For the second time in three years, Sam Hendricks is the winner of the Fantasy Football Index Experts Poll. He was able to outperform 19 other industry analysts in our annual player ranking competition.

We asked each person in the field to submit a top 20 at each position. We then awarded credit using a complex scoring grid (basically, the higher you rated a player, the more his 2020 production counted towards your score.) There is no draft, lineups, trades, waivers or games in this competition. Instead, you’ve got a 120 different players working for you (selected in late May) with all of their stats in all of their games counting.

Hendricks, who authors the Fantasy Football Guidebook, won the kicker position while finishing 2nd at wide receiver. Those were his strongest positions. He also helped himself by finishing 6th at defense and 8th at tight end. He wasn’t as strong at quarterback (11th) and running back (13th), but he managed to avoid taking a big loss at any one position.

Jeff Ratcliffe of Pro Football Focus finished in the No. 2 spot, falling just short of winning his second title in four years. If we set aside the defense category (where he finished only 16th), Ratcliffe would have been the overall winner.

Scott Pianowski of Yahoo! Sports finished in 3rd, continuing his long run of success in this competition. He’s been in the Experts Poll every year since 2000, with three titles, a runner-up finish and three 3rd-place efforts. He’s finished in the top 5 in 10 of his 21 years.

Injuries play a big role in this kind of competition. A key player gets hurt (Dak Prescott, Saquon Barkley) and you have no ability to replace him. Instead, you’re just taking a zero at that spot in a bunch of games. So it’s not a perfect competition, and there’s fluctuation with the standings. Cory Bonini and Paul Charchian have both won it in the past, but they finished down in the bottom-2 spots this year. But it’s one way to look at the players, and by crowning a champion, it helps prod the guys to be careful and thorough when putting together their top 20s for the poll.

2020 EXPERTS POLL RESULTS
Rk	Analyst	QB	RB	WR	TE	PK	Def	TOTAL
1.	Hendricks	11	13	2	8	1	6	351,429
2.	Ratcliffe	4	12	7	3	5	16	350,971
3.	Pianowski	7	2	8	13	3	14	350,856
4.	Brolley	16	7	1	4	12	1	350,101
5.	Eleff	2	8	14	16	4	15	350,041
6.	Smith	6	11	10	14	6	11	349,474
7.	Dorey	3	15	9	7	17	10	348,676
8.	Bland	1	10	15	17	15	17	348,516
9.	Gonos	20	1	6	9	8	7	347,651
10.	Henry	14	19	5	5	7	8	347,423
11.	Clay	12	3	13	2	18	18	347,304
12.	Pappano	19	9	4	15	14	9	346,171
13.	Nazarek	17	17	16	1	2	2	345,750
14.	Nease	15	4	11	18	9	3	345,579
15.	Liss	13	5	18	6	16	4	345,352
16.	Erickson	8	18	20	10	11	13	344,181
17.	Holm	5	14	3	20	13	12	344,066
18.	Wilde	9	16	17	12	19	20	342,502
19.	Charchian	18	6	12	19	10	5	342,493
20.	Bonini	10	20	19	11	20	19	340,768

Taking a quick look at each of the positions, we can try to make sense of where some of the key decisions were made – what caused people to rise to the top.

At quarterback, Aaron Bland of YouRulz.com was the winner. In the top 10, he was higher than most on Russell Wilson (3rd), Kyler Murray (4th) and Josh Allen (7th) and lower than most on Dak Prescott (5th). Those picks helped him.

Also helping him in the teens was the decision to not rank Joe Burrow or Jimmy Garoppolo. Those guys both got hurt and missed half the season, and durability is key in this scoring format. In this area, Bland was instead the highest on Philip Rivers (15th) who punched out his usual 16 starts and put together a lot of serviceable games in the second half of the season.

Justin Eleff and long-time poll veteran David Dorey were the 2nd- and 3rd-place finishers in this category.

QUARTERBACKS
Analyst	Points
Aaron Bland	114,605
Justin Eleff	113,364
David Dorey	113,113
Jeff Ratcliffe	112,520
Tony Holm	112,390
Jody Smith	112,138
Scott Pianowski	111,828
Mike Erickson	111,716
David Wilde	111,147
Cory Bonini	110,873
Sam Hendricks	110,800
Mike Clay	110,552
Chris Liss	109,955
Bob Henry	109,312
Mike Nease	109,100
Tom Brolley	108,767
Michael Nazarek	108,701
Paul Charchian	108,535
Lenny Pappano	108,495
David Gonos	108,231

David Gonos of The Athletic finished last at the quarterback position. I believe that was powered by him missing on a bunch of picks at the bottom of his top 20 (he didn’t get enough out of Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones, Jimmy Garoppolo and Joe Burrow. But he bounced back in a big way at the running back position, coming in ahead of everyone.

