has this been proven accurate when correlated with winning the Milly Maker? The Dossier will reveal the sweet spot for the Vegas lines that we should target instead of following the herd when it comes to deciding what the best games are to attack to win the Milly Maker.
During the 2018 NFL season, the total number of games with closing Vegas lines of 50 total points or higher was 45. That number is 3.2 times higher than the total number of games with closing Vegas lines of 50 total points or higher in the 2017 NFL season. That is a significant shift in how Vegas was projecting the games to play out. But….. how did that massive shift correlate to winning Milly Maker lineups and players utilized from these highest projected total points’ games?
The winning Milly Maker lineup utilized a stack from 20% of the highest projected game(s) on a given week’s main slate during the 2017 NFL season. That accounted for 3 games during the 2017 season. The winning Milly Maker lineup utilized a stack from 35% of the highest projected game(s) on a given week’s main slate during the 2018 NFL season. That accounted for 16 games during the 2018 season, or slightly over 5 times the games than 2017.
With 45 games Vegas projected to have a total points scored in the game of 50 or greater, I would’ve concluded that the number of times the winning Milly Maker lineup utilized a stack of some sort for more than 16 games. But those games are extremely chalky, and to win the Milly Maker you need to differentiate in some spots in your roster construction.
Vegas Lines Sweet Spot
Defenses:
I want to start with defenses first, because most DFS players view this position as one they should spend the least amount of time on and that it’s essentially a waste of time to spend too much research on defenses. But did you know that defenses account for 11.1% of your DraftKings lineups’ total score, which is the same as QB and TE. Hmm… maybe you should spend more time researching defenses and not just throwing any applicable defense in your lineups or the defense with largest spread on the slate because this is not a viable decision to make. In fact in 2018, only 2 times did the winning Milly Maker lineup rostered a defense with the largest spread on the slate. There were 8 weeks where the winning Milly Maker lineup rostered a defense in a game that had closing Vegas lines between -2.5 to -5.5, and of those 8 weeks, 5 weeks had a spread of -2.5 to -3. Fifty percent of the 2018 season the winning Milly Maker lineup rostered a defense with Vegas lines between -2.5 to -5.5 and of that 50% of the season 62.5% of them had Vegas lines of -2.5 to -3. It seriously pays to do your research and not simply roster the favored team in the game with the highest spread on the slate, because that was only viable in 11.8% of the time during the 2018 NFL season.
In 2018, the average Vegas lines total points across all 17 weeks of the defenses that were used in the winning lineup was 44.38. In 2018, the average spread across all 17 weeks of the defenses that were used in winning lineups was -6.91. Let’s look at these number more intently than just superficially.
In 2018, there were 6 weeks where the winning lineup of the Milly Maker rostered a defense with closing Vegas lines between 40 to 44.5 total points, and 6 weeks where the winning lineup of the Milly Maker rostered a defense with closing Vegas lines between 45 to 49.5 total points. The average spread of these 12 weeks was -6.25, with 5 of the weeks had a spread of 7 or more.
Are Defenses who play at home the most optimal?
In 2018, defenses that played at home were rostered 71% of the time by the winning Milly Maker lineup, but only 58% of the time did the winning Milly Maker lineup roster a defense who played at home and the closing Vegas lines had the defense favored to win the game. Rostering a defense at home seems very logical and most content sites promote that you use a defense playing at home. I found it intriguing though is that there was a 13% decline in the number of winning Milly Maker lineups that rostered a defense who played at home and the closing Vegas lines had the defense favored to win the game.
In mathematical practices the more variables you add to the equation the more precise the outcomes become as you are truly getting to the core of what you trying to determine within your analysis.
This is evident in the above, I started with one variable of how many winning Milly Maker lineups had rostered a defense who was playing at home, which yielded 71% of lineups across all 17 weeks of the 2018 season. This number is all and well on the surface and provided a good starting point, but we are trying to win the Milly Maker, and that is not going to cut the mustard of trying to determine the most optimal defense to play and win the Milly Maker. With each added variable to the beginning equation, we start to hone in on the most optimal defense to roster in Milly Maker contests. The addition of more applicable variables to the equation, we are predictively analyzing and synthesizing the overall number of defenses down from 24 team defenses (week 1 of 2019 NFL season main slate of games, which doesn’t account for Thursday, Sunday and Monday night’s games because those games aren’t on the main slate that the Milly Maker runs) to about 7 to 8 team defenses.
