Fantasy News

Gregg Rosenthal of NBC Sports (and Rotoworld and Pro Football Talk and any other company I missed) is the winner of the Quarterbacks category of the Fantasy Index Experts Poll for the 2011 season. By every scoring system we can think of, he outscored the 24 other analysts in this category.

Rosenthal’s initial recommendation in this category wasn’t good – he was in the minority that ranked Michael Vick ahead of Aaron Rodgers – but he made up for it later. He the only analyst to put Matthew Stafford in his top 10, and he was also the only guy to include Cam Newton, sneaking him in at 19th.

In this competition, every pick is graded in varying amounts (the higher you rank him, the more he counts towards your score), and Rosenthal’s overall body of work came out No. 1.

Nathan Zegura of the The Fantasy Consultant finished 2nd in this category, and Brian Laskiewicz of Randolph, N.J., finished 3rd. Lenny Pappano (Draft Sharks) and Louis Tranquilli (BFD Fantasy Football) completed the top 5.

This year’s Experts Poll was different than in past years because of the Lockout. It was kind of thrown together – after the initial release of the magazine in early August. Contestents had to enter picks before the kickoff of the first preseason game.

We also gave five Fantasy Index readers a chance to compete, randomly picking five. Now, this is early August, so those competitors had access to extensive published info. How much there lists were influenced by Fantasy Football Index or other publications, we have no idea. In this category, one of them (Laskiewicz) finished 3rd and the other four all finished outside the top 10.

Scoring for this competition is notoriously complex. With Vick, for example, he scored about 302 fantasy points. Rosenthal ranked him first, so that counted for about 6,040 points (20 x 302). That’s leaving out the decimal points. Had Rosenthal ranked him 2nd, Vick would have counted 5,738 on his card (19 x 302). If somebody had ranked Vick 19th, he would have been way down at 604 (302 x 2). You get the idea.

But that’s just one complex way to rank players, and with that system, the player you rank first counts 20 times as much as the guy you rank 20th.

In an effort to be fair, we also look at alternative scoring methods. What if, for example, you make the 20th pick worth about half as much as the top pick? That would make those second 10 quarterbacks a lot more significant. So for that one, we use the same general approach but multiple the top quarterback by 40 (41 – 1) and the bottom guys by 21 (41 – 20).

In that system (“Times 2” scoring, we’ll call it), Tony Holm of FantasySharks.com moves up from 20th to 3rd. Pretzel May moves up from 10th to 6th, and Chris Liss of RotoWire.com climbs from 13th to 8th.

We also take a look at what we call “Times 3” scoring. With that one, the top guys on the board are worth about three times as much as the bottom (so 30 points for a No. 1 player and 11 points for the last player in each top 20. That kind of halfway between the other two.

Bottom line: there is really no fair, foolproof way to grade these picks. It’s like trying to decide between Led Zeppelin or The Who. They both have dead drummers, and they both put out a lot of great albums.

Ultimately, this Experts Poll (which we started 20 years ago) is a chance of others in the industry to show some of their skills. They submit lists and then show some of their scouting skills in explaining why they were high or low on particular guys.

EXPERTS POLL, QUARTERBACKS (official scoring)
(Multiplier points ranging from 1 to 20).
   Points
   67,334   Gregg Rosenthal (NBC Sports / Rotoworld)
   67,199   Nathan Zegura (The Fantasy Consultant)
   67,112   Brian Laskiewicz (Randolph, N.J. / Fantasy Index reader)
   66,720   Lenny Pappano (Draft Sharks)
   66,609   Louis Tranquilli (BFD Fantasy Football)
   66,577   Scott Pianowski (Yahoo! Sports)
   66,322   Jon Millman (Fantasy Football Champs)
   66,241   Bob Henry (Footballguys.com)
   66,194   Cory Bonini (KFFL)
   65,983   Pretzel May (FantasyDraftMaster.com)
   65,848   Eric Schneller (Indianapolis / Fantasy Index reader)
   65,814   Christopher Harris (ESPN)
   65,674   Chris Liss (RotoWire.com)
   65,629   Alan Satterlee (Dynasty Rogues)
   65,579   Greg Kellogg (Kellogg's Komments)
   65,451   Geoff Maleman (Redondo Beach, Calif. / Fantasy Index reader)
   65,412   James Serra (First Place Sports Software)
   65,409   Craig Davis (FantasyFootball.com)
   65,187   Austin Kipp (Olathe, Kan. / Fantasy Index reader)
   65,010   Tony Holm (FantasySharks.com)
   64,735   Jeffrey Kamys (Dr. Stats Fantasy Sports)
   64,729   Sam Hendricks (FFGuidebook.com)
   64,510   David Dorey (The Huddle)
   64,187   Justin Eleff (Fantasy Index)
   64,156   Keith Mason (Sumter, S.C. / Fantasy Index reader)


