Well, that week did not turn out like most experts expected. It was one of those weeks in the NFL that was filled with upsets and unexpected performances. Some of the top performers of the week were a quarterback that wasn’t even supposed to play this week (Ben Roethlisberger), his two receivers (Antonio Brown and Martavis Bryant) that were bad plays because of a backup quarterback starting, a couple of running backs that were in bad matchups on the road as big underdogs (Jeremy Langford and Charcandrick West), another running back that only gets about 12-14 touches each game (Matt Jones), and a wide receiver that also had a tough matchup on the road against the Legion of Boom (Michael Floyd). While these were not consensus plays, there was at least one expert that did tout each of these players, except for Roethlisberger. Find out who in the Extra Credit section below.
Overall, the consensus picks struggled this week, but there was some decent selection in there if you were able to find the right combination of players. At quarterback, three out of the top four selection where solid including high-priced players such as Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers or the cheaper option of Kirk Cousins. Running back only had one top performer (Adrian Peterson), but did also have some solid options that didn’t kill your hopes to cash this week. The wide receiver position had a lot of land mines with almost half of the consensus plays receiving an “F” grade. At tight end, the picks were strong as long as you stayed near the top of the list.
Be sure to check out the season long scores for all of the experts that we are tracking at the NFL Industry Expert Grading page.
On to the Week 10 grades, class is in session!
Week 10 Consensus Recap
Each week I will recap the top consensus picks that were posted to review how they graded out. It was a rough week for the Industry Consensus picks which finished in 22nd place out of 28 experts graded this week.
Quarterbacks
Highly Touted
A+ – Kirk Cousins – Another 4 TD performance for a QB against the Saints
B – Aaron Rodgers – Bad game for Packers fans, solid stats for fantasy owners
B – Tom Brady – Just another day at the office for Mr. Brady
D – Blake Bortles – Experts were expecting more in a good matchup with Ravens
Recommended
C – Derek Carr – The two interceptions hurt an otherwise solid fantasy performance
D – Drew Brees – Lowest passing yardage total of the season (209 yards)
F – Andy Dalton – Under 200 yards passing and zero TD passes definitely equals an “F”
Suggested
A – Joe Flacco – Nice off the radar selection that came through
C – Cam Newton – Seldom will you see anything below a “C” for Newton
F – Landry Jones – What might have been if he didn’t get injured
Running Backs
Highly Touted
B – Todd Gurley – The Rams were supposed to have a lead and run, run, run
D – Mark Ingram – A 70 yard run on the first drive, but that was it
F- DeAngelo Williams – Expected more out of Williams in matchup with Browns
F – Darren McFadden – Had 20 touches, but couldn’t get anything going
Recommended
A+ – Adrian Peterson – Long TD run at the end of the game turned a good game into a great game
B – DeMarco Murray – Solid day with 28 touches (including 6 catches) for 119 total yards
Suggested
B – LeGarrette Blount – Averaging 20+ carries per game over last three games
C – James Starks – Expected more when Eddie Lacy was declared inactive
C – Doug Martin – Not much offense in TB/Dal game this week
F – Justin Forsett – Jaguars have a surprisingly good rush defense
Wide Receivers
Highly Touted
A – Odell Beckham Jr. – One long TD catch was all it took
C – Allen Robinson – Decent game for Robinson, but had his lowest yardage since Week 1
D – Demaryius Thomas – Was lucky to get what he did with the Peyton Manning/Brock Osweiler combo
F – Randall Cobb – Had 10 targets, but only 5 catches for 53 yards and no scores
Recommended
C – DeAndre Hopkins – Gets double-digit targets no matter who the QB is
D – Brandon LaFell – Only had 2 catches
F – Julian Edelman – Early injury ended any chance for a big day
F – AJ Green – Only 67 yards and the fumble at the end didn’t help
F – Stefon Diggs – This will happen when the Vikings have the running game working, only 2 targets
Suggested
A+ – Brandin Cooks – Lone bright spot for the Saints this week
A – Mike Evans – Continues to get a high volume of targets with Vincent Jackson out
B- Jarvis Landry – Seems to get the most unconventional touchdowns
F – Alshon Jeffery – Jay Cutler was too busy passing to his RB and TEs this week
F – Michael Crabtree – Only 5 targets for Crabtree, his fewest all season
F – Dez Bryant – Dez is probably looking forward to the return of Tony Romo
Tight Ends
Highly Touted
A+ – Rob Gronkowski – One long TD catch was all it took
A+ – Jordan Reed – Start your TE against the Saints
Recommended
A+ – Gary Barnidge – Looks like Johnny Manziel has figured out who to target in the red zone also
A+ – Richard Rodgers – Has scored 3 TDs over the last 2 weeks
B – Greg Olsen – Solid game, catching all 8 targets for 80 yards
Suggested
F – Delanie Walker – Couldn’t duplicate last week’s performance
F – Tyler Eifert – Down week for the entire Bengals offense
F – Kyle Rudolph – The Raiders seem to be improving against the TE
Head of the Class for Week 10
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 10 based on their cumulative grades for all players they touted this week.
