Another week of the NFL season is behind us which means it’s time to check back in on our competition to determine who the most accurate fantasy football expert is. One thing that’s for certain is the experts stepped up their game in week 9. The average accuracy score for our entire field was the highest we’ve seen since week 4 so there was plenty of good advice for fantasy owners to use to their advantage.

Let’s take a look at which experts did the best job with their week 9 picks and also examine whether or not there were any shakeups to our Year-to-Date standings

Week 9 Leaderboard

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

Notes:

• Congratulations to Chet Gresham (Razzball.com) for defeating some tough competition to earn the title of Week 9’s Most Accurate Fantasy Football Expert. This is Gresham’s third top 5 appearance of the year so he’s no stranger to success. He delivered a well rounded set of advice this past week by finishing in the top 10 for three of the four positions that factor into our overall accuracy scores: WR (#4), TE (#7) & QB (#8). A key to his success at the WR position was that he managed to rank 8 out of the top 10 fantasy WRs as well or better than the Expert Consensus. Specifically, Gresham rode the success of Hakeem Nicks (NYG) and Terrell Owens (CIN) but he also hit on several sleeper picks (Seyi Ajirotutu, Nate Burleson) that helped to separate him from the other experts.

• Right behind Gresham in the week 9 standings is Brad Richter (RotoPilot). The top 2 finish represents Richter’s best performance of the season and it was primarily driven by the quality of his picks at the QB position (#1 rank). Specifically, he not only nailed the top studs (Michael Vick, Aaron Rodgers, etc) but he also did a good job of pegging several surprise players. Richter’s rankings for Jay Cutler (QB #6), Matthew Stafford (QB #12) and Carson Palmer (QB #13) all represented unpopular stances, yet they ultimately helped him grab the top QB spot since they outperformed expectations.

• Perhaps the most well rounded advice for the week came from the staff at Fantasy Football Maniaxs. Their 3^rd place finish resulted from an impressive showing where they ended up in the top 5 at multiple positions: TE (#1) WR (#2) & QB (#4). For their TE picks, the Maniaxs had Aaron Hernandez (NE) ranked the best of all the experts in our field and his big day (16.8 fantasy points) helped to fuel their #1 TE ranking. Meanwhile, at the WR position, they were notably higher than the Expert Consensus on many of the top performers including Seyi Ajirotutu (SD), Terrell Owens (CIN), James Jones (GB), and Mike Wallace (PIT). The ability to peg these week 9 studs cemented Fantasy Football Maniax’s status as one of the top WR prognosticators for the week.

Year-to-Date Leaderboard

Notes:

• At the risk of sounding like a broken record, John Paulsen (The Scores Report) currently sits atop the YTD leaderboard as the most accurate expert in our study. This now marks the fifth consecutive week that he has occupied the #1 position. To put this in perspective, Randy Moss has been a member of 3 different teams since Paulsen last trailed someone else in the standings. It’s an impressive feat and Paulsen shows no signs of letting up considering that he extended his lead in week 9. A quick glance at his positional rankings reveals just how dominant he has been thus far. Of the four key positions that factor into our overall results, Paulsen currently ranks in the top 2 for three of them:  RB (#1), WR (#2) & TE (#2). It’s been a remarkable run of quality advice and we can only hope the readers at The Scores Report are taking advantage of it.

• There was also no movement with the #2 and #3 spots in the leaderboard as they continue to be occupied by Andy Behrens (Yahoo! Sports) and David Dodds (FootballGuys), respectively. Both experts delivered good performances in week 9 (Dodds: #4, Behrens: #11) to hold their ground. While much can be said for John Paulsen’s consistency, the same is true for Behrens. We’ve now reached the 4^th week in a row where he holds the distinction of being the 2^nd most accurate expert in our contest.

• The lone newcomer to this week’s YTD top 5 is Chet Gresham (Razzball.com). He moved up 3 spots to claim the #4 position based off of the strength of his week 9 predictions. Impressively, this is now the 4th time this season that Gresham has occupied a spot in this portion of the leaderboard. However, the previous 3 times he slipped out of the top 5 the following week so he’ll definitely be looking for a remedy to that trend in week 10. As it stands right now, he currently resides in the top 10 for several positions that we monitor: TE (#3), RB (#6) & WR (#7).

We’ll be back again next week with another wrap-up to go over the accuracy results from week 10 and to take a look at how the YTD leaderboard has changed. In the meantime, you can view a breakdown of all the experts in our study by visiting the accuracy section of our site. The complete standings are offered at no cost to our registered members. Simply sign up for FREE and you’ll have full access to the accuracy scores!