EXPERTS POLL, QUARTERBACKS (Times 2 scoring system)
(Multiplier points ranging from 21 to 40).
   Points   
   185,881   Gregg Rosenthal (NBC Sports / Rotoworld)
   183,236   Brian Laskiewicz (Randolph, N.J. / Fantasy Index reader)
   182,876   Tony Holm (FantasySharks.com)
   182,844   Lenny Pappano (Draft Sharks)
   182,701   Scott Pianowski (Yahoo! Sports)
   182,107   Pretzel May (FantasyDraftMaster.com)
   181,938   Louis Tranquilli (BFD Fantasy Football)
   181,798   Chris Liss (RotoWire.com)
   178,685   Nathan Zegura (The Fantasy Consultant)
   178,470   Jon Millman (Fantasy Football Champs)
   178,342   Cory Bonini (KFFL)
   178,153   Bob Henry (Footballguys.com)
   178,035   Alan Satterlee (Dynasty Rogues)
   177,727   Greg Kellogg (Kellogg's Komments)
   177,282   Eric Schneller (Indianapolis / Fantasy Index reader)
   177,210   David Dorey (The Huddle)
   176,637   Craig Davis (FantasyFootball.com)
   176,215   Sam Hendricks (FFGuidebook.com)
   173,939   Geoff Maleman (Redondo Beach, Calif. / Fantasy Index reader)
   173,929   James Serra (First Place Sports Software)
   173,851   Keith Mason (Sumter, S.C. / Fantasy Index reader)
   173,711   Christopher Harris (ESPN)
   173,510   Jeffrey Kamys (Dr. Stats Fantasy Sports)
   171,697   Justin Eleff (Fantasy Index)
   170,292   Austin Kipp (Olathe, Kan. / Fantasy Index reader)

EXPERTS POLL, QUARTERBACKS (Times 3 scoring system)
(Multiplier points ranging from 11 to 30).
   Points   
   126,607   Gregg Rosenthal (NBC Sports / Rotoworld)
   125,174   Brian Laskiewicz (Randolph, N.J. / Fantasy Index reader)
   124,782   Lenny Pappano (Draft Sharks)
   124,639   Scott Pianowski (Yahoo! Sports)
   124,273   Louis Tranquilli (BFD Fantasy Football)
   124,045   Pretzel May (FantasyDraftMaster.com)
   123,943   Tony Holm (FantasySharks.com)
   123,736   Chris Liss (RotoWire.com)
   122,942   Nathan Zegura (The Fantasy Consultant)
   122,396   Jon Millman (Fantasy Football Champs)
   122,268   Cory Bonini (KFFL)
   122,197   Bob Henry (Footballguys.com)
   121,832   Alan Satterlee (Dynasty Rogues)
   121,653   Greg Kellogg (Kellogg's Komments)
   121,565   Eric Schneller (Indianapolis / Fantasy Index reader)
   121,023   Craig Davis (FantasyFootball.com)
   120,860   David Dorey (The Huddle)
   120,472   Sam Hendricks (FFGuidebook.com)
   119,763   Christopher Harris (ESPN)
   119,695   Geoff Maleman (Redondo Beach, Calif. / Fantasy Index reader)
   119,670   James Serra (First Place Sports Software)
   119,123   Jeffrey Kamys (Dr. Stats Fantasy Sports)
   119,003   Keith Mason (Sumter, S.C. / Fantasy Index reader)
   117,942   Justin Eleff (Fantasy Index)
   117,740   Austin Kipp (Olathe, Kan. / Fantasy Index reader)

—Ian Allan

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