Paul Charchian used a trifecta of notable picks – including a dash of home cooking – to outperform the field in the Running Back category of our annual Experts Poll.
Charchian is based in Minneapolis, and he was more willing than all of the other experts to invest in Dalvin Cook, ranking him 7th among running backs. That one paid off huge, with Cook actually finishing even higher (6th) in PPR scoring.
Charchian (LeagueSafe.com) also was the lowest of all 20 experts on a pair of running backs who fell short of expectations, ranking Todd Gurley 13th and not even putting James Conner in his top 20. (That seemed like a typo at the time – I remember sending Charchian an email asking to confirm that it wasn’t an oversight.)
It all paid off nicely, with Charchian finishing with almost 78,000 points. Mike Clay (ESPN), David Dorey (TheHuddle.com) and Scott Pianowski (Yahoo) all finished just over a 1,000 points back.
EXPERTS POLL, RUNNING BACKS | |
---|---|
Analyst | Points |
Paul Charchian | 77,794 |
Mike Clay | 76,707 |
David Dorey | 76,590 |
Scott Pianowski | 76,367 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 76,334 |
Jesse Pantuosco | 76,186 |
Brack Varnon | 75,912 |
Chris Liss | 75,853 |
Lenny Pappano | 75,281 |
Alan Satterlee | 75,249 |
Bryan Teegardin | 75,106 |
Aaron Bland | 74,951 |
Michael Nazarek | 74,936 |
Tony Holm | 74,301 |
John Hansen | 74,219 |
Bob Henry | 73,893 |
Michael Nease | 73,874 |
Cory Bonini | 73,708 |
Sam Hendricks | 72,856 |
Jody Smith | 72,054 |
How the picks are scored can make a big difference. When players miss 4, 8, 12 games (and more) they can dominate the results. So we’ve got a secondary scoring system, when we look at performance when a safety net is placed under each player. The assumption being that if you misfired on a pick in a fantasy draft, you would replace that player with someone else on your roster, or by trade or waivers.
In the alternate scoring system, we take the best non-starting player at each position (assuming a 12-team league) and then look only at performance above his level. Ronald Jones was the 25th-best running back, with 170.3 points in PPR scoring. So at this position, we looked only at how much better than 24 backs were who scored even more than 170.3. (If a player scored 171.3, he would be worth 1 point).
Using the alternative scoring system, Charchian was still the decisive winner. Chris Liss of Rotowire.com was the most notable mover, climbing from 8th to 2nd place. Clay, Pianowski and Dorey all remained in the top 5.
RUNNING BACKS (alt scoring) | |
---|---|
Analyst | Points |
Paul Charchian | 25,782 |
Chris Liss | 25,065 |
Mike Clay | 24,953 |
Scott Pianowski | 24,949 |
David Dorey | 24,872 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 24,800 |
Jesse Pantuosco | 24,661 |
Lenny Pappano | 24,544 |
Brack Varnon | 24,341 |
Michael Nazarek | 24,250 |
Alan Satterlee | 24,054 |
Tony Holm | 23,825 |
Bryan Teegardin | 23,653 |
John Hansen | 23,468 |
Bob Henry | 23,397 |
Aaron Bland | 23,298 |
Cory Bonini | 23,099 |
Sam Hendricks | 23,020 |
Michael Nease | 22,548 |
Jody Smith | 22,041 |
When we complete all of the positions, we will crown an overall champion.
As it stands now, Charchian is the overall leader, with Michael Nease about a 1,000 points back. Both analysts are based in NFC North cities – Charchian in the Twin Cities, and Nease in the Chicago area.
Only two other analysts, Tony Holm (Fantasy Sharks) and Chris Liss (Rotowire) have more than 242,000 points.
EXPERTS POLL, OVERALL (RB-WR-TE-K-D) | |
---|---|
Analyst | Points |
Paul Charchian | 245,092 |
Michael Nease | 244,010 |
Tony Holm | 242,740 |
Chris Liss | 242,204 |
Brack Varnon | 241,365 |
Alan Satterlee | 240,268 |
Michael Nazarek | 240,158 |
Lenny Pappano | 239,865 |
David Dorey | 239,539 |
Bryan Teegardin | 239,502 |
Mike Clay | 239,383 |
Scott Pianowski | 238,779 |
Sam Hendricks | 238,179 |
John Hansen | 237,755 |
Jesse Pantuosco | 237,479 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 237,287 |
Cory Bonini | 236,821 |
Aaron Bland | 236,798 |
Jody Smith | 235,696 |
Bob Henry | 234,876 |
Charchian also leads in the overall in the alternative scoring format, only with Liss and Brack Varnon in the 2nd and 3rd spots.
OVERALL (alt scoring) | |
---|---|
Analyst | Points |
Paul Charchian | 51,882 |
Chris Liss | 51,088 |
Brack Varnon | 50,806 |
Lenny Pappano | 50,027 |
David Dorey | 50,009 |
Tony Holm | 49,747 |
Scott Pianowski | 49,326 |
Michael Nazarek | 49,302 |
Mike Clay | 49,259 |
Alan Satterlee | 49,237 |
Michael Nease | 49,050 |
John Hansen | 48,431 |
Bryan Teegardin | 48,404 |
Jeff Ratcliffe | 48,179 |
Jesse Pantuosco | 47,988 |
Bob Henry | 47,747 |
Sam Hendricks | 47,704 |
Aaron Bland | 47,678 |
Jody Smith | 47,310 |
Cory Bonini | 47,220 |
—Ian Allan