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By Ben Martinez
Every week daily fantasy sports (DFS) players are aiming to create a near perfect lineup in order to take home the most money in their GPP (guaranteed prize pool) tournaments. The top entries will typically have a few representatives from this "perfect" lineup, and it's important to be mindful of what player combinations and correlated stacks are needed to win big from week to week. In this weekly recap article, we'll take a closer look at the previous week's perfect lineup and compare it to the winner of a large GPP DraftKings contest. We'll reflect on strategies and trends for our future lineups.
Winning Lineup
Taking a look at "ChevChelios" DraftKings 3.75M Fantasy Football Millionaire Lineup, we have a popular quarterback + wide receiver stack from a team full of chalky players the past two weeks, a set of teammates many expected to bounce back from being embarrassed on national television last week. A mini-stack with one player returning from injury and another returning to a million dollar lineup. A running back who in week four got the usage to show he was no longer part of a 50/50 committee and a defense going up against an offensive line that could be the worst in the NFL to date.
Boom Goes The Stack
We start with a stack of fireworks, the highest scoring stack of the week Josh Allen($8,200) and Gabe Davis($6,400) kicked off the early slate of games with an explosive 98 yard touchdown on the third play of the game against the Steelers. Davis was a contrarian pick this week due to the past two weeks playing on an injured ankle. At 7.5%, Davis had the lowest ownership percentage of the week on this winning roster. Gabe led all wide receivers in receiving yards with 171 but also led in total air yards with 104 on the day. At 12.1%, Josh Allen was the second highest owned quarterback on the week behind Tom Brady. Allen dominated the Steelers secondary, throwing for 424 yards, four touchdowns, despite being pulled out of the game early in the blowout win.
The Tampa Trio
Speaking of Brady, his 22% ownership made him the highest owned quarterback for week five. This lineup did not include Brady but did include three of Brady's teammates. Leonard Fournette($6,900), Cade Otton($2,500), and the highest owned player of the week Chris Godwin($5,900). Many contestants were grabbing as much stock in the Buccaneers offense as they could. At 27% ownership Godwin was not worth the chalk catching all six of his targets for 61 yards and only scoring 12.30 points. Mike Evans was the second highest owned player at $6,900 but scored .20 points less than Godwin. Comparing the two wideouts to teammate Cade Otton who scored 10.30 points and was only owned at 7.8% could have made for a better selection on his own to pair with the second highest scoring running back of the week Leonard Fournette. Fournette dominated the Falcons defense this week, leading the Buccaneers in carries with 14, rushing yards with 56, targets with 11, receptions with 10, receiving yards with 83, and one receiving and rushing touchdown, Tampa Bay put their faith into Fournette and he carried not only the Buccaneers to victory on Sunday but "ChevChelios" lineup to the promised land in week five.
Saint-Hawks Stack
With 71 total points scored between the Saints and the Seahawks, this million dollar lineup included two of the three highest scoring players from that contest. One of these two players was Alvin Kamara who missed two of the last three games with a rib injury suited up against a run friendly Seahawks defense. Kamara rushed a season high 23 times for 103 yards rushing. Kamara also led the Saints in receiving yards with 91 as both Jarvis Landry and Michael Thomas both inactive. Alvin also tied Chris Olave with a team high six receptions. The other half of this mini-stack was Tyler Lockett, who has become a bit chalky due to some big games as of late. Catching five passes for 104 yards, Lockett also caught two touchdowns and was third in air yards for week five and now leads the NFL in total air yards on the season with a total of 360 yards. Kamara's 27.40 combined with Lockett's 30.40 made this mini-stack the highest scoring duo of the week.
The Final Two Pieces
The final two players of this Millionaire making roster includes Breece Hall($5,400) and the Cowboys($2,500) defense. "ChevChelios" must have dove deep into his research for adding Breece Hall to his lineup. Last week Hall broke away from the 50/50 split with Michael Carter. Against the Steelers week four, Hall had eight more rushing attempts than Carter, out targeted Carter six to three, and out snapped Carter 46 to 31. The writing was on the wall and only 9.6% of the contestants noticed it. Despite Carter vulturing two touchdowns from Hall, Breece owned the backfield rushing for 97 yards on 18 attempts and catching two passes for 100 yards. Anyone who watched last week's Monday Night Football game, watched the 49ers defensive line penetrate the Rams offensive line who couldn't protect their quarterback and can't open holes for their running backs. Dallas at the seventh lowest cost was an easy choice to make and if you checked out our NFL Betting/Prop Cheat Sheet you could see the huge advantage Dallas pass rush had against the Rams which we ranked the biggest mismatch of the week. Scoring 10 points each of the past two weeks, the Cowboys defensive line beat the Rams offensive line at every turn. Five sacks, one fumble returned for a touchdown, and an interception helped the Cowboys run up the highest score of the week with 21 points.
This week's perfect lineup includes four of the nine players from this week's winning lineup. A very contrarian lineup compared to most weeks, only two players can really be called chalky.
The Perfect Mini-Stack
This week's perfect mini stack comes from the second highest scoring game of the week. The Chargers and Browns combined for 58 points. With no Kelce and no Andrews to choose from this week, we had only one tight-end catch a touchdown in this week's main slate of games. David Njoku($3,800) 14.80 points was nothing impressive, but Njoku was the second highest scoring tight-end this week leading all Brown receivers with 88 yards receiving. Austin Ekeler($7,800) finds himself in the perfect lineup again for the second straight week. Take a look at last week's article here if you would like to read more. Scoring the second highest points total overall with 38.90, Ekeler dominated with over 173 yards rushing and scoring two touchdowns with five of his 16 carries going for over 10-plus yards.
Why Perfection is Hard
These three contrarian players Justin Jefferson($8,900), Taysom Hill($4,900), and Dyami Brown($3,000) stacked up the points. Taysom Hill isn't even a starting quarterback and can't be used as a tight-end in DFS like season long fantasy but outscored every single quarterback but Josh Allen. Hill was responsible for scoring four total touchdowns, three rushing and one passing and was only owned by .06% of contestants, Dyami Brown hasn't been the player most Commanders fans had hoped. Being insulted by Amon-Ra St. Brown, who Brown was picked ahead of in the 2021 draft, after week two's contest between Washington and Detroit sure didn't help influence people to add Dyami to their lineups. With two receptions, both touchdowns for 105 yards Brown helped .3% of the contestants that picked him. Like Jamal Agnew last week Brown is likely a fluke play as Dyami only played 20 snaps this week making him fourth on the depth chart behind McLaurin, Samuel, and Sims. Plus with Dotson missing this week's game Brown will likely become irrelevant again once Dotson returns. After a few let down games this season and what could be perceived as a negative game script for Justin Jefferson against an awful Bears team, many people didn't want to add him to their lineup due to cost and the chance he could not be counted on to play late in the game if this was a blowout due to the spread being 8.5, one of the highest of the week. Jefferson was electric, catching all 12 of his catchable targets for 154 yards, 63 of these yards came after the catch, despite not scoring a touchdown, Jefferson was still the second highest scoring wide receiver of the week. At 5.7% owned it's hard to call one of the best wide receivers in the game today a contrarian pick but for week five he sure was.
