When we updated our data (based on our definition of a sleeper), it was not surprising that we did not have any QB or TE sleepers; only a handful of RB and WR sleepers surfaced.

RB Sleepers

Of the four RB sleepers, three were from Fantasy Sharks. Maybe these guys know something that everyone else doesn’t.

Please note that both Cadillac and McFadden scored extremely high when comparing their Fantasy Sharks ranking to their ADP. Although Cadillac is prone to injuries, Fantasy Sharks points out that the Bucs have promised to feature him heavily in their offense this year, he remains the candidate for goal-line carries, and the Bucs have an overall favorable rushing schedule. Similar to Cadillac, McFadden has also been an injury waiting to happen. Nevertheless, Fantasy Sharks believes the Raiders will be resourceful in finding him some effective touches per game.

Fantasy Sharks does not predict a huge resurgence of the great LT, but they do believe that he will see plenty of action out of the rushing and passing game, and will also benefit from playing behind an excellent offensive line.

KFFL rates Maroney higher than other experts, noting that although Maroney has fallen short of fantasy expectations, he carries the upside of an RB3, but is usually drafted as an RB4. Just hope that he breaks through as the number one option in the Pats backfield roulette.

WR Sleepers

I suspect that most of the WRs on this list are familiar names to fantasy managers. Let’s try to recap why some of our experts see these WRs as sleepers.

Yahoo believes that Meachem should see more action in the high-powered Saints offense than what other experts project.

Berrian and Robinson’s fantasy production are undoubtedly expected to benefit from injuries to their respective team’s star receiver.

Dave Richard is quick to point out that Breaston should benefit with the QB change from Leinart to Anderson.

Fantasy Sharks likes Hester’s upside in Mike Martz’s pass-heavy offense.

Gaffney may just find himself as the number one receiver in Denver.

Same goes for Mike Williams in Tampa Bay, where it looks like Coach Morris has no qualms about starting rookie WRs.

Over the course of the season, we will be checking in to see if these experts’ sleepers are truly the surprise studs of 2010 or if they just end up slapping a sleeper-hold on your team!

Photo Credit: Link

The answer: Yahoo! and it was a clean sweep across all of the positions in our study. In the table below we take a look at the accuracy results for each site using our PAY™ (Prediction Accuracy Yield) scoring methodology.

Yahoo! vs. ESPN Accuracy Results

Of course, these composite results aren’t too surprising considering that all of the Yahoo! experts finished inside the top 10 of our overall results while each ESPN expert was outside the top 10. What obviously stands out from this though is how consistently Yahoo! had the edge over ESPN regardless of the position in question. Given this, we half expect that if the sites had predicted each team’s water boy performance that Yahoo! would have had the advantage there as well.

In all seriousness, if we take a deeper look at the numbers, we can start to see some interesting data emerge about how the sites differed with their predictions and what gave Yahoo! its edge. As an example, let’s isolate the WR position for this site faceoff.

This chart shows how often the two sites disagreed with their picks. For those unfamiliar with our methodology, we ran a round robin of head-to-head player match-ups and noted which player each site predicted would score more fantasy points, based on how the sites ranked each player in their published rankings. We also scrubbed out predictions for match-ups like “Andre Johnson vs. Domenik Hixon” where all of the experts in our study were in agreement. The rationale for removal being that these picks don’t provide much value to advice seekers (at least, we hope this is the case for the advice seekers’ sake).

So, you’re probably looking at this chart and thinking “Wow, these guys agreed with each other a lot!” It’s true but the real key is the small bucket where the sites disagreed because this largely represents the most difficult player predictions. In many ways, these are the player decisions that fantasy owners struggle with regarding who to start or sit because they’re such close calls. Ultimately, this is where Yahoo! gets its advantage over ESPN as the following chart shows:

This chart looks at the Win % for each site and shows that Yahoo! had a decisive edge over ESPN for this category of picks. Using Win % as a success metric doesn’t paint a full picture of how good each site’s advice is, however, because not all predictions are worth the same in fantasy football. For example, when you make a great start/sit call, you are rewarded with the difference in fantasy points between the guy you started and the guy you benched. In our assessment, we factor in this value of benefit for each correct prediction using our PAY™ scoring methodology. When we bake this element into the results we can see that Yahoo!’s advantage over ESPN increases even further:

This tells us that not only did Yahoo! pick the right player more often than ESPN but they also did a better job of correctly predicting the outcomes that provided high value to fantasy owners. As mentioned, this wide gap in accuracy when the two sites disagreed is ultimately what gave Yahoo! the overall advantage with its WR predictions.

