The Milly Maker is a large Field GPP where the top prize pays out $1,000,000. Read the winning trends that we’ve found by reviewing years of winning lineups!
Sep 10, 2023; Inglewood, California, USA; Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) catches a 4-yard touchdown pass against Los Angeles Chargers cornerback Michael Davis (43) in the fourth quarter at SoFi Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
The first Sunday of the NFL Season brought back the infamous $5 Milly Maker on Draft Kings and with it came over 1.1 million entries into the contest. Winning a contest of this size is a tall order but that’s exactly the one that DFS Army subscriber RapidfireXD won to start off the 2022 season, so attacking a contest of this size was something we’ve experienced before; Geek’s Domination Station back testing streams with Burns led us down the right path as a QB + 1 pass catcher is what took it down. If you watched the games on Sunday, you probably have a pretty good idea of who that QB and WR were but let’s take a look at the entire construction that won $1,000,000 on Draft Kings.
| Week 1 | Points |
| Tua Tagovailoa | 32.14 |
| Austin Ekeler | 29.4 |
| Kenneth Walker | 10.7 |
| Kendrick Bourne | 24.4 |
| Calvin Ridley | 27.1 |
| Brandon Aiyuk | 35.9 |
| Hayden Hurst | 15.1 |
| Tyreek Hill | 47.5 |
| Washington DST | 11 |
| Total | 233.24 |
Stacking
Just like week 1 of 2022, when DFS Army VIP ‘RapidFireXD’ won the Milly Maker, we didn’t have a QB +2 Stack take down the Milly Maker. My theory is when the contest is so massive as it is week 1 when there are over 1.1 million entries, there are so many player combinations that QB + 2 just isn’t optimal. Unless you do see a game go for 70+ points and the offense isn’t so focused on one player like it was with Tyreek Hill on Sunday. QB + 2 and QB + 1 were pretty split in 2022 winning Milly Maker Builds and this Stack was a skinny Tua + Hill with Ekeler as the bring back.
Game Stacks: Tua Tagovailoa 32.14 FPTS + Tyreek Hill 47.5 FPTS + Austin Ekeler 29.4 FPTS
Total Stacking Points: 109.04 FPTS
Total Stacking Ownership: 44.47%
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$1,000,000 Milly Maker Ownership
| Week 1 | Ownership |
| Tua Tagovailoa | 5.76% |
| Austin Ekeler | 15.08% |
| Kenneth Walker | 9.73% |
| Kendrick Bourne | 2.19% |
| Calvin Ridley | 16.87% |
| Brandon Aiyuk | 5.74% |
| Hayden Hurst | 3.66% |
| Tyreek Hill | 23.63% |
| Washington DST | 35.52% |
| Total | 118.18% |
At first glance, I was surprised to see Tyreek Hill with 23% ownership and Tua with only 5%, but then I realized that this was a game stacking environment for a lot of people and Herbert was the primary stacking QB in this game with about 13% ownership, so Hill was the most popular bring back option in Herbert stacks. Furthermore, Hill was an elite play in all formats so he’s the kind of Wide Receiver that can be used as a one off in lineups and in game stacks with Ekeler, for example, for those looking to get a piece of this game.
Overall this lineup is right in line with what we see from most Milly Maker builds at under 130% total ownership – steamed up by a 35% chalk Washington DST. Despite being outscored by 5 DST’s, the Washington DST was in the winning build because 385,000 of the 1.1 million entries had this DST in their build, and for no other reason. Wildly enough, the other DST in that game was the one that had the highest score on the slate despite only 2% of the field playing them.
Top Leverage Plays
Tua Tagovailoa at 5%
I touched a bit on this earlier, but Tua was direct leverage off of Herbert in this game who got twice the ownership and scored 12 less points.
Kendrick Bourne at 2%
There’s hard to see a scenario where Bourne was a great play, but he did end up being a top leverage play since he went off at 2% ownership. This is just randomness of the DFS game.
Brandon Aiyuk at 5%
Aiyuk was one of the hot names in the offseason for best ball and redraft and he showed why in week 1 as he caught all 8 targets for 129 yards and 2 touchdowns. He was far and away also the best value on the slate as he 7X’d his salary.
Hayden Hurst at 3%
This was an abysmal week for Tight Ends with the Likely Fiasco at 17% ownership and Hurst capitalized at 3% ownership to be the top Tight End value on the slate.
Pricing and Value from the Milly Maker Contest
| Week 1 | Pricing | FPTS per Dollar |
| Tua Tagovailoa | $6,700 | 4.79 |
| Austin Ekeler | $8,400 | 3.5 |
| Kenneth Walker | $6,000 | 1.78 |
| Kendrick Bourne | $3,300 | 7.39 |
| Calvin Ridley | $6,500 | 4.16 |
| Brandon Aiyuk | $4,900 | 7.32 |
| Hayden Hurst | $3,000 | 5 |
| Tyreek Hill | $8,200 | 5.79 |
| Washington DST | $2,800 | 3.92 |
| Total | $49,800 | 4.85X |
This lineup really hit it out of the park with 2 players that got 7X their salary in Kendrick Bourne and Brandon Aiyuk. Normally I’d say that this is exactly how you’re able to afford 2 players of Ekeler and Hill’s salary, and it is, but Hill more than shouldered the load with his 47 points that almost 6X’d his salary of $8200. The entire lineup would’ve easily hit over 5X if it hadn’t been for 1.78X from Kenneth Walker. This was also likely one of the few times a season that the entire $50,000 salary wasn’t spent.
Ceiling
By Milly Maker winning terms, this was a somewhat low scoring week as the average winning score last year was about 240 points. What’s crazy is the winner was far ahead of the field with second place only scoring 222 points- a bit puzzling for a field of 1.1 million entries. However, we saw a lot of sloppy football yesterday so this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Had the Miami/Los Angeles game not hit over 60 points, the winning score would’ve likely been a lot lower.
Since 2020, we’ve seen an average winning Milly Make score of 238 points, which averages out to about 26.4 points per roster spot. Some weeks 230 will be enough to win it and some weeks 265 won’t cut it. This week 233 was more than enough.
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