A $1,000,000 fantasy football contest hosted at the world famous Mansion! 75 finalists will be flown out to sunny Los Angeles for the hottest weekend of their lives as they compete poolside in Hef’s backyard for the $150,000 first place prize. FanDuel also has a $3.55 Million NFL Big Game Bowl, where the winner will receive a $1 million prize. The entry fee is $4.44. The entry fee is $4.44. $5 Just For Signing Up. He sat down with FanDuel's most recently crowned millionaire, @LuckyDFS24, who won $1,000,000 in Week 4's Sunday Million contest to discuss his background, process, and break down his thoughts behind each play in the winning lineup. Here's his winning lineup and what he had to say about the most profitable weekend of his life.

Editors note – continuing is our series on breaking down the winners each week on DraftKings and FanDuel by contributor James Gagnon. James breaks down the winning line-ups each week in the million dollar contests held every Sunday this NFL season.
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DraftKings Millionaire Maker Results – Winner is “Hoothead”

Hoothead’s Winning Lineup – Good for $1.2 Million at DraftKings

Hoothead scored a killer 301 points to win DraftKings’ tourney; the 2nd highest score ever in any of their Millionaire Makers.

FanDuel’s Millionaire – cookies248

cookies248 wins $1 million at FanDuel

cookies248 won with a score of 252.10(oddly enough, the 248 in the moniker still would’ve won), when the Week 1 winning score in the same tournament was a paltry 201.32.

Breaking Down How The Winners Won

Helllooo, Offense!!!

“Winter is coming,” and the offenses are awakening.

When I was a younger man, a good friend gave me a great piece of advice. He said, “James, never bet the first 4 weeks of the NFL season.”

While that’s no fun, and DFS is different than what he was talking about then, the basis behind the advice still lies true. We don’t know anything until we see it. Pre-season gives us a little peek. Hard Knocks takes us as far as an NFL team will allow us into their world. There is endless analysis by “experts.” Yet, we don’t know anything for sure heading into a season until it happens in front of our eyes.

Proof of this is Larry Fitzgerald.

In week 2, Fitz was owned by less than 6.5% on both major sites.

In week 3, that number jumped to 24.7% in DK and 22.5% in FD. And he was owned on 9 of the top-20 teams and rewarded those owners with 9 receptions for 134 yards and 2 TD.

Going into the season, John Brown was being drafted ahead of Fitzgerald in a ton of leagues… he was the next big thing. And he still could be. But what’s in front of us right now, is Fitz nearly doubling his receptions(23 to 12) and yardage(333 to 153), while outscoring him with 5 TD’s to 1 for Brown.

Now is the time where the analysis of the most recent past can help us going forward the most so pay attention more than ever.

Top Players Owned by Position Among the top-20 DK/FD Teams

QB
A Dalton – 9 of 20
C Newton – 5
A Rodgers – 2

RB
DeVonta Freeman – 18 of 20
J Randle – 7
LT Murray – 4
J Charles – 3
A Peterson – 3

WR
AJ Green – 13 of 20
Fitzgerald – 9
S Smith Sr. – 7
R Cobb – 7
Julio Jones – 6
B Marshall – 6

TE
G Olsen – 18 of 20

DT
SEA – 13 of 20
ARI – 2

K
S Gostkowski – 6 of 10

Takeaway From These Players

• Seattle wasn’t a cheap Defense, so don’t be afraid to pay for D when the matchup presents itself.
• The same goes for the Kicker position in FanDuel; fractions of points can mean the difference between $1 million and $350,000.
• AJ Green’s hands might not be that bad after all.
• And, maybe Andy Dalton does have a little skill, huh?
• Find a way to pay for Julio every week. His ownership will be up, but he won’t let you down, I promise.
• Greg Olsen is easily the top target in Carolina, and Cam’s legs and their Defense(with the newly acquired Jared Allen), will only give him more opportunities.

Injuries

Roethlisberger is a huge blow to many of you in the yearly fantasy world, I’m sure. He’s always had the tools, he was just never let off the leash, so to speak. Antonio Brown might lose a few points with Michael Vick at the helm, but I advise the same as I did with Julio Jones; he’ll be thrown to plenty with the porous Steelers defense.

As far as Lynch and McCoy go, we’re back to NFL lies again.

Pete Carroll says there’s “nothing to be alarmed about,” concerning Marshawn Lynch.

Rex Ryan opined that LeSean McCoy is basically running on “one and a half legs.”

With all due respect, I don’t believe either of the head coaches.