So what does all of this tell us? Basically, we now know that Yahoo! was more accurate than ESPN with their composite 2009 weekly player rankings across the RB, WR, QB, TE, K, and DST positions. And when we isolate the WR position we can see that Yahoo! gained its advantage by outperforming ESPN with their predictions for the difficult, high value start/sit decisions that fantasy owners labor over each week.

Will this hold up in 2010? That’s anyone’s guess and we’ll certainly be tracking the accuracy results again and sharing them with you as the season progresses. For now, Yahoo! has the edge but the chance for redemption starts next week for ESPN when the new season begins. As always, may the best site win!

What follows is a breakdown of all the important injuries and suspensions along with how long each player is expected to be out of action. We also note each player’s Average Draft Position (ADP) and Expert Consensus Rank (ECR) to give you an idea of how these players are currently being valued.

Significant Injuries/Suspensions

Let’s first take a look at the guys that are going to miss a significant amount of action:

Player Notes:

• Ben Roethlisberger is currently suspended for 6 games for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy. He’s set to meet with Commissioner Roger Goodell on Friday where there is a strong chance the suspension will be reduced to 4 games. Either way, any owner that drafts Roethlisberger will only have him for at best 75% of the season so keep that in mind when you’re looking at QBs.
  *9/3 Note: Roethlisberger’s suspension was in fact reduced to 4 games*
  

• Of everyone on the list, Vincent Jackson’s situation is the most unpredictable. He not only will miss the season’s first 3 games due to suspension but he is also involved in a nasty contract dispute with the Chargers where he is threatening to sit out the entire season.  Despite Jackson’s claims, most observers expect that he will play at least 6 games this year to avoid losing a year of service time that would delay his timetable to become a free agent. So, if you’re thinking about drafting Jackson, know that he could miss a significant portion of the season and it’s also possible that he’ll be traded at some point by the Chargers (Seattle is a rumored destination).

• Wait, did I say Vincent Jackson’s situation was the most unpredictable? Scratch that! The Bengals were so eager to get rid of Antonio Bryant that they released him despite the fact that they will now pay him nearly $8 million for playing 0 games in Cincinnati. Not exactly a great return on investment. Given that Bryant no longer has a team and is saddled with a lingering knee injury, he is a player with a very uncertain fantasy outlook.

Lingering Injuries

Next, let’s examine the players who are banged up but the injuries aren’t as immediately serious. These guys might not miss much action (if any games at all) but you’ll want to keep their injuries in mind during your draft process since these injuries could linger throughout the season:

Player Notes

• The big player of interest on this list is Maurice Jones-Drew. After an initial report indicated that Jones-Drew would be out for the season due to knee surgery, the injury is now being downplayed as soreness and he is fully expected to be ready for week 1 of the upcoming season. So, at least for now, it appears that this injury will not have much of a fantasy impact.

• Bills running back Fred Jackson fractured his hand early in the pre-season and was expected to miss up to the first two games of the season but there is now optimism that he could return in time for week 1. Despite the positive news, Jackson’s fantasy value has taken a hit and his role is expected to be limited early on in the season due to both the injury as well as the emergence of rookie C.J. Spiller.

• Knowson Moreno is still recovering from a serious hamstring injury that knocked him out of action for most of August. The Broncos aren’t saying whether Moreno will be available for week 1 but the safe bet is that he’ll be suited up to play. However, given the nagging nature of hamstring issues it’s probably a good idea to adjust your draft value of Moreno accordingly.

• Percy Harvin is back working out with the Vikings after collapsing during practice a few weeks ago as a result of Harvin’s ongoing bout with migraine headaches. Even though the Vikings believe they can control the situation, Harvin has missed time in the past due to migraines so it’s likely that the uncertainty of “will he or won’t he play each week” is going to cause fantasy owners to question his appropriate value.

• Steve Slaton suffered a turf toe injury during Houston’s preseason victory over Dallas and is questionable for the Texans’ first game. Given the lingering effects of turf toe injuries and the emergence of teammate Arian Foster, Slaton’s fantasy potential has taken a big hit going into the season.

• Raiders running back Michael Bush underwent surgery on Monday for an injury to a fractured left thumb. While there is no definite timetable for his return, it is believed that Bush should be back in action early in the season. The uncertainty of how this affects Bush’s ability to carry the ball will likely impact how early he is taken in upcoming fantasy drafts.

