FanDuel was back at it again with their massive Week 3 Sunday Million contest, requiring a $25 entry fee with 23,645 people getting paid out at least $40. This massive $2 million GPP tournament had 94,117 entries available for buy-in and ended up overlaying as only 85,536 entries were sold before lineups locked. There was an overlay of 8,581 entries for $214,525, which helped to make your $25 entry go just a little bit further as it had a better chance at cashing. Each week FanDuel will be running a Sunday Million GPP Contest and we will break it down here at Footballguys.com and see what the keys were to having the top lineup on the week and taking home the top prize of $200,000.
Here's how Week 3 of the Sunday Million shook out.
|
DFS Screen Name | Points | Prize Money |
1st | jmigs | 205.10 | $200,000 |
2nd | rvklim27 | 205.00 | $100,000 |
3rd | fortheoffice | 201.60 | $60,000 |
4th | pandueler | 197.50 | $40,000 |
5th | huitcinq | 196.62 | $25,000 |
The winner of the Week 3 FanDuel Sunday Million was jmigs who took home the $200,000 first place prize. Jmigs had the "Experienced" badge on FanDuel and this makes for the third week in a row that the winner was designated with the "Experienced" tag and not the "Highly Experienced" tag. It goes to show you that no matter you DFS skill level ever single week anyone can win these big GPP contests. Jmigs used all but $100 of his $60,000 salary cap and ended up edging out a fellow "Experienced" player in rvklim27 by just 0.10 points. The margin was slim at the top of the leaderboard as third place went to fortheoffice with 201.60 points to round out the top three.
Looking further at jmigs team he had a great selection of lower owned players that hit big. Marvin Jones Jrwas the top scoring offensive player and at only $6,900 salary he was owned by a mere 6.6% of the field and put up a high fantasy score of 35.50 points. The other big scoring play on jmigs team was the Kansas City Chiefs defense who were owned by 1.1% of the field and scored 35.00 FanDuel points. Those two plays alone gave his team a big edge as they were both very low owned but also were both the top scorers at their positions. He also had Aaron Rodgers at quarterback with a 9.1% ownership and he scored 26.40 points in a week that was tough to predict the quarterback position.
At running back the chalk play of the week was Melvin Gordon who came in at 35.7% ownership and put up 15.80 points but he paired him with a low owned LeSean McCoy (4.4% ownership) and his 25.10 points. His other two wide receivers not named Marvin Jones were Jordy Nelson and Jarvis Landry who scored 25.10 and 23.10 points making for a very high scoring receiving core. The last two players on jmigs team were Gary Barnidge at tight end who was only owned by 0.7% of the field and scored double digit points with 11.10, and Dan Bailey was his play at kicker who scored the lowest points on his team at 8.00 but because of the strong plays everywhere else on the team it didn't matter for the average score.
Position | Player | Salary | FanDuel Points | % Owned |
QB | Aaron Rodgers | $8,900 | 26.40 | 9.1% |
RB | LeSean McCoy | $6,700 | 25.10 | 4.4% |
RB | Melvin Gordon | $7,100 | 15.80 | 35.7% |
WR | Jordy Nelson | $8,300 | 25.10 | 11.7% |
WR | Jarvis Landry | $7,000 | 23.10 | 27.6% |
WR | Marvin Jones Jr | $6,900 | 35.50 | 6.6% |
TE | Gary Barnidge | $5,800 | 11.10 | 0.7% |
K | Dan Bailey | $4,700 | 8.00 | 21.9% |
D | Kansas City Chiefs | $4,500 | 35.00 | 1.1% |
$59,900 | 205.10 |
WHAT WORKED?
Stacking -- Going through the top 10 teams in Week 3 of the Sunday Million, stacking the QB with the teams top WR occurred on 8 teams. Aaron Rodgers and Jordy Nelson was on 3 stacks, Matthew Stafford and Marvin Jones on 2, and on single teams it was Jameis Winston and Mike Evans, Russell Wilson and Doug Baldwin and Ryan Tannehill and Jarvis Landry. The week before it was all Cam Newton and Kelvin Benjamin but seeing 5 different stacks in the top 10 this week makes you think that you really just need to hit on your core players that are not in your stack. You don't always have to have just the top stack of the week to find your way at the top of the leaderboard but you do have to combine that stack with high upside plays at all the other positions.
