Every fantasy football player in the country looks for the competitive edge to beat their opponent. Each game means bragging rights and sometimes winning or losing a friendly bet. (Well, friendly might not always describe it, but you get the point.)
When we look for these tips for our team, we often turn to the few people that get paid to research and dedicate their work to fantasy football. This year, I am on the quest to find the most accurate and reliable fantasy football “guru”.
I will spotlight on the four websites that own the fantasy football world and in the end, crown the best guru in the last edition of “Fantasy Guru Rankings”.
The four gurus: Michael Fabiano of NFL.com, Jamey Eisenberg of CBS Sports, Matthew Berry of ESPN, and Brad Evans of Yahoo! Sports.
Happy Thanksgiving, fantasy footballers! I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some turkey and pumpkin pie.
Heading into week 13, here is how our “Fantasy Guru Rankings” look after a wild week in the NFL:
If you need a refresher on how the scoring system works, click HERE.
*All points will be based off of ESPN’s non-PPR standard scoring for players*
Michael Fabiano, NFL.com—@Michael_Fabiano
It wasn’t a perfect week for our leader, but he did enough to keep his lead over Jamey Eisenberg. For this week, we’ll give him a ‘B’. He didn’t have any out-of-the-box picks, but he held steady going 5-for-6 with his Defense “start/sit” selections.
Fabiano told us to start Matthew Stafford, Joe Flacco, and Eli Manning—all failed to reach the 20 point marker. He did however accurately predict bad weeks from Pierre Garcon and Rob Housler.
With just five weeks remaining, all Fabiano has to do is hold his ground, and he’ll take home the title.
Jamey Eisenberg, CBS Sports—@JameyEisenberg
Another week, another disappointment for the CBS Sports guru…
While he did have an above-average week, Eisenberg didn’t do enough to close the gap between the first and second place positions. He did get two quarterback “starts” correct, but it was the picks he missed on that defined his week. Here are a few names Eisenberg failed to put in the right category:
- Mike Glennon
- Chris Ivory
- Harry Douglas
- Greg Olsen
Eisenberg is going to need the largest comeback he can pull in the next two weeks to have a shot at catching Fabiano.
Matthew Berry, ESPN—@MatthewBerryTMR
Brilliance!
If you had to describe the week that Berry had this week, it would be “pretty brilliant,” indeed. The ESPN.com guru had a statement this week that he’s not done quite yet. He closed the gap to just 1-percent on Eisenberg by nailing his running back “sits” category—going 5-for-5 there, and getting four quarterback selections correct including Tom Brady and Matt Ryan.
While he’s behind our leader by about 7-percent, a few more 70+ percent weeks might help him climb and pull off the ultimate comeback.
Brad Evans, Yahoo! Sports – @YahooNoise
Note: As always, Evans only makes 10 picks in his “flames/lames” feature—so the object of tracking Evans is to see how correct he really is with these risky picks.
We have a record-setting week! Evans had his best week thus far, going over 70-percent and bumping his total over 40-percent. Here’s how his week broke down:
“Starts”
Scott Tolzien—X
Maurice Jones-Drew—CORRECT
Mark Ingram—X
Nate Burleson—CORRECT
Kendall Wright—CORRECT
“Sits”
RGIII—CORRECT
Chris Johnson—CORRECT
Bobby Rainey—CORRECT
Andre Brown—X
Wes Welker—CORRECT