• No player’s injury status is more surprising than Patriots WR Wes Welker. Despite tearing both his ACL and MCL just 7 months ago, Welker has remarkably taken part in preseason activities and is fully in line to play in New England’s season opener. Given the short recovery period for such a significant injury, however, there’s no doubt that there will be plenty of questions as to how much Welker can be counted on for fantasy production this season.

So there you have it. A breakdown of all the significant injuries and suspensions that could impact your upcoming fantasy draft. Hopefully you find this information helpful as an overview as you try to decide what value each player can bring to your fantasy team.

As always, feel free to leave your feedback and let us know if you think we’re missing anyone important.

Photo Credit: Link

To find these deep sleepers, I’ve gone through and filtered our ranking data by position. Let’s start with the WRs, since they typically have the deepest list of players. For WRs, I’m going to use the following requirements:

1. Have an ADP outside of the top 60 WRs. In a 12 team league, that means an average of 5 WRs already on the rosters of each team. Deep enough, right?
2. Have an ECR (Expert Consensus Rank) outside of the top 60 WRs. If all the experts feel like the guy is a sleeper, then he’s not really a sleeper!
3. The expert making the sleeper prediction must publicly rank the player inside of his top 60 WRs.
4. AND, the expert’s rank must be at least 24 spots better than both the ADP and ECR.

Here’s the list of WRs that made it through this filter. I think you’ll agree that it’s a pretty small list which is a good thing (sleeper lists that have a long list of players tend to just put me to sleep!).

WR deep sleepers and the experts who love them:

As you can probably tell, we try to do things objectively here by using an expert’s published rankings to give us insight on his opinions. Basically, we tell you who these experts love relative to the consensus opinion. Which experts to trust, however, is entirely up to you. OK, that was my way of saying these aren’t MY deep sleeper picks. Although as a Raiders fan (did I just admit that?), it would be pretty sweet to see Darrius Heyward-Bey turn things around from last year’s joke of a season.

Moving on to other positions… doh! Nada. Ziltch. The big fat zero. It may not surprise you that it was difficult (basically impossible) to find “deep sleepers” at the other positions using this construct. Even after reducing the requirements to reflect the smaller number of starting positions, QB and TE really produced nothing even close to a deep sleeper. I think there’s general consensus on which players make the top players at each position, and any sleeper picks beyond that are being ranked as merely undervalued. No one is going to put Jason Campbell (sorry, I know that’s two Raiders in one post, but the Campbell to Heyward-Bey double-dip is the ultimate deep sleeper combo!) as a top guy with a ranking way higher than the consensus no matter how much he thinks he’s a breakout candidate. The lists just aren’t deep enough to produce “deep sleepers” using my objective approach which relies on a rogue expert pick.

I’m guessing you want to see some more player picks anyway, so here are a few running backs that seem to have one or two experts backing them as potential late round gems. I basically looked for RBs that were ranked outside of the ECR and ADP top 55 RBs, but that had one expert ranking him at least 15 spots better than his ADP. Here’s the list I came up with:

• Jonathan Dwyer (PIT). FFToolbox has him as their RB 49 (ADP of RB 64).
• Javon Ringer (TEN). Sigmund Bloom of FootballGuys puts him at RB 47 (ADP of RB 69).
• Julius Jones (SEA). FantasySharks has him at RB 44 (ADP of RB 62).
• Mike Bell (PHI). Roger Rotter of Fox Sports has him at RB 42 (ADP of RB 58).

There are a couple of obvious handcuffs on this list and you could argue that their rank is dependent more on whether or not you believe in handcuffing (picking up a backup as an insurance policy), than whether you think he’s a real deep sleeper. But I think all handcuffs can also be seen as viable lottery picks – you don’t have to own Chris Johnson to be rewarded for picking up his handcuff. In fact, you could probably taunt the Chris Johnson owner every week until he gives you a nice trade offer for Javon Ringer. Sleeping better at night is worth something in fantasy football!

Note: This is the 2nd to last post in our series on 2010 sleeper picks, which uses an objective screening process to identify the sleepers that certain expert’s love. Next week we’ll wrap up the series with a refresh of our previous outputs based on the final rankings data we have for each expert. During the season we’ll keep track of how each expert’s sleeper pick is doing. Let’s see who gets them right!

