Week 4 is in the books. Friday's Top Plays article got the cash build right and got one receiver very wrong. The Millionaire came down to 0.2 points, and the winning lineups ran through one game: Dallas at Houston, which ended 34 to 30. All scores below are DraftKings points.
CASH REVIEW
The DraftKings Build
| Slot | Player | Salary | DK Pts |
|---|---|---|---|
| QB | C.J. Stroud | $5,700 | 26.1 |
| RB | Kenneth Walker III | $8,200 | 33.9 |
| RB | Chase Brown | $6,100 | 19.1 |
| WR | Garrett Wilson | $6,800 | 5.7 |
| WR | Matthew Golden | $5,400 | 11.7 |
| WR | Tee Higgins | $6,100 | 29.7 |
| TE | T.J. Hockenson | $3,300 | 27.9 |
| FLEX | Aaron Jones | $6,000 | 16.8 |
| DST | Miami | $2,000 | 5.0 |
| Total | $49,600 | 175.9 |
The build scored 175.9 points. The min-cash line was 132.2 in the $100K Huddle, 140.0 in the $400K Spy and 142.0 in the $250K Power Sweep. The build cleared each of those lines by more than 33 points. Two of our nine players scored under 6 points, and the build still cashed with room to spare.
What Worked
C.J. Stroud ($5,700): 21 of 31 for 347 yards and two touchdowns. We took the mid-tier quarterback over every option at $6,600 and above. Stroud also became the best quarterback in GPP, which we cover below.
T.J. Hockenson ($3,300): 13 catches on 13 targets for 119 yards, 27.9 points. Justin Jefferson sat, and Hockenson took 39% of the Minnesota targets. He gave the best points per dollar in the build, and the $3,300 price paid for three running backs.
Kenneth Walker III ($8,200): 22 carries, 177 yards and two touchdowns. The carry count we wanted showed up, and the yardage bonus came with it.
Tee Higgins ($6,100): 16 targets, 11 catches, 157 yards. Cincinnati threw 54 times. Higgins took the volume that Ja'Marr Chase did not get (three targets).
Chase Brown ($6,100): nine carries for 10 yards, but 11 catches on 11 targets for 71 yards. The run game failed and the pass-game work still gave him 19.1 points. Brown is the reason we want targets on a cash running back: his floor held when the carries went nowhere.
What Failed
Garrett Wilson ($6,800): three catches for 27 yards on four targets, 5.7 points. He was our biggest miss of the week. His share of the targets held at 27%, close to the number we expected. The problem was team volume. The Jets threw 15 passes all game. Chicago ran the ball 30 times with Kyle Monangai and controlled the game 23 to 12. A target share only has value when the team throws. Wilson was in the one offense on the slate with a real chance to stop throwing early.
Matthew Golden ($5,400): three catches on seven targets for 21 yards and a touchdown, 11.7 points. The touchdown saved some of the score. Green Bay threw 30 times in a game that finished 17 to 14.
Miami D/ST ($2,000): 5 points. A $2,000 defense is a salary play, and 5 points is a normal result for that price. It did not cost us the week.
The Swaps, Graded
Swap one: Kenneth Walker III plus Tee Higgins (63.6 points) against Christian McCaffrey plus Christian Watson (23.7 points). We took the right side by 39.9 points.
Swap two: Aaron Jones plus T.J. Hockenson (44.7 points) against Braelon Allen plus Kenyon Sadiq (8.7 points). We took the right side by 36.0 points.
Both swaps went our way by more than a full player's score. The Wilson spot is the one decision to look at again. For $700 more, Puka Nacua scored 30.7. For $1,000 more, CeeDee Lamb scored 44.3.
GPP REVIEW
Millionaire: What Won
The $2.75M Fantasy Football Millionaire had 161,764 entries and paid $1M to first. The winning lineup scored 234.2:
| Slot | Player | Salary | DK Pts | Field Own |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QB | Dak Prescott | $6,400 | 21.1 | 5.2% |
| RB | Javonte Williams | $6,600 | 31.3 | 1.5% |
| RB | Kyren Williams | $5,900 | 36.7 | 9.1% |
| WR | CeeDee Lamb | $7,800 | 44.3 | 10.3% |
| WR | Nico Collins | $7,200 | 33.8 | 12.2% |
| WR | Zay Flowers | $6,900 | 28.8 | 7.3% |
| TE | Zach Ertz | $3,100 | 3.3 | 1.1% |
| FLEX | T.J. Hockenson | $3,300 | 27.9 | 15.9% |
| DST | Jacksonville | $2,600 | 7.0 | 1.7% |
The core is a Dallas stack: Dak Prescott with CeeDee Lamb and Javonte Williams, plus Nico Collins as the bring-back from Houston. Lamb caught 17 of 21 targets for 189 yards. Javonte Williams scored three touchdowns. Prescott and Javonte Williams were each under 6% owned. The lineup used Hockenson in the flex and paid $3,100 for a second tight end. Ertz scored 3.3 and the lineup still won. Kyren Williams at $5,900 (16 carries, 10 catches, two touchdowns) supplied the rest.
