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Above The Field :: Week 1

Each week this NFL season, top MME player // Milly Maker winner SonicLibrarian will help you orient your GPP mind in Above The Field.

Week 1 :: Winning The $5 Milly Maker On DraftKings!


Embracing Chaos

If you’ve been a living person on planet Earth for the past 5 months, you’ve dealt with your share of chaos. Well…Congrats! You’ve attained a skill that will be crucial to your survival on these GPP streets. The mere fact that you’ve navigated the pandemic and remained sane enough to read this article makes you a better tournament player than you were last year. Yay!

For me, EMBRACE THE CHAOS means: To ACCEPT the uncertainty of life and move forward anyway! Take action despite not knowing how things will turn out.

– Some weirdo on the Internet

In Week 1 of the NFL season, Draft Kings is hosting a $5 Millionaire Maker tournament with almost 1.2 million entries. We’re going to see things in this tournament that no one has ever seen. Probably the most ridiculous tournament in DFS history. An epic donk-fest. A colossal shit-show.

I CAN’T WAIT!!!!!!!!

To me, this is what it’s all about. A 150 Entry tournament with life-changing prize money up-top and a risk of only 25% of what we usually spend. Sign me the hell UP!!!

This is as chaotic as tournament DFS gets. We’re probably going to lose money on this, so let’s go down swinging. Let’s accept that possibility and move forward with courage. Let’s give ourselves a real chance to take this thing down.

So now comes the difficult question. How on earth do we create a lineup that will beat a gazillion other ones?

Honestly, I have no idea…and neither do you. We’re completely clueless.

Isn’t that awesome? I mean, what a liberating feeling!

We may be in the dark somewhat, but there is some historical data from which we can draw some conclusions… and some inspiration.

There are 2 things we know.

1. We need to hit the nuts at damn-near every position. With a tournament this size, it’s actually possible that the winning lineup may be the optimal. It may take perfection to take down first place. If a bunch of chalk hits, then there will be a bunch of winners chopping the $1,000,000. We don’t want that. We’re bringing the Ricky Bobby mentality to this thing.

2. We must find some micro-owned players with massive upside. Easy game, right?

Look…is it possible that the winner of this thing will have reasonable ownership and only one player below 5%? Sure…But let’s try to maximize our chances by digging up Week 1’s “face-palm” plays.

I reviewed my own 2019 week 1 play in my Tournament Mastermind Course (available now at an OWS Marketplace near you. DING!), but let’s look at last year’s opening week again through a “could history repeat itself” lens.

Before we go any further, let’s just stop and admire these lines above. (*inspiring orchestral music plays) I mean, plays like this are EXACTLY what we need to win this thing. Look at that beautiful sub-1% ownership, and those super-cheap salaries. Now close your eyes; focus for a second, and set an intention for yourself. Tell your body and mind to use every available resource to FIND THESE PLAYS.

The clues were there last year, especially on McLaurin. The D.C. beat writers had been trumpeting his praises all summer. Many of us even took him in the 3rd round of our rookie dynasty drafts and/or spent a late Best Ball pick on him (JM, in fact, was talking up his 20+% McLaurin ownership in Best Ball leading up to Week 1). Yet, we decided to play it safe and avoid the Washington offense all-together. After all, he was on a poor offense, on the road, with an underwhelming, journeyman QB in Case Keenum and an implied team total of just 19 points.

I wasn’t afraid to play a piece of that offense, though. I finished 29th in the Milly with a lineup that included…wait for it…Trey Quinn.

–INSERT SAD TROMBONE HERE-

The additional 13.2 points from McLaurin would have given me 278.1, good for 3rd place in the Milly. A small difference of $96,500.

Moral of the Story: If pricing is similar, play the guy with playmaking upside, not the little slot guy with an ADOT (Average Depth of Target) of 5.1.

Who is this year’s Terry McLaurin? Healthy, young, with a Veteran QB? Maybe a playmaking rookie or unproven 2nd year guy?

DIG HIM UP!

The Marquise Brown explosion was a bit harder to predict. He had surgery before the combine to repair a Lisfranc injury. “Speedy receiver with foot problems that kept him limited throughout training camp” isn’t usually a recipe for success. Then Mr. Brown enters his first NFL game and catches 4 balls for 147 yards and 2 TDs…AND HE ONLY PLAYED FOURTEEN SNAPS!

That’s among the greatest anomalies in NFL history, so it’ll be tough to predict this year’s Hollywood Brown…. But can you think of a rookie (or otherwise under the radar) receiver with insane speed that has been dealing with injuries and therefore will be sub 5% owned?

These are the questions we ask ourselves in our quest to shock the world and take down the Millionaire Maker. We must turn over all the rocks and find that athletic freak, that stud who’s been just waiting for his chance to shine. He knows he has it in him to beat these NFL CBs. His teammates know it, too. They’ve seen him do it in camp. We have to find this powder keg that is just waiting to explode. We must embrace the chaos and play him before he becomes a household name!

Or we could just roster Trey Quinn. He’s now on the Jaguars practice squad, and he’s only $3800 this week.

OWS Collective Bonus ::

OWS Fam :: Who are you seeing this week that might be one of the key pieces in the $5 Milly? (And why?) Drop your thoughts below and grab some extra Upvotes. And remember :: we’re hunting for first place!!! Who’s putting up a high enough score to help us get there?