Skip to main content

The Most Accurate Fantasy Football Experts of 2012 (So Far)

Image
By
If you play fantasy football and you don't check FantasyPros.com weekly... you should. If you consult ESPN's Matthew Berry's weekly rankings and base your lineup decisions on that... you shouldn't. There are dozens of fantasy football experts out there, not just the ones you see on the Worldwide Leader, and some of them (actually a pretty good chunk of them) provide better fantasy football advice.

So if not ESPN, then who should you listen to? Fantasy Pros is tracking over 100 different fantasy football experts this year (the list grows annually). It measures their weekly rankings against each other, crunches some numbers, and yada yada yada, they can tell us who's giving us the most useful rankings. So without further ado, here are the most accurate experts according to Fantasy Pros ...

Top 10 of 2012 (Thru Week 8)

  1. Jody Smith - Gridiron Experts
  2. John Paulsen - 4for4.com
  3. Sablich Brothers - New York Times
  4. Mike Tagliere - Tags Fantasy Football
  5. John Halpin - Fox Sports 
  6. Site Rankings - Fantasy Football Nerd
  7. Brad Evans - Yahoo! Sports
  8. Justin Boone - TSN
  9. Muntradamus - Beast Dome
  10. David Dodds - Football Guys
OTHER NOTABLES - Scott Pianowski (#1 in 2011), Yahoo! Sports, ranks #29... Pat Fitzmaurice (#1 in 2010), Pro Football Weekly, ranks #37... Andy Behrens, Yahoo! Sports, ranks #32... The Yahoo staff composite (#7 in 2011) ranks #28... Dave Richard and Jamey Eisenberg of CBS Sports, rank #61 and #58, respectively... Kevin Hansen (#3 in 2011), EDSFootball, ranks #18... Kevin Zalas, Fans Fantasy Football, ranks #16. 

ANALYSIS - With eight weeks in the books, things have sorted themselves out a bit, and the top experts are making themselves known. Jody Smith is currently #1 on the list, with John Paulsen and the Sablich Brothers close behind. If you use any of those three to help set your weekly lineup, you're putting yourself in a position to succeed. 

Smith is new to the Fantasy Pros rankings this year, so it's hard to say if this is a one-year wonder, but Paulsen (#2 in 2011), the Sablich Brothers (#5 in 2011), and the Fantasy Football Nerd (#10 in 2011) are the real deal and can be safely relied upon for consistently accurate advice. A good strategy might be to use the Rankings-Weekly Rankings tab on the site, and filter the experts list down so you are only viewing those 3 experts (Paulsen, Sablich Bros, FF Nerd). That composite should give you a pretty good idea of who to start/sit that week.

SO WHO'S THE BEST? - When you're talking about fantasy football prognosticators, there is no one better than John Paulsen of 4for4.com. His track record speaks for itself. He's #2 this year, he was #2 last year, and he was #1 the year before that. So yeah, this guy knows his stuff. If I'm facing a tough lineup decision, I just consult Paulsen's rankings for the week and take his advice, no questions asked.

HOW DID ESPN'S GUYS RANK? - Just like they ranked last year... not very good. ESPN's fantasy football experts (Matthew Berry, Eric Karabell, and Chris Harris) are seemingly everywhere: Pregame start/sit shows, weekly video clips, podcasts, SportsCenter segments... but are they actually giving good advice? Hardly.

Matthew Berry is only ranked #42 at the season's mid-point, while Karabell (#44) and Harris (#46) follow closely behind. For as emphatically and definitively as these guys make their points on the air or in print, you might think they're never wrong. The truth is, they're no better at predicting this stuff than any other site, and in a lot of cases, they're worse. 

It's not just this year, either. Berry ranked just #38 last year. Karabell was #34 in 2011 and Harris was #23. If you're bounded by loyalty and absolutely must listen to ESPN, then use their composite staff rankings, they're ranked #30 this year so far (#12 last year). But the bottom line is, even if you use the composite rankings, there are still 29 other experts out there giving you better advice. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR MORE INFO - Please visit the FantasyPros website for links to each of these experts, their Twitter feeds, and their websites. Plus, there's so much other good stuff on the site I can't even begin to list everything. That site is the best, I recommend it to anyone that seriously wants to win their league. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The "My Sharona" Guitar Solo

By
THE "MY SHARONA" GUITAR SOLO - Am I crazy, or is the big guitar solo on "My Sharona" one of the best solos ever recorded? There was a time in my life (not long ago, actually) where I'd watch this video 20 times a day. It's the best live performance of this song I've seen, check it out! The Knack - My Sharona RANDOM THOUGHTS... Of course, the main guitar riff in this song is classic. The octave-jumping bass riff heard in the intro is also doubled by the guitar, and it was written by guitarist Berton Averre. I also think the first guitar break (you could probably call it a solo, Mr. Technically) at the 1:17 mark is really good. Today, however, I want to focus mainly on the full-blown celebration of life that is the big guitar solo... THE GUITAR SOLO (2:35 to 4:06) ... ... I'm almost appalled that this song is not mentioned in Guitar World's Top 100 Guitar Solos list. I mean, what the hell?! I'm sorry, but the "My Sha...
19 comments
Read more

Great 80's Videos ... Cinderella - Shake Me

By
Cinderella - Shake Me - 1986 - Here's an excellent song and video from Cinderella. "Shake Me" was the first single off their multi-platinum selling debut album, Night Songs , and it's probably my favorite Cinderella song. Shake it! RANDOM THOUGHTS ... This song has it all: Great guitar riffs, awesome cowbell, and kick-ass vocals. A " foot-stomping rocker " if you will. Cinderella is one of my favorite bands from that era, I saw them live (with Poison, Dokken, and Slaughter on the Power To The People Tour in 2000) and they put on a great  show, doing all of the cool guitar tricks they display here in this video. And of course, Tom Keifer is a great singer, one of my favorite rock and roll voices. It captures the energy, so showing them playing the song live in the video works pretty good here, I think. ... Bands, and people in general, don't talk about "shaking" like they used to. Back in the day, there were songs about "shaking...
Post a Comment
Read more

Great 80's Videos ... Zebra - Tell Me What You Want

By
Zebra - "Tell Me What You Want" - I heard this on Dee Snider's House of Hair recently and it blew me away!  It's got killer vocals, a killer guitar solo, and a kick-ass descending chord progression.  And, as you'll see, the video is everything you'd expect from Zebra... which probably isn't much.  Enjoy!  Zebra - Tell Me What You Want RANDOM THOUGHTS - This is the opening track off Zebra's self-titled 1983 debut album.  I've always wondered why bands opt for no album name?  Just make something up, for crying out loud!  How about this: Heaven Ain't For Sinners .  That's a perfectly good album title for a hard rock band, and I've got a hundred of them like that!   0:19 - Enter the mysterious tigress.  As far as I can tell, there are four main elements to this "narrative":  The tiger-woman, lead singer Randy Jackson, a mannequin, and a red door.  What does all this symbolism mean?  Well, it probably means they...
4 comments
Read more