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.
| 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 |
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.
| 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 |
At the halfway point of the competition, Nazarek is the overall leader, followed by Satterlee and Scott Pianowski of Yahoo.
| 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 |
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.
| 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 |
—Ian Allan