Further synthesizing my sample down, I wanted to see what the percentage of winning Milly Maker lineups rostered defenses that played at home, were favored and the closing spread on the game was at or greater than -6. The percentage continues to drop, dropping from our beginning percentage of 71% to 41%, wow that is a massive decline just by adding in two additional variables onto our original beginning variable. But, we can do better! I want to see what the percentage of winning Milly Maker lineups rostered defenses that played at home, were favored to start the game by closing Vegas lines, the closing Vegas lines spread on the game was at or greater than -6, and the closing Vegas lines game total was at or below 45 total points. As I expected, the results are becoming more predicative and narrowing my search down further and further, the results conclusively show that 29% of winning Milly Maker lineups had roster a defense who was playing at home, were favored to start the game by closing Vegas lines, the closing Vegas lines spread on the game was at or greater than -6 and the closing Vegas lines game total was at or below 45 total points. Incredible 42% decline and more predictively determining the defenses who will perform on a given slate. The more variables I add the more predictively I can determine the most optimal defense on a given slate that could end up on the winning Milly Maker lineup.
Quarterbacks:
During the 2018 NFL season, the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a Quarterback who was in a game with closing Vegas lines that played for the favored team 65% of the time. This is extremely interesting, because historically we have programmed to look for those QBs that are on the underdog team per the closing Vegas lines because these teams are most likely to be throwing in the waning quarters of the game to try to play catch-up, but when it comes to winning the Milly Maker, we have been thinking about this all wrong. Of those QBs playing on the team favored in the closing Vegas lines, 82% of them played at home. 78% of those QBs that were favored in the closing Vegas lines, played at home, and had a game total points of 45 or greater. The next stat is the most intriguing, because it further bucks the trend that we are so accustomed to seeing and that is we want to target QBs in games that the closing Vegas lines project as close (think Vegas line spreads of less than -5). Of these winning Milly Maker lineups that rostered a QB who played at home, favored, had a game total points of 45 or greater; 43% of them had a spread greater than -5. Fact, over the course of the 2018 NFL season, the winning Milly Maker lineup rostered a QB that had closing Vegas lines spread of greater than -5 of 53% percent over the course of 17 weeks regardless of if the QB was in a game they were favored or not, at home or on the road, and in a game of 45 total points or higher or not per closing Vegas lines. Amazing that more than half of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a QB who was in a game that Vegas to be predicted as a possible blow out game. But, we can’t just blindly say well, I am only going to roster QBs in games that Vegas projects to be a blowout because of the percentages, we need to incorporate the type of QB excels in the winning Milly Maker lineups.
Stadiums Play a Role in Determining a Milly Maker Winning QB?
Weather and stadiums have a significant impact on selection of a QB for the winning Milly Maker lineup. In fact, 35% of the 2018 winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a QB who played that respective week in a game played in a dome, and 29% of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a QB who played that respective week in a game where weather is consistently better than northern teams (think Miami, Oakland, etc.). Combined together, it was 64.71% more advantageous to select a QB who was either playing in a dome or playing in a stadium where the weather is good.
QB Type in Determining a Milly Maker Winning QB
What type of Quarterback thrives and ends up on the winning Milly Maker lineup more often than not. Is it a pocket passer with a great O-line or is it a QB that likes to utilize their running prowess and scramble to near the century mark and has multiple rushing TDs in a given game.
During the 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons, 53% of the time a pocket passer was utilized in the winning Milly Maker lineup, and 44% of the time a pocket passer netted the passing bonus of 300+ yards and multiple touchdowns. 47% of the time a mobile QB was utilized was utilized in the winning Milly Maker lineup, and 22% of the time the mobile QB got the passing bonus of 300+ yards and multiple touchdowns, and on 3 separate weeks a mobile QB who received the passing bonus and multiple touchdowns also scored a rushing touchdown.
