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Fantasy Index Blackout

Tom Mignone wins 2024 Blackout Championship

A 2nd place finish in the final week helped Tom and his team Tom Take Two claim the top spot on a hotly contested leaderboard.

Want to do battle with the experts and have your picks published in Fantasy Football Index magazine? Then do what Tom did: Outwit hundreds of entrants in Fantasy Index Blackout or the Fantasy Index Open. Both competitions are free of charge and open to all comers.

Tom began 2024 with a solid start. He was hanging around the top 25 through the first five weeks with four top 100 finishes. In Week 6 he took a tumble down to 37th overall with a 219th place finish driven by mere 18.10 from DJ Moore, Jahmyr Gibbs and Marvin Harrison combined. He bounced back in Week 7 finishing 47th on the week to move into 28th overall. He followed that with a 16th place finish in Week 8 to move to 19th overall and broke into the top 10 with a 37th place finish in Week 9. Although the Take Twos finished outside the top 100 in four of the next five games they never dropped outside the top 10 after Week 9 and after finishing 1st in Week 12 he moved into the top 5 overall for the stretch run. In Week 15 he finished 7th and moved into 2nd overall with 119 points from his wide receivers making up for busts from Brock Purdy and Derrick Henry. Tom kept up the pressure with a top 50 finish in Week 16 followed by a top 20 in Week 17 leaving him less than a point off the pace headed into the final week. In Week 18 Tom finished 2nd overall to flip that narrow margin into a massive 42.35 point margin of victory and take the overall championship. Let’s take a look at the roster that sealed the deal for Tom Take Two:

Tom Take Two, Week 18
The Roster That Won the 2024 Blackout
(Maximum-points picks in bold)
PosNameTeamScore
QBBaker MayfieldTB25.85
QBBo NixDEN36.75
RBAaron JonesMIN12.50
RBRico DowdleDAL16.40
WRCourtland SuttonDEN20.80
WRDrake LondonATL40.70
WRTerry McLaurinWAS20.20
TESam LaPortaDET13.30
TEJonnu SmithMIA20.60
PKWill ReichardMIN9.00
PKWil LutzDEN8.00
STLos Angeles ChargersLAC2.00
STAtlanta FalconsATL0.00
Total226.10

I asked Tom about his season and this is what he had to say:

”Fantasy Index has been extremely helpful over the past 8 years, in a very large part helping me win 5 league championships, including this season…I've enjoyed playing the Fantasy Index Blackout and the challenges it provides. It has caused me to research players I may have otherwise overlooked, and as a result improved my game in league play...I look at each available player, the matchup, injuries, weather (if it's extreme) then take my best guess. Fortunately, this season the guesses worked out more often than not and the breaks went my way.”

They sure did! Here are some other noteworthy managers from the 2024 season of the Blackout:

  • Scott K finished 3rd overall after hanging in the top 10 for fifteen out of eighteen weeks.
  • GREGH987 held the top spot for weeks 2 through 8 before slipping out of the top 10 in Week 9 and finishing 9th overall.
  • Joe Kapp is a former Blackout Champ and held a spot in the top 5 in fifteen of the first seventeen weeks before finishing 7th overall.
  • Northern King held serve in the top 3 from Week 7 through Week 17 before failing to submit a roster in Week 18. Ouch! Hope all is well with you King.
  • Fantasy Index (Ian Allan) the beating heart of FI finished 11th overall this season.
  • Mighty Grimmace's who won the 2023 Blackout after dominating the competition all season finished 31st overall in 2024. A very respectable outing highlighted by 6th place weekly finishes in Week 10 and Week 18.

This season introduced a new wrinkle in the Blackout, Challenge Weeks. Eight times during the season the player pool was determined by a theme that either kept me from blacking out some of the top players or pushed me to blackout even more! Here’s a summary of the theme and results for each week this season (Keep in mind that these are guidelines and I still make subjective choices here and there to tweak the competitiveness):

2024 Blackout Themes and Results
WkThemeDetailsPerfect Top Crowd
1Out With the Old2023 division winners ineligible301.90233.00166.00
2Normal Standard player pool317.05238.70167.65
3NormalStandard player pool329.45218.85142.85
4NormalStandard player pool313.05221.25203.60
5AFC BonanzaTop AFC players eligible338.75256.25225.05
6No MercyTop players ineligible282.00237.25183.90
7NormalStandard player pool279.30203.85172.65
8No Bye BonanzaTop 3 players eligible294.20222.20200.75
9No MercyTop players ineligible303.85249.55162.05
10NormalStandard player pool244.50184.95155.75
11NormalStandard player pool313.95259.45222.55
12NFC BonanzaTop NFC players eligible338.00239.00202.10
13Give ThanksThur. & Fri. slates ineligible338.35254.80244.15
14NormalStandard player pool304.20221.80179.80
15Normal Standard player pool351.20295.90241.20
16Normal Standard player pool313.90246.95221.55
17Season for GivingThe top 5 players eligible340.35266.45251.35
18Normal DifficultyStandard player pool301.40228.25159.00
Season Totals5605.404278.453501.95
Season Averages311.41237.69194.55

Back in the November 21st edition of the Mailbag a reader asked Ian if there was a way to see the weekly start percentages for specific players in the Blackout. I’ve been tinkering with a spreadsheet to give you all access to that information. You can download the file here. I hope it provides some interesting data to nerd out on in the lead up to 2025. User Mike Powers has gotten a head start on that front by creating an app that uses the raw data to create some cool visualizations and give some additional features, check that out here.

