Week 7’s Most Accurate Experts

Week 7 was all about extremes. On the one hand, we saw some of the best fantasy performances of the season from the likes of Arian Foster, DeMarco Murray and Drew Brees. Of course, on the other hand, there were the painful SEA-CLE and BAL-JAC games that hardly did fantasy owners any favors. That is, unless you had one of those teams as your DST. Or, maybe they helped if you play in a league that values fantasy punters.

In either case, the performances certainly gave the experts plenty of opportunities to either hit it big or crash and burn with their picks. So which experts nailed their predictions? Let’s take a look at the top 10 accuracy standings (out of 68 experts) for the week. You can also view the YTD leaderboard here.

Week 7 Leaderboard

*See how all 68 experts ranked for the week

Notes:

• Kudos to Gregg Rosenthal (Rotoworld) for putting together the week’s most accurate player rankings. Rosenthal’s rankings are a team effort with colleague, Chris Wesseling, so we want to be sure to give Wesseling his proper share of the credit (mission accomplished). It’s worth mentioning that this marks the second time the Rotoworld duo has topped the weekly standings this season. That’s a feat matched by only one other expert (Michael Beller – SI.com). A quick glance at the week 7 standings reveals that Rotoworld rated well across several key positions: QB (#7), RB (#7), TE (#1). At TE, they had all of the top 5 fantasy performers ranked as well or better than the Expert Consensus. They were high, in particular, on Jimmy Graham (TE #1), Antonio Gates (TE #4) & Fred Davis (TE #6) and each player reached the end zone in route to double digit fantasy #s. These picks contributed to their well-deserved #1 rating.

• This week’s runner-up, Alessandro Miglio (Pro Football Focus), came through with several big RB predictions. Most notably, he was one of only 2 experts to give DeMarco Murray a top 10 ranking (RB1 status). Considering Murray broke the storied Cowboys’ franchise rushing record on Sunday, it goes without saying that this was a major boon to Miglio’s accuracy rating. Miglio proved to be more than just a one trick pony, however. His ranking of Montario Hardesty (RB #17) was higher than all but one other expert and he also slotted Jonathan Stewart (RB #21) well ahead of the consensus. It also didn’t hurt that he took advantage of Arian Foster’s onslaught by rating him as the 2^nd best RB for the week. Not limiting himself to RBs, Miglio also delivered one of the best rankings (#6) for top WR Marques Colston. All told, Miglio was one of the prime examples of an expert cashing in on week 7’s best performers.

• It was another good showing for the crew at NFL.com as all four of their pundits finished in the top 20. Leading the charge were Dave Dameshek and Adam Rank, who came in as the 3rd & 4^th most accurate experts, respectively. Dameshek, in particular, had an impressive showing as the #1 rated RB analyst and #2 ranked WR expert. His best pick was slotting Plaxico Burress as high as any other expert at WR #29. That was a full 15 spots above the Expert Consensus and served as an unpopular, yet correct recommendation to start Plax (3 TDs). His colleague, Adam Rank, also fared well at RB (#5) and WR (#4). Similar to Dameshek, Rank had faith in Burress (WR #29) and he hit it big by outranking the consensus for several top RBs including Matt Forte (RB #2) and Darren Sproles (RB #11).

• The most consistent expert throughout the first half of the season has been Pat Fitzmaurice (ProFootballWeekly). With his 7^th place performance this past week, Fitzmaurice has now ranked in the top 15 six times in seven separate weeks. Those results have made him one of the most bankable experts in the land of fantasy prognostication. They’ve also placed Fitzmaurice #1 in our Year-to-Date standings. As a sign of how good Fitzmaurice’s advice has been, he’s now the top ranked expert at 3 of the 6 positions we track: RB, TE & K. No other expert sits atop the standings at more than one position.

If you’d like to see how the entire field ranked in week 7, head over to the accuracy section of our site. The results are viewable by position and we also have a YTD leaderboard that displays the overall standings.

And, don’t forget, you can play in our Beat the Expert contest if you’re looking to see how you stack up against the pros. The contest is completely free with a $1,000 prize pool courtesy of our sponsor, FanDuel. This week’s expert is #3 rated prognosticator (and accuracy champ last year), John Paulsen (The Fantasy Shrink). Good luck!