Whether it is a mobile QB or a pocket passing QB, passing yardage and passing touchdowns are key! 66% of the time during the 2017 and 2018 seasons, a QB (whether pocket passer or mobile) threw for over 300 yards and passed for multiple touchdowns.
To select the right QB to play, start with the Vegas lines as discussed above, add in the ownership percentages, and finally look at how efficient the defense line is and how they pressure the QB. Pressure equals erratic behavior by the QB, which in turn leads to knockdowns, sacks, and worst of all interceptions.
Running Backs:
The Running Back position is one with the most consistency on week to week basis. For the Milly Maker and other massive field GPPs, you don’t need to be overly contrarian with your RB selections. We can pinpoint the best RBs to utilize within our Milly Maker lineups by utilizing Vegas odds to optimize our RB1 and RB2 and possibly our Flex positions within our lineups. Looking at the winning Milly Maker lineups from 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons, 65% of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a RB with closing Vegas lines projected the RB as the favorite. There were 75% of the winning Milly Maker lineups that rostered RBs with closing Vegas lines game total projected points between 40 to 49.5. Of that 75%, 45% of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered an RB from a game with projected total points between 45 to 49.5. Implied team totals also played a significant factor, 47.5% of the winning Milly Maker lineups utilized an RB with closing Vegas lines implied team totals spread of between 22 to 25.25 points. This was 27.5% greater than the next highest implied total spread of 25.5 to 28.75. We tend to believe that the higher the Vegas line spread is on a particular game the better, as that would indicate a team would get up by a large enough deficit to play ground and pound to run out the clock. But, the winning Milly Maker lineups don’t More winning Milly Maker lineups don’t share this opinion as much as you’d believe. In fact, the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered RBs with closing Vegas lines’ spread of -1 to -4 an astounding 48.75%.
Running Backs are more heavily utilized in team’s passing games, and this is becoming more and more evident with those RBs the winning Milly Maker lineups roster pursuant to the Vegas lines projections.
We want to target RBs who Vegas projects their team to be the favorite in the game, the game has a projected total points to be scored between 45 to 49.5 points, an implied team total for the RB of 22 to 25.25 points, and has a spread for the game of -1 to -4.
Wide Receivers:
Do you know the Wide Receiver that was the most utilized in the winning Milly Maker lineups in 2018? Hint, BigMarley3 rosters him at around 30% ownership every slate this WR plays.
The Wide Receiver position is generally a high variance position, but there are aspects to the Vegas lines that can help to narrow down a particular slate for us so that we can pinpoint the Wide Receiver who could go off and be on the winning Milly Maker lineup.
To pinpoint the best WRs to utilize within our Milly Maker lineups by utilizing Vegas odds to optimize our WR1, WR2, WR3 and possibly our Flex positions within our lineups. During the 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons, the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered WRs who played in their home stadium 60% of the time. The most optimal game totals during the 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons were between 40 to 44.75 total points at 34% of the time and 45 to 49.75 total points at 33% of the time. 68% of the time the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered WRs with game totals between 40 to 49.75. During the 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons, the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a WR with an implied team total between 22 to 25.25 at 40% of the time, which was 17% higher than the next highest implied team totals of 25.5 to 28.75. The closing Vegas lines play as much of an impact on which WR to roster as any of the other Vegas lines factors. 54% of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a WR who played in a game with a spread of -1 to -4 per Vegas lines. Additionally, the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a WR who played at Home 52% of the time.
We want to target WRs who Vegas projects their team to be the favorite in the game, the game has a projected total points to be scored between 40 to 44.75 and/or 45 to 49.5 points, an implied team total for the RB of 22 to 25.25 points, has a spread for the game of -1 to -4, and played in their home stadium.
