If it seems like everyone has Andrew Luck or Aaron Rodgers as their top quarterback, it’s because it’s true. We’re doing the Fantasy Index Open contest again this year, and all 192 people who entered have either Luck or Rodgers as their No. 1 quarterback.
Only 10 of those 192, in fact, snuck someone else up into the No. 2 spot. Peyton Manning got 3 of those votes, and Matt Ryan and Drew Brees got 2 each. (One each for Ben Roethlisberger, Russell Wilson and Tom Brady – Billy Friedrich of North Carolina betting, apparently, that Brady will get his suspension tossed and that he’ll sneak one by on everyone.)
Not much difference at the top; 104 of the entries went with Luck at No. 1, and the other 88 went with Rodgers.
It’s just as tight down at the No. 3 spot, where Manning edges Brees just barely. In a head-to-head comparison between those two, Manning wins 100-92. That’s about as close as you get in this kind of thing.
Then a little drop down to the Nos. 5-6 spots, where Ryan just shades Roethlisberger.
All summer I have argued that there’s a group of seven quarterbacks in the second tier at this position, but it didn’t pan out that way in the poll. There’s a little drop down to Russell Wilson and Eli Manning, and then Tony Romo (who isn’t in that seven-man tier, in my opinion) comes in ahead of Cam Newton. I have Newton way ahead of Romo on my board.
After Newton, there’s a pretty big drop down to the next group of quarterbacks, which includes Matthew Stafford, Ryan Tannehill, Philip Rivers, Tom Brady and Joe Flacco. In that order, by the way – Tannehill comes in just ahead of Rivers.
With Brady, keep in mind that he might miss a quarter of the season, which would be killer in this format. This isn’t a regular fantasy league, where you have the luxury of parking a guy on the bench for September. When we score them in January, Brady could be putting up zeros for the first four weeks of the season.
There are no starting lineups or waiver moves in this competition. Instead, we’ll use a complex scoring matrix to grade everyone’s top 20 at each position and crown a champion in January. The winner claims a big trophy from the team at Affordable Trophies.
Looking at the second-year quarterbacks, most everyone has Teddy Bridgewater well ahead of Derek Carr and Blake Bortles.
Anyway, here’s the list, with percentage of market share. If a guy was ranked first on every ballot, he’d clock in at 100 percent. If a player ranked 10th on every board, he come out at 50 percent.
I will try to post results of the other positions in the coming days.
| FANTASY INDEX OPEN (Quarterbacks) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tm | Player | Pct |
| IND | Andrew Luck | 97.4% |
| GB | Aaron Rodgers | 97.2% |
| DEN | Peyton Manning | 78.3% |
| NO | Drew Brees | 78.0% |
| ATL | Matt Ryan | 72.8% |
| PIT | Ben Roethlisberger | 72.2% |
| SEA | Russell Wilson | 66.7% |
| NYG | Eli Manning | 61.4% |
| DAL | Tony Romo | 60.4% |
| CAR | Cam Newton | 59.6% |
| DET | Matthew Stafford | 48.3% |
| MIA | Ryan Tannehill | 41.6% |
| SD | Philip Rivers | 41.5% |
| NE | Tom Brady | 34.3% |
| BAL | Joe Flacco | 31.3% |
| PHI | Sam Bradford | 23.9% |
| ARI | Carson Palmer | 19.3% |
| MIN | Teddy Bridgewater | 14.4% |
| SF | Colin Kaepernick | 12.7% |
| CIN | Andy Dalton | 10.9% |
| CHI | Jay Cutler | 8.4% |
| TB | Jameis Winston | 4.6% |
| OAK | Derek Carr | 3.4% |
| TEN | Marcus Mariota | 2.9% |
| STL | Nick Foles | 2.3% |
| KC | Alex Smith | 1.9% |
| NYJ | Ryan Fitzpatrick | 1.6% |
| JAC | Blake Bortles | 1.1% |
| WAS | Robert Griffin III | 0.8% |
| BUF | Matt Cassel | 0.4% |
| HOU | Brian Hoyer | 0.3% |
| NYJ | Geno Smith | 0.1% |
| PHI | Mark Sanchez | 0.1% |
—Ian Allan