The dynamic game of Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) requires much more than simply knowing the sport for which we’re entering contests to be successful. We must be adaptable, precise, and open to learning from previous endeavors, the latter of which will be the primary focus of this weekly written piece. Game Theoretic methodologies will allow us to analyze and dissect the previous week’s winner of the largest and most prestigious Guaranteed Prize Pool (GPP) tournament on DraftKings – the Millionaire Maker. These same tenets of Game Theory, which can most simply be explained as the development of decision-making processes given our own skill and knowledge, assumptions of the field based on the cumulative skill and knowledge of others playing the same game, and the rules and structure of the game itself, will allow us to further train our minds to see beyond the antiquated techniques of roster building being employed by a large portion of the field. Approaching improvement through these methods will give us insight into the anatomy of successful rosters and will help us develop repeatably profitable habit patterns for the coming weeks. We’ll start by looking at the previous week’s winning roster, extract any pertinent lessons for future utilization, and finish with a look ahead towards the coming main slate.
Winning Roster
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Lessons Learned
Near Optimal Shipped
DraftKings user chindog619 came closer to the optimal roster than we’ve seen this season, putting together a near perfect combination of players and salary to maximize scoring. Slates like Week 9 tend to reinforce poor habits as they skew our perception of what it takes to win these tournaments, notably introducing a recency bias towards accepting too much variance. This game we play is more about how we manage and manipulate variance than it is about picking the nine players that fully maximize points versus salary. I’ll repeat something we’ve talked about previously in this article series: there has never been an optimal roster win any tournament in the 15 years of DFS existence.
Two Players Highlighted Last Week Were Present on the Winner
Last week, we spent some time in this column to highlight players that were underpriced relative to their role and matchup, with both Courtland Sutton and De’Von Achane garnering out attention in this piece. If we take the same process to backwards engineer the plays present on chindog619’s roster, we seem similar production profiles present in almost every spot on the roster. Jaxon Smith-Njigba was playing in a game without DK Metcalf, Mike Gesicki has a deeper aDOT and more production than Ja’Marr Chase with Tee Higgins off the field this season (now a four-game sample), and Quentin Johnston returned to an active roster coming off their two highest pass rate over expectation games this season. All five of those players were simply priced too low for their expected role and production profile.
Looking Ahead
Game Totals Are Down and Pricing Remains Tight
We were gifted numerous value plays that were too cheap for expected role and game environment last week, which combined with the elevated median game total to force a situation where increased scoring was likely to be required to win major tournaments. That transpired on the Week 9 main slate, with the highest score of the season shipping the Milly Maker on DraftKings at a robust 262.10 points. That said, Week 10 presents a far different puzzle in that pricing remains tight, there are fewer value options available, and median game totals are down, which is likely to aggressively shift the score needed to win tournaments back towards 190-195 points after Week 9’s offensive eruption. This is an important exercise as it should fundamentally alter the way we’re approaching roster construction. The disclaimer there is that value could open up throughout the week, similar to what we saw transpire in Week 9. But as things currently stand, we aren’t likely to require the same level of offensive output to win major tournaments on the coming main slate.
25+ DK Scores Are Going to be Hard to Come By
The byproduct of reduced game totals and fewer offensive environments ripe for fantasy goodness is that elite fantasy scores are likely going to be harder to come by in Week 10. That heightens the importance of players that have that level of production within their range of outcomes. To simplify things and based on the setup of some of the games on the slate, we can be fairly confident that one of these (or multiple of these) scores comes from the Eagles and 49ers, meaning the skill position players on those offenses should garner additional attention on this slate.
Players Too Cheap for Expected Roles
Jalen Tolbert should serve as the primary wide receiver for the Cowboys, a team set to play without quarterback Dak Prescott and likely without alpha wide receiver CeeDee Lamb.
Najee Harris has gone over 100 yards on the ground in three consecutive games and gets a Commanders defense allowing the third most yards before contact per attempt (2.67).
Baker Mayfield has returned a 4x salary multiplier on his Week 10 salary on DraftKings in five of nine appearances this season.
Cade Otton has seen recent target totals of 10, 10, and 11 in the three games played without Mike Evans. With Chris Godwin done for the season, Otton is set up well to see another game with elite volume against the 49ers.
Mason Tipton saw a season-high nine targets the last time the Saints were without both Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed. Olave took a massive hit in the team’s Week 9 loss to the Panthers and is in the league’s concussion protocol after being treated at the hospital.
