With injuries playing a larger role than usual in 2017, the Experts Poll at times becomes very much a battle of attrition. Four of the tight ends that were in most people’s top 10s missed most of the season: Jordan Reed, Greg Olsen, Tyler Eifert and Martellus Bennett.

Choices such as Coby Fleener, C.J. Fiedorowicz, Dennis Pitta, Zach Miller, Eric Swoope and Dwayne Allen also imploded, shifting this contest away from who was picked towards who was best avoided.

When we’re scoring the poll, we’re grading every pick by every expert, so when you using a third of your top-10 picks on players who aren’t even on the field, it tends to dwarf whether you chose to put Jimmy Graham ahead of Delanie Walker and Kyle Rudolph. More important is who did the best job of not selecting the poison picks.

But somebody’s got to win, and David Dorey of The Huddle emerged from the rubble at this position. He used his 2nd and 3rd slots on Jordan Reed and Greg Olsen, but he was a lot lower than almost everyone on Martellus Bennett, helping him separate from the field. Transplanted into Green Bay’s offense, Bennett entered the season as the consensus No. 8 tight end, but Dorey had him way down at 18th, and that paid off when Bennett never got off the launch pad and then missed the second half of the season entirely.

Three other experts finishied within 1,000 points, and they were all long-time veterans of this competition: Bob Henry (FootballGuys), Lenny Pappano (Draft Sharks) and Chris Liss (RotoWire).

Cory Bonini (USA Today Fantasy Sports) has won this competition in the past, but he got ripped up the most in this category. He was the lowest of everyone on Eifert (12th), but he undermined that value with three sizable errors. He was the only person who didn’t include Jack Doyle in his top 20 and his aggressive sleeper picks were C.J. Fiedorowicz (7th) and Tyler Higbee (9th), which didn’t turn out at all. But plenty of time left for Bonini to potentially turn things around.

For scoring on this competition, every pick is graded. The higher a player is ranked, the more he counts towards the score. Fiedorowicz, for example, scored only 12.7 points, so Bonini received only 241.3 points for that selection (19 x 12.7). Had he instead used that No. 7 selection on Doyle, he would have received 1,767 points (19 x 93).

TIGHT END RANKINGS (Standard Scoring)
AnalystCompanyPoints
David DoreyThe Huddle26,428
Bob HenryFootballGuys25,789
Lenny PappanoDraft Sharks25,771
Chris LissRotoWire25,664
Ken ValisGaithersburg, Md.25,095
Jody SmithGridiron Experts25,064
Michael NazarekFantasy Football Mastermind24,917
Scott PianowskiYahoo Sports24,720
L.A. HaleFantasy Gives24,694
Jeff RatcliffePro Football Focus24,685
Alan SatterleeCharlotte Observer24,679
Ryan McDowellDynasty League Football24,619
Sam HendricksExtra Point Press24,461
Ryan MurphyEast Berlin, Pa.24,406
Mike ClayESPN24,327
Scott SachsPerfect Season FF24,094
Paul CharchianLeagueSafe23,890
Tony HolmFantasy Sharks23,415
Justin EleffFantasy Index Podcast23,409
Cory BoniniUSA Today Fantasy Sports22,762

Such a scoring system, of course, puts a premium on availability. This is an inexact pseudo-science, so it’s fair to also score the lists in other ways. In typical fantasy leagues, for example, teams are allowed to make waiver wire adjustments during the course of the season, and some of those who chose players like Eifert, Reed and Bennett no doubt would have replaced them with decent free agents during the season.

In “Waiver Wire Scoring”, we look at the same player lists but give credit only for identifying players who ended up putting up starter-quality points. Typical leagues include 12 teams, so we can assume that those who made a mess of the tight end position somehow during the season would use the waiver wire and trades to wind up with some reasonable produciton. The 13th-best tight end was Hunter Henry, who scored 81.9 points, so we can run the numbers giving credit only for tight ends scoring above that level. Any picks used on players scoring fewer picks than Henry just got set aside (whether they scored 75, 45, 25 or 0 points doesn’t matter – they weren’t going to have an impact on how your team performed).