Since I have the data I thought it would be fun to finish the season by going through the regular weekly writeup sections but for the whole season! So to start, let's take a look at the highest scoring Blackout roster of the 2024 season which was 295.90 points scored by Frank B Cross from Rio Grande, NJ in Week 15:

2024 Blackout highest score
Frank B Cross, Roo Grande, NJ
(Maximum-points picks in bold)
PosNameTeamScore
QBJared GoffDET46.00
QBJalen HurtsPHI33.00
RBJahmyr GibbsDET28.40
RBJames ConnerARI30.80
WRAmon-Ra St.BrownDET39.30
WRDeVonta SmithPHI28.00
WRMike EvansTB36.90
TESam LaPortaDET18.10
TETucker KraftGB5.40
PKWill ReichardMIN12.00
PKJake ElliottPHI9.00
STLos Angeles ChargersLAC5.00
STArizona CardinalsARI4.00
Total295.90

In total, the Perfect Roster scored 5605.40 points this season, an average of 311.41 points per week. There are two ways to consider the season-long “Perfect Roster”. Let’s start with the players who accumulated the most total points as eligible members of the 2024 player pool:

2024 Highest Total Points Roster
PosNameTeamPTS
QBJared GoffLAR318.75
QBJayden DanielsWAS310.50
RBKyren WilliamsLAR215.30
RBD'Andre SwiftCHI201.60
WRJaxon Smith-NjigbaSEA249.65
WRDrake LondonATL221.10
WRTee HigginsCIN214.80
TEDalton SchultzHOU153.55
TEPat FreiermuthPIT151.70
PKMatt GayIND140.70
PKJoshua KartyLAR133.80
STLos Angeles RamsLAR105.50
STMinnesota VikingsMIN92.90
Total2509.85

That’s a bit misleading since those players were rarely blacked out and had the most opportunities to accumulate points . Clearly nobody considers D'Andre Swift to be the RB2 even if he did rack up the 2nd most points in the contest. To consider efficiency let's take a look at the players who scored the most points per eligible game. The total will reflect the total accumulated points of those players in eligible weeks:

2024 Highest Points Per Eligible Week Roster
PosNameTeamPTSPTS/ ELG. WKELG. WKS
QBLamar JacksonBAL97.0532.353
QBJayden DanielsWAS310.5028.2311
RBBijan RobinsonATL93.7023.434
RBSaquon BarkleyPHI84.8021.204
WRAmon-Ra St.BrownDET77.8025.933
WRJa'Marr ChaseCIN143.5023.926
WRMike EvansTB99.2519.855
TETrey McBrideARI81.5020.384
TEGeorge KittleSF96.4016.076
PKJake BatesDET74.9010.707
PKBrandon AubreyDAL78.509.818
STMinnesota VikingsMIN92.9010.329
STChicago BearsCHI65.807.319
Total1396.60249.50

The Wisdom of the Crowd roster scored 3501.95 points in 2024, an average of 194.55 points per week. To build the season long 2024 Wisdom of the Crowd roster let's look at each players total times selected / the total number of selections in all eighteen weeks:

2024 Wisdom Of Crowds score
PosNameTeamTOTAL %PTS
QBJayden DanielsWAS16.98%310.50
QBBaker MayfieldTB14.52%307.30
RBDerrick HenryBAL16.79%135.90
RBKyren WilliamsLAR16.50%215.30
WRJa'Marr ChaseCIN20.30%143.50
WRJustin JeffersonMIN14.23%89.40
WRCooper KuppLAR11.14%98.40
TETravis KelceKC19.06%85.50
TETrey McBrideARI15.52%81.50
PKEvan McPhersonCIN13.70%66.00
PKJake ElliottPHI13.45%114.00
STNew York JetsNYJ15.37%74.00
STDenver BroncosDEN12.47%90.00
Total1811.30

I hope everyone enjoyed the 2024 season of the Fantasy Index Blackout. I certainly enjoyed putting it together for you. Thanks again for playing. Things ran more smoothly this year; that’s in part due to me getting better but the support staff and tech guys over at Fantasy Index were an enormous help, especially Arthur, thank you all! I hope everyone will be back for the 2025 version of the Blackout and if you have any feedback please reachout to me at ben@fantasyindex.com or find me in the FI Discord, I’m ben_index.

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