Other Injury Notes

• Victor Cruz says he’s 100% and ready to go.
• Keep a close eye on Jay Cutler and Drew Brees and read between the lines. Both QB’s are playing for teams with a bad start out of the gate, who are clearly looking toward the future. We’re already seeing a dump of salaries by the Bears, and while QB’s being traded mid-season doesn’t happen very often, I believe one of these players will be shipped to a new team soon.

More Great Articles

3 Keys to Winning FanDuel’s Sunday Million

Daily Fantasy Sports are expanding at a rapid rate, and a fierce competition between DraftKings and FanDuel has players like us reaping the benefits. FanDuel added the Sunday Million this year, a $25 to enter, approximately 100,000 player tournament with a guaranteed prize pool ranging from $2,000,000-$3,000,000. Your goal when playing any big tournament is to, of course, win. But when a tournament has this many players, there are hidden concepts that you absolutely need to know in order to make a lineup that has a shot at 1st.

UPDATE 8/26/2019: This article was written in 2014. During this time, there was no such thing as a lineup builder. Projections weren’t publicly available. You had to build lineups by hand and by feel.

We’re in a much different landscape now, where most players use lineup builders and projections to create the best lineups for tournaments.

The content of this article is still very much true, maximizing for correlations and upside is the key to winning the Sunday Million on Fanduel. But now, we don’t have to figure out how to maximize for these things by feel. Sabersim.com has a lineup builder that does it for us, using actual game simulations to calculate both correlations and upside and builds lineups maximizing for those two essential stats. Right now, Sabersim is offering a 3-day FREE trial for anyone who signs up. Just go to Sabersim.com and sign up. You won’t regret it.

And if you’re interested in learning more, check out this video explaining how the Sabersim lineup builder works:

Fox Sports Million Dollar Contest

Every Player Could Be a Top Play

When there are 100,000 people competing in a tournament like the Sunday Million, there is going to be every combination and permutation of lineup possible, and someone will have a massive score. Because of this, almost every player in your lineup should have a chance to be a top performer at his position. For example, while I don’t necessarily like Desean Jackson as a play in week 1, he has big play potential and has a chance to go for a 100+ yd, 2 TD game. A player like Anquan Boldin, who has a great matchup, just doesn’t have as much potential for a big game as Jackson with the 49ers at full strength. You may like Matt Ryan to have a bounce back season, but he just doesn’t have the potential for a monster game like running QBs Cam Newton or Russell Wilson. Pick only players with the potential to be the top scoring guy at their position.

After setting your lineup on FanDuel for the Sunday Million, look at every player and ask yourself “Is this player capable of a huge game?”

Pick Mid-Salary Players From High Over/Under Games

Free Fanduel Contest

Fantasy points are essentially a function of real scoring. The higher the scoring in the game, the more fantasy points scored by the team. Sometimes a player gets lucky and gets a significant chunk of those points, so when choosing players for your team, look for mid-salary players in high over/under games. For example, the Eagles spread it around a lot. There are probably 6 players off the top of my head–Maclin, Cooper, Matthews, Sproles, Mccoy, and Ertz–that will get several targets in week 1. It’s very hard to predict who will get the most of the 4+ TDs the Eagles should score, but it’s possible a couple of them could go to one player we don’t expect. Maclin, Cooper, Ertz, Matthews, and Sproles are all cheap, so if you have 1 or two of them in each Sunday Million lineup, in all likelihood you’ll get a few big hits. And having a mid-salary player who has a huge game will increase your chance of winning the Sunday Million significantly.

Pick High Potential Players Receivers That Others May Overlook

WR and TE are much more high variance positions than RB, QB, Kicker, or Defense. The reason for this is pretty straightforward: small events during a pass play, like a blown coverage or a drop, have a huge effect on receiver performance. A little stumble by a cornerback could mean the difference between a 50 yard TD reception (10+ fantasy points on DraftKings or FanDuel) and a drop for 0 points. Because of this, you want to gamble a little more on WRs, because even the seemingly sure-fire high salary WRs can be outplayed by anyone on the right day. If you pick a low-used WR, and he happens to have a big game that weekend, you’ve significantly increased your chances in the Sunday Million.

Even with this advice, winning the Sunday Million will be extremely tough. But, I’ll take my chance to turn $25 to $250,000 any day. Good luck on Sunday.

Still haven’t signed up for FanDuel and entered the Sunday Million? Sign up through this link http://fanduel.com and to receive a free $20 on your first deposit!