It was an exciting first week of the 2019 NFL season with some upsets and surprise superstars. Rotowire navigated the Sunday slate the best, followed by DailyRoto and RotoGrinders – Lineup Builder. While DFSKarma – GPP Breakdown provides some strong value plays. We’ll see if these analysts can duplicate their strong Week 1 efforts all season long.

Our Industry Consensus plays has a strong showing with the Cash game list doing well at QB, RB, TE and D/ST, while the GPP list had a few good upside plays that paid off.

On to the Week 1 grades, class is in session!

Consensus Recap – Week 1 – Cash options

The Industry Consensus Cash picks finished in 14th place overall out of 35 experts graded.

QB (Score: 4.33 / Rank 6th out of 35) – Lamar Jackson (A+) and Carson Wentz (B)

RB (Score: 4.38 / Rank 20th out of 35) – Christian McCaffery, Dalvin Cook, and Mark Ingram (A+) along with Chris Carson (B)

WR (Score: 0.56 / Rank 25th out of 35) – Struggled across the board with solid but unspectacular performances

TE (Score: 5.20 / Rank 12th out of 32) – Evan Engram and Delanie Walker (A+), George Kittle (B)

D/ST (Score: 4.00 / Rank 5th out of 26) – Both were good with Ravens (A) and Seahawks (B)

Consensus Recap – Week 1 – GPP options

The Industry Consensus GPP picks finished in 17th place overall out of 35 experts graded.

QB (Score: 3.00 / Rank 16th out of 35) – Dak Prescott (A+) and Patrick Mahomes (A)

RB (Score: 4.29 / Rank 21th out of 35) – Austin Ekler and Derrick Henry (A+), David Johnson (A)

WR (Score: 1.78 / Rank 5th out of 35) – Had a few solid upside plays like John Brown (A), Amari Cooper (B) and Michael Gallup (B)

TE (Score: 3.00 / Rank 23rd out of 32) – Mark Andrews (A+) and Austin Hooper (A)

D/ST (Score: 3.33 / Rank 8th out of 26) – Top D/ST 49ers (A+)

Head of the Class – Week 1

Each week I will highlight a few of the top experts for the week. Here are the experts that deserve a “gold star” for Week 1 based on their cumulative grades for all players they touted this week.

#1) Rotowire (Score: 5.23) had five “A+” picks out of 13 selections including Dalvin Cook, Christian McCaffery, Lamar Jackson, Evan Engram, and Mark Andrews

#2) DailyRoto (Score: 4.40) posted seven “A+” grades out of their 20 picks which included players like Austin Ekler, DeSean Jackson, and Lamar Jackson

#3) RotoGrinders Lineup Builder (Score: 4.22) rounded out the Top 3 with five out of nine picks receiving a “B” or better including “A+” marks from Christian McCaffrey, Dalvin Cook, and Evan Engram

Top Value – DFSKarma – GPP Breakdown (4.18 DK Pts/$1000) had good value plays with Dak Prescott, DJ Chark, Delanie Walker, and Jamison Crowder

Head of the Class – Week 1 (By Position)

Sometimes there is just that one class that you excel in. In this section, I will highlight who the top experts were at each position for Week 1.

QB – ProFootballFocus – Value (10.00) had the top QB Lamar Jackson

RB – Five Tied (6.67) including RotoGrinders – Lineup Builder, Rotoballer, Rotowire, ProFootball Focus – Locks, and Hello Rookie

WR – DailyRoto (2.60) were led by their pick of DeSean Jackson

TE – Four Tied (10.00) including DraftKings – Value, DFSKarma – GPP Breakdown, RotoGrinders – Lineup Builder, and ProFootballFocus – Value

DST – DailyRoto – Optimizer (10.00) recommended the top D/ST on the board with the 49ers

Study Time – Week 1

If we are going to give a gold star to the top experts of the week, we also need to determine which experts might need to put in some extra study time to pull up those grades. Here are the Week 1 experts that didn’t make the grade this week.

  • DraftKings Playbook – GPP Picks (Score: 1.43) didn’t receive a grade higher than a “B” out of their 14 picks
  • Rotoworld (Score: 1.44) had five “F” grades out of nine picks

Extra Credit – Week 1

In this section, I will look to give some extra credit to experts that received an A+ grade for a player that they recommended when very few other experts did. Week X extra credit goes to the following…

A+ – Matthew Stafford (DailyRoto, ProFootballFocus – Locks)
A+ – DeSean Jackson (DailyRoto)
A+ – Marquise Brown (EliteFantasy)
A+ – T.J. Hockenson (HelloRookie)

Let’s see who can make the grade in Week 2!

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