Photo Credit: Link

Pat Fitzmaurice – Pro Football Weekly. Pat is a contributing writer at Pro Football Weekly and was the runner-up in our 2009 Accuracy Study. Nice job Pat!

Ryan Lester – Lester’s Legends. Ryan runs the popular blog Lester’s Legends, and is a featured columnist with the Bleacher Report.

Chet Gresham – Razzball.com. The “Doc” has a large following of patients that look for his fantasy football cures on Razzball and through Twitter.

This Week’s Question:

Of all the significant guys that have shined in the preseason, name some players that deserve the hype and some players that don’t. . . and tell us why!

Arian Foster’s name comes up a couple times as a guy worth reaching for, but there’s a big debate on Jahvid Best and no love for C.J. Spiller. Read each expert’s player insights…

Pat Fitzmaurice – Pro Football Weekly

Worthy of the Hype: Jahvid Best and Ryan Mathews
Don’t Follow the Bandwagon: C.J. Spiller

The top-tier rookie running backs are obvious candidates to land in one category or the other, since Ryan Mathews, Jahvid Best and C.J. Spiller all have had excellent preseasons.

Jahvid Best looks sensational, so the obvious question is: How early is too early to draft him? He has a reasonable chance to finish as a top-10 or even a top-five running back, but fantasy owners are reluctant to take him in the first round or two because he has no NFL track record. Fair enough, but Best is an early-round gamble worth taking, in my opinion. I’ve heard people talk about how they “reached” for Best in the middle of the third round in a 12-team draft. That’s not a reach. In my updated Sept. 1 rankings, Best will be among my top 10 running backs because I really do believe he’s going to outperform Ryan Grant, Cedric Benson and some other guys who have NFL track records. You won’t be getting Best in the middle of the third round if you play in one of my leagues.

As for Ryan Mathews, my earlier reservations about him were (1) that he didn’t wow me the handful of times I saw him play in college, and (2) that the Chargers’ running game was so dismal last season, which had at least a little something to do with the offensive line. I no longer question Mathews’ ability — his performance in the preseason has laid that concern to rest. San Diego’s run blocking is still a mild concern, particularly with left tackle Marcus McNeil still holding out. But I think Mathews and Best are both worthy of the hype.

It’s not that C.J. Spiller isn’t worthy of the hype. He might be every bit as talented at Best or Mathews. But his overall situation scares the bejesus out of me. His offensive line is bad. Buffalo has no passing game. The opposing defenses in the Bills’ division range from good to great. Spiller might produce good rookie numbers, but even if he does, I think he’s going to do it in sort of an erratic way, with some big weeks and some disappointing weeks. I don’t think he’ll be able to provide the sort of week-to-week consistency that fantasy owners crave.

Ryan Lester – Lester’s Legends

Worthy of the Hype: Arian Foster and Johnny Knox
Don’t Follow the Bandwagon: Jahvid Best and Beanie Wells

Arian Foster – Perhaps nobody has had a better preseason than Foster. His main competition has either been injured (Ben Tate) or suffered from fumblitis (Steve Slaton). Meanwhile Foster has answered the bell with a 110 yard effort in the only true preseason test. It’s looking like the back that combined for 242 yards (216 rushing) and 3 TDs in Weeks 16 & 17 is for real. He’s big (6’1″, 229 lbs) and runs with authority. While I caution you because Gary Kubiak has a track record of being fickle with his backs, Foster looks like he’s the real deal.

Johnny Knox – Pretty much everybody assumed that Devin Hester and Devin Aromashodu would flourish for the Bears in Mike Martz’s system. Johnny Knox was largely overlooked despite his ridiculous 4.34 speed. However, through training camp Knox has emerged as the Bears’ number one option in the passing game. Now he has everybody gushing at the potential for a breakout season. With a pass-happy offensive coordinator and a big armed gunslinger under center, I am totally buying into the hype.

Jahvid Best – It’s not that I don’t believe that Best has talent or won’t have his moments in his rookie season. I’m just afraid he’s going too early in fantasy drafts. He has had multiple surgeries (elbow, hip, shoulder) as well as a concussion before taking a snap in the NFL. Even if he is able to overcome those injuries, he’s playing on a team that tends to get in a big hole early, forcing them to abandon the run. He has just too many risks for a late third/early fourth round fantasy pick.

