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Experts Poll tight ends

Bold gambles pay off big for Alan Satterlee

To win at fantasy football, you have to take some stands on some guys – players where you feel they’ll be a lot better (or worse) than what is generally expected. Alan Satterlee of The Charlotte Observer took a number of bold gambles at the tight end position in the Fantasy Index Experts Poll and was right on almost all of them, winning this position decisively.

Most notably, Satterlee has always been a fan of the talent of David Njoku. He ranked the Cleveland tight end way higher than everyone else, and that paid off nicely when Njoku had a big season. (Satterlee ranked him 7th; none of the other 19 experts ranked him higher than 12th).

Similarly, everyone had a feeling Trey Burton might be good in Chicago, but Satterlee pushed more chips into the middle of the table, ranking him 6th (again, the highest of anyone).

At the same time, Satterlee placed the lowest grades of anyone on Greg Olsen (8th) and Delanie Walker (15th) and thus benefitted when their seasons were sullied by injuries.

Using our ridiculously complex scoring system, Satterlee beat everyone else by over 1,000 points. Lenny Pappano of Draft Sharks took 2nd, while Michael Nazarek of Fantasy Football Mastermind placed 3rd.

As a reminder of how we score this thing, we take the production of the player (using standard scoring) and multiply it against where he was ranked. The higher you rank a player, the more he counts towards your score. Njoku, for example, scored 87.9 points. Had you ranked him 1st, you would receive 2,197.5 points (25 x 87.9). Had you ranked him 2nd, you would receive 2,109.6 points (24 x 87.9). A 3rd-place ranking would score 2,021.7 (23 x 87.9). And so on. Lots of numbers in an attempt to grade all of the picks made by all of the experts.

Attrition is key in this format, of course. Those who predicted big things out of Walker, Olsen, Tyler Eifert and Jack Doyle were dead from the start. You take zeros week after week, and you’ve got no chance – those picks become statistically way more important than whether you ranked Travis Kelce or Zach Ertz higher.

With that in mind we also score this contest using more of a VBD method. In that scoring, you assume that if a player is injured or simply unproductive, he’ll be replaced with a free agent pickup along the way – the team owner would find a replacement. In the alternative scoring system, we’re looking only at starter-caliber players (the top 12 tight ends), and we’re looking only at how much production they provided beyond the rest of the field. In that scoring system, Evan Engram (81.3) was the 13th tight end, and we assumed he was the worst you could do. In such a format, Njoku wasn’t worth 87.9, he was worth 6.6 (he was 6.6 points better than Engram).

In such a scoring format, Satterlee still did well – 2nd place – but Bob Henry of Football Guys moved into the top spot.

EXPERTS POLL / TIGHT ENDS (standard scoring)
AnalystPoints
Alan Satterlee29,177
Lenny Pappano28,165
Michael Nazarek28,096
Bob Henry27,972
Chris Liss27,912
Sam Hendricks27,776
David Dorey27,633
Scott Pianowski27,550
Michael Nease27,530
Jesse Pantuosco27,168
Patrick Chance26,861
Aaron Bland26,651
Tony Holm26,297
Justin Eleff26,011
Paul Charchian25,903
Mike Clay25,642
Harold Simons25,591
Jeff Ratcliffe25,506
Jody Smith25,408
Cory Bonini25,003

In VBD scoring, the scores are way lower because we’re tossing out 81.3 points of each player’s score – only points above that threshold count.

EXPERTS POLL / TIGHT ENDS (VBD scoring)
AnalystPoints
Bob Henry7,655
Alan Satterlee7,520
Lenny Pappano7,391
Michael Nease7,302
Michael Nazarek7,301
David Dorey7,233
Aaron Bland7,197
Patrick Chance7,190
Sam Hendricks7,182
Jesse Pantuosco7,134
Scott Pianowski7,119
Chris Liss7,060
Jody Smith6,532
Tony Holm6,364
Justin Eleff6,339
Paul Charchian6,313
Jeff Ratcliffe6,285
Mike Clay6,174
Harold Simons5,986
Cory Bonini5,641

At the halfway point of the competition, Nazarek is the overall leader, followed by Satterlee and Scott Pianowski of Yahoo.

EXPERTS POLL / OVERALL (standard scoring)
AnalystDefTEPKPoints
Michael Nazarek113295,435
Alan Satterlee1511295,124
Scott Pianowski108195,017
Chris Liss351194,760
Jesse Pantuosco810394,604
Lenny Pappano521994,359
Patrick Chance611993,897
Paul Charchian115493,882
Bob Henry1441593,813
Sam Hendricks1761093,732
David Dorey1271693,643
Harold Simons417593,088
Michael Nease1691892,847
Justin Eleff2141492,789
Jody Smith1319791,988
Jeff Ratcliffe7181391,916
Cory Bonini920891,737
Tony Holm18131791,618
Mike Clay2016691,150
Aaron Bland19122091,065

If you’re more a fan of the scoring system with a floor, then David Dorey of The Huddle is the leader at the halfway point, with Nazarek and Pianowski close behind.

EXPERTS POLL / OVERALL (VBD scoring)
AnalystDefTEPKPoints
David Dorey16911,648
Michael Nazarek135311,494
Scott Pianowski311611,483
Lenny Pappano1131111,358
Bob Henry1511611,331
Michael Nease941211,272
Chris Liss5121011,264
Jesse Pantuosco1210811,190
Patrick Chance781811,095
Alan Satterlee1821310,915
Paul Charchian216210,891
Sam Hendricks179410,883
Aaron Bland197510,584
Tony Holm6141510,291
Justin Eleff10151710,195
Jody Smith16131410,189
Harold Simons819710,178
Jeff Ratcliffe14171910,070
Cory Bonini420110,064
Mike Clay2018209,106

—Ian Allan

Fantasy Index