There is a myth that one must construct “the perfect lineup” in order to win the million-dollar contests on DraftKingsand FanDuel. It’s easy to see why this myth has been perpetuated – we’re competing against hundreds of thousands of lineups in these contests and often our monstrous-scoring lineups fall far short of the pot of gold beneath the end of the rainbow. But reaching that pot of gold is often more about who you don’t play than who you play.

BALLAH (2) won the largest contest in the history of daily fantasy sports on DraftKings with multiple “meh” players in his lineup:

BALLAH (2) 228.04

QB: Tony Romo – 27.14 (9.6%)
RB: Carlos Hyde – 35.2 (5.1%)
RB: Chris Ivory – 23 (17.2%)
WR: John Brown – 14.6 (14.4%)
WR: Julio Jones – 38.1 (21.8%)
WR: Jarvis Landry – 20.7 (19.4%)
TE: Tyler Eifert – 34.4 (3.9%)
FLEX: Eddie Lacy – 17.9 (24.0%)
DEF: Jets – 17 (17.7%)

John Brown, Jarvis Landry, and Eddie Lacy produced solid fantasy numbers Sunday, but fell short of the heights reached by DeAndre Hopkins, Keenan Allen, and Matt Forte. BALLAH hit hard on Hyde, Julio, and Eifert, but his lineup was far from perfect. He got great production from Eifert, but didn’t have Travis Kelce, who appeared to be one of two “mandatory owns” from the Sunday early slate. In fact, none of the top 20 finishers played Kelce, while three of the top five flexed someone else at tight end.

BALLAH’s entry doesn’t have obscure ownerships (Eifert was his lowest-owned at 3.9%) and doesn’t feature a QB-receiver stack, which set his lineup apart from all the Romo lineups embedded with Dez Bryant’s dud. By using Julio instead of Dez, BALLAH created some (perhaps unintended) differentiation.

It’s also worth noting that he stacked Chris Ivory with the Jets defense (a positive correlation), while flexing Eddie Lacy instead of Carlos Hyde (who played Monday night), a clear mistake and likely signal that BALLAH is inexperienced playing on DraftKings.

The key feature of week one was the poor fantasy performance from most of the highest-priced players: CJ Anderson, Adrian Peterson, Dez Bryant, Odell Beckham, AJ Green, Calvin Johnson, and Randall Cobb. It was hard to build a lineup without them, as most players tend to use at least a couple “studs” in their lineups. BALLAH’s lineup spent on Julio and got just enough out of his other stud, Eddie Lacy, to get the win.

jeremybronson (201.32)

QB: Alex Smith – 23.22 (.6%)
RB: Jamaal Charles – 18.8 (5.6%)
RB: Carlos Hyde – 31.2 (2.2%)
WR: Julio Jones – 30.6 (30.5%)
WR: Percy Harvin – 17.3 (.5%)
WR: DeAndre Hopkins – 28.3 (3.3%)
TE: Tyler Eifert – 26.9 (4.8%)
K: Steven Hauschka – 11 (3.3%)
DEF: San Francisco 49ers – 14 (.6%)

The million-dollar winner of FanDuel‘s Sunday Million, jeremybronson, also helped dispel the myth of the perfect lineup. jeremybronson’s lineup lost 7 points at kicker to the chalky Brandon McManus, fell a little short of some popular defenses like the Jets and Panthers, and lost another six points to Matt Forte owners on Jamaal Charles. Yet jeremybronson won the Sunday Million by 12 points!

His lineup strung together four of the top producers – Hyde, Julio, Hopkins, and Eifert – while avoiding the multitude of high-priced landmines that exploded 95+% of lineups.

Interestingly, jeremybronson’s million-dollar lineup had just three players in common with BALLAH’s two-million-dollar winner. Again, jeremybronson’s is more notable for what it’s not than what it is. Charles and Julio were the only two high-priced players in the lineup, as jeremybronson instead spent the money on medium-priced, low-owned Hyde and Hopkins.

The lineup also featured two subtle stacks. Using QBs and RBs on the same team is negatively correlated with DFS success, but that might not apply to Alex Smith and Jamaal Charles. The biggest fantasy game of Charles’ (and just about anyone’s) career came in a game against the Oakland Raiders when he caught four touchdown passes from Smith while rushing for just a few yards.

jeremybronson also stacked Carlos Hyde with the 49ers defense. Stacking running backs and team defenses has a positive correlation in fantasy football and jeremybronson chose a particularly sneaky and effective team to do it with. It doesn’t seem so clever now, yet the 49ers were just 0.6% owned on FanDuel. Anticipating this sort of positively correlated, contrarian, yet reasonable stack can be extremely effective in large-field DFS tournaments.