Beanie Wells – Beanie Wells could either turn in a very productive season or his injury concerns and fumbling issues could keep him in a full-fledged running back by committee all season long. Beanie had four fumbles, losing two, as a rookie in just 176 carries. He coughed one up over the weekend against the Bears, which is a sure-fire way to anger Ken Whisenhunt. Tim Hightower is waiting in the wings should Beanie stumble. I’d rather have a safer selection for my late second/early third round pick.

Chet “Doc” Gresham – Razzball

Worthy of the Hype: Arian Foster and Jabar Gaffney
Don’t Follow the Bandwagon: C.J. Spiller

Arian Foster: He is moving up draft boards faster than Antonio Bryant took that 8 million dollars for doing nothing.  There are plenty of reasons to not draft early, but if you drafted Foster in the 10th round you are pretty happy right now.  Why are you happy?  Because coach Kubiak finally has his cut and go, downhill runner.  He showed he had ability at the end of last season, but the Texans went out and drafted Ben Tate, but the Fantasy Gods looked out for Foster by breaking Tate’s ankle and tearing ligaments and I think they even rained on his birthday party.  And then Foster just keeps running with authority in preseason.  Add that to an extremely strong passing game and you have a recipe for a strong season. The hype is real and it is spectacular.

Jabar Gaffney: He may be a good example of a player having a nice preseason that looks like it could translate into regular season production.  Coming into this season the Broncos wide receiver situation has been extremely difficult to decipher.  It’s still pretty muddled, but Gaffney has been targeted by Orton the most out of all his receivers.  When playing time is up for grabs like it is in Denver these preseason numbers can be helpful.  Another Bronco receiver could easily shine and move ahead of Gaffney, but right now the #1 job is his to lose.

C.J. Spiller: The Fantasy Gods have also been looking out for Spiller by breaking Fred Jackson’s finger and spraining Marshawn Lynch’s ankle (man these football gods get around).  So Spiller has been able to get the 1st team reps in preseason and he has looked good in doing so, but there are a few factors that should tap the brakes on the hype machine.  First, Lynch should be back for the season opener.  Second, Fred Jackson only hurt his finger and shouldn’t be slowed down once he gets back, which shouldn’t be too far away. Third, he plays for the Bills.  Yes, Spiller is an amazing talent, but he has quite a few factors to overcome to live up to his preseason hype.

I want to thank our Featured Pros for sharing their insights! To read more great stuff from them, you can visit their profile pages here on FantasyPros or go to their websites directly at:

Pat Fitzmaurice – Pro Football Weekly
Ryan Lester – Lester’s Legends
Chet Gresham – Razzball.com

Photo Credit: Link

Before we dive in, let’s quickly review our “sleeper” methodology. As with our previous posts, this analysis looks at every player the experts have ranked and compares their rankings to each player’s expert consensus rank (ECR) as well as the player’s average draft position (ADP). Whenever the expert’s rank is better than the player’s ECR and ADP, we take note since it’s an indication that the expert is higher on the player than everyone else. We then add each player to our sleeper list if they meet the specific criteria outlined in our RB post.

This sounds great but the only problem is that when we ran the numbers using the guidelines outlined by our definition, it netted us 0 QB sleepers. D’oh! As a result, we’ve loosened up our requirements and what follows below represents the closest guys to meeting our sleeper criteria (nice save, right?).

Whew, with that explained, let’s take a look at the list:

QB Sleepers	Expert That Likes Him	Expert's Rank (ER)	Average Draft Position (ADP)	ADP vs ER	Expert Consensus Rank (ECR)	ECR vs ER
Alex Smith SF	Staff Fantasy Sharks	QB #13	QB #19	+6	QB #18	+5
Alex Smith SF	Staff Yahoo	QB #13	QB #19	+6	QB #18	+5
David Garrard JAC	Staff Fantasy Sharks	QB #14	QB #29	+15	QB #20	+6
Jason Campbell OAK	Matthew Berry ESPN	QB #16	QB #24	+8	QB #24	+8
Kyle Orton DEN	Staff Fantasy Sharks	QB #15	QB #26	+11	QB #23	+8
Kyle Orton DEN	Roger Rotter Fox Sports	QB #15	QB #26	+11	QB #23	+8
Matt Cassel KC	Dave Richard CBS Sports	QB #16	QB #23	+7	QB #22	+6
Matt Cassel KC	Staff Fantasy Sharks	QB #16	QB #23	+7	QB #22	+6

*Ranks are based off of value for standard leagues.*
Notes:

• Alex Smith is a popular selection given that he shows up on the list multiple times. This one isn’t too surprising since the 49ers are a common pick to have a breakout season and that’s unlikely to happen without a strong performance from Smith. The former #1 overall pick has largely been a bust so far in his career but he did show flashes of his potential when he reclaimed the starting role last season. He has some quality talent to help him out with stud TE Vernon Davis, a solid WR corps in Michael Crabtree & Josh Morgan, and a talented offensive line. Add in that opposing teams will be placing their primary focus on stopping RB Frank Gore and it should free Smith up for a chance to have an impact fantasy season.