Super Stacking -- The triple stack QB/RB/WR came into play just once this week and it was for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with Jameis Winston, Charles Sims and Mike Evans for the fourth place team pandueler. Last week we had 5 of 10 teams put out a Cam Newton/Kelvin Benjamin/Greg Olsen triple stack at the top of the leaderboard so although it is unique it might not hit every week.
Next Man Up -- Players such as Charles Sims, Christine Michael, Shane Vereen, and Melvin Gordon saw increased opportunities at the running back position because of their teammates going down with injuries the week prior. They are not big names at the position but in the fantasy world we have to track the running back position more than any other and can find value with the next man up. This is one of the big reasons that DFS has become so popular as you don't get stuck with your top pick in redraft leagues after he gets injured the first week of the season. In DFS every week is a new one and you don't have to dwell on that devastating injury to one of your star players, you get a clean slate and with some solid research you can find that key running back that can make all the difference.
WHAT FAILED?
Playing the Chalk at Defense -- The Miami Dolphins defense was all the talk leading up to Week 3 as they had the best matchup on the board against a banged up Cleveland Browns offense and were priced modestly at $4,600. It turns out that 34.6% of the field in the Sunday Million were also just plugging in the Dolphins defense and hoping for a turnover fest from rookie QB Cody Kessler but all that they got was a game with 4 sacks and 1 fumble recovery and held the offense to 17 points scored for a total of 7 fantasy points. If you would have pivoted to the Kansas City Chiefs at $100 less and at a 1.1% ownership you would have scored 35 fantasy points for a difference of 28 points from the Dolphins defense. It is areas such as this that predicting ownership and making an adjustment can boost your team ahead of the field in a big GPP. The Dolphins were the obvious Cash game play but in a large field GPP you can give yourself an advantage by fading the chalk.
Rostering last week's Heroes -- Last Sunday we saw the likes of Stefon Diggs, Kelvin Benjamin, Travis Benjamin, DeAngelo Williams, CJ Anderson, and Cam Newton win people a lot of money but this week it was a completely different story as none of those players made it onto any of this week's top 10 rosters. For the most part all of these players had pretty sub par type of games and a good lesson in GPP play is to never chase points from the prior week because those players are going to have a higher ownership percentage just based on the fact of what they did one week earlier.
Finish | Score | QB | RB1 | RB2 | WR1 | WR2 | WR3 | TE | K | DEF |
1 | 205.10 | Rodgers | McCoy | Gordon | Nelson | Landry | Jones Jr. | Barnidge | Bailey | KC |
2 | 205.00 | Rodgers | McCoy | D.Murray | Shepard | Robinson | Jones Jr. | Allen | Tucker | KC |
3 | 201.60 | Rodgers | Sims | Vereen | Nelson | Landry | Jones Jr. | Reed | Hauschka | KC |
4 | 197.50 | Winston | Sims | Hyde | Evans | Robinson | Brown | Pitta | Tucker | KC |
5 | 196.62 | Wilson | McCoy | D.Johnson | Baldwin | Robinson | Jones Jr. | Pitta | Vinatieri | KC |
6 | 194.56 | Tannehill | McCoy | D.Johnson | Hilton | Landry | Jones Jr. | Kelce | Tucker | SEA |
7 | 194.30 | Stafford | D.Murray | Gordon | Fitzgerald | Landry | Jones Jr. | Kelce | Santos | KC |
8 | 193.40 | Stafford | Sims | D.Johnson | Pryor Sr. | Brown | Jones Jr. | Rudolph | Tucker | CAR |
9 | 192.00 | Rodgers | Gore | Michael | Nelson | Robinson | Jones Jr. | Kelce | Tucker | TB |
10 | 191.96 | Bortles | Hill | Michael | Nelson | Landry | Brown | Doyle | Hopkins | KC |
***FanDuel's Week 4 Sunday Million will change from Week 3 as the prize pool goes from $2,000,000 down to $1,750,000 and from 94,117 entries to 82,352 entries. The payouts at the top remain the stay very similar with first place taking home $200,000 and second place $100,000 with 19,913 out of the total 82,352 entries at least taking home $40. So far the first three weeks of the Sunday Million have been about half the size of last years contest and if you are looking to crack the top 10 your odds are much better this year.
Head over to FanDuel now and catch the action for Week 4.