The initial picks look like a lot of other ones – McCaffrey, Barkley, Elliott, Cook, Kamara to open. It was further down where the separation occurred, and it’s not as easy to see.

Gonos was the 2nd-highest on Jonathan Taylor (13th). I think that was his most important pick. He was helped himself by being higher than most on Nick Chubb (6th) and Josh Jacobs (9th), while having the good sense to not even list Raheem Mostert, James Conner, David Johnson, Mark Ingram and Devin Singletary.

Scott Pianowski and Mike Clay took the silver and bronze in this category.

RUNNING BACKS
Analyst	Points
David Gonos	62,355
Scott Pianowski	62,114
Mike Clay	62,007
Mike Nease	61,900
Chris Liss	61,663
Paul Charchian	61,558
Tom Brolley	61,510
Justin Eleff	61,283
Lenny Pappano	61,245
Aaron Bland	61,091
Jody Smith	61,081
Jeff Ratcliffe	61,048
Sam Hendricks	60,823
Tony Holm	60,429
David Dorey	60,358
David Wilde	60,313
Michael Nazarek	60,173
Mike Erickson	59,700
Bob Henry	59,579
Cory Bonini	59,552

Tom Brolley of The Fantasy Point captured first place in the wide receiver category, and the key picks are easy to spot. He ranked Calvin Ridley (10th) higher than anybody, while half of the field didn’t include Ridley at all. And Brolley was one of only six to include DK Metcalf in his top 20. Not as flashy but equally as important, Brolley didn’t include Courtland Sutton in his top 20 (Sutton missed most of the season, making him one of the key picks).

Hendricks (who also omitted Sutton) finished 2nd in this category.

Tony Holm hit on an impressive trifecta of picks at the wide receiver position. He was one of two who dropped Michael Thomas down to No. 2, while he was the highest on both Keenan Allen (8th) and Stefon Diggs (13th). But Holms couldn’t seal the deal by scoring well enough on his other selections (he was also the highest on A.J. Green and ranked Kenny Golladay 6th).

WIDE RECEIVERS
Analyst	Points
Tom Brolley	69,292
Sam Hendricks	68,714
Tony Holm	68,686
Lenny Pappano	68,158
Bob Henry	68,113
David Gonos	67,125
Jeff Ratcliffe	66,916
Scott Pianowski	66,824
David Dorey	66,697
Jody Smith	66,577
Mike Nease	66,444
Paul Charchian	66,295
Mike Clay	66,229
Justin Eleff	66,213
Aaron Bland	65,842
Michael Nazarek	64,973
David Wilde	64,627
Chris Liss	64,614
Cory Bonini	63,409
Mike Erickson	63,380

At the tight end position, Michael Nazarek of Fantasy Football Mastermind was the overall winner, but the reasons don’t jump out as being obvious. He wasn’t the highest or lowest expert on any player, and his choices here don’t stand out as being wildly different than others. Five others finished within 714 points of him (which isn’t much when the top 6 all scored over 48,000 points.

Two of Nazarek’s key picks, I think, were choosing to omit Blake Jarwin and Greg Olsen. Those guys showed up in the teens on a lot of boards and didn’t provide much of anything (Jarwin was probably going to have a good year but got hurt). Nazarek instead was one of only seven to find room for Eric Ebron, who was able to contribute some decent games.

Mike Clay and Jeff Ratcliffe were the other medalists (with Clay only 43 points back).