• Fellow Bay Area QB, Jason Campbell, also appears on the list courtesy of ESPN’s Matthew Berry. Oakland is stacked with speedy, unproven WRs (Al Davis is still the owner, right?) as well as a reliable TE in Zach Miller so Campbell has some offensive weapons to work with. The potential problem, of course, is that this is the Raiders and just about everything that could go wrong over the past 8 seasons or so has gone wrong for the organization. But hey, if “team belief” counts for anything then that bodes well for Campbell since the Raiders think they’re going to the Super Bowl.

• Another player that several experts see potential in is Matt Cassel. This one makes some sense to me. The Chiefs hired Charlie Weis as their offensive coordinator in the off-season and, for all of his critics, Weis does have a strong record of getting QBs to perform to their potential. It also helps that Cassel has a nice set of WRs to work with in Dwayne Bowe and Chris Chambers as well as the tremendous backfield of Jamaal Charles and Thomas Jones that will keep defenses honest against the pass. A big challenge for Cassel owners is that Kansas City features a shaky offensive line which is a recipe for trouble when combined with Cassel’s penchant for holding onto the ball too long. Either way, this is the season where Cassel proves if he is a legitimate fantasy option going forward or just a one year wonder.

• A surprise selection that appears twice on the list is Kyle Orton. He’s a guy that showed up on a number of sleeper lists last year but at this point most people feel he lacks the upside potential to truly have a breakout fantasy year. Add in that his #1 target in 2009, Brandon Marshall, is no longer on the team and it seems unlikely that his would be the season for Orton to take things to the next level. With that said, a true sleeper candidate is a guy that isn’t being picked by the masses to light it up so Orton does fit the bill from that perspective.

So what do you think of the QB sleeper list? Is this finally the year the 49ers get a return on their Alex Smith investment and can Matt Cassel really take things to the next level in Kansas City? I’m sure there are some additional players you guys have pegged as sleepers that didn’t make the list. Let us know who your own selections are and whether or not you think the experts are on target with their sleeper picks.

Photo Credit: Link

Earlier in the week, we examined the accuracy of the advice from two of the most popular experts covering fantasy football: Matthew Berry (ESPN) and David Dodds (FootballGuys). Today, we thought it would be interesting to answer the two questions above related to the gambling tendencies of each expert at the RB position.

We’re simply taking a test drive here so we’ll be sure to include additional positions (and experts) in future posts if you find this info useful. And, yes, that sentence is absolutely code for “Hey guys, this data is a beast to pull so we want to make sure you really like it before we take a deeper dive.”

Ok, with that admission out of the way, let’s take a look at the table below. It summarizes the 2009 accuracy results related to the key betting tendencies for Dodds and Berry at the RB position.

Expert Opinion	Overall Accuracy	% Time Agreeing With Consensus	Accuracy When Agreeing With Consensus	% Time Disagreeing With Consensus	Accuracy When Disagreeing With Consensus
David Dodds FootballGuys	65.2%	78.60%	68.7%	21.4%	50.9%
Matthew Berry ESPN	61.7%	78.90%	66.2%	21.1%	44.1%

*Notes: Consensus refers to the combined opinion of all experts in our accuracy study. Accuracy scores were determined using FantasyPros’ PAY™ scoring method.*

Key Findings:

• Wow, both experts played it straight up and agreed with the consensus opinion a lot, huh? Nearly 79% of the time! Dodds had an accuracy edge when this happened but it was by a fairly small margin.

• When taking a risk and going against the consensus opinion, Dodds fared much better than Berry. Judging by the small % of times they went against the popular opinion, neither expert was a riverboat gambler but Berry might have needed a life vest had he been near water.

