Above The Field ????️ Week 11
Each week this NFL season, top MME player // Milly Maker winner SonicLibrarian will help you orient your GPP mind in Above The Field. And If you haven’t checked out his Marketplace Course “DFS Tournament Mastermind Training” the first 4 Lessons are Free.
Week 11 :: The Mona Lisa of Binkage
Sometime in the early 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci was toiling over his latest passion project. Some accounts indicate that he never declared the Mona Lisa complete until some 14 years after its inception. I’m not sure how long it took timothe1967 to construct his winning lineup in Week 10’s Play-Action on Draft Kings but it is an equally exquisite work of art.
This lineup embodies everything we, as GPP players, strive for. Notice the sublime 4-man contrarian stack with Ben Roethlisberger, 2 of his pass catchers and a bring-back from the opponent. Bask in the resplendent use of multi-layered correlation. A total of 3 elegantly infused correlations, including 2 secondary stacks.
First, a classic RB/Defense stack with touchdown regression-realizer Alvin Kamara and the Saints D as it teed off against a backup quarterback. Kamara was a gorgeous play at only 13.5% ownership because of Aaron Jones’ full chalk status. Jones had a perfect matchup and a price tag $1100 cheaper, so he soaked up much of the “pay up at RB” ownership (41.9%) that otherwise would have gone to Kamara.
Next, appreciate the RB/TE secondary stack of DeAndre Swift and Logan Thomas. Swift, a supreme talent with only the presence of a 3-headed committee impeding his ability to demolish a slate on any given Sunday, and Thomas, an inexpensive oasis on a Week 10 slate barren of production from his position.
Finally, with the final stroke of his brush, timothe1967 added the coup d’etat, a matchup-agnostic, high-upside WR (in the Flex!) in DeAndre Hopkins. Nuk snatched an improbable long bomb in the final moments and forcefully claimed first place for this extraordinary roster.
With 4 players owned at less than 5% and a cumulative ownership of just 76.1%, This lineup encountered very little resistance at it ascended up the leaderboard. The Steelers/Bengals contest was among the bottom 4 projected totals and the late-week weather developments only further reduced the ownership its participants. Wind is obviously scary and, in theory, should wreak havoc on the production in a football game. But with bad weather comes juicy opportunity. The average recreational DFS player will be scared away from these games, thus decreasing the ownership of its participants at a much higher rate than their ceilings will be thwarted. My pal, Xandamere has been preaching this since I can remember. The addition of weather, or any unpredictable variable, only increases a player’s value in a large tournament environment while essentially killing it in small tournaments or cash games.
Imagine still playing cash. lol
Week 10 Milly Study: Ode to meaganjoy
Sometimes the winner of DK’s Millionaire Maker is a sort of flukey, one-off lineup with no real rhyme or reason behind it, and that’s ok. Dropping a single $20 is all some folks want to invest and the success of those lineups a few times a year is what keeps the DFS tourney ecosystem alive and thriving.
meaganjoy’s Week 10 effort, however, was in a completely different class.
Cashing with 108 out of his (or her) 150 lineups, including 12 in top 582, meaganjoy aggressively planted a flag in the Bills/Cardinals game while taking shots at complimenting Josh Allen, Kyler Murray, Stefon Diggs and DeAndre Hopkins with a variety of other players. Despite his ownership being predominantly concentrated on the 4 major stars, he had sprinkles of enough other guys that he ended up with a relatively deep pool of 106 players. For a deeper look at the rest of his ownership as well as anything else you may wish to investigate, go here:
His approach to the running back position was particularly interesting. meaganjoy leveraged his near full fades of the mega chalk, Mike Davis and Aaron Jones, by allocating 41.33% to D’Andre Swift. Swift was only 6.49% owned due to his aforementioned, inexplicable involvement in a backfield committee with the carcass of Adrian Peterson and the underachieving Kerryon (our wayward son) Johnson.
We often allude to the fact that it’s very possible to whiff on some of your highest owned players and still have enormous success. Here we see that RBs 2-5 all busted yet meaganjoy emerged unscathed…which is quite an understatement. His Defense allocation below that revealed a similar result. Owning 17.33% of a DST that finished at -4 (Bengals) is usually tilt-worthy, especially since his 2nd and 3rd Defenses underwhelmed as well. Didn’t matter. Doing a bunch of things right, in an aggressive manner, can cure a lot of ills.
It’s a good thing that timothe1967 didn’t enter the Milly. He would have edged meaganjoy by 2.22 points and taken the top prize. Sometimes “running good” applies to more than just touchdowns.
Good luck to you all this week. Keep learning, but never stop being YOU.
Get Inside Of Sonic’s DFS Mind
An excellent, highly-recommended read!
Sonic’s DFS Q&A. This is awesome stuff if you’re looking to keep improving your DFS game!
