NFL Week 11 – Industry Expert Grading

A rough week for the expert picks as overall scores this week were some of the lowest we have seen all season. It was another strange week in the world of fantasy football as there were some highly touted players that got hurt early in their games (Devonta Freeman and Charcandrick West) or were late scratches (Marshawn Lynch) that opened the door for unexpected production (Thomas Rawls). We also had numerous players that either put up a lot of yards but didn’t score or players that scored but didn’t have the yards to go with it to make it an elite day.

At quarterback this week the experts missed the top play (Derek Carr) receiving an “F”, although beyond Carr there were a few good plays in there. Running back was a complete disaster where only two players received a grade above a “D” out of 11 selections. The wide receiver position had some good selections mixed in with some less than stellar picks, but you could have hit on the right combination to be successful. And at tight end, the highly touted Rob Gronkowski let down any owners that paid up to get him while there were only a couple solid picks available in 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 11 grades, class is in session!

Week 11 Consensus Recap

Each week I will recap the top consensus picks that were posted to review how they graded out. It was a below average week for the Industry Consensus picks which finished in 17th place out of 28 experts graded this week.

Quarterbacks

Highly Touted
F – Derek Carr – So much for the consensus pick at QB this week

Recommended
A+ – Cam Newton – Huge day for Newton with 5 TD, all through the air
B – Matthew Stafford – Who would have thought a rushing TD by Stafford would save his day
B – Mark Sanchez – Better fantasy day than real-life day for Sanchez and the Eagles
D – Tom Brady – Worst game of the season for Brady
F – Tyrod Taylor- Game wasn’t a shootout like the Bills/Patriots had earlier in the season

Suggested
A+ – Carson Palmer – Has 11 TD passes over last 3 games
B – Matt Ryan – His first 3 TD pass day of the season, also his first 3 INT day of the season
C – Aaron Rodgers – Solid game for Rodgers, but nothing special
F – Philip Rivers – First game without a TD pass this season

Running Backs

Highly Touted
B – Darren McFadden – Another high volume day for McFadden
D – Adrian Peterson – Couldn’t get it going, but did score against Packers again
F – Charcandrick West – Left with injury, killing his day
F – Devonta Freeman – See Charcandrick West
F – Lamar Miller – Only had 9 touches

Recommended
F – Todd Gurley – Scored, but only 66 yards and no receptions
F – DeMarco Murray – Had 91 total yards, but no scores and the fumble didn’t help

Suggested
A – Jonathan Stewart – Panthers offense was the place to be this week
F – Latavius Murray – Only averaged a little over 2 yards per carry
F – LeGarrette Blount – Limited offenses opportunities in defensive struggle on Monday night
Incomplete – Marshawn Lynch – Late scratch, hopefully, you pivoted to Thomas Rawls on late swap sites

Wide Receivers

Highly Touted
A+ – Julio Jones – Stud no matter who is trying to cover him
A+ – Danny Amendola – “A+” despite an inadvertent blown whistle and getting injured late
B – Mike Evans – Targets dipped with Vincent Jackson back
D – Calvin Johnson – Solid game, but not the big day the experts expected
D – Michael Crabtree – Apparently the correct answer to which Raiders WR to pick was “none”
F – Amari Cooper – See Michael Crabtree

Recommended
A – Stevie Johnson – Solid production for the price
B – Larry Fitzgerald – Averaging 9 catches per game over last 3 games
C – Brandon Marshall – Scored again, but didn’t have the yards to go with it
C – Brandon LaFell – Needed a TD for a bigger day
D – Dez Bryant – Scored, but only had 45 receiving yards

Suggested
C – Demaryius Thomas – Started off strong but didn’t do much after that
F – Jordan Matthews – More Dud than Stud
F – Tavon Austin – Only had 2 touches
F – Sammy Watkins – Just doesn’t get many targets, 6 this week

Tight Ends

Highly Touted
F – Rob Gronkowski – Just couldn’t connect with Brady, only 2 catches

Recommended
A – Tyler Eifert – TD machine
B – Greg Olsen – Solid game, but Panthers spread the wealth this week
D – Travis Kelce – Has at least 5 catches in 5 straight games, but only 1 TD during that span
D – Jordan Reed – Decent game, but needed a TD
F – Antonio Gates – One catch, one stinkin’ catch
F – Eric Ebron – Might be time to stop playing every TE against the Raiders

Suggested

F – Jason Witten – Even the return of Tony Romo didn’t help this week

Head of the Class for Week 11

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 11 based on their cumulative grades for all players they touted this week.