Using Waiver Wire Scoring, Liss would move up into the No. 1 spot (fitting, since he was the one who first suggested this style of scoring a few years back). He would be followed by three other analysts who all moved up at least a half dozen spots – Ryan McDowell, Michael Nazarek and Sam Hendricks.

Dorey, meanwhile, would drop from 1st down to 6th – he apparently got a really nice bump from his Martellus Bennett selection.

Bottom line: there are lots of different ways to score this kind of competition, and it can reasonably be debated which way is the best. Each has its own advantages.

TIGHT ENDS RESULTS (Waiver Wire Scoring)
AnalystPointsStd Rk
Chris Liss6,3404
Ryan McDowell6,24012
Michael Nazarek6,1527
Sam Hendricks6,08713
Bob Henry6,0802
David Dorey6,0391
Paul Charchian6,01917
Jody Smith5,9746
Scott Pianowski5,9708
Lenny Pappano5,9243
Justin Eleff5,89519
Mike Clay5,87515
Alan Satterlee5,81611
Ken Valis5,7995
Jeff Ratcliffe5,78910
Cory Bonini5,64720
Ryan Murphy5,60614
L.A. Hale5,5979
Scott Sachs5,58516
Tony Holm5,23918

We’re at the halfway point in the scoring for the Experts Poll. Still to come are the more telling QB, RB and WR positions. Then we’ll crown an overall champion.

Currently, Jody Smith (Gridiron Experts) is the overall leader, followed by Scott Sachs (Perfect Season Fantasy Football) and Bob Henry (FootballGuys).

OVERALL STANDINGS (TE-PK-Def positions)
AnalystCompanyPoints
Jody SmithGridiron Experts94,210
Scott SachsPerfect Season FF93,731
Bob HenryFootballGuys93,722
Ryan McDowellDynasty League Football93,172
Chris LissRotoWire93,134
Jeff RatcliffePro Football Focus93,131
Mike ClayESPN92,658
Ken ValisGaithersburg, Md.92,460
David DoreyThe Huddle92,244
Justin EleffFantasy Index Podcast92,227
Lenny PappanoDraft Sharks92,127
Alan SatterleeCharlotte Observer92,073
Michael NazarekFantasy Football Mastermind91,634
Ryan MurphyEast Berlin, Pa.91,619
Sam HendricksExtra Point Press91,356
Scott PianowskiYahoo Sports91,342
Tony HolmFantasy Sharks91,280
L.A. HaleFantasy Gives89,512
Cory BoniniUSA Today Fantasy Sports88,481
Paul CharchianLeagueSafe88,461

If we instead use Waiver Wire Scoring, then Justin Eleff (Fantasy Index Podcast) is the overall leader at the halfway point, with a 1-point lead over Ryan McDowell (Dynasty League Football). (These scores, by the way, include tenths and hundredths of points, but I’m leaving those out for presentation purposes.)

OVERALL STANDINGS (Waiver Wire Scoring)
AnalystPointsStd Rk
Justin Eleff12,90510
Ryan McDowell12,9044
Ken Valis12,8008
Mike Clay12,7867
Jody Smith12,7321
Jeff Ratcliffe12,5666
Chris Liss12,4135
Paul Charchian12,14220
Lenny Pappano12,03211
Bob Henry12,0203
Scott Sachs11,8872
Michael Nazarek11,79213
Sam Hendricks11,77115
Ryan Murphy11,73614
Tony Holm11,69017
Scott Pianowski11,40916
David Dorey11,3829
L.A. Hale11,09318
Cory Bonini11,00619
Alan Satterlee10,98412

We’ve also got the sister competition, the Fantasy Index Open – it’s the same, except instead of being limited to 20 industry analysts, it’s open to all comers. About 400 readers entered. We’ll be posting those results in a few days – right after the Experts Poll champion is crowned.

—Ian Allan