Sam Hendricks (Extra Point Press) is the winner of the Wide Receivers portion of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll. He didn’t get there by pulling an outlier pick out of his hat but instead made a series of solid selections.
Most notably, Hendricks was one of only six analysts who included Keenan Allen in his top 20. He had him 16th, 2nd-highest of everyone. He also benefitted from ranking Jordy Nelson only 8th (tying for 2nd-lowest). When Nelson had a poor year, that hurt Hendricks less than almost everyone else (most had him in the top 5).
Hendricks also helped his cause by being a little lower than most on Odell Beckham, Demaryius Thomas and Allen Robinson, while being a little higher than most on Alshon Jeffery, Golden Tate and Jarvis Landry.
Whatever the combination of reasons, Hendricks was the winner at this position, followed by Mike Clay (ESPN) and Justin Eleff (Fantasy Index Podcast).
WIDE RECEIVER RESULTS (Standard Scoring) | ||
---|---|---|
Analyst | Company | Points |
Sam Hendricks | Extra Point Press | 42,083 |
Mike Clay | ESPN | 41,794 |
Justin Eleff | Fantasy Index Podcast | 41,477 |
Ryan McDowell | Dynasty League Football | 41,372 |
Scott Pianowski | Yahoo Sports | 41,229 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | Pro Football Focus | 40,960 |
Ryan Murphy | East Berlin, Pa. | 40,731 |
Michael Nazarek | Fantasy Football Mastermind | 40,620 |
Bob Henry | FootballGuys | 40,616 |
Paul Charchian | LeagueSafe | 40,399 |
Jody Smith | Gridiron Experts | 39,749 |
David Dorey | The Huddle | 39,504 |
Chris Liss | RotoWire | 39,401 |
Cory Bonini | USA Today Fantasy Sports | 39,305 |
Lenny Pappano | Draft Sharks | 39,211 |
Tony Holm | Fantasy Sharks | 39,178 |
Alan Satterlee | Charlotte Observer | 38,975 |
Scott Sachs | Perfect Season FF | 38,643 |
L.A. Hale | Fantasy Gives | 38,273 |
Ken Valis | Gaithersburg, Md. | 38,006 |
Injuries play a big role in this competition (in which we score 120 player choices by each of the 20 analysts in varying degrees). At this position, those who invested in Beckham, Robinson, Julian Edelman, Terrelle Pryor and Brandon Marshall got shredded pretty good. And players like Nelson, Kelvin Benjamin and Donte Moncrief underperformed. But this is how this contest works, with every pick by every analyst being graded in varying degrees.
If you want to get into giving mulligans (softening the blow of blown selections) we also offer “Waiver Wire Scoring” showing how things score out if you put a floor on the damage down by poor selections – using the assumption that in a typical fantasy league, that player would be replaced by a serviceable free agent on the waiver wire.
With the kicker, defense and tight end positions, we set the floor at 13 players (assuming you might get somebody in the teens as a replacement player). With wide receivers, teams tend to start 2 or 3 of them, so we’re setting the floor at 30 players (2.5 x 12 = 30), so the floor was 110.4 (which is how many points were scored by the 31st wide receiver in 2017, Amari Cooper).
So with Waiver Wire Scoring, we give credit only for production beyond 110.4 points. Any picks scoring under 110.4, whether it be 0, 50, 80 or 103, just goes down as a zero.
Using this alternate scoring system, Eleff would move up into the No. 1 spot. The big mover would be Alan Satterlee (Charlotte Observer), who would climb from 17th all the way up to 4th. Satterlee had some really good selections (higher than everyone on DeAndre Hopkins and lower than everyone on Jordy Nelson) but had too many gigantic holes in the teens – the highest of everyone on Breshad Perriman, Willie Snead and Pryor.
