I asked Google today and they gave me 864,000 answers. Sure, they had some guys they recommended more than others – their top three listings for “best fantasy football advice” were FFToolbox, FantasySharks, and FantasyFootballCafe – but I’m not sure I trust Google’s opinion when it comes to picking my fantasy advisers. It’s pretty important that I win my league this year, so I’m in search of a more reliable recommendation. This is not a knock on the sites I just mentioned, I just know that Google can’t rate the expert’s expertise when determining who to rank at the top (if they can, we should all be buying their stock).

I also asked my buddy that’s totally addicted to fantasy research. He’s the type that reads every article from every website and is willing to “invest” several hundred dollars on subscriptions, draft kits, and tools to try to win his league…which has a $10 buy-in. This is not a knock on paying for good info. In fact, it’s odd to me that people will readily spend $5 on a non-fat-skinny-latte-extra-hot-hold-the-whip, but won’t fork over a few bucks on something they’ll get hours and hours of enjoyment out of for an entire football season. I just think it’s funny that he really considers it an investment. Kinda like when I go to Vegas and convince myself that #’s 3 & 9 on the roulette wheel are investments that will pay for the trip. Anyway, getting back to the topic at hand, his advice to me was, “Don’t ask me, I have no idea. That’s why I just read them all.”

Another friend I asked said I shouldn’t trust any fantasy experts because they’re all just a bunch of idiots that know nothing about sports. He said I should just trust the advice of the guys in my league since we all seem pretty on top of things and are super competitive. Huh? Ask for advice from my arch enemies? The guys I routinely talk crap to and make fun of because I’ve been dominating them every year for the past decade (slight exaggeration)? No thanks.

This same friend then suggested asking guys outside of my league by posting in some online forums. Hmm, that sounds a lot more promising. But then I thought, if he’s telling me that these guys that give fantasy advice for a living are a bunch of idiots, what’s making him trust “Joe88 from Iowa” or some other random dude? I’ve also noticed that some of these active advice givers are also the ones that ask for the most advice. What gives? My doctor doesn’t ask me for advice on what to do about his high cholesterol level. My financial adviser doesn’t ask me for stock tips. Does a real fantasy expert really need my advice? I’m all about sharing and collaborating, but at the end of the day, if I can’t decide between starting Cadillac Williams or Ahmad Bradshaw, I want someone smarter than me (in fantasy) to help me make the call.

No one seems to have a good answer. That’s why we decided to build FantasyPros. We simply want to know where we can get the best fantasy advice.

To do this, we’re first going to rate the most popular fantasy experts that we know of. These are the guys and sites that have a large following, based on the amount of traffic (readers) their websites get. So guys like Matthew Berry of ESPN, Brandon Funston of Yahoo, and Sigmund Bloom of FootballGuys.com just to name a few. Whether it was through deep player insight, great writing skills, savvy marketing, or some combination of these factors, these are the guys that have separated themselves from the pack. It’s natural for us to start with them.

Down the road a bit, we’ll open up our accuracy assessments to other experts that want to compete on a level playing field and prove that they’re fantasy gurus. If there’s a particular expert that you’d like to see in our accuracy assessments going forward, or if you’re an expert that wants to get in the ring with the big boys, contact us.

If you’re as curious as I am about where to get proven fantasy advice, register now so we can inform you as soon as we announce our accuracy awards and expert rankings. This season, I’m going to stay away from the roulette wheel and start getting my advice from experts I can trust.

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