NFL Strategy Breakdown - DraftKings Week 10 Main Slate Milly Maker

Summary

Justin Fields went off again, and a naked Fields lineup took down the top spot and the $1M prize. Low-owned wide receivers popped off, with 7 of the top 10 scorers coming in at under 5% ownership. Let's break down how the strategies used in the week 10 DraftKings NFL millionaire maker performed.

190,311 entries were submitted. The contest has an expected value of ($3.00) per lineup, with 22.20% of lineups cashing.

Winning Lineup

A naked QB lineup made some serious cash for the first time since I started tracking these milly maker contests in week 5. Although it wasn't optimal, funkymonk1369 played a naked Justin Fields lineup that scored 238.38 points, placing first and earning the $1M prize.

It's difficult to break down what funkymonk1369's strategy may have been while putting together this lineup. funkymonk's chalk hit and the dart throw of Christian Watson paid off huge.

The lineup did not have 2 players from the same team, but did have a number of players from the same game. These games ended up having some of the highest point totals on the slate:

• CHI QB Justin Fields vs DET WR Amon-Ra St. Brown
• DAL RB Tony Pollard vs GB WR Christian Watson
• JAX WR Christian Kirk vs KC TE Travis Kelce

Player Pool

Quarterbacks

Justin Fields came in at almost 30% ownership and crushed it again, scoring 43 points. Fields got a serious price bump in the upcoming week 11 slate, jumping from $6500 to $7600. We'll see if his ownership drops in week 11, or if people try to keep riding the Fields gravy train.

Colts QB Matt Ryan was a surprise start on Sunday, with interim coach Jeff Saturday making the call to go back to Ryan and sit Sam Ehlinger. Ryan had a good day and had the 2nd-best QB value at 4.5x, with just 0.1% ownership.

Running Backs

Running backs did not have a great week, with the top backs having less value than other offensive positions.

Travis Etienne Jr. was the most-owned RB of the slate at 27.7% but underperformed, scoring just 10.3 points. Saquon Barkley and Tony Pollard were the running back chalk worth playing, both coming in around 25% ownership and hitting 3x value.

Wide Receivers

Wide receivers had a great day on Sunday, but the field could have done better playing the receivers that popped off. Packers rookie Christian Watson was the best value play of the slate, hitting 9.65x value on his $3700 salary.

Close behind was Titans WR Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, who put up 31.9 points on his $3500 salary. He was started in just 0.1% of lineups, because, well, Titans not named Derrick Henry haven't had many fantasy-worthy performances on the year. Adding the fact that the Broncos had allowed the fewest points to wide receivers this season, it isn't surprising that nobody was on the Westbrook-Ikhine wagon this week.

Tight Ends

Bears tight end Cole Kmet had his second great game in a row. He scored 23.4 points on just 4 receptions, two of which were touchdowns. Stacking Kmet with QB Justin Fields would have improved the winning lineup for the week, with Kmet outscoring Kelce by 3.3 points while saving $4,400 in salary. Kmet's price increased by $700 to $4,100 for next week, so I anticipate the Fields + Kmet ownership coming down slightly.

Defense

The Vikings were the highest-scoring defense of the week and the cheapest at just $2,200. The Vikings capitalized on Josh Allen's turnovers, especially a fumble in the end-zone that the Vikings recovered for a touchdown.

Flexed Positions

Entrants tried to find value at tight end this week, with 29% of lineups flexing a tight end. That's a 12% increase from the number of lineups that flexed a tight end last week. However, picking two tight ends that have great games continues to be difficult, and tight ends were the worst-performing flex of the contest.

44% of lineups flexed a wide receiver, with those lineups earning an average of $5.44 per entry.

Stacking Strategies

Stacks

I started tracking millionaire maker data in week 5, and this was the first week that naked quarterback lineups were the best-performing of the slate. 16,939 lineups played Fields naked. Although stacking Bears quarterback Justin Fields with tight end Cole Kmet would have performed better, naked Fields lineups earned an average of $63 per entry.

Game Stacking

Large game stacks underperformed again this week, with most lineups starting 4+ players from the same game losing more than $10 per entry.

Salary Utilization

• 51.42% of lineups used all $50,000 in salary
• 97.29% of lineups used at least $49,500 of salary.
• The winning lineup used all $50,000 of salary.
• The top 20 lineups used between $49,100 and $50,000 of salary.

Entry Ownership

There continues to be a positive correlation between total player ownership and lineup cash rate, just like we saw in week 9, so it's fair to say that the chalk keeps hitting. The winning lineup was pretty chalky, coming in at 148% total ownership.

Players who Made or Broke the Bank

Christian Kirk leads the players making bank this week, earning $1.6M for entrants who started him. Justin Fields made someone a millionaire again, and has rewarded those who drafted him with $3.55 million over the past two weeks.

Packers rookie Christian Watson comes in third, earning $1.55M total and an average of $337 per lineup.

People continue to hope that the Broncos offense comes back to life, and it just isn't happening. Greg Dulcich was the most-owned tight end of the slate, but Russ wasn't cooking, and Dulcich cost entrants $$727K.

JuJu Smith-Schuster was the highest-owned wide receiver of the contest. He should have been in a smash spot but took a big hit, leaving the game early and landing in the concussion protocol. That hit lost JuJu starters $638K.

After a few weeks of topping the list of players who made bank, the Dolphins passing game finally came back down to earth. Tua, Tyreek, and Waddle starters collectively lost $1.55 million in the slate.