Welcome back to the Shark Chronicles! This week’s chronicles delves into the winning Milly Maker lineups for the first nine weeks of the NFL season. The chronicles deconstructs weekly winning DraftKings Milly Maker lineups of the NFL 2019 season. Over the course of the NFL season this article builds off of the “Dossier on How to Win the DraftKings Milly Maker” I wrote and published prior to week one of the 2019 NFL season. You may access the VIP article here. Deconstructing lineups that win massive tournaments such as the Milly Maker is not easy because we have to get into the mindset of the winning entrant and understand why the entrant utilized players in the lineup they used. The Shark Chronicles details that your dreams can become reality with the right tools, lineup construction methodologies, hard work, and gumption!
During week 11, Shark Chronicles author placed 8th in the DraftKings Milly Maker. This was the second time this NFL season the author placed in the top 8 of the Milly Maker.
Little Bit about DFSArmy
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Synopsis of Shark Chronicles
Lineup deconstruction is vital to a DFS player’s success and it’s why DFS provider sites have staff members looking at winning lineups for the massive top heavy contests like the Milly Maker. As the author of the Shark Chronicles, I try to break the code of winning these massive GPP contests and help my readers do the same.
The Chronicles is different from the other DFS site’s lineup breakdown articles that you have access to online. The Shark Autopsy Report dives deeper than those other lineup deconstruction articles showcasing: the top ten winning lineups (position-by-position), the number of lineups the top 10 DFS 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 the top 10 lineups to determine if there’s salary correlation amongst the top ten lineups, to help better predict winning lineup construction in future weeks.
What We Learned from the First 11 Weeks of Milly Maker Contests
Prior to week 10 of this NFL season, I wrote about what conclusions can be drawn from the first 9 weeks of the NFL season. These aspects are very important moving forward with weeks 12 through 17 and into the playoffs, and consequently I will keep that information here for you read again and again. I have updated the data through the 11 weeks of the season.
Over the course of the first eleven weeks of the NFL season, the winning Milly Maker lineups’ roster construction showcased that the average ownership percentage for QBs was 7.72%. Of that average ownership percentage, 27.3% of the time the field owned the QB in the winning lineup in excess of 13%. The other 72.7% of the time, the average field ownership was 4.92% with no one QB in those weeks exceeding 11.63%.
There was only 1 QB in the first 11 weeks that was rostered by more than one winning Milly Maker lineup.
Over the first eleven weeks of the season, the winning lineups rostered an RB in the flex 54.5% of the time, thereby there were 26 occurrences the RB was used in the first eleven Milly Maker winning lineups. Of the 26 occurrences, 46.2% of the time the RBs field ownership percentage exceeded 20%. 34.6% of the first eleven weeks, a RB rostered by the winning Milly Maker lineup did not exceed 10% field ownership.
The most utilized RB in the winning Milly Maker lineups over the course of the first eleven weeks was Christian McCaffrey at 45.4% of the time.
The winning Milly Maker lineups utilized the WR in the flex 45.5% of the time, thereby there were 38 occurrences the WR was used in the first eleven Milly Maker winning lineups. Of the 38 occurrences, 13.2% of the time the winning lineup rostered a WR that had field ownership in excess of 20%. 52.6% of the time, the winning lineup rostered a WR that had field ownership of less than 10%.
Mike Evans and John Brown were the most utilized WRs in winning Milly Maker lineups over the first eleven weeks of the season at 27.3%. Stefon Diggs and Chris Godwin have been utilized in 18.2% of the winning Milly Maker lineups.
On two separate weeks, the winning Milly Maker lineup rostered a TE that had field ownership in excess of 20%. 54.5% of the time the winning lineup rostered a TE with field ownership of less than 10%.
No winning Milly Maker lineup rostered a TE in the FLEX position during the first eleven weeks of the NFL season. Based upon historical evidence, it’s advisable when constructing your Milly Maker lineups to not roster a TE in the flex position.