• It’s tempting to look at the accuracy numbers and wonder why an expert would ever bet against the consensus, right? I mean, both guys had much better scores when agreeing with the popular opinion. Does this mean the experts should start to play it conservative in order to produce more accurate picks? My answer to this: No! The data is misleading!  I won’t bore you with the details but it’s clear from looking at the numbers that the expert decisions in the far right column were much more difficult than the ones in the column two spots to the left.  Just know that when going against the consensus, anything above 50% is going to be a good score because it means the expert did better than the popular opinion on those picks.

So, yeah, this is kind of cool but what does it mean? (I totally feel like this guy asking that question, by the way). Well, it clearly tells us that Dodds did a better job of hitting on his RB gambles than Berry in 2009. What it doesn’t tell us is how these guys did compared to the entire field of experts. That would obviously be interesting to know in order to figure out who the ultimate Gambling King is amongst the fantasy football experts. For the purposes of our quick analysis, though, Dodds finished in the money when going out on a limb with his RB predictions while Berry ended up in the red. Whether or not this holds true in 2010 will be interesting to follow.

Feel free to let us know what you think about this type of data. If it’s interesting we’ll add in more experts and positions. If it’s a total bore and you feel like you just wasted 10 minutes of your life then we’ll shift gears and focus on something better. The choice is yours!

Photo Credit: Link

So, let’s take a look at the list! Who are the wide receivers that the experts are predicting to outperform the common expectations?

WR Sleepers	Expert That Loves Him	Expert's Rank (ER)	Average Draft Position (ADP)	ADP vs ER	Expert Consensus Rank (ECR)	ECR vs ER
Antonio Bryant CIN	Staff Yahoo! Sports	WR #25	WR #74	+49	WR #57	+32
Bernard Berrian MIN	Fantasy Sharks Staff	WR #19	WR #60	+41	WR #47	+28
Devin Hester CHI	Paul Greco Fantasy Pros911	WR #27	WR #43	+16	WR #41	+14
Devin Hester CHI	Staff Fantasy Sharks	WR #28	WR #42	+15	WR #41	+13
Devin Thomas WAS	Jay Clemons Sports Illustrated	WR #26	WR #61	+35	WR #53	+27
Donnie Avery STL	Roger Rotter Fox Sports	WR #25	WR #59	+34	WR #50	+25
Eddie Royal DEN	Paul Greco FantasyPros911	WR #29	WR #41	+12	WR #49	+20
Jabar Gaffney DEN	Mike Krueger FFToday	WR #26	WR #52	+26	WR #45	+19
Jabar Gaffney DEN	Jamey Eisenberg CBS Sports	WR #30	WR #52	+22	WR #45	+15
Jerricho Cotchery NYJ	Jay Clemons Sports Illustrated	WR #22	WR #54	+32	WR #44	+22
Kenny Britt TEN	Jay Clemons Sports Illustrated	WR #25	WR #46	+21	WR #38	+13

* Ranks are based off of value for standard leagues. For a detailed look at our methodology for this sleeper list, please refer to our RB sleeper post*
Notes:

• Fantasy Sharks must see something they absolutely LOVE about Bernard Berrian given how much better they have him ranked than everyone else. Perhaps this is related to the recent injury to the Vikings’ #1 WR, Sidney Rice, as well as the uncertain status of Percy Harvin? Oh yeah, let’s also not forget that Berrian’s value received a boost when Brett Favre officially declared he was returning to play this season.  But who am I kidding? Of course you didn’t forget that since ESPN has secretly implanted microchips in our brains so we always know the latest updates on Favre!

• Yahoo is considerably higher on Antonio Bryant than everyone else. From an ADP perspective, they’re basically recommending to draft him a full 4 rounds higher than where he’s currently being taken. This one’s a head scratcher because Bryant has been saddled with a knee injury since July and there are even rumors that the Bengals might release him. Is it possible Yahoo knows something that everyone else doesn’t?

• Devin Hester was a popular pick with two expert mentions on our list. The Bears hired guru, Mike Martz, as their offensive coordinator in the off-season so there is some belief that if Hester is ever going to put it together, now is the time with the Bears shifting to a pass-happy offense.

• Jabar Gaffney is another player that several experts are high on. There’s good reason for this as the reports have been positive for him so far out of training camp. And with Brandon Marshall “taking his talents to South Beach”, Gaffney will be counted on to pick up some of the void left from the 100+ receptions and 1,100+ receiving yards that are following Marshall to Miami.