Tight Ends:
The Tight End position is similar to that of the defense, the variance of the position is said to be high as compared to other positions within the lineup. But, is there a common denominator amongst those Tight Ends chosen on the winning Milly Maker lineups? Absolutely! In 2018, 65% of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a Tight End per closing Vegas lines game that had a projected game total score of 47 points or higher. Of those 35% of games Vegas closing lines projected to score less than 47 points, 50% of them were projected to score 45 points to 46.5 points. That leads to 82% of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a Tight End in the lineup with a projected closing Vegas lines total points of 45 or greater. That is a massive benefit in our favor! Though it stands to target the Tight Ends in the games that are projected at 47 or greater, rather than at the 45 or greater mark. Since there was 45 games projected to score 50 or greater points per closing Vegas lines in 2018, a Tight End was rostered on 8 separate weeks in the winning Milly Maker lineup that closing Vegas lines projected to score 50 or more points? This provides a significant baseline to synthesize our results further to coming up with the top Tight End type of play we should roster in the Milly Maker. As shown below, of the 8 separate week’s winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a Tight End in a game projected to score 50 or more per Vegas closing lines, there was a majority of the games (5 games or 63%) that were projected by Vegas to be close scoring (4.5 spread and below) with high implied team totals projected. Of the 5 games, 60% of them were projected favorites in the game.
Theoretically, we need to target Tight Ends from high projected scoring games per closing Vegas lines with low spreads and high implied team totals whose team is the projected favorite. And practically, this bears to prove reliable as well.
Stacking
Stacking is a baseline starting point for every lineup that scores highly in the Milly Maker contest. Upon my research of all of the 2016 -2018 winning lineups, I was able to determine stacking trends amongst the lineups that could help us build stronger, more artful lineups that can take down the Milly Maker this NFL season. To place in the top 10 of the Milly Maker, during week 17 of the 2018 NFL season the author of the Shark Autopsy Report placed 6th, you need to take an artful approach to coincide with the scientific approach to constructing your Milly Maker and large field GPP lineups. It takes a greater amount creativity to develop high placing lineups in these large field GPP lineups to compete with entrants who can max enter the contests with upwards of 150 lineups.
For those that are new to DFS and the term “stacking”, stacking is when a lineup is constructed and has multiple players from a single team or game rostered within the same lineup. This could be your most utilized stack of the QB and WR, or it could be an onslaught stack where you stack an entire game similar to QB/RB/WR/TE/WR Opp.
What types of stacks succeed in taking down the Milly Maker each season?
During the 2018 NFL season, 100% of the winning Milly Maker lineups had a single, double or tertiary stack. The top stack combination was the QB/ WR that was utilized in 24% of the winning Milly Maker lineups. When we think of stacking we generally gravitate to the QB/WR1 stack as it more correlated than the QB/WR2 or QB/WR3, but the QB/WR stack combinations that were utilized were 12% QB/WR2 and 12% QB/WR3.
During the 2018 NFL season, there was a reduction of 13% of the winning Milly Maker lineups that utilized double stacks in the winning lineup as compared to 2017. During both 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons, there were 2 separate weeks where the winning Milly Maker lineup rostered 3 stacks within the lineup. The single stack in a lineup grew in popularity in 2018 from 2017, gaining 14% more ownership share from 33% in 2017 to 47% in 2018.
Running back your stacks with a player (WR, RB, TE) from the opposite team is not as viable as you mean believe it to be, think game stacks. Over the course of the 2017 and 2018 seasons, the success rate of running back your stacks was 30%. Therefore, if you are trying to force in a player to run back your main stack then you may want to reconsider.
Average Winning Lineups’ Positional Ownership Percentages
QB Ownership:
I am sure that you’ve heard to win the Milly Maker you must roster a QB that is supremely low owned and stack them with a supremely low owned RB, WR, or TE. Across all 17 weeks of the NFL season, the average winning Milly Maker lineup ownership percentage was 9%, with average salary of $5,753 and average percentage of the overall winning Milly Maker lineup spent on QB was 12%. QBs ownership in general shouldn’t exceed that of 10% for any particular QB, and this is an advantage you can have in your arsenal of DFS tools to utilize to take down the Milly Maker. Were their instances where the winning Milly Maker lineup roster a QB over 10% field ownership, sure, and it happened 40% of the time during 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons. But, 60% of the time a QB with sub 10% ownership was in the winning Milly Maker lineup during the 2017 and 2018 NFL seasons.
