Analyzing the experts

With Willis McGahee nursing a knee injury, rookie running back Ray Rice may be headed toward a starting role in Baltimore. Drew Hallowell/Getty Images

By Jeff Ma, Citizen Sports, Special to SI.com

Baseball has Tout and LABR as the pre-eminent experts fantasy leagues. But historically, football hasn't had a pre-eminent experts league. Probably the closest thing to it is Yahoo!'s Friends and Family League, but that league includes so many Yahoo! guys it can't get in the guys form the other major media networks (noticeably absent this year were some of the big wigs from the four letter network)

So this year as we launched Fantasy Football 2008 on Facebook, I decided to call in all my personal favors and create a top-flight fantasy football experts league. In addition I invited one random fan to play against the experts.

What is the prize for first place, you ask? Well since it's on Facebook, I thought it only appropriate to make it something centered around the most important Facebook commodity -- the profile picture. Yes that's right the winner of the Fantasy Football 2008 Experts League will get to have their profile picture as my profile picture for one month with the heading underneath that says, "X is king" (or the best fantasy football expert in the world, whatever I feel like at that time")

You can see the full rosters here and follow the league all season at Fantasy Football 2008 Experts League.

As for my team, I'm happy that Brandon Funston and Aaron Schatz both like it and I'm very happy with my RBs and QB situation. I need a few things to break right for me in the WR department, but in a league with so many knowledgeable people I was happy to come out with what I consider to be one of the top four teams post-draft. Sixteen weeks left to go.

Let's see what the experts have to say for themselves.

Brandon Funston, Funny Face, Yahoo! Fantasy Sports

You are heavily invested in the K.C. offense. Does this represent optimism? Or value based on talent?

Optimism for the Chiefs offense? Hardly. I'm not thrilled with owning two Chiefs that will start regularly for me, but Larry Johnson couldn't be ignored with pick No. 17 overall. He's one of very who could notch 300 carries. I'm looking for yards and touchdowns here, not yards per carry. And Dwayne Bowe, at No. 65, was a pick that filled a need at the time. He's my 22nd-ranked WR, and I made him the 25th receiver picked in this draft, so I liked the value.

During the draft you remarked after you took Ray Rice that you made a decision to reach and take the guy you wanted. Do you really think this was a reach? What kind of season would Rice have to have for you to be happy with this pick?

No, I copped that "reach" excuse at the time, but I'm really an unabashed Rice supporter. And at pick No. 80, I could afford to role the dice on his upside. I've had bad vibes for Willis McGahee for a long time and I suspect that now that Rice has his foot in the door with the first team offense (because of McGahee's knee surgery), it's the first step toward McGahee finding a new home in '09.

Excluding your team, which teams do you think had the best and worst drafts?

My least favorite draft would be the Peach Pits. He had to pay a buzz-inflated price for Jerricho Cotchery (No. 42), the multi-question-marked Willis McGahee is his No. 2 back and his RB backups (Julius Jones, Chester Taylor and Kolby Smith) either lack upside or playing time, or both. BP's Funny Shaped Balls also looks a bit shaky. Felix Jones at No. 35 overall might have been the biggest reach I've seen in all my drafts. And he paid too steep a price for his three Colts (Peyton Manning No. 11, Marvin Harrison No. 38 and Dallas Clark No. 62)

It felt like Asians Against Ted Jones was drafting with my cheat sheet in hand. He ended up with the best QB (Tom Brady), a fine stable of RBs -- four starters in MoJo, Graham, Kevin Smith and Chris Perry -- a upper class TE (Tony Gonzalez) and a serviceable receiving corps. This, along with FantasyGuru.com and Ickey Shuffle, was one of my favorite teams from the draft.

Aaron Schatz, Disgruntled Kenneth, www.footballoutsiders.com

You have a lot of question marks at what many consider to be the most important fantasy position of running back? Which two of your five do you think will end up as your starters?

I hate being the last pick in a standard "snake" draft. In fact, I just dislike standard "snake" drafts in general. There's no doubt the last person on the list gets worse talent. When that first round came to me, it just made sense to take wide receivers as the best value.

You are always going to end up with more wide receivers as strong value in a league that starts three wide receivers. At a certain point, I kept taking the guys who were the best value and there just weren't starting running backs left. I'm guessing I'll be starting Fred Taylor and Ronnie Brown most of the year; I just can't believe that the Dolphins are seriously going to start Ricky Williams over Brown all season. Williams has never been as good as Brown was over the past couple years.

You are known as one of the leaders in statistical analysis in football. Which of your picks are supported by strong analytical indicators?

All of them, I suppose. I basically used our KUBIAK fantasy football projections. I'm particularly proud of the defense and kicker picks, which were our highest ranked kicker and defense. I believe these positions can be projected with some accuracy, contrary to popular belief, and that we have the best projections out there at these positions.

Excluding your team which teams do you think had the best and worst drafts?

Actually, Jeff, I think that giving it a very quick once over I like your team the best. I love every team out there that takes Peyton Manning this year; I can't believe how undervalued he seems to be, but the rest of Will's team doesn't seem quite as strong as the rest of your team after Brady. We're higher on Graham than most people, because I don't think people understand just how bad Warrick Dunn was last year and how little he seems to have left. Perry now becomes a great backup. The one question I think is the wide reecivers. Lee Evans is one of those guys who comes out with good numbers at the end but has lots of great and bad games in between, and you have a lot counting on Santana Moss bouncing back a bit.

I really don't like Liss' team. The situation around Jay Cutler is terrible -- he's talented, sure, but their offensive line is far less experienced than at any time in recent Broncos history, and there's basically one quality receiver, Brandon Marshall, and that's it. Michael Turner is another overrated player who is going from a great situation to an awful situation with no offensive line on a bad team that will never be running out the clock. Reggie Williams' 10 touchdowns last year were a colossal, colossal fluke. Rudi Johnson, of course, got released.

Matthew Berry, Peach Pits, ESPN.com

Cotchery seems to be the expert's pick this season. How much is his value tied to Favre's arrival in NY?

It's tied to Brett Favre in the sense that any WR's value is tied to a QB, but Cotchery has had over 80 receptions for two straight years and has increased his yardage every year he has been in the league. Now an improved offensive line will help the running game which will help loosen defense on the passing game. I was high on Cotchery before the Favre signing for these reasons -- getting an upgrade at QB (sorry, Chad) only helps matters. Absolutely love him this season.

McGahee has been an interesting guy in many drafts as concerns about his injury, and Rice's talent has caused him to slip lower and lower in drafts. What kind of performance would justify your third round selection and what round would you advise owners of Willis to draft Ray Rice in?

Yeah, I took him with the plan on grabbing Rice as a handcuff but Funston took him about five rounds too early. So I grabbed Kolby Smith just because Brandon has Larry Johnson. I took McGahee there for a few reasons. One, we only play two running backs in this league, so you can take a few more chances. If McGahee puts up the numbers he did last year, when he was the 8th best fantasy running back, despite basically missing the last two games ... then this is a steal. If not ... then I can find a No. 2 running back during the year or in one of my high upside guys I grabbed later. I just felt the potential upside was too great to pass on in the third round. To answer your questions directly, McGahee needs to be a top 30 player for me this year overall to justify his draft round. Last year, that was 187 fantasy points. Which means I need 1,400 total yards and 7 touchdowns. Which is what he did last year except he had eight touchdowns. As for what round to grab Rice, I would say you need him by the 7th to be safe. Not everyone is as nuts as Funston.

Excluding your team, which teams do you think had the best and worst drafts?

Thought Karabell had the best draft, Will Carroll the worst.