Undervalued WRs

If you’re more interested in who the experts as a whole, rather than individually, think are the undervalued WRs, we can compare the expert consensus rank (ECR) for each player to their ADP.  When a player’s ADP is much worse than his ECR it’s an indication that the experts feel the player is undervalued.  Below is a list of the top undervalued WRs using this approach:

Depending upon how deep your league is, some of the lower ranked players on this list might not be that important to you. For me, guys like Mike Wallace, Robert Meachem and Kenny Britt pop out as potential values but it’s all dependent upon what your league setup is. Either way, this list does a nice job of laying out when you might be able to pick up some value for WRs during your draft.

So there you have it. We now have a full list of WR sleepers by expert as well as the undervalued players determined by the consensus expert rankings. Let us know if you agree with the experts that are high on these WRs or if you think they’re off base. And is there a WR you have pegged as a sleeper that the experts are missing the boat on?

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Well, if you’ve been studying our accuracy scores, the answer is obvious. After slugging it out over 16 weeks in 2009, David Dodds beat out Matthew Berry in the key categories of RB, WR, QB, and TE accuracy. They split on DST and K, but this is the last time I’ll ever mention the word kicker in the first paragraph of a fantasy football post.

Here’s how high their PAY™ (Prediction Accuracy Yield) was for the four key positions in 2009:

So why am I bringing up something that can be easily found on our Accuracy Scores page? Am I just taking a cheap shot at Mr. Berry because he’s the most well know fantasy football expert? Or am I secretly on the FootballGuys payroll? Neither.  OK, a little of the first (people like reading about Matthew Berry), and none of the second (although I’m open to free subscription offers).

I’m bringing up a specific example of two experts because I think it helps illustrate the foundation of how we do our accuracy assessments. A surprising number of people have actually taken the time to read about our methodology, so this seems to be an area of interest. Using the RB category as an example, let’s take a closer look at this expert faceoff:

This chart shows how often Matthew Berry and David Dodds agreed and disagreed with each other’s RB predictions. We basically ran a round robin of head-to-head player match-ups and noted which player each expert predicted would win, based on how they ranked them in their published rankings. Note that we scrubbed out predictions that all the experts in our pool agreed on (e.g. Chris Johnson vs. Mr. No Name Desperation Start), so this data only represents predictions where there was at least one expert backing each player being compared.

For RBs, these two experts disagreed with each other about 26% of the time.  The reason why David Dodds performed better than Matthew Berry was because when they disagreed, he was more likely to be right. Here’s how often each was right when they argued:

That doesn’t tell the whole story though. Not all predictions are worth the same amount of value in Fantasy Football. When you make a great start/sit call, you’re rewarded handsomely with the difference in fantasy points between the guy you started and the guy you benched. We believe the magnitude of this benefit must be included in an accuracy assessment because this is the true benefit that you’re receiving from following the expert’s advice. Once we bake in the net fantasy points from each expert’s correct predictions, the spread between Berry and Dodds becomes a bit more pronounced. Basically, not only did Dodds get more of the disagreements correct, he also tended to get the more valuable predictions right. Here’s the difference once we bake in fantasy points:

The metric we use to measure accuracy is called PAY™ because it tells you what benefit you receive for following the expert’s advice. A 100% PAY™ would mean that following the expert’s advice would have given you the optimal lineup each week of the season. Note that the PAY™ amount in the chart above is different from what’s reported in the very first table because it only looks at match-ups where Berry and Dodds disagreed.

Also, keep in mind again that we only score predictions that are not unanimous among the experts. So these ratings represent how the experts are doing with the relatively harder predictions in fantasy football. No one’s looking for advice on whether to start Chris Johnson over Mr. No Name. We believe we should base our accuracy assessment on the predictions that actually matter to fantasy players. A score in the 50′s and 60′s may look poor to you, but we all know how tough it is to get the close calls right. Similar to sports gambling, a small relative edge can mean all the difference between whether you make a trip to the cashier window or the ATM.

I hope this post helps to illustrate the approach we take for rating fantasy advice. Obviously, accuracy is only one benefit we get from listening to true experts. I’m still going to read what TMR has to say, but perhaps with a little less blind faith. The good news for Mr. Berry is that he gets to get in the ring with Dodds again this year for a rematch. May the best fantasy expert win!

Note: We’re planning on following up this post with a look at how these two guys did when they agreed and disagreed with the expert consensus opinion. So, not compared to each other but compared to the wisdom of the consensus rankings. Stay tuned for that insightful analysis…

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