With another week of the NFL season wrapped up, it’s to time to check back in on our race to determine which expert provides the most accurate weekly player rankings. We’ll take a look at the experts who had the best picks in Week 5 and also examine how the Year-to-Date leaderboard has changed now that we have another week of predictions to add in.

Note that the following breakdown is based off of a field of nearly 40 experts. If you’re interested in seeing how every expert stacks up against each other, you can visit our accuracy rankings page to check out the results. The complete standings are offered at no cost to our registered members. Simply sign up for FREE and you’ll be able to view all of the accuracy scores!

Week 5 Leaderboard

*Overall standings evaluate experts’ weekly rankings at the QB, RB, WR, & TE positions

Notes:

• If this was a professional sports league, we’d be testing John Paulsen (The Scores Report) for P.E.D.s right about now. That’s how good he was in week 5. Of the four positions (QB, RB, WR, TE) we use to determine the overall accuracy leaders, he finished #1 at three of them (QB, RB, WR). This marks the first time this year that an expert has completed a single week as the overall leader for more than two positions. And if past history is any indication, it will be a difficult feat to match in the coming weeks.

• Paulsen’s most impressive showing came at the QB position. Of the top 10 fantasy QBs in week 5, he managed to rank 9 out of 10 of them as well or better than the expert consensus. Most notably, Paulsen was high on breakout performer, Ryan Fitzpatrick (BUF), while the majority of the expert field had him pegged to have a minimal fantasy impact. Paulsen also did a good job of anticipating some of the underachievers for the week including Matt Schaub (HOU) and Sam Bradford (STL).

• Ultimate FFStrategy was another success story in week 5. They also did something no one else has done this year by finishing in the top 10 for each of the four major positions: WR (#2), TE (#3), QB (#4), and RB (#8). In any other week this might have landed them the #1 overall ranking but it wasn’t quite enough to overtake Paulsen’s dominant showing. Nonetheless, it was still a very impressive, well rounded performance and we hope the readers of Ultimate FFStrategy took advantage of the sound advice when making their start/sit decisions.

• Congratulations are in order for Gregg Rosenthal (Rotoworld) and Matthew Berry (ESPN) for earning top 5 weekly honors for the first time this year. Rosenthal, last year’s #4 overall expert, did particularly well with his rankings for RBs (#5 rank) and WRs (#6 rank). At the RB position, a few of his notable hits that outperformed the expert consensus were for Ray Rice (BAL), Michael Bush (OAK) and Felix Jones (DAL). As for Berry, the strength of his predictions came at the QB position (#2 rank). He correctly pegged big days from Kyle Orton (DEN), Shaun Hill (DET) and Eli Manning (NYG) and their performances were crucial towards determining Berry’s #2 QB rank.

Year-to-Date Leaderboard

*YTD standings are compiled from experts that participated in Weeks 1 – 4

Notes:

• Not surprisingly, John Paulsen’s excellent week 5 performance propelled him into the top position of our YTD leaderboard. Since we introduced the YTD standings, Paulsen has been a mainstay and at the same time has improved his position each week. We should warn him in advance, however, that the #1 overall spot has proven to be a bit of a curse in that no expert has been able to hold onto the lofty status for more than one week in a row. We’ll see if Paulsen can buck this trend when we check back after week 6.

• Sigmund Bloom (FootballGuys) and Josh Moore (4for4.com) also deserve credit for their consistency in the early going of the season. Similar to Paulsen, both experts have been fixtures at the top of the YTD standings with each passing week. Moore is currently rated as the most accurate QB prognosticator and he provided a good example why by giving one of the highest rankings (#7) to week 5’s surprise stud, Shaun Hill (DET). Meanwhile, Bloom has also done well with his QB predictions (#3 rank) and has proven so far that he has a good handle on rating WRs (#3 rank) and TEs (#6 rank).

• The lone newcomer to the top 5 leaderboard this week is Andy Behrens (Yahoo! Sports). It’s no surprise to see Behrens make an appearance here considering that he took home the honor as the most accurate expert in our study last year. Similar to the other experts that are doing well, Behrens has provided accurate advice across the key positions that we track. This is something we obviously consider important since advice seekers are typically looking for help at multiple positions. As it stands right now, Behrens ranks in the top 10 for each of the four positions (QB #6, RB #6, WR #9, TE #8).

We’ll be back again next week with another wrap-up to go over the week 6 accuracy results and to take a look at how the YTD leaderboard has changed. In the meantime, don’t forget that you can view a complete breakdown of all the experts in our study by position at the accuracy results section of our site.