Lead writer for Fantasy Football Magic Man site is the winner of the defenses position, with an array of nice selections. L'Roy Hale of Fantasy First is the overall leader.
Micah James is the winner of the defense portion of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll, and he did it with a well-rounded selection of picks – not by just getting lucky with one big haymaker. He was able to hit on a half-dozen other key selections.
Kansas City was the key team at this position. That defense was a lot better than anybody else in 2013 (at least fantasy wise), piling up 185 points – 35 more than any other team. Yet James wasn’t one of the two who included Kansas City in his top 20. L’Roy Hale (Fantasy First) and Cory Bonini (KFFL) were the only two who thought to rank Kansas City, and those guys came in 2nd and 3rd overall at this position.
James missed on Kansas City, but he had a better overall board. In his top 15, he was higher than anybody on four different defenses, and he hit on three of them. The Rams via the consensus were 10th, but James ranked them 3rd; they ended up finishing 3rd in scoring, with 149 points. He ranked the Bills (mentioned by only three other analysts) 10th, and they came through huge with 135 points, ranking 7th at this position. And he was one of only five guys who mentioned the Panthers – higher than anybody on them at 14th.
James also ranked Miami 9th, but he misfired there; the Dolphins were a bottom-10 defense in this scoring system (6 for TDs, 2 for takeaways and 1 for sacks).
James also helped his cause by ranking Green Bay and Baltimore 18th and 19th. Averaging everyone’s picks, those were the 8th and 9th defenses on the board, but they ended up tying at 19th in the scoring.
In this competition, there are no games, rosters or lineups. Essentially, every player is on every team. The higher you rank a player, the more he counts towards your score. If you don’t rank a player, then you’re no associated with whatever points he produces.
The defense position (which includes special teams) is different than the others in that injuries don’t play as big of a role. With the other positions, players inevitably get hurt, causing huge ripples in the scoring. You put Dennis Pitta, Michael Crabtree or Aaron Rodgers high in your rankings, then you’re screwed when said player misses the bulk of the season. With defenses, every team has injuries, but at least there are other guys to fill in.
We’re not saying this scoring system. There’s plenty of luck/chance involved. How else to explain the fluctuations of the rankings among the experts from year-to-year and position.
Scott Sachs (Perfect Season Fantasy Football) won this competition last year, but he got last in the defenses this time. Some of that was bad luck. Sachs was the only expert to rank New Orleans (which was horrible defensively a year ago). As well as the Saints played under Rob Ryan, that now looks like a very clever/astute forecast, but the Saints didn’t get enough turnovers and ranked just 29th in this scoring system.
Scott Pianowski (Yahoo! Sports) has won this competition twice and finished first in the kicker position last week, but he finished next-to-last. His big pick was San Diego (a mid-range defense he had up at No. 5). Like the Saints, the Chargers were improved and better than expected but didn’t come through for fantasy purpose. They ranked next-to-last in scoring in this format, so Pianowski had the worst two defenses in his top 5 overall.
With the poor finish at defenses, Pianowski drops to 3rd in the overall standings. L’Roy Hale is wearing the yellow jersey for now; he’s finished 2nd in both of the first two categories. Micah James is in the runnerup spot right now. But plenty of positions left to grade, and there’s sure to be a lot of shuffling.
| EXPERTS POLL -- DEFENSES | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rk | Analyst | Def |
| 1. | Micah James | 49,862 |
| 2. | L'Roy Hale | 49,534 |
| 3. | Cory Bonini | 48,988 |
| 4. | Tony Holm | 48,774 |
| 5. | Michael Nazarek | 48,647 |
| 6. | Mike Clay | 48,613 |
| 7. | Alan Satterlee | 48,523 |
| 8. | David Dorey | 48,366 |
| 9. | Chris Liss | 48,122 |
| 10. | Christopher Harris | 48,052 |
| 11. | Bill Enright | 47,897 |
| 12. | Pretzel May | 47,777 |
| 13. | Sam Hendricks | 47,733 |
| 14. | Lenny Pappano | 47,668 |
| 15. | Bob Henry | 47,517 |
| 16. | Paul Charcian | 47,510 |
| 17. | Ladd Biro | 47,363 |
| 18. | John Moore | 47,116 |
| 19. | Scott Pianowski | 47,015 |
| 20. | Scott Sachs | 46,272 |
| EXPERTS POLL – CURRENT LEADERBOARD | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Analyst | PK | Def | Overall |
| L'Roy Hale | 2 | 2 | 99,674 |
| Micah James | 5 | 1 | 98,985 |
| Scott Pianowski | 1 | 19 | 98,389 |
| Michael Nazarek | 7 | 5 | 97,443 |
| Ladd Biro | 3 | 17 | 97,294 |
| Christopher Harris | 4 | 10 | 97,259 |
| Alan Satterlee | 8 | 7 | 97,236 |
| Mike Clay | 12 | 6 | 96,689 |
| David Dorey | 11 | 8 | 96,481 |
| Bob Henry | 6 | 15 | 96,470 |
| Chris Liss | 13 | 9 | 96,030 |
| John Moore | 9 | 18 | 95,686 |
| Lenny Pappano | 15 | 14 | 95,485 |
| Paul Charcian | 14 | 16 | 95,389 |
| Cory Bonini | 18 | 3 | 95,239 |
| Sam Hendricks | 16 | 13 | 95,108 |
| Bill Enright | 17 | 11 | 94,837 |
| Scott Sachs | 10 | 20 | 94,719 |
| Tony Holm | 19 | 4 | 94,637 |
| Pretzel May | 20 | 12 | 91,861 |
--Ian Allan