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FanDuel was back at it again with their massive Week 8 Sunday Million contest, requiring a $25 entry fee with 36,800 people getting paid out at least $50. This massive $4 million GPP tournament had 164,075 entries out of a possible 183,908 entries that filled leaving nearly $500,000 of overlay this week. 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 $500,000.
Here's how Week 8 of the Sunday Million shook out.
|
DFS Screen Name | Points | Prize Money |
1st | westcoast4 | 215.54 | $500,000 |
2nd | madisonbum40 | 211.30 | $250,000 |
3rd | jenkcfoote | 207.10 | $100,000 |
4th | mcbomb44 | 206.54 | $62,500 |
4th | mcbomb44 | 206.54 | $62,500 |
Westcoast4 is the newest winner of FanDuel's Sunday Million taking home the top prize of $500,000 with an impressive score of 215.54 points. The difference between first place and 2nd place was just over 4 points and nearly the same from 2nd to 3rd place. Westcoast used their entire $60,000 salary cap to construct their team and lead it with a lot of low owned players with a strong Drew Brees to Brandin Cooks QB/WR stack. Brees was only 3.8% owned in the Sunday Million and he posted a ridiculous 47.54 FanDuel points as he threw for 511 yards and had 7 touchdown passes. Cooks was only 4.9% owned and ended the day with 23.5 FanDuel points making the QB/WR stack worth a combined 71.04 points at a very low ownership rate.
Westcoast4 also hit gold with his RB pair as once again we found out that it is best to take the midrange type of RBs and pay up for a star WR. Todd Gurley was easily the highest owned player in the contest at 45.1% but he paid off with 22.1 points and Westcoast4 had him paired with Ronnie Hillman at only $6,100 and at a 4% ownership rate and got 18.0 fantasy points from him. Having one high owned RB and another low owned RB helped to off set each other and the fact that both were two of the top point producers at the position also helped out.
At WR the trio of Odell Beckham Jr, Brandin Cooks, and Stefon Diggs put up a combined 77.0 points between the trio. Diggs was the most popular option out of the three as he was 30.0% owned while Beckham Jr was 9.1% and Cooks was 4.9%. The three WRs combined for 6 touchdown receptions which helped give Westcoast4 an edge over the competition. In a week where Rob Gronkowski wasn't available because he already played on Thursday Night it was Greg Olsen who was the highest priced TE on the board with a nice matchup on Monday Night Football against the Colts and he delievered with a big night catching 6 passes for 79 yards and a touchdown and producing 16.9 FanDuel points. Olsen was owned by 14.8% of the field in the Sunday Million and although the number was higher it still wasn't that bad considering the TE options were tough this week.
The kicker and defense postions were filled in by Dan Bailey at $4,600 and Houston Texans at $4,700. Bailey was owned by only 1.6% of the field and the Texans at 4.6%. Once again looking for a cheap kicker in a good situation that you can plug into your roster is a smart move as Bailey delivered with 14.0 points. As for the Texans looking back now against the matchup against the Titans they probably should have been a lot higher owned than the 4.6% that they were. They had a great price tag and were a home favorite and should have been one of the top 5 options on the game slate. Overall Westcoast4 did a fantastic job of peicing together a team with a good mix of upside and low ownership players. It is a nice blue print going forward to use when you are constructing your own GPP lineups and looking for an edge while doing so.
Position | Player | Salary | FanDuel Points | % Owned |
QB | Drew Brees | $7,900 | 47.54 | 3.8% |
RB | Todd Gurley | $8,100 | 22.10 | 45.1% |
RB | Ronnie Hillman | $6,100 | 18.00 | 4.0% |
WR | Odell Beckham Jr | $8,700 | 35.00 | 9.1% |
WR | Brandin Cooks | $6,800 | 23.50 | 4.9% |
WR | Stefon Diggs | $6,700 | 18.50 | 30.0% |
TE | Greg Olsen | $6,400 | 16.90 | 14.8% |
K | Dan Bailey | $4,600 | 14.00 | 1.6% |
D | Houston Texans | $4,700 | 20.00 | 4.6% |
$60,000 | 215.54 |
Going through the top 10 teams in Week 8 of the Sunday Million it was a big mix of players from the New York Giants and New Orleans Saints game that you had to have in your lineup. Every single team in the top 10 either had Drew Brees or Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr was used by 9 out of the 10 teams, with Brandin Cooks being on 6, and Snead on 1 along with TE Benjamin Watson on 6 teams. It is hard on a week to week basis to predict a high scoring game as this and having more than 2 players from the same team or game seems like a bad move in maximizing your overall points but if it hits you have a team with lower owned players and a huge advantage over the competition.
This week also had a player by the name of mbomb44 who dominated the top 10 of the Sunday Million having 4 teams in the top 10. He placed 4th, 4th, 6th, and 10th and had Brees and Beckham Jr and the Houston defense on each one of his teams and won a total of $170,000 with his top 4 teams.
Todd Gurley remained a building block for your Sunday Million team as he was owned by 6 of the top 10 teams and the other two popular RBs were Ronnie Hillman and Jonathan Stewart. At WR it was Odell Beckham Jr who your wanted as he was on 9 of 10 teams in the top 10. Cooks was also popular as he was on 6 teams and Jeffery, Diggs, Austin, Julio Jones and Michael Floyd were some of the other popular plays that paid off. The TE position was split between Jacob Tamme, Greg Olsen, and Benjamin Watson with Watson being on 6 teams and the other two being on a pair of teams each.
The kicker position was all over the place with 7 different kickers in the top 10 teams and the Houston Texans defense was the popular play on defense as they were on 8 teams and scored the most FanDuel points with 20.
Finish | Score | QB | RB1 | RB2 | WR1 | WR2 | WR3 | TE | K | DEF |
1 | 215.54 | Brees | Gurley | Hillman | Beckham Jr | Cooks | Diggs | Olsen | Bailey | HOU |
2 | 211.30 | E.Manning | Gurley | Stewart | Beckham Jr | Ju.Jones | T.Austin | Tamme | Tucker | STL |
3 | 207.10 | E.Manning | Gurley | Hillman | Beckham Jr | Green | Diggs | Watson | Brown | HOU |
4 | 206.54 | Brees | C.Johnson | Stewart | Beckham Jr | Cooks | Jeffery | Watson | Nugent | HOU |
4 | 206.54 | Brees | C.Johnson | Stewart | Beckham Jr | Cooks | Jeffery | Watson | Nugent | HOU |
6 | 204.84 | Brees | Gurley | Peterson | Beckham Jr | Cooks | Floyd | Watson | Nugent | DAL |
7 | 204.80 | E.Manning | Gurley | Hillman | Beckham Jr | Ju.Jones | Floyd | Olsen | Gould | HOU |
8 | 204.64 | Brees | Gurley | Freeman | Evans | Cooks | T.Austin | Watson | Tucker | HOU |
9 | 204.34 | Brees | Freeman | Hillman | Beckham Jr | Marshall | Snead | Tamme | Lambo | HOU |
10 | 203.94 | Brees | Freeman | Bush | Beckham Jr | Cooks | Jeffery | Watson | Gano | HOU |
***FanDuel's Week 9 Sunday Million will drop down to a $3,000,000 prize pool with 26,405 out of 137,931 people taking home some cash. First prize remains down from $1,000,000 to $500,000 but it will offer a more balanced payout structure. I only mention this ahead of time as this contest will probably sell out sooner with the total entries dropping by 45,977 from what we saw in Week 8.***
Head over to FanDuel now and catch the action for Week 9.