The phrase “let Russ cook” is already getting pretty tired, but Wilson and the unexpectedly pass happy Seahawks offence were responsible for all the big wins in NFL DFS on Sunday evening. His five passing touchdowns versus the Cowboys in Week 3 led to an NFL record 14 total passing TDs through the first three weeks of the season. Players all the winning lineups had in common were Russell Wilson, Tyler Lockett, Michael Gallup, and the Colts DST on Fanduel while it was Wilson, Lockett, DK Metcalf, and Rex Burkhead on DraftKings. Two of the top three owned players in the DK Milly were significant disappointments – Miles Sanders and Kenyan Drake – while the top three owned running backs all disappointed if you include Jonathan Taylor’s blowout shortened performance. Those three backs represented a collective 87% of ownership in the DraftKings Fantasy Football Millionaire, while the represented over 135% of ownership in high stakes single entry contests. Dodging some of those bullets made for a winning combination. Again, as has been the case every week this season, looking for correlation through game stacking was the winning formula.
DraftKings
NFL $4.25M Fantasy Football Millionaire
This week, two of the top three finishers in the contest were from single entry players, but single entries made up only four of the top 25 finishers. It was a rare single entry that managed to avoid all of Sanders, Drake, and Taylor in Week 3. The big winner on the day was “clothsofheaven” with a final score of 249.8 points.
As has been the case for the million dollar winner each week so far in 2020, “double stack and bring one back” was the stacking strategy of champions. The million dollar lineup featured Russ Wilson with Lockett, Metcalf, and the lowest owned of the Cowboys receiving triumvirate – Michael Gallup. Gallup had not shown much going into Week 3, but he and Cedric Wilson outpaced more appealing picks like Amari Cooper and CeeDee Lamb by quite aways. Interestingly the winning lineup also featured three players below 2.5% ownership in Jeff Wilson Jr., Rex Burkhead, and Austin Hooper. Burkhead was the biggest diamond in the rough as he took red zone carries that Cam Newton had been taking through the first two weeks and parlayed them into two rushing scores to go along with his one TD through the air. The Colts DST initially seemed like a difficult spend at $4100, but they turned out to be a must have as the highest rostered play at the position (10.1%) while churning out a top 20 scoring performance, regardless of position.
On a sidenote, it’s quite something when the million dollar lineup features a snowflake, as it did with Austin Hooper.
| Player | Exposure | Ownership |
| Russell Wilson | 7.8% | 15.8% |
| Jeff Wilson Jr. | 5.9% | 2.4% |
| Rex Burkhead | 5.9% | 1.9% |
| DK Metcalf | 5.9% | 23.3% |
| Tyler Lockett | 11.8% | 17.9% |
| Michael Gallup | 17.6% | 6.8% |
| Austin Hooper | 2% | 1.7% |
| Derrick Henry | 17.6% | 11.7% |
| Colts DST | 23.5% | 10.1% |
While being overweight on Jeff Wilson Jr., Rex Burkhead, Michael Gallup, Derrick Henry, and the Colts DST were a big help to his lineups, getting the million dollar winner centred around a Seattle/Dallas game stack while being half the field’s exposure to Wilson, Metcalf, and Lockett was quite fortunate.
Of the 51 total entries that “clothsofheaven” had, four of them were Russell Wilson stacks:
Wilson/Elliott/Metcalf, Wilson/Carson/Lockett/Lamb, Wilson/Metcalf/Lockett/Gallup, and Wilson/Metcalf/Lockett/Gallup.
His other lineups included stacks with 13 different quarterbacks including: 7 Tannehill, 6 Prescott, 4 Allen, 4 Murray, 4 Trubisky, 3 Wentz, 3 Brady, 3 Ryan, 3 Newton, 3 Herbert, 3 Burrow, 2 Jones, 1 Stafford, and 1 Roethlisberger. Stacking half of the league in 51 lineups may be a little extreme, but it’s fair to have spread out exposure at quarterback on a weekly basis as hitting the stack with the most passing touchdowns is usually the difference maker in the end.
