NFL DFS Week 6 GPP Recaps

Late fireworks or overtime in the two highest scoring games of the week were the kingmakers in Week 6 of NFL DFS contests across the industry. The Falcons and Vikings put up 24 of their 63 total points in the final seven minutes of the game, while the Texans and Titans put up 35 total points in the final nine minutes of regulation plus overtime. Over the course of half an hour, the leaderboards changed drastically in favor of the big winners on the day. Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Justin Jefferson, and Derrick Henry checked in from those two shootouts in both million dollar winning lineups, while Ronald Jones also showed up on late inactive news for Leonard Fournette. The other big story of the day was the continuing theme of failing high owned running backs in the 2020 NFL DFS season, as David Montgomery, Alexander Mattison, and Mike Davis each soaked up 18-25% ownership and failed to provide even moderate results.

That said, Matt Ryan finally won something, you guys.

DraftKings

NFL $3.75M Fantasy Football Millionaire

The million-dollar winner on DraftKings was “WackyUncle” with a score of 256.64 points. Continuing the winning build strategy combination for a sixth straight week, “double stack and bring one back” was the million-dollar formula. While most would have double stacked Jones and Ridley with Ryan, going the route of the 1% owned TE Hurst provided the leverage needed to pass other Falcons double stacks. Brining back the lower owned of the Vikings dynamic duo at WR provided leverage in a high scoring game environment as well. The leverage the lineup created was greater still as Matthew Stafford was the second highest owned QB on the slate versus the Jaguars, making rostering a Lions RB from their three headed backfield a high risk/reward strategy that paid off.

While most of the million-dollar lineups have had at least one player below 5% ownership, “WackyUncle” was quite contrarian with five of nine players under 5% ownership. Avoiding the chalk fail RBs in Mattison, Davis, and Montgomery while also avoiding disappointing performances from Adam Thielen, Davante Adams, and Jonnu Smith who were all in the top 15 owned players made for a big day for “WackyUncle”. The six of those players made up 125.12% of ownership in the contest.

This was the first single entry million-dollar winner of the year on DraftKings, and to have done so with a lineup that included a snowflake in Valdes-Scantling was just the icing on the cake. Silver bullets have had some near misses this season in the Fantasy Football Millionaire contests – last week’s winner had just two entries. Two other silver bullets finished in the top 10.

NFL $300K Game Changer [$50K to 1st, Single Entry]

In the world of high stakes single entry contests on DraftKings, “gn1ghtmoon” was the big winner with a score 223.32 points. Unlike the million-dollar winning lineup it was the other side of the game stack in the Cousins led Vikings that won the day. While many Vikings double stacks likely included Mattison versus a Falcons defence that has hemorrhaged points to opposing RBs, “gn1ghtmoon” trotted out a “triple stack and bring one back” with all of Thielen, Jefferson, and Smith grouped with their QB while bringing back Julio Jones from the Falcons side. Generally, a triple stack is difficult to make efficient but Smith’s increasing role as a receiver, combined with his minimum salary of $2500 made him a viable punt play with correlation upside. A secondary stack of Gaskin with the Dolphins highly owned DST versus anemic Jets offence that allowed the first shutout of the 2020 NFL season sealed the deal.

“gn1ghtmoon” had two of the top 11 owned players in the contest that provided disappointing results but the major fireworks from Henry, Jones, and Jefferson were enough to secure the win by just over half a point.

Player	Ownership	Score
Adam Thielen	33.02%	14.1
Mike Davis	30.66%	12.5
David Montgomery	29.72%	13.7
Alexander Mattison	29.25%	4
Davante Adams	27.83%	12.1

While only Mattison’s score was truly dreadful, and Montgomery had multiple TDs called back, the combination of high salaries and low returns for the rest of this group in the top 11 of players owned on the slate hurt a lot of lineups and opened the door for “gn1ghtmoon” to get a big payday.

Fanduel

$3M NFL Sunday Million

The million-dollar winner on Fanduel was “war_hammer_33” with a score of 226.44 points. Again, “double stack and bring one back” lineup construction built around a Falcons stack with Ryan, Jones, and Ridley accompanied by Jefferson was the winning combination. The other big difference-maker for a lot of lineups on Sunday was Trey Burton. Having had a punt priced TE at 2.9% ownership that produced two TDs in Fanduel’s TD heavy scoring was an excellent start to the afternoon. Most Burton owners would have held out hope to get a receiving TD at that price and called it a day, but to have got another TD on a direct snap at the goal line for a total 19.9 points was beyond anyone’s expectations.

While most players went the direction of the Dolphins DST versus the lowly Jets, pivoting to the Steelers DST that produced a TD and a near shutout of their own put them over the top at nearly the same price as the Dolphins but at only one fifth of the ownership.

Pro Spotlight

The Pro Spotlight in Week 6 shines on “youdacao”, having had a 4^th place finish in NFL $300K Game Changer on DraftKings. Their “triple stack and bring one back” with Cousins, Thielen, Jefferson, and Smith accompanied by Jones from the Vikings/Falcons shootout led to a big day there and some solid finishes in MME as well. A Mixon/Bengals secondary stack could have made some noise for this lineup too if not for Mixon’s early exit due to injury and the Colts late-game comeback. The Bengals DST was unexpectedly chalky at 19.3% ownership in SE versus what was suspected to be a punchless Colts offence.

In MME on DraftKings, “youdacao” had two lineups in the top 1000 in NFL $3.75M Fantasy Football Millionaire. While there were some “double stack and bring one back” lineups in the 150 lineup set, many did not have a player coming back the other way and others yet were straight single stacks with no game stack correlation involved.

Player	Exposure	Ownership
Derrick Henry	55.3%	26.1%
Kenny Golladay	34.7%	24.7%
David Montgomery	28.0%	24.1%
Adam Thielen	28.0%	27.1%
Terry McLaurin	27.3%	10.8%
Chris Godwin	24.7%	9.7%
Chase Claypool	23.3%	27.6%
Davante Adams	22.7%	17.3%
Alexander Mattison	22.0%	23.0%
Kareem Hunt	22.0%	6.1%
Julio Jones	21.3%	9.8%
Eric Ebron	20.0%	9.3%
Bengals DST	19.3%	9.3%
Mike Davis	19.3%	18.7%
Jonathan Taylor	19.3%	12.1%

Derrick Henry was the fifth-highest owned player in the NFL $3.75M Fantasy Football Millionaire contest on DraftKings and his massive 43.4 point day led to big scores for a number of lineups. To have been double the field in exposure put “youdacao” well on the road to a solid day. Winding up about on the field for exposure to disappointing plays like Montgomery, Thielen, Adams, Mattison, and Davis helped mitigate some of the damage they did. Being well overweight on Godwin and Hunt hurt the upside of the lineup set but having Henry’s monstrous score in well over half the lineups helped create a solid floor.

Congratulations to all the big winners in Week 6 of the 2020 NFL DFS season!