We’re officially halfway through the fantasy football season which means we’re getting close to crowning this year’s most accurate fantasy expert. Judging by how tight the standings are, it’s still anyone’s race to win and we should be in for an exciting second half as the experts duke it out.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, though, let’s check in on how the experts did in week 8. We’ll examine which pundits did the best job with their picks and also take a look at how the YTD leaderboard is shaping up.
Week 8 Accuracy Results
Top 10 Experts – Overall Leaderboard* | ||
Rank | Expert | PAY™ |
1. | Nick Raducanu – The Fantasy Fix | 64.1% |
2. | John Paulsen – 4for4.com | 63.3% |
3. | Chris Wesseling – Rotoworld | 63.1% |
4. | Brent Namejko – Fantasy Smack Talk | 63.0% |
5. | Kevin Hanson – EDSFootball | 62.6% |
6. | Staff Composite – ESPN | 62.5% |
7. | Michael Sherman – Fantasy Team Advice | 62.4% |
8. | Matthew Berry – ESPN | 62.3% |
9. | Alessandro Miglio – Pro Football Focus | 62.1% |
10. | Site Projections – scoutPRO | 61.7% |
*See how all 99 experts ranked for the week
Congrats to Nick Raducanu (The Fantasy Fix) for putting together the week’s most accurate rankings. Raducanu’s best picks came at WR as he managed to rank 7 of the top 10 fantasy WRs as well or better than the expert consensus. This includes some of the week’s biggest studs such as Titus Young, Michael Crabtree and Denarius Moore. On top of this, he also delivered a nice sleeper hit by slotting Rams WR, Chris Givens, 10 spots ahead of the field of experts. Givens rewarded that faith by putting up top 12 numbers (64 yards receiving, 1 TD).
We also want to give kudos to the experts that did the best job of ranking week 8’s peak performers. Below are several key players that came through for fantasy owners along with the experts who delivered their top ranking.
Consensus Rank: QB #13
Best Rank: QB #7
Actual Rank: QB #1
Top Expert: Keet Bailey (NFL Soup)
Consensus Rank: RB #18
Best Rank: RB #4
Actual Rank: RB #1
Top Expert: Zhan Mourning: (Gridiron Experts)
Consensus Rank: WR #43
Best Rank: WR #27
Actual Rank: WR #1
Top Expert: Staff Rankings (Fantasy Knuckleheads)
Consensus Rank: WR #39
Best Rank: WR #26
Actual Rank: WR #2
Top Expert: Zhan Mourning: (Gridiron Experts)
Consensus Rank: TE #6
Best Rank: TE #2
Actual Rank: TE #1
Top Experts: Eric Yeomans (Pro Football Focus), Jody Smith (Gridiron Experts), Mike Beacom (SI.com)
Year-to-Date Accuracy
Top 10 Experts – YTD Leaderboard* | ||
Rank | Expert | PAY™ |
1. | Jody Smith – Gridiron Experts | 63.0% |
2. | John Paulsen – 4for4.com | 62.9% |
3. | Sablich Brothers – The New York Times | 62.7% |
4. | Mike Tagliere – Tags Fantasy Football | 62.6% |
5. | John Halpin – Fox Sports | 62.5% |
6. | Site Rankings – Fantasy Football Nerd | 62.4% |
7. | Brad Evans – Yahoo! Sports | 62.2% |
8. | Justin Boone – TSN | 62.0% |
9. | Muntradamus – Beast Dome | 62.0% |
10. | David Dodds – FootballGuys | 62.0% |
*See how all the experts rank for the season
Jody Smith (Gridiron Experts) is still holding strong atop the YTD standings but he’s up against a surging John Paulsen (4for4.com). If you think you’ve heard words like “surging” and “John Paulsen” used in the same sentence before, you’re probably not mistaken. This is the 3rd year Paulsen has participated in our accuracy competition and he’s been at or near the top of the leaderboard in each go-around. In 2010, Paulsen won the competition while last year he finished as the runner-up in a photo finish.
Outside of Paulsen moving up from #6 to #2 in the standings, the upper portion of the leaderboard stayed relatively close to the same as last week. There were no new entrants to the top 10, although Nick Raducanu (The Fantasy Fix) vaulted all the way up to #12 (from #30) on the strength of his week 8 performance. That movement is a sign there’s an opportunity for any expert to make a big push if they can string together a few good weeks. Of course, we’ll be monitoring how the experts’ predictions shake out during the 2nd half of the season so we’ll keep you fully up-to-date on who’s providing the most accurate advice.
In the meantime, if you’d like a shot at making your own picks this week, be sure to check out our $10,000 FantasyPros FanDuel Championship. In addition to this week’s cash prizes, the top 5 finishers will also earn a ticket to our Week 13 tournament that has a $5,000 prize pool (with only 25 total contestants). Good luck!