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) | ||
---|---|---|
Analyst | Company | Points |
David Dorey | The Huddle | 26,428 |
Bob Henry | FootballGuys | 25,789 |
Lenny Pappano | Draft Sharks | 25,771 |
Chris Liss | RotoWire | 25,664 |
Ken Valis | Gaithersburg, Md. | 25,095 |
Jody Smith | Gridiron Experts | 25,064 |
Michael Nazarek | Fantasy Football Mastermind | 24,917 |
Scott Pianowski | Yahoo Sports | 24,720 |
L.A. Hale | Fantasy Gives | 24,694 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | Pro Football Focus | 24,685 |
Alan Satterlee | Charlotte Observer | 24,679 |
Ryan McDowell | Dynasty League Football | 24,619 |
Sam Hendricks | Extra Point Press | 24,461 |
Ryan Murphy | East Berlin, Pa. | 24,406 |
Mike Clay | ESPN | 24,327 |
Scott Sachs | Perfect Season FF | 24,094 |
Paul Charchian | LeagueSafe | 23,890 |
Tony Holm | Fantasy Sharks | 23,415 |
Justin Eleff | Fantasy Index Podcast | 23,409 |
Cory Bonini | USA Today Fantasy Sports | 22,762 |
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) | ||
---|---|---|
Analyst | Points | Std Rk |
Chris Liss | 6,340 | 4 |
Ryan McDowell | 6,240 | 12 |
Michael Nazarek | 6,152 | 7 |
Sam Hendricks | 6,087 | 13 |
Bob Henry | 6,080 | 2 |
David Dorey | 6,039 | 1 |
Paul Charchian | 6,019 | 17 |
Jody Smith | 5,974 | 6 |
Scott Pianowski | 5,970 | 8 |
Lenny Pappano | 5,924 | 3 |
Justin Eleff | 5,895 | 19 |
Mike Clay | 5,875 | 15 |
Alan Satterlee | 5,816 | 11 |
Ken Valis | 5,799 | 5 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 5,789 | 10 |
Cory Bonini | 5,647 | 20 |
Ryan Murphy | 5,606 | 14 |
L.A. Hale | 5,597 | 9 |
Scott Sachs | 5,585 | 16 |
Tony Holm | 5,239 | 18 |
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) | ||
---|---|---|
Analyst | Company | Points |
Jody Smith | Gridiron Experts | 94,210 |
Scott Sachs | Perfect Season FF | 93,731 |
Bob Henry | FootballGuys | 93,722 |
Ryan McDowell | Dynasty League Football | 93,172 |
Chris Liss | RotoWire | 93,134 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | Pro Football Focus | 93,131 |
Mike Clay | ESPN | 92,658 |
Ken Valis | Gaithersburg, Md. | 92,460 |
David Dorey | The Huddle | 92,244 |
Justin Eleff | Fantasy Index Podcast | 92,227 |
Lenny Pappano | Draft Sharks | 92,127 |
Alan Satterlee | Charlotte Observer | 92,073 |
Michael Nazarek | Fantasy Football Mastermind | 91,634 |
Ryan Murphy | East Berlin, Pa. | 91,619 |
Sam Hendricks | Extra Point Press | 91,356 |
Scott Pianowski | Yahoo Sports | 91,342 |
Tony Holm | Fantasy Sharks | 91,280 |
L.A. Hale | Fantasy Gives | 89,512 |
Cory Bonini | USA Today Fantasy Sports | 88,481 |
Paul Charchian | LeagueSafe | 88,461 |
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) | ||
---|---|---|
Analyst | Points | Std Rk |
Justin Eleff | 12,905 | 10 |
Ryan McDowell | 12,904 | 4 |
Ken Valis | 12,800 | 8 |
Mike Clay | 12,786 | 7 |
Jody Smith | 12,732 | 1 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 12,566 | 6 |
Chris Liss | 12,413 | 5 |
Paul Charchian | 12,142 | 20 |
Lenny Pappano | 12,032 | 11 |
Bob Henry | 12,020 | 3 |
Scott Sachs | 11,887 | 2 |
Michael Nazarek | 11,792 | 13 |
Sam Hendricks | 11,771 | 15 |
Ryan Murphy | 11,736 | 14 |
Tony Holm | 11,690 | 17 |
Scott Pianowski | 11,409 | 16 |
David Dorey | 11,382 | 9 |
L.A. Hale | 11,093 | 18 |
Cory Bonini | 11,006 | 19 |
Alan Satterlee | 10,984 | 12 |
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