TIGHT ENDS
Analyst	Points
Michael Nazarek	48,844
Mike Clay	48,801
Jeff Ratcliffe	48,585
Tom Brolley	48,369
Bob Henry	48,312
Chris Liss	48,130
David Dorey	47,975
Sam Hendricks	47,974
David Gonos	47,939
Mike Erickson	47,904
Cory Bonini	47,831
David Wilde	47,830
Scott Pianowski	47,722
Jody Smith	47,521
Lenny Pappano	47,281
Justin Eleff	47,066
Aaron Bland	46,495
Mike Nease	45,973
Paul Charchian	44,119
Tony Holm	41,737

Sam Hendricks won the kicker position, and the difference makers in his top 20 are easy to identify. He was the highest on Daniel Carlson (16th), while only three others even included him in their top 20. And Hendricks was the only contestant who didn’t include Josh Lambo or Austin Seibert on his board (those guys didn’t play much, going down as costly, wasted picks). Hendricks was also one of the highest on Jason Myers (9th), which helped him. Definitely his category.

Michael Nazarek and Scott Pianowski were the only other two analysts to go over 32,000 at this position.

KICKERS
Analyst	Points
Sam Hendricks	32,387
Michael Nazarek	32,158
Scott Pianowski	32,005
Justin Eleff	31,785
Jeff Ratcliffe	31,646
Jody Smith	31,534
Bob Henry	31,392
David Gonos	31,282
Mike Nease	31,276
Paul Charchian	31,198
Mike Erickson	31,092
Tom Brolley	30,929
Tony Holm	30,432
Lenny Pappano	30,303
Aaron Bland	30,284
Chris Liss	30,185
David Dorey	29,871
Mike Clay	29,663
David Wilde	29,473
Cory Bonini	29,234

Tom Brolley won the defense category, going down as the only expert to win two of the categories (he also won at wide receiver). Michael Nazarek, meanwhile, finished 2nd. He was the only contestant to finish in the top 2 in half of the six categories but still finished only 13th in overall (outside the top 15 in all three of the more high-profile positions – QB, RB, WR).

Brolley didn’t have a wildly unusual list with the defenses. I think he won by being higher than most on the Colts and Bucs (who had good seasons), while being lower than most on the Vikings and Titans (who disappointed).

With defenses, we used the vanilla scoring system of 6 points for touchdowns (including special teams), 2 points for takeaways and 1 for each sack. The Colts led the league in scoring at this position, just ahead of the Steelers.

DEFENSE / SPECIAL TEAMS
Analyst	Points
Tom Brolley	31,233
Michael Nazarek	30,901
Mike Nease	30,887
Chris Liss	30,805
Paul Charchian	30,788
Sam Hendricks	30,731
David Gonos	30,720
Bob Henry	30,715
Lenny Pappano	30,689
David Dorey	30,661
Jody Smith	30,622
Tony Holm	30,392
Mike Erickson	30,389
Scott Pianowski	30,364
Justin Eleff	30,330
Jeff Ratcliffe	30,257
Aaron Bland	30,200
Mike Clay	30,052
Cory Bonini	29,870
David Wilde	29,113

On the scoring for this competition, we use a combination of production and rank. You take each player’s NFL production (his fantasy points total) and multiply it against where he was ranked. The higher a player ranks on a list, the more his productions counts.

Take Stephen Gostkowski, for example. (And I choose him because he scored an easy-to-digest 100 points.) If an expert had ranked Gostkowski No. 1 among kickers, that pick would be worth 2,500 points (getting there by multiplying 100 times 25). Ranked 2nd, Gostkowski would be worth 2,400 (24 x 100). Ranked 3rd, he would score 2,300 (23 x 100). And if ranked last (20th), Gostkowski would be worth 600 points (6 x 100).

Years back, we used a different scale, with the grading numbers declining from 20 to 1, but in that format, the guys in the late teens didn’t matter enough. We have also tried a 30 to 11 scale, but in that format, it becomes too much a competition of simply who can pick 20 guys are each position who are playing. Playing around with the different formats, it seems like the 25 down to 6 grading scale works the best.

At the suggestion of Chris Liss of Rotowire.com (who’s been in this competition for years) we’ll also grade the picks after putting a floor under each player. That is, if you have a guy who gets hurt or otherwise underperforms, you gets a lesser warm body type of replacement, limiting the damage. The idea being that in a regular league, when Dak Prescott gets hurt, you don’t get a zero all year at that position; you would reasonably pick somebody up off the waiver wire to replace him, limiting the damage. That makes sense, and I’ll grade the picks up in that way in the next few days and see if they’re any different. (Cory Bonini was the only guy who ranked Saquon Barkley No. 1; he’ll be interested in seeing what they look like.)

But I have rolled out enough numbers for one day. Congratulations to Sam Hendricks on landing another Experts Poll championship.

—Ian Allan