Second place scored 234.0 and missed by 0.2 points. It also ran Prescott, Lamb and Collins, then went cheap and low-owned at running back: Kyle Monangai ($4,900, 1.6% owned, 31.0 points) and RJ Harvey ($5,000, 0.9% owned, 19.3 points). Both of those backs were in Friday's article. Monangai was the GPP back we named if D'Andre Swift sat. Harvey was our one cheap cash back.
Top ROI Plays
ROI below is the return on each $20 entry for every lineup that used the player, with the $1M first prize removed. One lineup cannot set the number this way. The list uses players on at least 0.5% of lineups. The full board is on the NFL Player ROI tool.
| Player | Salary | DK Pts | Field Own | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RJ Harvey, DEN RB | $5,000 | 19.3 | 0.9% | +288% |
| Kyle Monangai, CHI RB | $4,900 | 31.0 | 1.6% | +196% |
| Romeo Doubs, NE WR | $4,700 | 23.8 | 1.9% | +154% |
| Tyquan Thornton, KC WR | $3,400 | 31.1 | 0.7% | +144% |
| CeeDee Lamb, DAL WR | $7,800 | 44.3 | 10.3% | +143% |
| C.J. Stroud, HOU QB | $5,700 | 26.1 | 5.9% | +117% |
| Nico Collins, HOU WR | $7,200 | 33.8 | 12.2% | +108% |
| Dak Prescott, DAL QB | $6,400 | 21.1 | 5.2% | +88% |
| Kyren Williams, LAR RB | $5,900 | 36.7 | 9.1% | +76% |
| Javonte Williams, DAL RB | $6,600 | 31.3 | 1.5% | +57% |
| Carnell Tate, TEN WR | $4,800 | 25.5 | 2.8% | +51% |
Two groups made the money. The first group is the Houston and Dallas passing game: Stroud, Collins, Lamb and Prescott. Those four players were each owned between 5% and 13%, and they showed up together in most of the top lineups. The second group is cheap players under 2% owned with a clear role: Harvey (10 catches on 10 targets), Monangai (30 carries), Doubs (two touchdowns) and Thornton (5 catches, 111 yards, two touchdowns).
Carnell Tate was in our Cheap WR section on Friday. He caught 9 of 12 targets for 145 yards at 2.8% owned, with 43% of the Tennessee targets.
The Chalk That Failed
| Player | Salary | DK Pts | Field Own | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jeremiyah Love, ARI RB | $5,800 | 6.5 | 29.3% | -67% |
| Christian McCaffrey, SF RB | $7,700 | 16.0 | 28.1% | -58% |
| Aaron Jones, MIN RB | $6,000 | 16.8 | 26.8% | -47% |
| Parker Washington, JAX WR | $6,500 | 2.0 | 24.5% | -82% |
| Jordan Addison, MIN WR | $5,300 | 9.1 | 23.1% | -65% |
| Jaxon Smith-Njigba, SEA WR | $9,100 | 12.6 | 20.3% | -79% |
| Dontayvion Wicks, PHI WR | $4,300 | 4.8 | 20.2% | -65% |
| Ja'Marr Chase, CIN WR | $8,100 | 5.7 | 19.5% | -77% |
| Minnesota D/ST | $4,000 | 8.0 | 17.5% | -63% |
The ten most popular players on the slate all scored 16.8 points or fewer. Jacksonville at Cincinnati had the highest total on the slate, and the field went there hard: Parker Washington, Ja'Marr Chase, Trevor Lawrence (15.7%) and Brenton Strange (13.3%). The game ended 22 to 17. Tee Higgins was the only player from that game who paid off.
Ownership Breakdown
The top 200 lineups had an average total ownership of 97.8%. The average lineup in the full field had 110.3%. So the top lineups were about 12 points lower on total ownership than the field. They were not contrarian everywhere. Hockenson was 15.9% owned and he was in 63% of the top 200 lineups. Collins and Lamb were each in about 84%. The difference came from the players they left out: the top 200 used Love in 11% of lineups against 29% for the field, and McCaffrey in 9% against 28%.
Stroud is the clearest example. He was 5.9% owned in the field and in 54.5% of the top 200 lineups. He was $200 cheaper than Trevor Lawrence, who was owned almost three times as much.
Stacking Notes
- 95.5% of the top 200 lineups paired the quarterback with at least one of his own pass catchers. In the field, 87.4% did.
