DraftKings Week 12 GPP Breakdown
Millionaire Maker winner Noles2148 took down the grand prize despite a dud from chalk play Charcandrick West.
The Thomas Rawls play at 1.6% ownership shows how important the late swap feature can be. Although Rawls was slated to get the lions share of the workload in a gorgeous matchup, less than 2% of entrants late-swapped to him, which proved to be a key to Noles2148's victory.
Selecting a pool of players to target in GPPs is only half the battle; you also have to put them all together. With that in mind, I’ve revamped the format of this column. With an eye toward lineup construction, I’ve grouped players to target by lineup slot.
I’ve also created a “profile” for each position and lineup slot. This specifies the salary range and ownership level that will generally give you the best odds. These profiles reflect data I have compiled from each of the 11 lineups of this year’s Millionaire Maker, DraftKings’ largest GPP. You will see the information reflected in the profiles, but I want to point out some important trends from the winning lineups before we get into the plays.
- Go contrarian at QB: QBs in winning lineups have an average ownership of 6.9%, the lowest of any position group by far.
- Pay up at WR: On average, the most expensive WR in a winning lineup costs $8,200 and the second-most-expensive WR costs $6,900. No other lineup slot has an average of over $6,200.
- One chalk play at RB, WR is OK: The average highest-owned RB in a winning lineup was owned 29%. The average highest-owned WR was owned 30%. Those represent huge drop-offs from the other RBs (13% including flex) and WRs (12% including flex).
- RB has been the best flex option: RBs were in the flex spot of the winning lineups 73% of the time, WRs 20%, TEs 0%.
- Salary Allocation: The average salary allocation per lineup slot, from highest to lowest is WR1, WR2, RB1, QB, TE, RB2, WR3, FLEX, DST
- Make the chalk work for you; also know where to go contrarian: The average ownership per lineup slot, from highest to lowest is WR1, RB1, WR2, D, RB2, TE, WR3, QB, FLEX.
When a player is listed under a heading with multiple lineup slots, i.e. "WR 1/2", it means that player can be used to fill either slot.
I also list the (projected) chalk plays -- defined as the highest owned player at a position or any player projected to push 20% owned -- at each slot, gleaned from my Tournament Ownership Outlook column. For every position except QB, listed chalk plays are still recommended plays unless otherwise noted. However, you should generally limit yourself to one chalk play apiece at RB and WR and generally not have more than three chalk plays total in a lineup.
My hope is that casual readers will now have more direction as far as how to actually construct a winning GPP lineup, rather than just identify players to target. On the other hand, more advanced readers who prefer to do further independent research can still use the profiles as a lineup construction template even if they do not agree with some of the listed plays.
A note on pairing the players from the same team/game: In general, players from opposing passing games should be paired up whenever possible. Obviously, QBs and WRs should be stacked whenever possible, as should RBs and defenses. QBs and RBs on the same team have a slightly positive correlation and should not be avoided. RB and WR has a slight negative correlation, but it's so small that the pairing should not be avoided either.
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Quarterback
QB Profile: Median salary $6000, average ownership 7%. QBs are generally under $7,000 and under 10% owned.
Chalk (You generally want little or no exposure to chalk at QB; exceptions are noted): Carson Palmer (great matchup, but an expensive salary and high ownership has not been a winning combination at QB), Brian Hoyer (see below), Eli Manning (may be on the chalk fringe; I'd still relegate him to Beckham stacks because he's relatively pricey)
Brian Hoyer $5,000 vs. NO – Despite being a chalk play, Hoyer is still recommended due to his minimum price tag, and more importantly, his matchup against a Saints defense that allows 27.6 DraftKings points per game to QBs and ranks 32nd in QB aFPA. The Texans’ team total was 25.5 as of this writing.
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