Congratulations to Matt Schauf of Draft Sharks. He's the winner of our annual Experts Auction League, the results of which were published in our preseason magazine. Schauf spent big on four players, and all those guys hit to lead his team to victory.
Schauf spent $38 on Austin Ekeler, then bought two of the four highest-priced wideouts: Justin Jefferson and Stefon Diggs. The other two highest-priced players at the position, Cooper Kupp and JaMarr Chase missed a month or more due to injury. His second high-priced running back, Saquon Barkley, also worked out very well. Finally he had a really nice quarterback tandem, with the stability of Kirk Cousins and the crazy rushing upside of Justin Fields (just $6 in our auction).
The cancelled Bengals-Bills game in Week 17 couldn't have affected results, since Schauf won by 15.5 games. (In this league, every team played every other team each week during the season. Highest score went 11-0 for the week, 2nd-highest 10-1, etc. So not possible to make up more than 11 games in a week.)
Sam Hendricks of Extra Point Press came in 2nd. While Hendricks also had a top wideout (Davante Adams) and quarterback (Patrick Mahomes), his running back selections carried his team. He paired Christian McCaffrey and Josh Jacobs, giving him two elite options at the position. (His reserve backs weren't bad either: Travis Etienne, and a pair of Falcons, Cordarrelle Patterson and Tyler Allgeier.)
Drew Davenport of FootballGuys came in 3rd, with a balanced roster -- few elite choices, but good depth. Lamar Jackson and (ultimately) Russell Wilson gave him enough good weeks at quarterback, while securing both Green Bay running backs and Miles Sanders were a solid backfield. Mike Williams, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Amari Cooper, Jakobi Meyers and Joshua Palmer look like a modest group of wideouts, but our best-ball scoring gave him three good starters in most weeks. Dallas Goedert and T.J. Hockenson were a good duo at tight end.
| FANTASY INDEX EXPERTS AUCTION LEAGUE | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| FRANCHISE | W-L-T | PF | AVG PF |
| Draft Sharks | 147-40-0 | 2562 | 150.7 |
| Extra Point Press | 129-53-5 | 2445 | 143.8 |
| FootballGuys | 117-69-1 | 2283 | 134.3 |
| The Huddle | 111-73-3 | 2230 | 131.2 |
| Fantasy Index Blackout | 107-76-4 | 2233 | 131.4 |
| Perfect Season Fantasy Football | 106-78-3 | 2263 | 133.1 |
| Fantasy Index Podcast | 99-85-3 | 2225 | 130.9 |
| Fantasy Index | 69-115-3 | 2005 | 117.9 |
| FullTime Fantasy | 67-119-1 | 2013 | 118.4 |
| Yahoo! Sports | 63-119-5 | 1965 | 115.6 |
| YouRulz | 54-130-3 | 1946 | 114.5 |
| Rotowire | 37-149-1 | 1835 | 107.9 |
Full results (including rosters) for the league can be seen at this link.
Congrats to Matt!
--Andy Richardson