Spoiler alert! I am making my move!!!
10th Overall after this 6th place finish...
To win at fantasy football, you have to take some stands on some guys – players where you feel they’ll be a lot better (or worse) than what is generally expected. Alan Satterlee of The Charlotte Observer took a number of bold gambles at the tight end position in the Fantasy Index Experts Poll and was right on almost all of them, winning this position decisively.
Most notably, Satterlee has always been a fan of the talent of David Njoku. He ranked the Cleveland tight end way higher than everyone else, and that paid off nicely when Njoku had a big season. (Satterlee ranked him 7th; none of the other 19 experts ranked him higher than 12th).
Similarly, everyone had a feeling Trey Burton might be good in Chicago, but Satterlee pushed more chips into the middle of the table, ranking him 6th (again, the highest of anyone).
At the same time, Satterlee placed the lowest grades of anyone on Greg Olsen (8th) and Delanie Walker (15th) and thus benefitted when their seasons were sullied by injuries.
Using our ridiculously complex scoring system, Satterlee beat everyone else by over 1,000 points. Lenny Pappano of Draft Sharks took 2nd, while Michael Nazarek of Fantasy Football Mastermind placed 3rd.
As a reminder of how we score this thing, we take the production of the player (using standard scoring) and multiply it against where he was ranked. The higher you rank a player, the more he counts towards your score. Njoku, for example, scored 87.9 points. Had you ranked him 1st, you would receive 2,197.5 points (25 x 87.9). Had you ranked him 2nd, you would receive 2,109.6 points (24 x 87.9). A 3rd-place ranking would score 2,021.7 (23 x 87.9). And so on. Lots of numbers in an attempt to grade all of the picks made by all of the experts.
Attrition is key in this format, of course. Those who predicted big things out of Walker, Olsen, Tyler Eifert and Jack Doyle were dead from the start. You take zeros week after week, and you’ve got no chance – those picks become statistically way more important than whether you ranked Travis Kelce or Zach Ertz higher.
With that in mind we also score this contest using more of a VBD method. In that scoring, you assume that if a player is injured or simply unproductive, he’ll be replaced with a free agent pickup along the way – the team owner would find a replacement. In the alternative scoring system, we’re looking only at starter-caliber players (the top 12 tight ends), and we’re looking only at how much production they provided beyond the rest of the field. In that scoring system, Evan Engram (81.3) was the 13th tight end, and we assumed he was the worst you could do. In such a format, Njoku wasn’t worth 87.9, he was worth 6.6 (he was 6.6 points better than Engram).
In such a scoring format, Satterlee still did well – 2nd place – but Bob Henry of Football Guys moved into the top spot.
@table header:2
EXPERTS POLL / TIGHT ENDS (standard scoring)
Analyst Points
Alan Satterlee 29,177
Lenny Pappano 28,165
Michael Nazarek 28,096
Bob Henry 27,972
Chris Liss 27,912
Sam Hendricks 27,776
David Dorey 27,633
Scott Pianowski 27,550
Michael Nease 27,530
Jesse Pantuosco 27,168
Patrick Chance 26,861
Aaron Bland 26,651
Tony Holm 26,297
Justin Eleff 26,011
Paul Charchian 25,903
Mike Clay 25,642
Harold Simons 25,591
Jeff Ratcliffe 25,506
Jody Smith 25,408
Cory Bonini 25,003
@endtable
In VBD scoring, the scores are way lower because we’re tossing out 81.3 points of each player’s score – only points above that threshold count.
@table header:2
EXPERTS POLL / TIGHT ENDS (VBD scoring)
Analyst Points
Bob Henry 7,655
Alan Satterlee 7,520
Lenny Pappano 7,391
Michael Nease 7,302
Michael Nazarek 7,301
David Dorey 7,233
Aaron Bland 7,197
Patrick Chance 7,190
Sam Hendricks 7,182
Jesse Pantuosco 7,134
Scott Pianowski 7,119
Chris Liss 7,060
Jody Smith 6,532
Tony Holm 6,364
Justin Eleff 6,339
Paul Charchian 6,313
Jeff Ratcliffe 6,285
Mike Clay 6,174
Harold Simons 5,986
Cory Bonini 5,641
@endtable
At the halfway point of the competition, Nazarek is the overall leader, followed by Satterlee and Scott Pianowski of Yahoo.
@table header:2
EXPERTS POLL / OVERALL (standard scoring)
Analyst Def TE PK Points
Michael Nazarek 11 3 2 95,435
Alan Satterlee 15 1 12 95,124
Scott Pianowski 10 8 1 95,017
Chris Liss 3 5 11 94,760
Jesse Pantuosco 8 10 3 94,604
Lenny Pappano 5 2 19 94,359
Patrick Chance 6 11 9 93,897
Paul Charchian 1 15 4 93,882
Bob Henry 14 4 15 93,813
Sam Hendricks 17 6 10 93,732
David Dorey 12 7 16 93,643
Harold Simons 4 17 5 93,088
Michael Nease 16 9 18 92,847
Justin Eleff 2 14 14 92,789
Jody Smith 13 19 7 91,988
Jeff Ratcliffe 7 18 13 91,916
Cory Bonini 9 20 8 91,737
Tony Holm 18 13 17 91,618
Mike Clay 20 16 6 91,150
Aaron Bland 19 12 20 91,065
@endtable
If you’re more a fan of the scoring system with a floor, then David Dorey of The Huddle is the leader at the halfway point, with Nazarek and Pianowski close behind.
@table header:2
EXPERTS POLL / OVERALL (VBD scoring)
Analyst Def TE PK Points
David Dorey 1 6 9 11,648
Michael Nazarek 13 5 3 11,494
Scott Pianowski 3 11 6 11,483
Lenny Pappano 11 3 11 11,358
Bob Henry 15 1 16 11,331
Michael Nease 9 4 12 11,272
Chris Liss 5 12 10 11,264
Jesse Pantuosco 12 10 8 11,190
Patrick Chance 7 8 18 11,095
Alan Satterlee 18 2 13 10,915
Paul Charchian 2 16 2 10,891
Sam Hendricks 17 9 4 10,883
Aaron Bland 19 7 5 10,584
Tony Holm 6 14 15 10,291
Justin Eleff 10 15 17 10,195
Jody Smith 16 13 14 10,189
Harold Simons 8 19 7 10,178
Jeff Ratcliffe 14 17 19 10,070
Cory Bonini 4 20 1 10,064
Mike Clay 20 18 20 9,106
