We’re approaching the midway point of the NFL season and the competition continues to be tight as the experts in our field vie for the title of Most Accurate Fantasy Football Expert. This past week featured surprises both on the field and in our competition as 3 new experts have jumped into the top 5 of our Year-To-Date (YTD) Leaderboard. We’ll break down which experts did the best job with their week 7 player rankings and also examine who is moving up in the YTD standings.
Note that the following analysis is based off of a field of nearly 40 experts. If you’re interested in seeing how every expert stacks up against one another, 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 7 Leaderboard
[table “52” not found /]*Overall standings evaluate experts’ weekly rankings at the QB, RB, WR, & TE positions
Notes:
- Between surprise performances, injury concerns (e.g. Darren McFadden) and the impact of off the field issues (e.g. Kenny Britt), this was arguably the most difficult week of the season to predict from a fantasy perspective. The accuracy numbers reflect this as the average PAY™ scores are the lowest we’ve seen all year. With these challenges in mind, the experts who finished on top this week deserve a lot of credit as they were able to navigate a seemingly unpredictable week to provide quality advice to their readers.
- Taking home the honor as week 7’s most accurate expert is Dave Richard (CBS Sports). He came through at multiple positions including QB (#1 rank) and WR (#1 rank). For his QB picks, Richard did a nice job of not only getting the studs right but also nailing many of the duds for the week. For instance, he anticipated that Jay Cutler (CHI) and Philip Rivers (SD) would be in for tough games as he had each quarterback ranked the lowest of any expert we tracked. He also correctly pegged Carson Palmer (CIN) as a standout by ranking him higher (QB #8) than any other expert. As for the WR position, Richard’s success can be attributed to being a strong believer in many of week 7’s top performers including Roddy White (ATL), Lee Evans (BUF), Dwayne Bowe (KC), and Hines Ward (PIT).
- Another one of the accuracy leaders from week 7 is Gregg Rosenthal (Rotoworld). Rosenthal delivered well rounded advice and finished in the top 10 for three of the positions that factor into our overall rankings: WR (#2), TE (#8), RB (#10). For his WR picks, Rosenthal was notably higher than the expert consensus for several breakout players including Kenny Britt (TEN), Lee Evans (BUF) and Marques Colston (NO). These picks ultimately helped to fuel his #2 WR accuracy rating.
- Congratulations go out to Eric Karabell (ESPN) for earning top 5 weekly honors for the first time this season. Karabell delivered one of the best rankings of the week when he slotted Darren McFadden (OAK) higher than any other expert as his 12th ranked RB. This decision, as well as his rankings for several top performers including Knowshon Moreno (DEN), Thomas Jones (KC) and Maurice Jones-Drew (JAC) helped to gain Karabell the #1 RB rating for the week.
Year-to-Date Leaderboard
[table “53” not found /]*YTD standings are compiled from experts that participated in Weeks 1 – 7
Notes:
- Staying put in the top 2 spots are John Paulsen (The Scores Report) and Andy Behrens (Yahoo! Sports). While week 7 wasn’t stellar for either expert, both did manage to distance themselves further from the field which is a testament to their skill at ranking players even during a difficult week. And for Paulsen, this now marks the 3rd consecutive week where he ranks #1 in our YTD standings so he continues to hold his own while facing tough competition.
- The experts making the biggest jumps forward this week are Erik Kuselias (ESPN) and Gregg Rosenthal (RotoWorld). Each expert catapulted 9 spots in the standings resulting from their strong week 7 showings. For Kuselias, he currently stands as the top QB prognosticator in our field and he has also displayed a skill at predicting WR performance (#2 rank). Meanwhile, even though this is Rosenthal’s first appearance in the top 5 this season, he is no stranger to success. In our study last year, he finished #4 in the overall standings. This is exactly where Rosenthal resides at the moment as he has consistently provided solid advice across the positions we’re tracking (Ranks: #6 RB, #6 WR, #10 TE).
- Rounding out the top 5 is the Staff Composite from ESPN which is another first time entrant into the upper portion of the leaderboard. These rankings combine the efforts of Matthew Berry, Erik Kuselias, Eric Karabell, and Christopher Harris. In week 7, the staff at ESPN had its best showing of the year with 3 of its experts (Kuselias, Karabell & Harris) cracking the top 10 weekly standings. The performance from ESPN’s staff was notable as they were able to anticipate the week’s top studs better than their peers. It was ESPN’s experts, for example, who did the best job of pegging the monster performances from both Darren McFadden (43.6 fantasy points) and Kenny Britt (40.5 fantasy points). For the season, the ESPN Staff Composite now ranks in the top 10 for accuracy at multiple positions including WR (#3), TE (#7) and QB (#10).
We’ll be back again next week with another wrap-up to go over the week 8 accuracy results and to break down how the YTD leaderboard has changed. In the meantime, don’t forget that you can view the accuracy scores for our entire field of experts by visiting the accuracy results section of our site. And, as always, feel free to let us know if you have any questions or feedback regarding our accuracy process.
