Bob Henry hasn’t had his best year in the Experts Poll. A three-time champion who’s finished 2nd or 3rd in each of the last three seasons, he’s floundered this year, ranking outside the top 15 in four categories. But Henry at least finished strong, destroying everyone in the Quarterbacks category.
Henry, a writer for FootballGuys.com, was on the right side of the vast majority of the key quarterback decisions this year. He was higher than everyone else on Jameis Winston (6th) and Dak Prescott (7th), and he was way lower than everyone else on Aaron Rodgers (13th) and Ben Roethlisberger (19th). Henry was also one of the highest on Lamar Jackson (14th) and Josh Allen (16th).
Using our complex scoring grid, it added up to a major beat-down of the other 19 analysts. While it’s pinball-like scoring in this system, only two analysts finished within 2,000 points – Michael Nease (Big Guy Fantasy Sports) and Brack Varnon. Varnon isn’t a fantasy professional but earned a berth in the field through our sister competition (the Fantasy Index Open).
| EXPERTS POLL, QUARTERBACKS | |
|---|---|
| Analyst | Points |
| Bob Henry | 93,594 |
| Michael Nease | 91,989 |
| Brack Varnon | 91,983 |
| Paul Charchian | 91,540 |
| Tony Holm | 91,171 |
| Bryan Teegardin | 91,166 |
| Sam Hendricks | 90,908 |
| Alan Satterlee | 90,614 |
| Lenny Pappano | 90,327 |
| Scott Pianowski | 89,616 |
| Chris Liss | 89,502 |
| Michael Nazarek | 89,492 |
| Aaron Bland | 89,449 |
| Cory Bonini | 89,060 |
| David Dorey | 88,866 |
| Jeff Ratcliffe | 88,211 |
| John Hansen | 88,106 |
| Mike Clay | 87,820 |
| Jody Smith | 87,446 |
| Jesse Pantuosco | 87,435 |
The scoring in this competition is complex. You take each player’s fantasy production, then multiply it against where he was ranked. The higher an expert ranks a player, the more he counts towards his score (1st-place players get multiplied by 25, 2nd-place by 24, 3rd-place by 23, et cetera, down to 20th-ranked players getting multiplied by 6). Jameis Winston, for example, scored 426.45 points (we don’t subtract points for interceptions). Henry ranked him 6th, so that was worth 8,529 points (20 x 426.45).
Injuries play a major role in this kind of competition. When a player misses a good chunk of the season, there’s no ability to replace him. It results in not only taking a zero for that guy every week, but lost production that could have been multiplied by 15, 20 or 25 – thousands of points
At the quarterback position, there were three notable injuries to players who were in the top 10 on a lot of boards: Andrew Luck, Ben Roethlisberger and Cam Newton. Henry ranked Newton 8th (a mistake), but he made enough good selections elsewhere that it didn’t derail him. The Luck retirement surprisingly wasn’t as notable as a lot of the injuries in this competition, because everyone had him in their top 6 (most had him either 2nd or 3rd).
There is no perfect way to score this kind of competition. You can change the multiplier ratios, causing some shifting. And in effort to sift out some of the impact of injuries, you can also set a floor underneath each player. With quarterbacks, for example, you might reasonably choose to not select a quarterback early, figuring you would be able to find a quarterback in the teens in the late rounds (or by trade or waiver wire). So what if we assume you could somehow get to having the best backup quarterbackings? Philip Rivers was the 13th-ranked quarterback, scoring 327.65 points. What if instead of looking at total points, we look only at production beyond 327.65 (with all quarterbacks below Rivers simply marked at zero)?
In that alternate scoring version, Henry still comes out No. 1 by a whole bunch, further confirming that he had the best of the quarterback lists. Paul Charchian (LeagueSafe) moves up to 2nd, while Bryan Teegardin ranked 3rd. Like Varnon, Teegardin earned a spot in the poll by performing well in the Fantasy Index Open.
Chris Liss of Rotowire.com is the most notable mover at the quarterback position. In regular scoring, he finished 11th. With floors put in place, he moved up to 4th.
| QUARTERBACKS (alternate scoring) | |
|---|---|
| Analyst | Points |
| Bob Henry | 9,476 |
| Paul Charchian | 8,312 |
| Bryan Teegardin | 7,930 |
| Chris Liss | 7,848 |
| Sam Hendricks | 7,801 |
| Lenny Pappano | 7,591 |
| Scott Pianowski | 7,493 |
| Tony Holm | 7,423 |
| Michael Nazarek | 7,356 |
| Jeff Ratcliffe | 7,010 |
| Mike Clay | 6,989 |
| Alan Satterlee | 6,750 |
| Brack Varnon | 6,533 |
| John Hansen | 6,451 |
| David Dorey | 6,362 |
| Michael Nease | 5,949 |
| Cory Bonini | 5,833 |
| Jesse Pantuosco | 5,787 |
| Jody Smith | 5,576 |
| Aaron Bland | 5,490 |
—Ian Allan