#1) Moxyball-Matt (Score: 5.38) finished in the top spot in Week 10. He blew away the competition this week with 4 “A+” grades out of 8 selections. The top plays for Moxyball-Matt this week were Kirk Cousins, Jordan Reed, Richard Rodgers and he was the only expert to pick Charcandrick West this week.
#2) Moxyball-Marcel (Score: 4.50) makes it a 1-2 finish for the Moxyball crew this week with 3 “A+” grades out of 8 selections. Moxyball-Marcel hit on players such as Kirk Cousins, Jordan Reed, Rob Gronkowski and DeMarco Murray.
#3) DailySportsGeek-Scott (Score: 4.40) pulls into the third spot this week with 10 picks receiving a grade of a “B” or higher out of 15 selections. DailySportsGeek-Scott had some consensus picks such as Rob Gronkowski and Jordan Reed, but he also nailed an off the radar pick in Michael Floyd to help propel him into the top 3 this week.
Study Time for Week 10
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 10 experts that didn’t make the grade this week.
- BleacherReport (Score: 0.88) struggled this week receiving no grade higher than a “C” in their 8 selections. They were let down the most by Dez Bryant and Tyler Eifert.
- DK Playbook-Jennings (Score: 2.14) also had a rough week with 12 out of 22 selections receiving a “D” or “F” grade this week, no thanks to players like DeAngelo Williams, Andy Dalton, and Randall Cobb.
Extra Credit for Week 10
In this section, I will look to give some extra credit to experts that received an A+ grade on a player that they recommended when very few other experts did. Week 10 extra credit goes to the following…
A+ – Charcandrick West (Moxyball-Matt)
A+ – Jeremy Langford (DK Playbook-Bales/Noonan)
A+ – Matt Jones (ESPN-Matthew Berry, DailyRoto-Mayo)
A+ – Antonio Brown (DK Playbook-Bales, VenoDFS-Derek)
A+ – Martavis Bryant (VenoDFS-Derek)
A+ – Michael Floyd (DailySportsGeek-Scott)
A+ – Zach Ertz (FantasyPros)
A+ – Crocket Gillmore (RotoCurve, DailyRoto-Mayo)
Overall Leaderboard
To see the full leaderboard through Week 10 head over to the NFL Industry Expert Grading page.
#1) VenoDFS-Rob Veno (Score: 3.91) holds on to the top spot in the overall standings with a solid 6th place finish in Week 10. VenoDFS-Rob Veno has now been tracked for three weeks and is looking strong staying in the top spot.
#2) Hot on his trail is Moxyball-Matt (Score: 3.69) who has narrowed the gap with his strong first place performance in Week 10.
#3) VenoDFS-Derek (Score: 3.48) moves back into third place this week with some strong off the radar A+ selections in Week 10.
#4) RotoCurve (Score: 3.43) slides down from third place back into fourth place this week.
#5) Moxyball-Marcel (Score: 3.23) moves up into fifth place with a strong 2nd place showing in Week 10 to propel them up the overall leaderboard.
As for the Industry Expert Consensus picks, despite the poor showing in Week 10, they still moved up slightly on the overall leaderboard up to 13th place out of 30 experts listed, due to some even worse showings by a few of the other experts that were around them in the standings.
Let’s see who can make the grade in Week 11!
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Great job here as always, guys. Proud to see a couple of our guys sitting near the top, too. Congrats to Marcel, Matt and the rest of the week 10 experts on making some nice picks in what turned out to be an odd overall slate of games.