Yahoo! Sports writer puts together best overall top 20 for quarterbacks. Philip Rivers is his key pick. Benefits from having the vision to stay away from Josh Freeman, Jake Locker and Matt Schaub.
Scott Pianowski is the winner of quarterbacks position of our Experts Poll, and he can write a thank you card to Philip Rivers (and maybe to Josh Freeman). Peyton Manning was the No. 1 player at this position, but Rivers and Freeman played more significant roles in determining how the guys finished in our poll.
It comes down to how we score it.
We’re giving the experts credit for differently they score players relative to the other 19 experts.
With Manning, he scored 497 fantasy points. Pianowski ranked him 3rd. So he was Manning neutral with the eight other experts who ranked him 3rd. He picks up 497 points relative to the two guys who ranked him 4th, and 994 points (2 x 497) relative to the three who ranked him 5th.
Three guys had the vision to rank Manning 2nd – John Moore, L’Roy Hale and Ladd Biro. Pianowski lost 497 points relative to those guys.
But it was the lesser quarterbacks who played a bigger role in the outcome at this position.
Freeman, for one, played poorly for a few weeks and then got benched, traded and benched some more, finishing with only 48 points. So anybody ranking Freeman high took a gut punch on that one. Cory Bonini was the highest on Freeman (14th), so that dropped him out of the running. His Freeman pick was worth 17 x 48, or only 816 points. A bunch of quarterbacks in that range scored about 300 points, and they were worth about 5,100 points if you rank them 14th, so Bonini took about a 4,000-point loss in that exchange (which is far more significant than having Manning 2-3 spots higher or lower).
In the case of Pianowski, he benefitted greatly for leaving Freeman off his board entirely. He also skipped on two other popular boobie-prize quarterbacks (Matt Schaub and Michael Vick). He was also one of the lower guys on Sam Bradford (18th), who also got hurt.
Then, to put his team over the top, Pianowski slotted Rivers (coming off a terrible year) as the No. 14 quarterback – higher than any of the other experts. Rivers finished the year as the No. 6 quarterback, so Pianowski (using those same sliding-scale dynamics) picked up a bunch of points against everyone in that department.
These picks outside the top 10 allowed Pianowski to cover up the two big errors on his board. He was one of the seven who ranked Aaron Rodgers No. 1, and Rodgers missed half of the season. And Pianowski put Eli Manning 10th, which was higher than most.
But Rivers and skipping on some dud quarterbacks was enough to pull it out for him.
Pianowski is a writer for Yahoo! Sports.
Mike Clay of Pro Football Focus finished 2nd in this category. His entry was similar to Pianowski’s. He also had Rodgers at the top, and he also benefitted from avoiding the bust quarterbacks (in his case, Freeman, Schaub and Bradford). Clay was the highest of everyone on Ryan Tannehill, who stayed healthy and finished the year 12th among quarterbacks in scoring.
Bill Enright of Fantasy Football Champs finished 3rd in scoring at this position.
| EXPERTS POLL, Quarterbacks | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Analyst | Company | Points |
| 1 | Scott Pianowski | Yahoo! Sports | 136,737 |
| 2 | Mike Clay | Pro Football Focus | 135,359 |
| 3 | Bill Enright | Fantasy Football Champs | 134,830 |
| 4 | Pretzel May | Fantasy Draft Master | 134,647 |
| 5 | Chris Liss | Rotowire | 134,254 |
| 6 | L'Roy Hale | Fantasy First | 134,004 |
| 7 | Micah James | FFMagicMan | 132,977 |
| 8 | David Dorey | The Huddle | 132,571 |
| 9 | Paul Charchian | LeagueSafe | 132,541 |
| 10 | John Moore | 2012 Fantasy Index Open | 132,470 |
| 11 | Bob Henry | Footballguys.com | 132,310 |
| 12 | Sam Hendricks | Fantasy Football Guidebook | 132,269 |
| 13 | Alan Satterlee | Dynasty Football Warehouse | 132,227 |
| 14 | Ladd Biro | Fantasy Fools | 130,624 |
| 15 | Cory Bonini | KFFL | 130,557 |
| 16 | Michael Nazarek | Fantasy Football Mastermind | 130,425 |
| 17 | Scott Sachs | PerfectSeasonFFB.com | 130,075 |
| 18 | Lenny Pappano | Draft Sharks | 128,826 |
| 19 | Tony Holm | FantasySharks.com | 127,831 |
| 20 | Christopher Harris | ESPN | 127,587 |
--Ian Allan