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In the world of high stakes single entry contests, “noodles28” was the big winner on the day with a score of 212.5 points. Again, a “double stack and bring one back” lineup construction was the winning formula of Wilson with Lockett, Metcalf, and Ezekiel Elliott. As was the case for the million dollar winning lineup, rostering a 0.5% owned Burkhead was a huge difference maker. On the other hand, playing a 1% owned non-punt TE vs their own DST was quite a bit more unorthodox.
Avoiding the top five owned players in the contest led to unique opportunities for “noodles28” as the combination of Sanders, Drake, Hopkins, Singletary, and Murray led to a whopping 208.48% of combined ownership in the contest. While Murray and Hopkins were serviceable, the tendency to double stack them with Drake led to a lot of lineups drawing dead.
| Player | Ownership | FPTS |
| Miles Sanders | 69.34% | 14.7 |
| Kenyan Drake | 38.68% | 8.9 |
| DeAndre Hopkins | 37.26% | 26.7 |
| Devin Singletary | 31.60% | 16.1 |
| Kyler Murray | 31.60% | 24.7 |
Fanduel
$2.75M NFL Sunday Million
On Fanduel, the big winner on Sunday evening was “drnosgoldfinger” with a score of 220.6 points. The continuing theme of “double stack and bring one back” led to a winning core of Wilson with Lockett, Metcalf, and Michael Gallup. Building a lineup with a secondary stack of Jonathan Taylor with the Colts DST that scored two defensive TDs, likely saved the day for this entry as in some ways Taylor’s lacklustre performance was evened out. Taylor’s much lower price tag on Fanduel over DraftKings made up for his blowout shortened day as well. The biggest difference maker for “drnosgoldfinger” though, was a 0.9% owned Jimmy Graham versus a Falcons defence that has given up 21 receptions, 180 yards, and 4 TDs over the first three weeks to TEs. That positional matchup may be worth exploiting going forward.
In all, the winning lineup totaled 18 TDs in Fanduel’s more touchdown heavy scoring system and managed to overcome a disappointing outing for a high owned Taylor (37.2%) in the process.
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In the world of high stakes contests on Fanduel “petteytheft89” was the biggest beneficiary of the Seahawks/Cowboys game stack, leading to a winning score of 203.1 points. His “single stack and bring one back” of Russ Wilson with Lockett and Michael Gallup won the day, while a 1.7% owned Mike Davis was a gutsy call that paid off significantly. Davis helped make up for what was a disappointing performance from a much higher owned Miles Sanders.
While Christian McCaffrey is certainly a special player, Carolina RB will be a valuable position whether it’s McCaffrey or not as Davis eight receptions proved on Sunday.
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While the big win for “petteytheft89” was on Fanduel, he still had a top 300 finish in the DraftKings Millionaire but his exposures on DK left him with a few more hurdles to overcome.
| Player | Exposure | Ownership |
| Miles Sanders | 85.3% | 41% |
| Allen Robinson | 40.0% | 14.2% |
| Kenyan Drake | 32.7% | 25% |
| Kyler Murray | 28% | 22.7% |
| Jonathan Taylor | 27.3% | 21.2% |
| Devin Singletary | 27.3% | 16.4% |
| Damiere Byrd | 24.7% | 3.6% |
| Marvin Jones | 24% | 3.5% |
| Colts DST | 23.3% | 10.1% |
| Mike Davis | 22.7% | 6.3% |
| 49ers DST | 22% | 3.6% |
| Buccaneers DST | 20% | 9% |
| Josh Allen | 20% | 3.8% |
| DeAndre Hopkins | 19.3% | 30% |
| Dalvin Cook | 19.3% | 10.3% |
His biggest leverage winners were Allen Robinson, Mike Davis, Josh Allen, and the Colts DST – plays in which he was at least 2-3x the field in exposure. Unfortunately for him, being so heavily overweight on Sanders, Drake, Byrd, and Jones likely led to a diminished overall success rate. As with his winning lineup on Fanduel, his DraftKings lineup pool seemed to be built around a stacking rule of “minimum single stack and bring one back” which seems to be becoming the industry standard for lineup construction.
Congratulations to all the big winners in Week 3 of 2020 NFL DFS season!
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