#1) SportsBlog (Score: 3.20) finished in the top spot in Week 11. With only 5 selections, they only had one “A+” grade, Carson Palmer, but they also only had one “F” grade which was good enough when all the experts had a down week.

#2) VenoDFS-Derek (Score: 2.81) pulls into the second spot this week. VenoDFS-Derek had 4 grades of an “A” or higher out of 16 selections. Key selection were Cam Newton, Carson Palmer, Julio Jones and Tyler Eifert.

#3) DK Playbook – Jonathan Bales (Score: 2.77) rounds out the top three this week. He was able to get 8 grades of a “B” or higher out of 22 selections. Bales hit on some consensus plays such as Cam Newton, Carson Palmer, and Julio Jones, but also hit on the off the radar pick of DeAndre Hopkins.

Study Time for Week 11

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 11 experts that didn’t make the grade this week.

• Moxyball-Matt (Score: 1.14) struggled this week with 3 “F” grades out of 7 selections. Not often we have seen Matt at the bottom of the rankings. He was let down by Derek Carr, Charcandrick West, and Richard Rodgers.
• DailyRoto-Mayo (Score: 1.27) also had a rough week with 8 picks receiving an “F” grade out of 15 selections. Some of the players that didn’t perform for Mayo were Philip Rivers, Lamar Miller, Jeremy Maclin and Eric Ebron.

Extra Credit for Week 11

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 11 extra credit goes to the following…

A+ – Russell Wilson (FakePigskin)
A+ – Jameis Winston (VenoDFS-The Cap Room)
A+ – Giovanni Bernard (FantasyPros)
A+ – Cecil Shorts (FantasyPros)
A+ – Doug Baldwin (DailySportsGeek-Brandon)
A+ – DeAndre Hopkins (RotoGrinders Consensus, DK Playbook-Levitan, DK Playbook-Jennings, DK-Playbook-Bales)

• Note that Hopkins was selected by 4 experts, but a couple of the picks were recorded after the Friday Consensus article was posted so he did not show up on the list)

Overall Leaderboard

To see the full leaderboard through Week 11 head over to the NFL Industry Expert Grading page.

#1) VenoDFS-Rob Veno (Score: 3.52) holds on to the top spot in the overall standings with a strong 4th place finish in Week 11. VenoDFS-Rob Veno has now been tracked for four weeks and continues to look strong staying in the top spot.

#2) Despite a poor showing in Week 11, Moxyball-Matt (Score: 3.43) narrowly holds onto second place, but the field is starting to catch up.

#3) VenoDFS-Derek (Score: 3.34) produced a strong 2nd place showing in Week 11 to remain in third place and is starting to put some pressure on the top two.

#4) Rotowriters (Score: 3.19) moves up into the 4th place spot by default. They had some strong picks early in the season but, unfortunately, have not posted picks for the last few weeks.

#5) RotoGrinders Consensus (Score: 3.14) moves up into fifth place with a strong 5th place showing in Week 11 to propel them up the overall leaderboard.

Without picks from Rotowriters for the last few weeks, I wanted to give an Honorable Mention to Moxyball-Marcel (Score: 3.13), who currently sits in 6^th place in the overall standings.

As for the Industry Expert Consensus picks, they had another below average showing this week which dropped them in the overall standings down to 17th place out of 30 experts listed. Hopefully, the experts we track can turn it around in Week 12 which will in turn improve the Consensus picks as well.

Let’s see who can make the grade in Week 12!

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