Thus Far

Despite getting off to a slow start, our experts came alive last week with our first perfect projection, courtesy of RotoWorld. A divide is beginning to open up as the been comparing the rankings from a handful of writers, applying them to a real (if very sad) team, and then analyzing the results. While this study will generate a limited amount of data, it should give us a fairly good idea if these guys know anything more than the rest of us and, if so, which ones are worth listening to.

Guys who have a clue are separating from the pack. Will they continue to excel? Or has luck been the determining factor, making the leaders likely to find themselves back in the pack very soon? I have faith that at least a couple of the experts truly are what they claim to be, so I am holding out hope, if somewhat cynically. Through three weeks, here is the experts’ projection accuracy:

RotoWorld: 75.0%
FFToday: 66.7%
ESPN: 66.7%
Yahoo! 66.7%
Starters 62.5%
FoxSports: 58.3%

The Team

II continued tweaking the roster, just like any other fantasy owner, trying to find talent and success where there was none. Byes were killing the team at the wide receiver position, so I had to drop Feely for Berrian. That left me only a single kicker, again giving the experts a free pass with one of their picks, but I am still trying to win if at all possible! I also let Jones swim back out to the free agent pool in exchange for Keith. With the running backs I have, JJ was never going to start. Keith probably won’t either, but his upside is greater if Addai goes down with an injury. We have a limit of six backs on a roster, so it was one or the other. I also swapped out a poor New Orleans defense for a much more interesting Green Bay unit.

Dropped: Jay Feely - Signed: Bernard Berrian
Dropped: Julius Jones - Signed: Kenton Keith
Dropped: Saints Defense - Signed: Packers Defense

So the team looks like this for Week 8:

A starting lineup consists of 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, and 1 Def, or eight starters and ten bench players.

These start recommendations were all taken from the experts’ published fantasy football player rankings for Week Eight. The names in blue were the most advantageous picks for the team.

I can’t wait until the byes are over. Because of those scheduled weeks off and our league’s small roster size, we only had Holt and Berrian playing Week 8 in the receiver position while Johnson was our only choice at tight end. Since we had to pick up Berrian to have two warm bodies at wide out, Reed was our only kicker. So our experts had a couple choices at defense and quarterback, and a number of options at running back. Everyone liked Anderson at QB and Green Bay as their starting defense. I can’t blame them as I chose the same guys. Running back was a little more open to differing projections with Jackson being the odds on favorite and Portis, Henry, Young, and Jordan getting some votes.

The Results

The best lineup I could have put on the field in Week Eight would have been:

Derek Anderson
Selvin Young
Steven Jackson
Torry Holt
Bernard Berrian
Eric Johnson
Jeff Reed
Packers Defense

Wow! Time for me to start eating my very long-winded, words. Roger Rotter at FoxSports came through with our second perfect projection. There wasn’t tons of intrigue this week. As happens to many owners, this was my one rough bye week and poor planning on my part didn’t help. I should have looked ahead a little better and started adjusting my roster accordingly. I actually managed another win this week (current record is 5-3), so it wasn’t too horrible. I was somewhat surprised at how far Derek Anderson has come to have him listed as a top five quarterback in many of these rankings. A nice match up helps of course, but he was above the veteran Kitna in everyone’s book. Jackson’s high ranking was certainly about the match up as well. No one who has watched a Rams game this year can think much of the train wreck they call an offense in St. Louis.

All of this led to another excellent outing for our experts. They have two more weeks of byes making their lives easier before they have to suck it up and play hardball with a full 18-man roster. Here are the rankings for this week:

FoxSports 100%
Starters 87.5%
RotoWorld 87.5%
ESPN 87.5%
Yahoo! 87.5%
FFToday 71.4%

The big move this week was by FoxSports. They went from worst to first; not bad at all. Has all my heckling provided some motivation? Or maybe he just got lucky? That’s why we do this for ten full weeks, to separate the luck from skill, if there is any. RotoWorld and ESPN continue to be consistently at the top of the rankings week in and week out while FFToday had a rough week. I knew not picking a defense would eventually catch up with them. It was a slam-dunk of a pick this week.

After four weeks, we have the following:

First Annual Analyzing the Experts Competition Official Standings

1. RotoWorld 78.1%
2. ESPN 71.9%
3. Yahoo! 71.9%
4. Starters 68.8%
5. FoxSports 68.8%
6. FFToday 67.9%

Conclusions

Every expert improved their projection percentages this week, some significantly more than others. FoxSports had the only perfect picks and closed the gap with the rest of the pack very quickly. FFToday, being incorrect on both running back picks and not selecting at the defense position, improved modestly enough to get overtaken by many of its competitors. There is only a 4% difference between 2nd and last place, so no one is distinguishing them selves thus far, with the exception of RotoWorld. We will see if they can keep it up and also find out if FoxSports cannot suck for two weeks in a row.

The data keeps rolling in for positional success. Byes and injuries may confuse the situation a little, but I expect that by Week 10 we will see some clear trends. So far, this is how our experts have performed in making correct selections by position:

• QB: 75%
  
• RB: 71%
  
• WR: 75%
  
• TE: 54%
  
• K: 79%
  
• Def: 70%

Other than the statistical issues caused by Heap’s injury woes, every other position has been equally challenging for our experts. I expect that these percentages will begin diverging in a couple more weeks as we get more data and our experts get more chances to screw up as bye weeks end.

With four weeks down and six to go, RotoWorld is trying to build a lead. At this point any advantage is hardly insurmountable; RotoWorld has been a scant two picks better than their nearest competitors. In a single week any of these experts could vault into the lead. It is curious that there is not a big difference between our experts or me playing “Average Joe” and picking my own starters. These guys had better continue putting up excellent weeks if they want to prove they are really the experts they claim to be.