The Experts Draft we publish in the magazine each year gets played out in a best-ball league, and David Gonos of The Athletic was best in the 2021 competition. His play-all record of 139-48 was four games clear of the field.

Participants in this league include the top 11 finishers in the previous year's Experts Poll, plus a top performer from the previous year's Fantasy Index Open. That performer, David Aikenhead, did very well, finishing in 2nd place, just four games behind Gonos. Sam Hendricks of Extra Point Press came in 3rd.

Gonos hit on his top 2 running back choices, Nick Chubb and David Montgomery, and was both strong and deep at wide receiver. He took Davante Adams, Chris Godwin and Brandin Cooks early, and Jaylen Waddle and Michael Pittman in the middle rounds. Not hard to get 3 quality weekly starters out of that group. He also hit Mark Andrews at tight end and Tom Brady at quarterback, making for lineup that didn't have any clear weak spots.

Aikenhead nailed his top 6 picks: Travis Kelce, Stefon Diggs, Josh Jacobs, Josh Allen, Leonard Fournette and Cooper Kupp. Hunter Renfrow was a late-round standout, but those early picks were key to his strong year.

Hendricks started the draft off with Christian McCaffrey, which torpedoed plenty of teams in 2021. But he did protect that pick, somewhat, with Chuba Hubbard, and landed a lot of other stars, especially late in the season. Deebo Samuel and a couple of later picks (Amon-Ra St. Brown and Cordarrelle Patterson) worked out, and investing in the Denver running back tandem with back-to-back picks gave him a solid starter at the position in most weeks.

Full results are below; I'll post the results of the Experts Auction League later this week.

EXPERTS DRAFT LEAGUE RESULTS
TeamWL
The Athletic13948
Fantasy Index Open13552
Extra Point Press12265
Footballguys12166
The Huddle10087
Yahoo Sports8899
YouRulz78109
FantasyData77110
Fantasy Points72115
FTN65122
Fantasy Index Podcast63124
ESPN62125

--Andy Richardson