WIDE RECEIVER RESULTS (Standard Scoring) | ||
---|---|---|
Analyst | Points | Std Rk |
Justin Eleff | 10,903 | 3 |
Sam Hendricks | 10,646 | 1 |
Ryan Murphy | 10,483 | 7 |
Alan Satterlee | 10,223 | 17 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 10,187 | 6 |
Michael Nazarek | 10,131 | 8 |
Ryan McDowell | 10,097 | 4 |
Paul Charchian | 10,089 | 10 |
Scott Pianowski | 10,062 | 5 |
Mike Clay | 9,963 | 2 |
Tony Holm | 9,818 | 16 |
Bob Henry | 9,805 | 9 |
Jody Smith | 9,756 | 11 |
Scott Sachs | 9,676 | 18 |
Cory Bonini | 9,500 | 14 |
Ken Valis | 9,387 | 20 |
David Dorey | 9,293 | 12 |
Chris Liss | 9,236 | 13 |
Lenny Pappano | 8,724 | 15 |
L.A. Hale | 8,663 | 19 |
With two positions left to be graded, Ryan McDowell of Dynasty League Football is the overall leader, following by Clay and Bob Henry (FootballGuys). Quarterbacks and Running Backs are the two remaining positions, and then tend to carry the most weight in this competiiton.
OVERALL STANDINGS (4 of 6 positions) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Analyst | WR | TE | PK | Def | Points |
Ryan McDowell | 4 | 12 | 5 | 6 | 134,544 |
Mike Clay | 2 | 15 | 13 | 1 | 134,452 |
Bob Henry | 9 | 2 | 3 | 10 | 134,338 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 6 | 10 | 11 | 3 | 134,091 |
Jody Smith | 11 | 6 | 2 | 4 | 133,960 |
Justin Eleff | 3 | 19 | 6 | 5 | 133,704 |
Sam Hendricks | 1 | 13 | 14 | 8 | 133,438 |
Scott Pianowski | 5 | 8 | 10 | 20 | 132,571 |
Chris Liss | 13 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 132,534 |
Scott Sachs | 18 | 16 | 1 | 14 | 132,374 |
Ryan Murphy | 7 | 14 | 9 | 13 | 132,350 |
Michael Nazarek | 8 | 7 | 12 | 15 | 132,254 |
David Dorey | 12 | 1 | 15 | 19 | 131,748 |
Lenny Pappano | 15 | 3 | 18 | 7 | 131,338 |
Alan Satterlee | 17 | 11 | 7 | 16 | 131,048 |
Ken Valis | 20 | 5 | 17 | 2 | 130,466 |
Tony Holm | 16 | 18 | 4 | 11 | 130,458 |
Paul Charchian | 10 | 17 | 20 | 9 | 128,860 |
Cory Bonini | 14 | 20 | 16 | 18 | 127,786 |
L.A. Hale | 19 | 9 | 19 | 17 | 127,785 |
For those preferring scoring with a floor, Eleff is the current leader, with McDowell falling down to No. 2.
OVERALL STANDINGS (Waiver Wire Scoring) | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Analyst | WR | TE | PK | Def | Points |
Justin Eleff | 1 | 11 | 3 | 5 | 23,808 |
Ryan McDowell | 7 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 23,001 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 5 | 15 | 16 | 1 | 22,753 |
Mike Clay | 10 | 12 | 6 | 4 | 22,749 |
Jody Smith | 13 | 8 | 15 | 3 | 22,488 |
Sam Hendricks | 2 | 4 | 7 | 15 | 22,417 |
Paul Charchian | 8 | 7 | 11 | 10 | 22,232 |
Ryan Murphy | 3 | 17 | 12 | 9 | 22,219 |
Ken Valis | 16 | 14 | 4 | 2 | 22,186 |
Michael Nazarek | 6 | 3 | 9 | 16 | 21,923 |
Bob Henry | 12 | 5 | 8 | 12 | 21,825 |
Chris Liss | 18 | 1 | 14 | 11 | 21,649 |
Scott Sachs | 14 | 19 | 1 | 14 | 21,563 |
Tony Holm | 11 | 20 | 2 | 8 | 21,509 |
Scott Pianowski | 9 | 9 | 17 | 18 | 21,471 |
Alan Satterlee | 4 | 13 | 10 | 20 | 21,207 |
Lenny Pappano | 19 | 10 | 20 | 7 | 20,756 |
David Dorey | 17 | 6 | 13 | 19 | 20,675 |
Cory Bonini | 15 | 16 | 19 | 17 | 20,506 |
L.A. Hale | 20 | 18 | 18 | 13 | 19,756 |
—Ian Allan