- 74% of the top 200 used a bring-back from the opposing team. In the field, 44.5% did. The field built a bring-back less than half the time, and the Houston at Dallas game paid both sides.
- A single stack (the quarterback plus one teammate) was enough. 141 of the top 200 used one teammate. Only 50 used two or more. Collins was the teammate in most Stroud lineups, and Lamb was the bring-back.
- Quarterback plus receiver plus tight end was the most popular double stack in the field (18.9% of lineups), and it returned -60%. That build needs three players from one team to hit, and most teams this week did not support it.
High-Stakes, Small Field
The $400K Spy is single entry at $100 with 4,444 entries and $100K to first. The winner scored 213.4 with Stroud, CeeDee Lamb and Nico Collins, plus Kyren Williams, Christian McCaffrey, D'Andre Swift, Malik Nabers, Romeo Doubs, Hockenson and the Chargers defense. Stroud was the quarterback in six of the top 10 lineups.
The small field leaned harder on the chalk than the Millionaire did. Love went from 29.3% in the Millionaire to 39.6% in the Spy. McCaffrey went from 28.1% to 35.9%, and Parker Washington from 24.5% to 31.3%. The Rams defense went from 11.3% to 16.5% and scored 5 points. In a field this size, one correct lower-owned stack moves you past a large part of the contest. Stroud with Collins and Lamb was that stack, at 7.6% owned for Stroud.
WHERE WE MISSED
Garrett Wilson. We called him the most underpriced receiver on the board. The share held, but the Jets threw 15 times. Before we pay for a target share again, we need to ask how the game can go if that team falls behind slowly or never needs to throw.
The Chicago back. On Friday, the GPP section built a full game story: Chicago's defense holds the Jets under 20, the Bears win, and a Chicago back runs out the clock. The game went that way. Then the Sunday update moved us to D'Andre Swift because he was active. Swift scored 8.4 at 10.8% owned. Monangai scored 31.0 at 1.6% owned. The story was right. When the field knows both backs are active, the cheaper back in the same story is the better GPP price.
The late-window pivot. We named Denver at San Francisco as the pivot. Bo Nix scored 13.6 and Jaylen Waddle 14.5. We called Kansas City at Las Vegas the trap game. That game produced Walker (33.9), Kirk Cousins (26.6 at 2.0% owned) and Thornton (31.1 at 0.7% owned). The popular side of that game was Walker, and he alone did not separate from the field. The cheap pieces did.
Davante Adams. We said Adams was the overlooked half of the Rams passing game if Nacua played. Nacua played and scored 30.7. Adams scored 7.2. Kyren Williams scored 36.7 from the same offense at 9.1% owned.
BEST PIVOTS
Jeremiyah Love ($5,800) to Kyren Williams ($5,900). $100 more. 30.2 more points. One third of the ownership.
Aaron Jones or Christian McCaffrey to Emanuel Wilson ($4,700). Wilson ran 21 times for 81 yards with two touchdowns, scored 27.0 at 5.6% owned, and saved $1,300 or more.
Jordan Addison ($5,300) or Dontayvion Wicks ($4,300) to Carnell Tate ($4,800). Tate scored 25.5 at 2.8% owned. Addison and Wicks combined for 13.9 at more than 20% owned each.
Trevor Lawrence ($5,900) to C.J. Stroud ($5,700). $200 less. 13.0 more points. The top 200 lineups used Stroud in more than half of their builds.
Minnesota D/ST ($4,000) to Chicago D/ST ($3,000). Chicago scored 7.0 against Minnesota's 8.0, and the $1,000 saved paid for a better skill player. Chicago returned -3% in the Millionaire, the best of any defense with more than 5% ownership.
HOW TO THINK LIKE THIS MORE OFTEN
- Check team volume before target share. A 30% share of 15 passes is 4.5 targets. When a receiver's team can win or lose without passing, his ceiling is lower than his share says.
- The highest total does not need the most ownership. Jacksonville at Cincinnati had the top total and the most chalk. Houston at Dallas was a few points lower on the total and much lower on ownership. That difference is where the Millionaire was won.
- Look at the cheaper quarterback in a good game. Stroud and Prescott were both priced under the top tier, both played in the same game, and both were under 6% owned. A cheap quarterback in a high-scoring game gives you a stack and salary at the same time.
- Build the bring-back. The top lineups used one at a much higher rate than the field. When a game becomes a shootout, both sides score.
- When a backfield story is right, use the cheap back. The field takes the starter it knows. The back with the role in that exact game story is often cheaper and much lower owned.
Tools used for this review
Every number in this review comes off the BankrollSZN tools: the NFL Player ROI tool, the NFL Build ROI tool, this week's NFL DFS projections and the free NFL lineup optimizer.