The winning Milly Maker lineups rostered a defense whose salary was $3,700 or greater 54.5% of the time. Of this percentage, a defense was rostered with a salary of $4,300 50% of the time. The Patriots defense was utilized the most at 27.3% of the first eleven weeks, but the Patriots had an easy schedule over the first half of the season and their second half of the season will be much more difficult for the Patriots defense to meet value. Since week eight, the Patriots have not been rostered by the winning Milly Maker lineup. Looking back at the first eleven Milly Maker lineups’ defenses, rostering the chalkier defenses helped those lineups win and we can glean ideologies from the first half to utilize in the second half of the season and know that matchups matter.
For the closing Vegas lines for the first nine weeks of the season for those QBs, RBs, WRs, TEs and DSTs that were utilized in the winning Milly Maker lineups can be found here.
It can’t be stressed enough, you need to add lineup deconstruction of winning lineups in the tournaments you enter to your process as a DFS player and revisit the prior week’s winning lineups. Additionally, you should be looking at your own lineups to determine WHY certain plays in your lineups went off and WHY other plays did not. This will ultimately make you a better player, but it will help you determine trends you may not have otherwise noticed if you were not reviewing over past week’s lineups.
If you want the most comprehensive breakdown of how closing Vegas lines predictively determines future results, read my “Dossier on How to Win the DraftKings Milly Maker” in conjunction with each week’s Chronicles article.
Author Does it AGAIN, earns 3rd Top 8 Milly Maker Finish!!!
Reviewing my lineups and my opponent’s lineups weekly after each slate concludes, I get to see my successes and failures in my roster construction and make adjustments for the upcoming week(s) ahead. I construct my lineups using my hand crafted lineups and the DFSArmy’s optimizer. My 8th place week 11 Milly Maker lineup came together with going ALL IN on a few plays on the week. My ALL IN plays were Christian McCaffrey, rostering CMC in over 50% of my lineups, Josh Jacobs, rostered in over 65% of my lineups, Calvin Ridley rostered in over 40% of my lineups (hello Bradberry effect), and Miles Sanders rostered in over 55% of my lineups (YES, I nearly full-faded Brian Hill).
My 8th place lineup came together utilizing a very low owned stack of Josh Allen and John Brown at 9.65% total field ownership, and no I did not run it back with Devante Parker. Why not run it back? I was so much on Calvin Ridley, Jacobs, CMC, and Sanders that it did not afford me the ability to pay up from Deebo Samuel to Parker when I utilized New Orleans Saints as my defense. But in hindsight of the lineup craft, I wouldn’t change any one WR for Parker.
Let’s look at the closing Vegas lines for my 8th place lineup, and how did I get onto Josh Allen (Go back and listen to week 11 Wolfpack podcast that I was the guest analyst for my analysis). I always start my roster construction with the Vegas lines and watch them over the course of that week. Why? Because Vegas lines are the truest determinant of fantasy production. What do you notice from the closing Vegas lines with respect to utilizing Josh Allen in my lineup? Look at the spread, on 3 separate occasions for the first eleven weeks of the season, the winning QB was rostered from a game that had a spread of -7, coincidence, well I don’t believe in coincidences. But that was a starting point, then came my research, and in my research I determined that Miami defense was in the bottom third of the league against the QB position, as well as the WR position. Miami’s secondary defense is ranked last in the league against the left side of the field and ranked in the bottom third of the league against deep passes. Thus, it was easy stacking Allen with John Sheriff Brown. The rest of the lineup came together by my ALL IN calls with McCaffrey, Ridley, Jacobs, and Sanders. Touching on my TE selection, Irv Smith Jr., he had 6 targets in week 10 and 11, and for TEs we love steady volume. Through my research of winning Milly Maker lineups, I target TEs that are favored to win and favored to win with a spread in excess of -6. Rostering the Saints as my defense against Jameis “I love to turn the ball over” Winston at 6.31% was perfect getting a lower owned defense off of the higher owned Vikings defense.
