Sam Hendricks last week was crowned as the champion of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll, but two other analysts outperformed Hendricks when the contest is scored differently. The results of this kind of competition are heavily influenced by how you choose to grade them.
The accepted, agreed-upon format is to award points for all picks (the higher you rank a player, the more his production counts towards your score). Using that system, Hendricks is the overall winner, followed by Jeff Ratcliffe and Scott Pianowski.
That kind of system, however, is heavily weighted towards injuries. When a player misses almost the entire season (Michael Thomas, Dak Prescott, Saquon Barkley) that plays a huge role in the results. Where people ranked those big-miss players, some would argue, plays too large of a role in the overall results.
To reduce the magnitude of injuries and busts, we can also grade the contest using a scoring matrix with a safety net at each position. It’s the equivalent of assuming that in a typical fantasy league, you would be able to replace Saquon Barkley with a waiver-wire pickup after he got hurt.
Using this modified scoring format, Tom Brolley of Fantasy Points moves up into the No. 1 spot (he was 4th in the official scoring). And Tony Holm of Fantasy Sharks (just 17th in the official scoring) moves all the way up to 2nd.
Sam Hendricks remains near the top, dropping from 1st to 3rd. Two other analysts move up big when the scoring is adjusted. Mike Nease moving from 14th to 4th, and Lenny Pappano improving from 12th to 6th. Three others, meanwhile, fall from 2nd, 6th and 7th into the lower half of the table: Jeff Ratcliffe, Jody Smith and David Dorey.
This altered grading system was suggested by Chris Liss of Rotowire.com a few years back. I like to run the numbers both ways at the end of each season. About half the time, the same expert wins in both categories. This time, we get different winners. And there are usually a few (like Holm) who make a big move up the rankings.
It underscores that the Experts Poll is more of a venue for putting together than list and sharing some opinions on players, rather than a true measure of the worth of an analyst.
| EXPERTS POLL (modified scoring system) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Analyst | QB | RB | WR | TE | PK | Def | TOTAL |
| Tom Brolley | 16 | 9 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 63,800 |
| Tony Holm | 9 | 12 | 1 | 19 | 7 | 3 | 63,413 |
| Sam Hendricks | 8 | 14 | 3 | 8 | 4 | 5 | 63,348 |
| Mike Nease | 5 | 1 | 11 | 16 | 20 | 1 | 62,921 |
| David Gonos | 11 | 2 | 12 | 6 | 10 | 6 | 62,915 |
| Lenny Pappano | 15 | 10 | 4 | 15 | 1 | 14 | 62,810 |
| Scott Pianowski | 7 | 4 | 6 | 12 | 15 | 13 | 62,707 |
| Aaron Bland | 1 | 11 | 14 | 18 | 14 | 11 | 62,569 |
| Justin Eleff | 3 | 13 | 5 | 17 | 11 | 17 | 62,219 |
| Mike Clay | 10 | 7 | 9 | 7 | 19 | 15 | 62,083 |
| Jeff Ratcliffe | 4 | 17 | 8 | 4 | 12 | 18 | 62,076 |
| David Dorey | 14 | 8 | 13 | 13 | 17 | 7 | 61,615 |
| Bob Henry | 12 | 15 | 10 | 14 | 13 | 8 | 61,517 |
| Jody Smith | 2 | 18 | 16 | 11 | 6 | 12 | 61,439 |
| Chris Liss | 19 | 6 | 19 | 2 | 9 | 10 | 60,963 |
| Paul Charchian | 20 | 3 | 7 | 20 | 5 | 9 | 60,884 |
| Mike Erickson | 6 | 20 | 17 | 9 | 3 | 16 | 60,671 |
| Cory Bonini | 17 | 16 | 18 | 5 | 18 | 19 | 60,116 |
| Michael Nazarek | 18 | 19 | 15 | 10 | 16 | 4 | 60,073 |
| David Wilde | 13 | 5 | 20 | 1 | 8 | 20 | 59,753 |
It can be debated and argued, of course, where baselines should be set. If you ranked Saquon Barkley 2nd among running backs, for example, just how good of a replacement player should you get? I tried to base those safety-net fill-in players on a 12-team fantasy league and what might reasonably be landed on the waiver wire.
At quarterback, for example, I went with Derek Carr as the safety net. The 12 highest scorers were the “starters” in a typical fantasy league, and Carr (or somebody like him) is the guy you would have perhaps landed if you misfired on Dak Prescott. Carr was the 13th quarterback, scoring 347 points, so in the scoring we consider that to be the starting point. For all quarterbacks scoring less than 347, they just get washed away as zeros. And for the guys who were better than Carr, you get credit only for the points above 347. (Lamar Jackson, for example, doesn’t score at 386 points, he scores at about 39 points – since he was 39 points better than Carr).
In most fantasy leagues, you start only one defense, kicker and tight end, so I went with the 13th-best players as the safety nets at those positions. Speficially, Joey Slye (120 points), Eric Ebron (148) and the New York Giants (96). Scoring assumes you would have a player of at least that quality at those positions, so we’re giving credit only for production beyond that level for the top 12.
At running back, most leagues start two, with 24 starters in a typical league. So I moved the safety net down to 25th at this position. That was Myles Gaskin, scoring about 168 points. So that was the starting point for running backs.
At wide receiver, I’ve gone with the 25th in the past. But I moved it down to 37th this year. I had the numbers in front of me, and a lot of those guys in the 20s and low 30s were guys who were on a lot of draft boards. And a lot of leagues use three wide receivers or a flex. So I didn’t use the 25th wide receiver (Curtis Samuel, 211 points); I instead used Russell Gage (181 points) as the safety net. By choosing Gage rather than Samuel, it keep the rankings meaningful on receivers such as Cooper Kupp, DJ Moore, Chris Godwin, Hollywood Brown and Jarvis Landry.
Ultimately, there’s no perfect way to score these rankings. If we give equal weight to both scoring systems (the official and Chris Liss’ alternate version) than Hendricks comes out on top, with Brolley finishing 2nd and Pianowski taking the bronze.
Averaged rankings appear below. There are asterisks next to four names. Those experts tied with the analyst ranked above them. In those cases, I broke the tie by ranking higher the analyst who scored better at the QB-RB-WR positions.
| EXPERTS POLL, AVERAGED RANKINGS | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Analyst | Std | Alt |
| 1. | Sam Hendricks | 1 | 3 |
| 2. | Tom Brolley | 4 | 1 |
| 3. | Scott Pianowski | 3 | 7 |
| 4. | Jeff Ratcliffe | 2 | 11 |
| 5. | Justin Eleff | 5 | 9 |
| 6. | David Gonos * | 9 | 5 |
| 7. | Aaron Bland | 8 | 8 |
| 8. | Mike Nease | 14 | 4 |
| 9. | Lenny Pappano * | 12 | 6 |
| 10. | Tony Holm | 17 | 2 |
| 11. | David Dorey * | 7 | 12 |
| 12. | Jody Smith | 6 | 14 |
| 13. | Mike Clay | 11 | 10 |
| 14. | Bob Henry | 10 | 13 |
| 15. | Chris Liss | 15 | 15 |
| 16. | Michael Nazarek | 13 | 19 |
| 17. | Mike Erickson | 16 | 17 |
| 18. | Paul Charchian | 19 | 16 |
| 19. | David Wilde | 18 | 20 |
| 20. | Cory Bonini * | 20 | 18 |
—Ian Allan