Scott Pianowski of Yahoo! Sports spent big on two players last May: Saquon Barkley and Antonio Brown. His faith was rewarded, as those were the stars that carried him to victory in our annual Experts Auction League.
Pianowski also landed one of the better values at quarterback in Drew Brees ($13), then had a pair of $2 buys who ended up being quality weekly starters: Jared Cook, and the Bears Defense. His $4 buy of James White was another value.
Second place went to Sam Hendricks of Extra Point Press. It was a good year for Sam, who also finished 3rd in our Experts Draft League. The two players he had on both teams were Tevin Coleman (good, with Devonta Freeman missing most of the season) and Eric Ebron (great). Miguel Tames, who earned his way into the competition by his finish in our annual Fantasy Index Blackout competition, was carried by a pair of Kansas City stars, high-priced Kareem Hunt but also low-priced Patrick Mahomes ($9). He trotted out three great wide receivers most weeks, too: DeAndre Hopkins, Stefon Diggs and Robert Woods. David Dodds of FootballGuys and our own Ian Allan, both of whom have won the league multiple times in the past, placed 4th and 5th.
This is a no transaction league that we assembled in May to get it into our preseason magazine. As a result, some teams were gutted by injuries, and there's no way to recover. Draft Sharks' Matt Schauf, for example, had two tight ends on his roster: Hunter Henry and Tyler Eifert. He took a zero at that lineup spot most weeks, which is hard to overcome. Scott Sachs of Perfect Season Fantasy Football had Delanie Walker and Jimmy Graham destroying his weekly lineup. Rotowire's Mario Puig spent big on youngsters at quarterback and running back: Jimmy Garoppolo, Derrius Guice and Rashaad Penny. Aaron Bland of YouRulz had his running back corps wiped out early on: Jerick McKinnon, Jay Ajayi and Royce Freeman. Looked promising back in May.
To eliminate scheduling luck, each team played every other team each week during the season. Top score went 11-0, lowest score went 0-11, etc. Final standing are below.
FANTASY INDEX EXPERTS AUCTION LEAGUE | |||
---|---|---|---|
Team | W | L | T |
Yahoo! Sports | 125 | 49 | 2 |
Extra Point Press | 122 | 51 | 3 |
Fantasy Index Blackout | 113 | 62 | 1 |
FootballGuys | 106 | 69 | 1 |
Fantasy Football Index | 99 | 75 | 2 |
The Huddle | 95 | 78 | 3 |
Big Guy Fantasy Sports | 81 | 92 | 3 |
FantasyPros | 74 | 99 | 3 |
Draft Sharks | 72 | 101 | 3 |
Perfect Season Fantasy Football | 68 | 106 | 2 |
YouRulz.com | 46 | 125 | 5 |
RotoWire | 41 | 135 | 0 |
--Andy Richardson