Closing Vegas Lines for Author’s 8th Place Finishing Milly Maker Lineup
Closing Vegas Lines for QBs in Winning Milly Maker Lineups
Stacking is the Most Advantageous Strategy
To make serious gains on your competitors and move up the leader boards, you must learn how to construct lineups utilizing an artful stacking process! This doesn’t mean that you stack every game on the slate, but to choose those games you have researched and believe may go off on that given slate. Do we need to go crazy with our stacking combinations with game stacks and multiple stacks within one lineup (what I refer to as Stacks of High Society) on most slates? Maybe, but maybe not.
Stacking proves once again held true in the winning Milly Maker lineups over the course of the first nine weeks of the NFL season. Of the eleven weeks of NFL season, 54.5% of the weeks a game stack was used.
My 8th place lineup utilized a singular QB/WR stack, but I utilized a secondary stack in the lineup with Christian McCaffrey and Calvin Ridley who played in the same game.
Game Theory
Game theory is the analysis of strategies for dealing with competitive situations where the outcome of a participant’s choice of action depends critically on the actions of other participants.
What wins the Milly Maker when a player explodes the prior week? FADE THAT PLAYER! Then when that player duds and entrants get off of them the following week of a dud, top DFS players attack and load up on them after a dud week.
As DFS players we are strategists, but what separates the top DFS strategists from the pack is the development of risk diversification and strategy thinking.
At DFS Army we are the best DFS content provider in the industry for a reason, we have amazing coaches, content, and tools for you to build lineups, but that is just your starting point.
To become a master strategist, you have to be open to doing research that exceeds that of the content provided to you and more than anything else, you have to take calculated risks (risk diversification) to create artfully crafted lineups that will win top heavy GPPS! There’s simply no other way around it. In the Milly you need to think differently and fade crowd think!!!
When crafting your GPP lineups and determining the stacks you want to utilize, look at the types of defenses the QB and offensive weapons are going against, and determine what spots are most advantageous.
Time and time again a slate will not play out as the DFS pundits believe it to play out! It’s advisable to utilize the information from the pundits and mold that information with your research for solid lineup construction.
Fortune Favors the Bold
Calculated risks are what win GPPs and they may be bold to the pundits who weren’t on them originally, but if you believe in your research and can substantiate the bold play based upon your research, then is it really a bold play? Maybe it is the most logical play that is the diamond in the rough!
Tools to Utilize Weekly
I utilize every tool available to me from the DFSArmy’s vault of successful tools and coaches. I develop my own player projections and system that I utilize in the construction of my cash and GPP lineups. In addition to my proprietary NFL GPP model, I mainly utilize the following two DFSArmy tools I utilize the most in my thought processes and research of each slate is the FFootballGeek’s NFL Weekly Geeks Picks and the coaches notes. The other tools I utilize are the WR vs. CB breakdown chart (by the way, I develop this tool on a weekly basis), DFSArmy’s Research Station, FFootballGeek’s Early Look Vegas Lines Podcast, the Wolfpack podcast and the Player’s Club Podcast.
To My Weekly Readers
I want to thank my weekly readers for reading the Shark Autopsy Report Chronicles this NFL season, it means a great deal to me and the DFSArmy!
As the chronicles article matures over the course of the NFL 2019 season and more data is captured, the article with evolve into a dynamic tool that you should utilize as part of your research arsenal to make you a better DFS player.
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.
About the Author
Adam Burns, aka AdrocksBucksWinItAll on DraftKings, got his start in DFS during the 2011-2012 NFL season following FFootballgeek’s NFL blog post and has been a part of DFS Army since that time. Burns has taken the DraftKings Milly Maker contest by storm, placing in the top 10 of the Milly Maker three times since week 17 of the 2018 NFL season. He has been writing the Shark Autopsy Report lineup deconstruction article since its inception during the 2017 NFL season chronicling winning Milly Maker lineups. He has subsequently been featured on the Off the Chalk podcast and other DFS Army podcasts. Burns is a 2 time DraftKings King of the Beach qualifier, and has numerous GPP wins and top 10 winnings in MLB, MMA, NBA and NFL.