NFL DFS Trends in Millionaire Maker Lineups: How to Build on DraftKings

DraftKings became famous for running an NFL DFS tournament series where each week pays out $1 million to the first-place winner. The buy-in is typically $20 and the maximum number of entries is 150. Given how many people enter every week, neither you nor I will ever be winning this contest. However, there are a few changes to your lineups you can make to increase your odds of winning and, more importantly, increase the overall value of each roster you enter. Based on data from the past two years of winners, here are five tips to doing better in the DraftKings Fantasy Football Millionaire.

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Five Key Trends from Million Dollar DraftKings NFL DFS Lineups for Week 1

5. Don’t Spend Too Much at Quarterback

The average salary for a winning lineup’s quarterback was $6,000 and tight end came in at $4,400. Defense rested at an even $3,000.

draftkings millionaire

Note: The top backs and receivers likely average a few extra dollars but sometimes people play a more expensive player in the flex, slightly skewing the data. Look to pay even more for the premium players at those positions after factoring this in.

These positions are all ones that score similarly from a zoomed-out perspective. Outside of Lamar Jackson, and 2019 Patrick Mahomes, the scoring output by the highest-priced passer is likely to fall somewhere around that of the No. 15 passer. Jared Goff appeared on a winning lineup multiple times over the past two years, not because he’s great, but because he’s good enough to be great on a given week. So are Ryan Fitzpatrick, Mitchell Trubisky, and most other passers. Look for good scoring environments and don’t pay too much for a quarterback.

Only 23.5% of the winning tight ends have cost more than $5,000. In NFL DFS, most tight ends simply don’t have enough upside to pay top dollar for and the ones that do (Travis Kelce, George Kittle, and a few others) are priced fairly every week.

Defense is the least predictable position in fantasy football. Don’t waste money on it and don’t side with the DFS masses.

4. Color Inside the Lines at Running Back

Running back is the one position that requires little creativity. Both the first and second running back position saw the highest average ownership. This also includes the previous caveat that some people like to throw a wrench in the system and play Christian McCaffrey in the flex. Because of that, anticipated to get slightly blander with your top running backs and receivers.

draftkings millionaire

No position outside of running back averaged more than 14% ownership while both backs were above 19.5%. Running back touches are fairly easy to project making them an overall more predictable position. That means we know when the good games are coming and it’s easy to lock in the right plays. They also have access to higher ceilings with backs like Christian McCaffrey, Alvin Kamara, and Saquon Barkley getting running back and receiver levels of touches.

The best receivers average ten targets and are often catching only two-thirds of them over the course of the season. That makes the weekly projection for even alpha wideouts like DeAndre Hopkins fragile. Moving down to lesser plays increases the width of the range of outcomes. Let everyone else huddle around the same receivers and pivot to low-owned options in a similar range.

While paying up to a certain extent is a necessity based on how the position is priced, eating the chalk at the position is not. Pairing an unpopular passer with at least one of their receivers is a great way to get a different build that has leverage over the field. It also allows your lineup to be more common at running back.

3. Numbers to Know

Salary isn’t a place to get too weird in NFL DFS but leaving a few dollars on the table can help. More than half of all winning lineups came in below the max of $50,000 but only two winners dipped below $47,000. The sweet spot starts there and ends at $49,000, the most common salary for the lineups of millionaires.

Winning lineups had a total ownership of 116%. That’s an average of 12.9% per player. With running backs eating up a big amount of that ownership, receiver and flex end up doing a lot of the legwork in getting different. Over half of all winning teams used a third receiver that was under 5% ownership. Looking for run-backs on the opposite team or deep stacks forced winning lineups into unique builds.

2. Stacking Starts at QB

There has not been a single million-dollar NFL DFS lineup that featured a quarterback rostered without another player on his team. The most simple stack turned out to be the most common one. A QB/WR1/WR2 appeared in more games than any other style of stack. The receiver number (WR1, WR2, WR3) is based on the receiver’s cost within the individual roster and not their standing on their respective team. Other valuable stacks included QB/WR3 and QB/WR2/WR3, which were tied for the second-most common stacks among winning lineup. Less than a third of lineups featured a quarterback and running back from the same team. Tight ends were roughly as common in winning lineups as backs but the QB/WR2/TE combo did join the previous two stacks, tying for second.

Of all winning lineups, 63% featured multiple weapons attached to the same passer. Only three teams over the past two seasons have won with three weapons plus the passer. The optimal build features a quarterback, a WR2, and one other weapon.

1. Keep Stacking and When You’re Done Stacking Go Back and Stack Some More

On top of any lineup entered into the DraftKings Millionaire not featuring a stack being a wasted entry, a third of winners owned a second stack. Half of all secondary stacks included a defense but they weren’t always paired with a running back. Tight end and receiver pairings were fairly common. For NFL DFS purposes, defenses can hit their upside by being in games with a large number of plays. That is also an environment that offensive contributors want to be in so the combo makes more sense than most will give it credit for. Bring backs within the same game also frequented the winning lineup.

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Author

Kyle Dvorchak

If you like fantasy football and care about data, there's a 50/50 chance I've written for your favorite site. In a few short years I've covered, season-long, dynasty, best ball, and DFS for football. I used to be watching games and pretend to know what I was talking about but now I just spew numbers that forecast outcomes better than any scout. Come for the numbers, stay for the bad jokes and Zach Zenner references. RIP XFL.