How do I find ownership percentages on players?
The DFSArmy is a one stop shop for everything including ownership percentages and you don’t need to look elsewhere (like RotoGrinders or FantasyLabs or name a content provider) for ownership percentages.
RB1 Ownership:
To win the Milly Maker you don’t have to be ultra-contrarian with your Running Back selections. With our RB1 we seek volume which makes sense as there isn’t many Running Backs capable of a workload that leads to a monster fantasy output. During the 17 weeks of the 2018 NFL season, the winning Milly Maker lineups RB1 had an average ownership percentage of 26% and the average amount of salary spent on the roster spot was $7,982, which represented 16% of the lineup’s total salary and is the highest total amount of the $50,000 salary spent on any one position.
RB2 Ownership:
During the 17 weeks of the 2018 NFL season, the winning Milly Maker lineups grabbed those consistent RB points rostering an RB2 as it did with the RB1 position with the 2nd lowest contrarian percentage of average ownership of the nine roster spots at 19% ownership. The average amount of salary spent on the roster spot was $6,418, which represented 13% of the lineup’s total salary.
WR1 Ownership:
During the 2018 NFL season, the WR1 position was the most consistent of the Wide Receiver positions with an average ownership of 12%. The average amount of salary spent on the roster spot was $7,241, which represented 14% of the lineup’s total salary. The WR1 position is the most consistent WR position due to the fact that 71% of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a tier 1 WR in the 2018 NFL season.
WR2 Ownership:
During the 17 weeks of the 2018 NFL season, WR2 was the most contrarian position of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered at 8% average ownership. The average amount of salary spent on the WR2 roster spot was $5,706, which represented 11% of the lineup’s total salary.
WR3 Ownership:
During the 17 weeks of the 2018 NFL season, WR3 was the middle of the road WR position of the winning Milly Maker lineups rostered at 9% average ownership. The average amount of salary spent on the WR3 roster spot was $4,171, which represented 8% of the lineup’s total $50,000 salary.
The volatility at the wide receiver position provides us with an optimal position to fade some of the projected chalk. Chalk receivers always present themselves over the course of a given week and fading them can make or break your Milly Maker lineups. Chalk wide receivers can absolutely be on winning GPP rosters, but the hit rate for highly-owned wide receivers is incredibly low in terms of returning GPP value.
TE Ownership:
During the 17 weeks of the 2018 NFL season, the TE position was the third least contrarian position the winning Milly Make lineups rostered. With an average ownership of 14% and an average salary of $4,424, representing 9% of the total $50,000 salary.
DST Ownership:
It’s often thought that the position that is of the most contrarian and variant of the winning Milly Maker lineups is the defense, but the average ownership of the defense is in line with the WR1 position at 12% average ownership. The average amount of salary spent on the DST was $2,841, which enabled winning Milly Maker lineups to roster the tier 1 and 2 priced RB1 and tier 1 priced WR1 in the same lineup.
Flex Ownership:
During the 2018 NFL season, 65% of the winning Milly Maker lineups utilized a Running Back in the Flex position. The average ownership of the flex position in the winning Milly Maker lineups was 13% and the average amount of salary spent on the flex position was $5,359 or 11% of the $50,000 total salary.
Winning Lineups’ Remaining Salary
During the 2018 NFL season, the maximum amount of salary that was remaining was in week 17 at $600. 47% of the time the winning Milly Maker lineup utilized the full $50,000 salary. It’s not as vital to not utilize all of the $50,000 allotted salary as it may be for the Showdown slates or other sport slates, but the key is to leverage as much as you can when you roster players that optimize your lineups.
In conclusion, creating lineups that can win the Milly Maker requires much much more than just entering players that fit into the roster, it requires you to artfully craft the lineups that mold perfectly with the closing Vegas lines, correlational plays, ownership percentages, and predicative analysis. Play specific attention to your bankroll management, contest selection and lastly selecting players that make sense and tell a story within your respective lineups. With DFSArmy’s tools and coaching, utilize my Dossier article as a tool to guide in your artful lineup creations for your cash game lineups with high floor and the ceiling upside to help you leverage the field in the appropriate ways.